The Pantry Principle ~ Managing the Grocery Budget

Amy Dacyczyn describes The Pantry Principle on pages 172-173 in her book titled, The Tightwad Gazette II. Amy states that the idea of planning meals thirty days in advance in not the most frugal way to go about planning menus for your family. She states that planning meals in advance is backward and that stick-to-your-list thinking does not allow an individual to take advantage of unadvertised deals.

The best approach that Amy suggests is what she calls The Pantry Principle which she first learned about in a book written by Barbara Salsbury and Cheri Loveless called Cut Your Food Bill in Half. Amy claims that many families do not take the concept far enough to save the maximum amount of their money.

The basic idea behind The Pantry Principle is to stockpile your pantry with food that you are able to purchase at the lowest possible price. The purpose of grocery shopping then becomes a trip to replenish your pantry, and not a trip to purchase specific ingredients for specific meals.

Make an Inventory of what you have in your pantry and freezer and that will help you use up those items. After you’ve done that you can make a meal plan utilizing those items.

We have a lot of frugal tips in our toolbox such as drinking water, and making tea or lemonade and koolaid to drink instead of buying soda. We do keep Sprite on hand for medicinal purposes.

We make home baked cakes instead of commercially made ones, oatmeal made from old fashioned oats rather than instant packets. 

We shop the Crash and Burn sections of the grocery stores and will buy food with the yellow mark down stickers if it fits within our budget. 

We eat meatless meals, such as Bean & Cheese Enchiladas, or homemade Veggie Burgers, or Red Beans & Rice. 

We eat leftovers or reinvent them into a new dish. For example, we turned leftover mashed potatoes into Potato Pancakes.

We make soups, which can be very economical depending on what ingredients you use. 

We shop at discount grocery stores such as United Grocery Outlet, Save a Lot, and Aldi. 

We look for and buy discounted groceries at all the places we shop including the flea market. 

We peruse the sale ads online and make a list of items on sale and then stock up on those. We keep a price book to check prices. 

Another way you can save money on food is by using grocery rebate apps like Ibotta, Checkout 51, Dosh, and Coupons.com. Just Google the grocery store app and read about them and do your research first.

We re-purpose food scraps to make other things like vegetable, chicken, or beef broth. 

We keep a well stocked pantry of food bought at the lowest price and we cook from scratch.

We search for recipes that are cost friendly. We don’t buy foods that cost more than our budget will allow. We don’t buy beef roasts, steaks, or expensive seafood or alcohol. We scour yard sales, used book stores, and flea markets for economical cookbooks. 

One online resource you can use is the online cookbook located here:  Recipes and Tips for Frugal Healthy Meals. 

There are multiple ways you can reduce your grocery budget and I've only scratched the surface here. 

Your way of saving on groceries may contain other ideas I've not mentioned here such as growing some of your food in a garden. 

Let's share ideas with each other.

Belinda ~ Living within our Means ~