The Frugal Pantry

More than once I’ve been asked for tips on how to cut grocery spending. Since that is becoming a frequently asked question I am now creating this entry so that the next time I’m asked it, I can just point the asker here. In fact I’m starting to use the “tag” feature to create a trail of entries on “Frugal Living” If you want to read all the entries, just click the “Frugal Living” link at the end of this entry and you’ll get a list of all the entries I deem to be related to that topic.

Let me say right here, that I’m still learning this whole frugal living stuff. When Howard still worked at Novell our children lived off of storebought chicken nuggets and chimichangas. We ate take out food almost daily in some form or another. I am not trying to set myself up as an Expert or Guru or anything else holier-than-thou. I’m just excited about the topic of saving money on household expenses and I’d like to share some of the stuff that I’ve learned.

The very first step in cutting grocery spending is Learn to Cook. I know that 99 cent frozen burritos sound really cheap, but meals cooked from scratch ingredients can cost as little as 20 cents per serving. If you love the convenience of pulling things from the freezer and microwaving, then find one of those Once A Month cooking books and learn how to cook once and freeze all the meals your family will need for a month. (I’ve never done this by the way. I’ve found other solutions that work for me. … mostly anyway.) Don’t forget you could use the once-a-month theory and step it down to once-a-week if that fits your lifestyle better. I recommend getting one very basic cookbook and using that as a reference. We have a pile of fancy/interesting cookbooks with beautiful pictures that I never use. I always end up pulling out the checkered Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook instead. It isn’t fancy, but it tells me how to do simple stuff like make biscuits or cook baked potatos. That’s stuff a beginner needs to know.

This second step can happen simultaneous to the first, or even prior, but it is essential. Set aside space to store food. You do not save money by making daily trips to the grocery store. Every time you are in the store you are tempted by things that are yummy, but expensive. Also if you have no food in the house eating out begins to look really attractive and easy. How much space you set aside will depend on your living quarters. College students are always short on space, but don’t forget the wierd corners and nooks like underneath the bed. Not all food has to be stored in the kitchen. Having a space to store food directly enables the next step.

Stock up when food is on sale. When food that you like to eat is cheap buy as much as you can eat before it goes bad. Or as much as you have space to store while leaving space for other foods that you eat. Our family likes to eat tomato soup every week or so. Canned goods last for years, so when tomato soup is 33 cents per can, I’ll buy two cases of it (about 50 cans). That is about a year’s worth. If tomato soup goes on sale again before I’ve used up the previous batch, I’ll buy enough to bring myself back up to my year’s supply (in this case, 50 cans). Do not buy cases of canned green beans if your family won’t eat them, they’ll just sit until they go bad.

Consider preserving your own food. Look at your personal situation and try to decide whether it is worth your time. As an example: it probably won’t be for a college student. Canning requires a significant initial investment in supplies and equipment. The expense can be reduced by shopping at garage sales, but it is still a factor. I already have all the jars and equipment. However I have priced things out and discovered that unless I get the food-to-be-canned for free, I can usually find commercially canned foods at comparable prices. So I’ll can extra goods from my own garden, or that I’m given, but I won’t buy peaches from a fruit stand in order to can them. Freezing food requires you to invest in a large freezer. I recommend this because freezing food is a very simple way to save it from going to waste.

So now you have piles of food in your freezer and cupboards. In fact you have so much food that you keep loosing track of what is due to go bad. I have this problem and I’ve finally learned a solution (from the Tightwad Gazette books). I going to Create and maintain a food inventory. I plan to do this by taking a day and physically counting exactly how many cans of tomato soup I have. I’ll count the bags of anaheim chilis in the freezer. I’ll count the boxes of cheese macaroni. I’ll count everything and create a tally. Then I’ll create an inventory usage schedule. Say I have 10 bags of anaheim chilis in my freezer. I won’t be getting any fresh ones until I grow them next July. So between now and July (7 months) I need to use up 10 bags of chilis. Or a little over one bag per month. Storebought items may be a little trickier to figure because I can’t always predict when sales will be. But by paying attention I’ve learned that some things go on sale once a month, others once a year. I’ll try to time my inventory usage to match that. Then I’ll post the list of “Foods to be used this month” in my kitchen where I can refer to it easily. This food inventory plan is only a theory of course since I haven’t done it yet, but it sounds like a good theory doesn’t it?

This brings us to the last point for today, but by no means the last possible thing you can do to cut your grocery budget. Plan meals in advance. This is important because arriving at 6 pm without a meal planned is sore temptation to feed the kids chicken nuggets or just go out to eat. Historically I have not been very good at advance planning for meals. I’ve tried planning things out for a month in advance, then each week I would make sure that I had all the ingredients I’d need for that weeks’ meals. This worked for getting home cooked meals on the table, but I’ve recently figured out that it is backwards for saving money on groceries. I shouldn’t plan what I want to eat and then buy stuff for it. I should figure out what I have in the house (all of which I bought on sale of course) and plan meals based on that. Mrs. Dacyczyn of Tightwad Gazette advocates planning meals the night before because then you know exactly what you have on hand. That’s a nice theory, but it won’t work for me. My week nights are busy and exhausting, there is no way I’m going to sit down during one and plan a meal for the next night. My current (and only partially tested) plan is to create a meal plan every Sunday for the week to follow. I’ll use my food inventory to decided what to make and that will be the default plan for the week. I may decide to change the plan for a day on the fly to make better use of resources, but at least I’ll have a fall back plan so that I don’t end up staring into my cupboards at 6 pm wondering what I can make really fast to feed the hungry little monst…er children.

So there it is. Writing it out has helped me solidify it in my head. Hopefully reading it will help someone else.