Basic Pantry

Yesterday was a good day to clean the pantry and organize, take inventory.  We have gone with a thirty dollar a week pantry challenge  and went a little over, bit  we can  go another month easy and save some more towards the real estate taxes.   It is no secret that our stock market has taken a dump and anyone with  a 401k has taken gas.

Keeping a stock on  a four dollars a day budget is totally believable.   We have a decent stock and we averaged five dollars a week LESS than four dollars a day per person.

The basis for groceries in the cheap is to stock basic food when the price is low and stock enough to last you until it goes on sale again.   This is not a new concept, my mother had done it for years.  The trick is to simplify your stock list .  It just makes life easier.  Buying in bulk simplifies your grocery cart and gets you in and out of the store faster.   It also helps you with the concept of having a stock of food on hand in case of an emergency. Remember, if the power goes out, opening yoir refrigerator or freezer is not a good idea.   The longer the door is shut, the more cold  stays in and the longer you food will stay frozen,  having even a few things that are shelf stable, like cans or jars of dry food kits will facilitate you having emergency food and keep your freezer in tact as long as possible.   It is a concept that not everyone can grasp.

Buying a limited variety of meats allows you the luxury of buying it in bulk at the lowest possible price.  Picking a versatile meat allows you to eat a variety of dishes, while taking advantage of bargain prices.  Rotate your protein selections.  On our house, that would be hamburger, pork loin, chicken breast, and cheese, beans, and eggs.  I want to keep four dozen eggs at a time.  That is about a months supply.  The pull dates are usually a month out. So, buy purchasing two dozen at a time when they are at a low price, you can rotate out about every few weeks and always have fresh cheap eggs,  our eggs are about a dollar to one and a half dollars a dozen,  if they are more than the highest price, we don’t buy them.  I call that my “buy “ price or a target price.   Nothing to do with the store with the red balls.

Shelf ready pantry

1. Diced tomatoes.  Buy price .58 or less, Winco has no BPA in their cans . 
2. Pasta - it has an 8 YEAR shelf life.  Buy price 1.00 a POUND. Some packages are 12 ounces.  A four serving size is 1/2 a box. 
3. Pasta sauce.  I have been getting jars for a dollar  .  Classico comes in a canning jar size and the jars are a dollar alone. You  can’t can in them but  they are super for dehydrated foods and can be food saver sucked. 
4. Keep one ahead on catsup, mustard, and we have a few bbq sauce.  I want less than a dollar.   Use coupons when it is picnic time.  Also mayo.  Our last one was .67 with coupons and a sale. 
5. Instant mashed potatoes.  Try the bulk isle. 
6. Salad dressing.  Again, use sales and coupons. A dollar is a good price. You can make it yourself, but it is wasteful. 
7. Some canned soups for an emergency,  sales and coupons are great,  some of ours were  41 cents.  Cream soup base is inexpensive and quick the make. 
8. Chili, canned (some) cost less than a dollar. Bulk purchases. 
9. Dry beans.   Pintos are 67 a pound at the dollar  tree.  Non gmo, grown in USA. 
10. Popcorn, bulk from Costco 
11. A few cake mixes. Some at .68. Also brownie. 
12. Oatmeal one box at a time. 10 pounds at Costco is close to 8.00.  It comes out to .085 a serving.  There is no typo there. It is that cheap. 

1. Flour, sugar, yeast.   Costco for flour and sugar during the holidays when baking supplies are their cheapest.   Easter is the next one, 

I dry veggies and fruit when they look like I am not going to use all we have before they will go bad.  I have zucchini that we grated in the food processor and dried.  It is a good way to sneak veggies into a soup. 

Keeping a back up of some things and a small four to six week supply of other things is a good way to accommodate having food in the house and doing it at RBP.  (Rock bottom prices) soon, there will be case lot sales to move canned goods that are last years crop and make room for this years.  There is still usually well over a year on the pull dates.  The usda web site has listings of how past a pull date still makes your food safe.  It is not necessarily a day past the pull date, as much as some adult children think. Lol 

I am always reminded of a conversation I heard on the today show.  It made a lot more impression to me when I discovered that the host asking the question loved in a ten MILLION dollar house. He asked a lady what she would say to naysayers about couponing.  She matter of factory said, I would say, If you don’t understand, you have never been broke enough.