Now the last year or more, almost a year and a half, I’ve been working to build up my pantry and stock up as cheaply and efficiently as possible. I really don’t go “grocery shopping” any more. At least not like I used to, with this mindless once a week gathering of a bunch of random stuff that always seemed to cost too much and run out too soon.

We’ve simplified a lot of our meals, to what I call simple whole foods. Meats are served roasted or baked, grilled, without a lot of extra preparation. Fruits are eaten whole or perhaps jammed. We have been avoiding a lot of prepared foods, like cookies or cereal or box meals, stuff that has a lot of hard to pronounce chemical and additives and such. We make our own bread for the most part (we do get local bagels because we’re just not good at making bagels! haha) and sometimes hot dog of hamburger buns (however, we don’t eat a lot of either, its more of a grilling treat now and then) And we get fresh local eggs and local meats and veggies.

However, there are things you need, like tea or soap or flour, sugar, and other things like that. So what I do is when I run out of a couple things, say, oh, tea bags, dishwashing soap and oh, bacon. I will go to the store. I will hunt out the best deal on these three items. And I will buy several of them. This week I so scored on tea bags! They were closing out a size of packaging and I got 6 boxes of 44 bags each for $1.19 each box! I think I have tea now for at least 6 months or more. (I drink a lot of ice tea!)

I also found a deal on bacon, so I got 3 packs. One for the frig and two for the freezer. Soap was not on sale and not a great deal, so I just got the most economical sized one and was done with that. You can’t always win!

However, here’s how I really save. I get the paper when I walk in and look at all the lost leader sales they are running. Every store does it. Might be a super reduced price on produce, or a buy one get one sort of deal. I’ve noticed a lot of meat sales lately at Kroger. But that might pass and then it’s noodles or butter, etc. And then I just scan for the things we use. Flour, sugar, staple items. Canned goods that keep a long time. And I will then find one or two and buy a lot. As much as they will let me in some cases!

I just went today and they were having a special on honeycrisp apples that we LOVE. We were going to go to the local orchard and get a bushel, but when I called them, the bushels were very expensive for this in demand apple. Normally in the store they are at least $1.99 or more. Well they had them for $1 a pound. No limit. I got 15 pounds. And it’s a LOT of apples. We’re going to cut them up with our little apple corer/cutter and then blanch them and pack them for the freezer with a sugar and spice mixture. We’ll have apple pie packs and pancake packs ready to go till next year easily!

Another good deal was ice cream! Now, yes, it’s not a real simple whole food. But hey, we like it, we just don’t get it too often. But they had the fancy deluxe half gallons on sale for $2 each. They are normally over 5.99 or more! So we got 4, and popped 3 in the deep freeze. One in the frig freezer.

With what I got, my bill was only $45 bucks. Yet I had a year of tea, a year of apple pie filling, ice cream for at least a few months and the things we were out of.

At first, sure, we had to buy a good deal of things to get the pantry stocked. But now, I have a good supply of meat, staples, canned goods, spices and freezer treats. And we canned a lot of our own garden supplies, as well as goodies got cheap at the farmer’s market. Its amazing what deal you can get from the farmers when you wave $20 bucks at them. A little basket of peaches is $2 but a half a bushel is yours for $15 – $20. Same with sweet corn and pickles.

Sure it takes a little time to process, but there is a clear money savings as well as a super good feeling that you’re making and processing good wholesome simple food for your family and yourself. And let me tell you, cracking open a jar of raspberry jam in January for a thick slab of homemade toast, it’s wonderful. And it’s not that hard. Really. Honest!

So, start stocking up, just a little at a time, a deal at a time. Watch for closeouts and overstock sales. Just make sure it’s stuff your family will eat and it’s not going to go bad. LIke tea, or canned goods. Spices. Sure some spices might loose a bit of their potency, but you can look online for ways to prolong that, or you can just USE the stuff and enjoy it! We scored some super fancy spice mixes early in the summer and man, you don’t have all the guilt for using them liberally when they cost next to nothing! Spice up your life!

Hope this helps! I know it’s really helped us. We got through some rough weeks this summer just off our pantry with very modest store trips for like milk, butter, and perishable things. It really made a difference! When I was cleaning out the pantry, I pulled out a bunch of the canned goods we had put up and they were so pretty, I had to take a picture! Yeah, it’s a little silly, but you just get attached to how cool it feels to make your own stuff! And even cooler when it’s out of your OWN garden!

Our Canned and Frozen Summer Harvest Totals

11 pints of raspberry jam
12 pints of strawberry jam
3 quarts of grape jelly
17 quarts of garlic pickles
8 pints of sweet bread and butter pickles
8 pints of sweet relish
6 pints of peach chutney
6 pints of peach jelly
11 pints of peach jam
17 pounds of sweet corn in the freezer
15 pounds of apple pie filling in the freezer
5 quarts of tomato sauce
15 quarts of sweet salsa
20 pounds of stewed tomatoes

We’ve given away a nice assortment to friends and family, but we still have PLENTY of the harvest goodies left for our own pantries. It was delightful and fun, and we hope to do even more next year!