Don’t Eat Your Wallet! 10 easy steps to reducing grocery expenses – Step 3Use your pantry/food storage. It’s wise to have a 3 month supply of food your family regularly eats on hand. Unemployment, natural disasters and personal challenges constantly make headlines. One way to help get through them, is to have the resources you need on hand so you can take care of yourself and your family as much as possible.
For longer-term storage or a better stocked pantry, some people stock powdered milk, beans and grains with decades of shelf life. If you have it, though, use it. Just using powdered milk, you can supply: milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, cream cheese, yogurt, jack cheese, ice cream—sometimes in less hands-on time than it takes to find your purse and keys! Oatmeal is far less expensive than cold cereal. Food storage and your stock-pile of good deals = your pantry. Eat from your “pantry” as much as possible. Plan your menus from it—not from the sales paper or a cookbook.
Here are some examples of some significant savings obtained through learning to cook (item #3) and using your pantry.
Cost Comparison
Store bought vs Homemade
Stoneyfield Yogurt $3.50 to $4.50 vs under $2
Artisan bread $3.99 vs under $1
Nestle chocolate chip cookies $2.59/doz vs about 50 cents
Almond milk (2 qts), $2.50+ vs $1.89
Rice or coconut milk (2 qts), $2.50+ vs under $1
Other homemade items with possibly huge savings over ready made:
Pizza Granola
Condensed milk Evaporated Milk
Cream soups “Gourmet” hot chocolate
Taco seasoning Bisquick-style mix
Waffles Beans
Pesto Alfredo
Any bread or baked good or mix for same