Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

4 Meals from the Pantry to Save Money

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Woman looking at her pantry shelves and grabbing a jar

If you’re like me, you may find it harder and harder to stay within the grocery budget as food costs skyrocket due to inflation. So I try to find nutritious recipes that aren’t expensive. In addition, to save money, I try to have one week where I don’t make a complete grocery shopping trip and instead only buy some fresh fruits and vegetables and make my meals from the pantry to save money. Doing this allows me to use up what I have and stretch my grocery dollars.

Our Favorite Meals from the Pantry to Save Money

These are the pantry meals we make during the weeks I skip grocery shopping:

Spaghetti

My kids don’t mind a pantry meal when the meal is spaghetti. So I buy pasta and pasta sauce when they’re on sale, and I purchase canned mushrooms at Costco. I mix them together for a quick, cheap meal.

We recently upped our spaghetti game by making Pizza in a Bowl (I left out the creamed soup and only used half the cheese.) I was amazed at how this meal stretched—we had it for two meals!

Breakfast for Dinner

Omelette with mushrooms

Another favorite is breakfast for dinner. We might have omelets with green peppers and cheese and a piece of toast. Or, if we have many bread heels in the freezer, we make French toast and eggs. Sometimes we make a breakfast sandwich with ham, egg, and cheese on toast or an English muffin. Another economical recipe is Ham, Broccoli & Cheddar Frittata. (If money is tight, I leave out the ham, and it still tastes good.)

Broccoli, Potato, & Cheese Soup

I recently found this delicious recipe for Broccoli, Cheddar & Potato Soup. I like it because I can use frozen broccoli. (This recipe and the broccoli frittata recipe are the only ways I enjoy eating frozen broccoli.) Like Pizza in a Bowl, this recipe stretches and easily feeds the four of us for two meals.

Fried Rice

Another frugal yet filling meal is Chicken Fried Rice. We use a rotisserie chicken from Costco and save the bones to make homemade chicken stock. Since rotisserie chicken at Costco is only $4.99, the meat is cheap, and we add rice, frozen vegetables, a few eggs, and seasoning.

How We’re Able to Keep Our Meals Frugal

For years, I’ve stocked up on items when they’re on sale, so I pay the lowest price for groceries. We have a pantry in our basement, two deep freezers, and two refrigerators so we can keep a full supply.

When ground beef is on sale, I may buy 20 or 25 pounds. We have food intolerances and can’t eat dairy, so when our favorite vegan cheese, Daiya, goes on sale, I may buy 20 bags. Then I won’t buy any more until it’s on sale again. If we run out before it goes on sale, we do without until the next sale.

Shopping this way makes having a pantry cooking week easy.

Final Thoughts

Keeping within our allotted grocery budget is getting more challenging every month. One way we rein in expenses is by making meals from the pantry to forego a weekly shopping trip once a month.

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The Benefits of Buying Only Necessary Groceries Each Week

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Benefits of Buying ONly the Groceries You Need

For the last few years, I have had a higher grocery budget, so I’ve stocked up on food. I do this for two reasons. First, we have food intolerances—specifically, we can’t eat gluten or dairy—so we need specific foods in the house. Second, I find having a stocked pantry makes mealtime easier. I never need to go out to eat because I have everything to make several meals, depending on what we’re hungry for. However, I recently watched a YouTube video that intrigued me. Based on this video, I’ve experimented with buying only necessary groceries each week for the last few weeks.

Steps I Took to Implement This Change

During the last few weeks, I’ve set a grocery budget of $140 per week for my family of four, which is much less than the $215 a week I typically spend.

I make a menu plan and grocery list the night before I go to the grocery store, so I know what meals I’ll cook during the week. I also try to choose recipes that will utilize ALL of an ingredient. For instance, I needed to buy green cabbage for a stir fry. But I only needed to use half the head of cabbage, so I picked another recipe that would use the other half of the cabbage later in the week, so I used ALL of the cabbage up that week.

