Every once in a while I challenge myself to eat strictly from my pantry stash.
If you’re anything like me, even on months that you practice menu planning, you end up with some extra food in your pantry. Maybe you were tired one night and whipped up something easy like breakfast for dinner, instead of roasting a chicken. Or maybe you had a last minute dinner invitation, and the rice dish you were going to make never happened.
Or perhaps you’re a bargain shopper. When you see diced tomatoes at a really good price, you stock up. The same with anything else.
Regardless of how you shop, at one time or another, you will likely find that you have a little of this and a little of that in your pantry, and you need a way to use it.
That’s when I like to do a pantry challenge. When my pantry starts getting a little full, and I’m a little strapped for cash, I challenge myself to make meals strictly from my pantry for a predetermined amount of time…usually a week.
I allow myself to buy fresh milk and produce, but everything else needs to come out of the pantry or freezer. There are two benefits to doing a pantry challenge every once in a while.
First, you save money. It’s nice to have a week every once in a while where you know your grocery bill will be minimal. I like to do a pantry challenge at least once during the holidays, because it allows me to free up my budget for holiday dinner splurges.
Second, it ensures that you aren’t wasting food. Food that is wasted is money that is wasted. It doesn’t matter how good a sale is. If you don’t use the item, it’s money wasted. By doing a pantry challenge every few months, you can make sure you’re using your food before it goes bad. Your pantry stock is continually rotated, and you aren’t wasting your food and money.
Have you ever done a pantry challenge? How long could you eat strictly out of your pantry if you had to?
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I’m sure we could go quite a while on a pantry challenge. In fact, I recently challenged my husband (who does the cooking in our house) to go one month without buying anything at the store except milk/veggies. He hasn’t taken me up on the challenge but I know it could be done quite successfully. It helps that we have two fridges and a deep freezer – our stockpile is HUGE.
We try to keep at least 2 months food on hand in the house. It is a bit of insurance for when times get tough. I do inventory and rotate it once every 6 months to keep things from going to waste.
I probably could go one full week without buying anything. But right now my pantry is pretty bare as a few months (like July) I did not buy anything but milk, bread, and fruit due to limited funds. -Becky in NJ
During our recent 4 day power outage, our stockpile was very helpful. We didn’t eat out once and we still have a lot of food left both in the deep freeze and my basement shelves.
My challenge to others would be, donate those odds and ends in your pantry to a foodbank or on freecycle to a needy family, as long as the food isn’t out of date. Maybe you got a good deal on something, had one and didn’t like it much? Donate it.
Back in 2000 we literally HAD to survive for a week on what I had stored away in our food pantry. An ice storm kept us from leaving our rural property (steep, icy hills) to go buy any extra food. We live in a smaller home in town now that does not have much storage space, but I do try and keep some extra food put up now just in case.
I have been reading a lot on food storage ideas on different websites, and one of the best ones I have come across is to store away what YOU KNOW your family will eat. What good is it to have food stored away if no one will eat it? I used to be bad about just stocking up on things I found on sale and feeling like I had done a good job if my pantry looked well stocked. Not anymore.
We try to preserve a lot of our own food, so in the winter months we do this most of the time. We have a big freezer that is filled with berries, meat & veggies and a pantry filled with canned tomatoes, jams & fruits. With the baked goods we make at home we don’t need to buy much in the winter months except wheat for baking. We get our milk & eggs from a small local farm. Occationally in the winter when we crave something green, we’ll buy some fresh broccoli, but since we try to eat as locally as possible, we try not to give in to our cravings.
In the summer months we eat mostly the fruits & veggies from our garden or the farmer’s market. Everyone can have a few edibles growing in containers or a fruit tree or a blueberry bush. You’ll be amazed at how much you can produce yourself with very little effort & money. Everyone should try growing even just a little of their own food.
