We’ve been eating down our stockpile for a few months now and spending much less on groceries as a result. My stockpile has saved us a lot over the years. I buy items when they are on special, often half price and its a part of our working pantry. I built a big pantry storeroom when we built this house years ago. I had visions of shelves stacked with preserves and a nice big food storage. We used to have our own fruit trees and a vegetable garden but that has gone by the wayside in last 5-10 years.
I’ve kept my pantry full and costs down through smart grocery shopping over the years, knowing when items come on special and stocking up enough to last till next time. I refuse to pay full price when I can get things way cheaper just with a little planning ahead. I use a different coloured sticker for each calendar year and every item that went in the pantry got a sticker. That made it easy to rotate foods. But I realised earlier this year that its time to cut way back so we’ve already eaten through a fair bit of what we had.
I took these photos this morning of what is left of our stockpile. I’ve made a list so I can focus on meal planning around using up whats left before we go on holidays. And I’m going blog my meals so I can keep myself focused.
There is also some food still left in the freezer and what is in the fridge. This is going my big challenge for the next five weeks – to see how I can use up these foods. I’m not someone who likes to cook much or menu plan and I need to just suck it up and do it anyway as it will help us save money.
The plan is to get the freezer and pantry as empty as possible before we go on holidays then when we get back I can clean out and declutter the rest of the pantry/storeroom and then plan what we need to stock up on and how much is reasonable for us to keep now.
So I’m going to create a new page for this challenge and get myself out of this funk I’ve been in for the last week. I kicked it off with having a box of pumpkin soup from the pantry for breakfast this morning. Its snowing out of town here and really cold after a beautiful sunny 18C day yesterday – a good day to menu plan!
I TRY to rotate but the family here is famous for pulling things out, out of order, and if they don't use them they don't put the items back where they belong. Maybe I should make a new rule that they have to let ME take things out for them. lolz
I really need to do this too….go through the stockpile and cull the "old dogs". I am trying not to pick up meat deals right now and trying to use up some items so I can make room in the freezer for Fall pork deals here and to freeze some green beans(if I can find them at a good price). Thanks for the nudge!
it does build up doesn't it. I find the coloured stickers really help as I can pull all the orange ones or whatever colour is oldest.
I put the date on top and front of the can–year only as in 20 or 21. I give away anything right now that is not 18 as in 2018. I do not have great shelves to work with, so it gets crowded and hard to see what I have. I had one person get all insulted. But, I told her my offer before she came over. I told her I am not going to give her dates of 19, 20, and 21 and eat things two years old. I will eat it as there is nothing wrong with it! However, she will not make off with the newer stuff.
I love those shelves!
I too have been living on my pantry and then adding too it with home canned things from garden. Many a time I relied on this for all our food.