Benefits of Buying Only Necessary Groceries Each Week

While I never thought I would enjoy shopping this way, I did realize several benefits of buying only necessary groceries each week.

I Saved Money

We saved a lot of money shopping this way. Over two weeks, we saved $150! This was in part because we were not stocking up on food. However, we also saved because I had limited food in the house, and we HAD to utilize the food we bought.

We Had Less Food Waste

Benefits of Buying Only the Groceries You Need

We typically have very little food waste, but shopping this way eliminated food waste. As I mentioned, I was mindful of finding recipes that would use up ALL of an ingredient. Previously, that other half of the green cabbage might have lingered in the refrigerator for a while. We would use it. . .eventually, but when we did, we might have to cut out some bad spots because we let it sit too long before using it.

Final Thoughts

This way of shopping enhanced how I shop and menu plan. Even better, the benefits of only buying necessary groceries each week were that we saved money and reduced food waste.

However, even though this strategy worked for me, I like to have a stock of food at home in case we can’t shop due to bad weather or limited supplies. From now on, I plan to stock up occasionally to resupply my pantry. Still, for the foreseeable future, I plan to buy only what I need and continue with this experiment to see what other benefits I realize.

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How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

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Even if you’re rational, it’s hard not to panic when you go to the grocery store and see empty shelves.  You may wonder how not to overspend when stocking up for a home quarantine.  That sense of panic can fuel you to spend more than you normally do on groceries because you feel a desperation to just.get.food.  But calm down, take a deep breath, and realize there is enough food in the supply chain.  You will have food, but perhaps not the food you want.

How Not To Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

Take these steps to keep your budget in line, even during times of crisis.

Do a Pantry and Freezer Inventory

Before you go to the grocery store, take the time to do a complete pantry and freezer inventory.  You may be surprised what you find in the depths of your freezer.  I had more meat than I thought I did.  I even a found a homemade pie crust in a ball that we had made two years ago.  You bet that we’re still going to use that.

Likewise, you may have more in your pantry than you think.  Plus, taking all of the items out and inventorying them can help you feel less desperate.  You DO have food in the house.

See what recipes you can create from what you have on hand.  Likely you can come up with many meals than you thought.  Don’t forget to use sites like Supercook, a site where you can put in the ingredients you have on hand, and the site produces recipes using those ingredients.

Be Flexible with Food Choices

When you do get to the grocery store or place your order for pick up, don’t be surprised if many of the items you want to buy are unavailable or limited.  I’ve placed two orders for pick up now and both times the store couldn’t completely fulfill my order.  For instance, the first trip, there were no eggs available.  The second trip, we were allowed to buy two dozen—for our family of five.

How Not to Overspend When Preparing for a Home Quarantine
Photo by Semi O on Unsplash

Clearly we won’t be eating eggs for breakfast every day, and that’s okay.  Instead, we’ve branched into other breakfast foods that we typically don’t eat like homemade muffins, oatmeal, and even sometimes leftover soup from the previous night’s dinner.  Be willing to be as flexible as possible with what you eat and when during this time, and you will be able to keep your budget in check.

Allocate Money from Other Budget Categories

If you still have your regular income coming in and you find that you are overspending in your groceries category, one way you can resolve this is to take money from a different category.  For instance, we overspent this month on groceries.  I can’t shop many stores for the clearance items as I used to do, so our spending increased.  However, we put $140 in our gas category every two weeks, and now, being self-quarantined, we don’t need that money.  I simply funnel it to our groceries category.

Of course, if you’re currently unemployed, you’ll want to use as little money as possible for groceries so you’ll be able to meet your other financial responsibilities.

Final Thoughts

We’re living in strange times the likes of which our country hasn’t seen in over 100 years, not since the time of the Spanish Flu.  However, rest assured that you can still get the groceries you need without seriously overspending.  Just plan ahead with your purchases and be resigned to the fact that you won’t be able to eat the way you can when we’re not under quarantine.