FRUGAL FRIDAY

THE PANTRY PRINCIPLE, Part One

The name of this Frugal Friday post is straight out of the Tightwad Gazette, II and is updated in the Tightwad Gazette III. The lesson is "to save the most money and time when buying food, you should shop to replenish your pantry, not to make specific meals". In the Tightwad Gazette III there is a list of what the author keeps in her pantry. I have also seen Pantry Lists on other blogs. My plan is to read several of these pantry lists and include the things I would use in my pantry.

One point that I'd like to make is that you don't have to have a special room or closet for your pantry. You can make a pantry anywhere that you can put up some shelves or use a closet or even under a bed! I have made my pantry in a corner of the laundry room in an old pie safe that was on the way to the landfill, but was rescued many years ago. This is a picture of the outside of it. As you can see there are baskets on top and underneath is a wicker picnic basket, plastic bin and beside it is a potato and onion storage box. It is full of buy one get one free potatoes and waiting for the sweet potatoes that are being harvested around here this time of year. In the picnic basket I sometimes "hide" items I don't want my family to find and go through too fast! LOL. The plastic bin is great for produce items, etc. There are also hooks on a shelf on an adjacent wall that has a recycle bag for plastic grocery bags. I am planning on making some cloth bags to hang on some of the other hooks to store food items.




My pantry had gotten bare and so I started working on restocking it in preparation for fall and winter at lunch yesterday and these are the things I've gotten so far:

4 cans of mixed vegetables
2 cans of cut green beans with whole potatoes
4 cans of cut green beans
2 cans of cheddar cheese soup
2 cans of light red kidney beans
3 2lb bags of rice
2 cans of spaghetti sauce
1 can of sweet peas
1 large can of Folgers Coffee

That's a pretty good start, don't you think! Next week I plan to stock up items other than canned goods, such as flour, sugar, teabags, etc.

This is a picture of the inside of the pie safe with some of the products I purchased already stored there. There still room in there and definitely in the baskets, etc.

All of the national brand items were purchased on sale and/or with a coupon. Some of the store brand items are tried and true favorites. I'm not brand loyal. But, if a store brand isn't of good quality, I definitely won't buy it just because its cheaper. I have experimented with some store brands and have found some good ones.


Please visit www.biblicalwomanhood.com/blog.htm. for more Frugal Friday ideas!