We have a pantry challenge every time we move! My husband is a Marine and when he gets orders its time to clean out the pantry. I have friends who are so good at it that they are eating pizza for 3 to 4 days before the movers come! Its a good idea to do it more often as sometimes the meals are a bit scary if you wait 2 or 3 years. At least if you live on base or post you know that all the jelly and mayo will be welcomed at your neighbors house!
That’s a funny story from Janelle about military moves. I remember handing down a well-stocked bar to some Army friends when my first husband and I left Fort Stewart!
Unfortunately, I do not stock pile much in my pantry (besides pasta). So we could probably only go 2-3 days living off the pantry meals. I do challenge myself at least once a week to make a meal entirely out of odds and ends I have on hand. Sometimes my family likes it, sometimes not. :-)
This is a good idea….I should do it more often! Thanks for sharing your idea.
I do a round of the pantry game when my freezer gets so full I can’t fit anything else in it. I live in a 375 square foot studio with a non-standard fridge/freezer combo (I think they call it a 2/3rds?). So that little freezer fills up quick!!
This week, in fact, I’m going to take some yogurt, some milk, and some meat out to eat/drink throughout the week and make some room in my freezer for other stuff. $.69lb whole chickens should be coming through soon, now that we’re into fall!
If I included what’s in the freezer at this moment, we could probably feed our family of three for a couple of months, albeit we’d be running low on veggies by then.
If I were to just work with the dry pantry, we could probably eat for close to a month.
As for the challenge, I do it about twice a year, usually in January and once in the summer.
I also have a pantry and freezer–though they are fairly small. I think we could go a couple weeks w/o much shopping–maybe longer. About twice a year I look at whatever hasn’t been used and if it is not likely to be used quickly I will give it away –especially if I know someone who can use it. Also–I give when I see a need.
I don’t purposely overbuy in order to give but yes sometimes I don’t use what I thought I would.
We spend the summer stockpiling in our pantry and freezers, so when we have a heating bill our grocery bill is never over $50.00 per month. Most of the stockpile is from homegrown veges and our own raised beef and pork, we do trade rabbit for chickens with another farmer.
We are currently in the midst of a pantry challenge. A family health emergency has us in mega-savings mode in case we need to circle the financial wagons, so buying a bunch of food is not high on the list of priorities. About the only thing we are buying in the next few days are milk, fresh fruits and maybe a loaf or two of store-brand bread. Other than that, we are cleaning out the pantry!
This is a great idea. We don’t do this specifically, but I think if you make it a point to clean your pantry (and freezer), you’ll find things that you didn’t remember you had, which can lead to meal savings. We’ve done this a few times and were able to add a meal or two for ‘free’ that we would have otherwise purchased things for.
Great post!
Great post! I’ve just started my own version of a pantry challenge. I’ve got dry goods for three months and am challenging myself not to buy any more and make as much as I can from scratch. I made pita bread out of my stash for the first time Sunday. It turned out great!
I could probably go a month on my pantry, but there would be some interesting combinations and substitutions near the end!
Online recipe searches make it easy to combine ingredients you have on hand without knowing in advance what dish you can make with them. One of my favorite crockpot recipes is chicken with orange marmalade, so I always keep a jar of marmalade in the pantry.
I also buy canned goods in their “whole” form, like whole green chiles, whole olives, whole tomatoes, so no matter what shape a recipe calls for (whole, diced or sliced) I can do it.
You all do really well! And Susy, growing and canning food in the summer for use in the winter is exactly the point I want to get to someday!
I guess I’ll answer my own question. Right now I have no pantry stash. We did the pantry challenge right before we moved into my dad’s place, and I haven’t been stocking up on anything while we’ve been here. I’m looking forward to stocking my pantry a bit over the next few weeks.
Great post! I try to do the same thing.
Sweetie thinks I am a genius. I can pull a very good meal out of my pantry/fridge/freezer in minutes.
