I was pretty sure we needed groceries. But, I also knew we needed to save our pennies if we could. I ran down to Aldi and bought milk for $2.76 a gallon, grabbed a few of their on-sale fruits and headed home thinking surely I could find enough food in our house to last a few more days.
When I had worked through Carrie Isaac’s audio series, Grocery University, the biggest thing I gleaned was the concept of shopping your pantry. Basically, that means you look to your pantry FIRST before anything else because your real savings can often be found there.
Well, I went to my pantry and realized there was no way I was going to be able to make any sort of meal list from the jumbled mess that had never been organized since our move here, I decided to organize the shelves and ended up with this:
Um…I was scared.
I took a few deep breaths and told myself there had to be meals in there. Here’s what I found…
red potatoes – good side dish, cubed w/ herbs and olive oil and baked at 400 for around 40 minutes.
taco soup ingredients – oh yeah, I had meant to make that a week ago..ooops!
steel cut oats – perfect for birdseed granola!
maple syrup – pancakes anyone? (and since my children watched More Than Making Maple Syrup from Moore Family Films, they absolutely LOVE being able to have maple syrup in the house – and I have a whole new appreciation for the cost of maple syrup!)
ingredients for Unprocessed Oatmeal Cookies – another great use for maple syrup!
32 bean soup – I don’t have a hamhock to throw in there, but I think it will be fine. Wish I liked beans. Good thing my family does.
spaghetti – just enough left to feed us a meal for lunch!
ingredients for Spanish Rice – family favorite from my father in law
onion soup – no way it would feed us on it’s own, but I have buffalo roast in the freezer that could be paired with this as either a French Dip Sandwich (I have just a few hamburger buns left) or just poured in the crock pot with the roast as a marinade.
and a contribution from my refrigerator…
fixin’s for lunch loaf – I take my quick pizza dough recipe, roll it out in a rectangle, spread on olive oil and Italian herbs, add deli meat and cheese, roll up like a jelly roll and bake! We LOVE this!
I’ve also become a huge fan of sliced cheese and Triscuits for lunch. It is surprisingly filling and my whole clan thinks it’s fun! I had this on hand too.
So, needless to say, I didn’t HAVE TO go shopping. As empty as that pantry looks, it still held treasures!
So, shop your pantry first and save!
SPEAKING OF SAVINGS!
Don’t forget all this month as a gift to my lovely readers, DrinkBands can be purchased at 10% off using code:
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Now let’s link up!
Whitney says
i am doing exactly this today!!! I’ve been keeping our grocery bill lower – by $200 – the last 2 months by using as much as possible of what I already have!
A Mama's Story says
Oh YES! There was a time when we didn’t have anything left in the bank and I still had to come up with something to feed my family. I was absolutely shocked at what I did with stuff I had in my pantry and cabinets. The best part was that I came up with brand new meal ideas, and it added variety to our menu. I remember getting us to pay day, quite easily. 🙂
Beth says
I LOVE grocery university! It helped a lot on my couponing journey!
Heather Wawa says
I’d love to hear your Spanish Rice recipe! I bet I’m not the only one, either. :o)
Amy says
Sure! I’ll add that to my blog post ideas. 😉