How to Stock a Pantry

Posted on 14 October 2010 by Rhonda | 19 responses

I remember the days I would buy groceries one week at a time and have just what I needed until I got the next paycheck to go out and buy groceries for one more week. I always longed to be able to have a stocked pantry to draw upon, but never had any extra money once I purchased what I needed for the week. Sound familiar?

I’d like to share with you some tips that I use that have enabled me to keep a very nicely stocked pantry–actually, most of my grocery shopping for this week was just for stocking the pantry with just a few items specifically for this week’s meals.

How to Build Your Stock

Let’s say you set aside $50.00 a week for groceries–start out slowly by setting aside $5.00 out of your $50.00 just for stock items. You spend that $5.00 a week on one certain item that you use a lot, such as canned soup. Every week, set aside at least 10% of your grocery budget and purchase some stock item. This is a simple way to start and you’ll begin to buy items on cycle lows.

The goal is to purchase enough of the stock item to last you until the next cycle price low comes around. I’m going to use Kraft shredded cheese for an example. Today I purchased 10 packages of cheese for the freezer because they were on sale plus I had coupons for them. That cheese should last me until the next low cheese price rolls around, so I can nix this item for awhile from my weekly grocery budget and wait and purchase it on sale, hopefully with coupons.

As you continue to do this, you will slowly begin to build up your stock items until you have a nice stockpile to draw upon. This really comes in handy when you’re unable to get to the store due to loss of income or sickness. It’s also great when there just aren’t any good sales for the week and you want to skip a week of grocery shopping!

Stock Items

Now, let’s talk about stock items—how do I determine what stock items I need to keep on hand? There are different methods on this, but here’s how I like to do it. Think about what you prepare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a regular basis. I go through my recipes I use regularly and make a list of the ingredients that I will need. These are the items I want to keep on hand so I can pull from them when I want to cook.

Here’s an example: I have a Mexican chicken soup I make at least once/twice a month. This recipe calls for chopped chicken breast, half and half, green chilies, salsa, Monterey Jack cheese, and chicken broth. So each of these items would go on my pantry list. Now, I could just go out and buy all these items the week I want to make them. However, some of the items might be on sale and other items will not be. Or I can do it this way: buy the ingredients I need for that week, while looking for one of these items to go on sale and stock up on, let’s say, green chilies. They might be on a cyclical low at one store for 50 cents a can, when they usually cost 99 cents. So I’ll buy 8 cans. I have just added an item to my pantry for 1/2 price and won’t have to buy it again until it goes on sale again. Maybe the next week, I’ll find a deal on cheese and stock up on that, but I won’t have to spend any money on green chilies for awhile.

Begin making a list of pantry items—these are items you always keep on hand. This would include certain staples such as spices, flours, sugars, etc, but also those items on your recipe lists. Some of my favorite stock items are canned chicken, canned beans, chicken stock, cheeses, and canned mushrooms. I rarely am without these items because when they get low, I begin watching for a sale and then stockpile again. Most of my stock items are purchased on sale combined w/coupons at local grocery stores.

Remember, the goal is to get those stock items at cycle lows. You might think it’s impossible to stock a pantry on your current food budget . . .

Need some tips on keeping prices down? Stay tuned for part two of this post.