I have basics on hand; flour, dried milk, pasta, rice and whatnot. I keep a large supply of beans – either canned or dry. And canned diced tomatoes. There are oddments in the freezer – frozen chicken stock, croutons from stale bread, vegetables, and butter.
About once every six weeks, I tell him that we are going to have “Whattagot Got Supper.” I open the fridge and say “What we got?”
Hi Lynnae,
I do stash extra canned goods and frozen foods when I find them on sale. We could probably eat for 2-3 weeks if need be. I’m so impressed with all these other folks who have their pantries so organized! When my mother passed away, we went through her cabinets and pantry – she could have lived for 6 months!
You’re a blessing!
MH
There is no doubt I could go a year on what I have on hand – altho it would get interesting near the end :) I write the month/year on top of cans so I am sure to rotate. Also on anything that goes into the freezer.
This summer I did a 5 week no-buy challenge with no problem. But I did decide that I was missing out on some great sales, so I have been on a no-buy except great-sales only challenge ever since!
When my family was young, winters were hard here and our income was seasonal. Plus it seemed that all our customer base also had hard winters and no cash. So I learned after the first winter to fill the cupboards and closets by Sept/Oct or run out of food by spring due to the seasonal economy of this area. I have since changed from self employed to working for someone else, and the income is steady – but old habits die hard – so the cupboards are well stocked still. And yes it comes in handy when we are storming or flooding for a week and I really don’t want to go out for food.
Have fun filling your new cupboards and finding homes for all the goodies! Enjoy!
Oh – about those items that are getting old… As I go thru my pantry about every 3 months I’ll just pull out a handfull of cans/jars/staples, etc. and I’ll set the cans on the counter. The deal is, I have to use up all those odds and ends within a week… cuz they sit there in plain sight until I do use them up! Makes me use up some of the older stuff :)
i used to have a huge freezer supply and then i lost power for four days. Now, i rely on my pantry more. i always have the makings for vegetarian chili on hand. Its helpful when company stops by last minute. Good postings.
I do this, monthly! I am single and living alone, so my groceries are not terribly costly. I shop once a month, period. During the last week of the month, my creativity is pushed to the max. However, using the staples I have built up (dried milk, homemade chicken stock, tomato sauce) I can, usually, put together some tasty and interesting meals. Supercook.com has been hugely helpful. You input everything you have in your pantry and it spits out the recipes you could create.
we could live out of our pantry for a couple of weeks if we were willing to eat a lot of plain beans and noodles ;) i could make it interesting for a week or so just using up what is in there and buying some produce. plus, it’s the end of the month and our grocery envelope is empty. so maybe I’ll join you . Saturday is grocery day and I will plan this weeks meals around what we’ve got
This is pretty much how I shop – when something that I use on a regular basis is a great deal, I will stock up on that item.
When the grocery ad comes out, I check out the sales and plan my meals around items on sale and what I have stocked up at home.
I bet if I did pantry and freezer, I could go for at least 4 – 6 weeks without buying anything (other than milk, bread, and fresh produce). We’ve been trying to work through some of the stuff in our freezers lately. They were particularly full since the one day my parents went to Walmart and they had all kinds of frozen stuff on clearance for $1 each.
We do this every so often when I notice the pantry getting over-stocked, but I’m not sure we could go an entire week of meals on what we have extra in our pantry (mainly because we buy mostly only what we need when we plan meals and what goes in our pantry is only when we accidentally buy one-too-many cans of tomatoes or beans or whatever else). We have many times planned one or two meals around “pantry left overs” and it is definately a good idea to do to ensure nothing is going to waste (which saves you some cash too).
We have done this before for a week or so, but my problem is after that week my grocery bill is huge! I don’t know if I am actually saving any money or just putting it off. Does anyone have any suggestions?
My husband has been out of work for two months so we’ve been doing a “forced” pantry challenge. What a blessing to cut our food budget to $50 just for fresh stuff and odds and ends. Hopefully we can begin to rebuild soon!