food pantry

How to Organize Your Pantry and Save Cash

Tisha Tolar — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:36:36 +0000

The cost of groceries is increasing, and many consumers are on the hunt for better, more efficient ways to save and cut down on their monthly food expenses. While researching sales between retailers and clipping coupons can certainly help, there is a good chance you’ll get the most savings by first clearing out your current food pantry and cabinets.

Too often consumers with disorganized cabinets and pantries overspend simply because they can’t find anything. They buy excess amounts of stuff they already have. Here are some organization tips that everyone should use to sort out the pantry and make you more effective at grocery shopping. (See also: How to Grocery Shop for Five on $100 a Week)

Hunt and Gather

Start by clearing your kitchen table, then opening all of your food cabinets and removing everything from the shelves. As you remove items, try grouping them on the table in categories such as baking supplies, soups, and condiments.

Check the Dates

Keep a trash bag and an empty box nearby. As you remove items, check expiration dates and toss the bad stuff. When you find items you know you will never use, put them in a donation box, provided you have never opened/used the items. This box can later go to a local food pantry, soup kitchen, or church organization.

Clean Effectively

Since your food pantry and cabinets likely do not get cleaned weekly, make the most of the empty shelves. Clean and disinfect them thoroughly. Add some grip liner to keep items in place after the space has adequate time to dry.

Make an Inventory

With everything spread out before you, consider the pantry priorities. The things you use most should be placed at a convenient location so you can see immediately when you are running low.

Label Shelving

If you are not living the single life and fear others will mess up your organization efforts, use a labeler or colored tape to designate where things can go. Make categories somewhat generic such as condiments or snacks so as not to micro-organize yourself out of space.

Eliminate the Mess

If you store bags of sugar, sacks of flour, and boxes of cereal, invest in some air-tight canisters. Not only will they help in organization and space-saving, you will also help eliminate the attraction of pests. Don’t forget to purchase containers that are in line with the height and width of your shelving space.

Tier It Up

In order to make it easier to see in the back of the cabinets that go three or four rows deep, insert scrap wood or other items from your home that could serve as tiers, boosting the height of the canned goods and other items in the back row, so you can see everything easily at one time without having to rifle through the rows of items.

Restock Wisely

Extra grocery items should be stored up and out of the way. Make a list of how many extra jars of peanut butter you have found. By recording the extras and taping the list inside the pantry door, you’ll know right away if you have something you need, even if you can’t see it right away. Similarly, if you purchase items in bulk, consider another storage area that is out of the way so your pantry is less cluttered and easier to manage.

Spices and smaller items can be stored in a plastic tote or basket so you can remove the whole thing when you need something.

Also, consider putting items in categories by expiration dates. Put stuff you need to use first in the front, so you can stop having to toss food out after it expires.

Install a Dry Erase Board

Pick up a dry erase board at the dollar store, and install it inside the pantry or on the back of the cabinet door. When you take the last of something, make a note of it so you can keep your grocery list more accurate, and likely shorter.

Going forward, your pantry and your refrigerator should ideally be free of clutter, kept clean, and regularly organized so that any time you need to, you can glance at the shelves and know immediately what you need and what you don’t.

And don’t forget to drop off that donation box at the local food pantry or soup kitchen. What you don’t use or don’t like will be appreciated by those who receive it.

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This article is from Tisha Tolar of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

4 Low-Cost Foods for Everyday Italian Cooking

Vincent Scordo — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:00:27 +0000

I have to admit I have a few pet peeves when it comes to cooking Italian food at home. My biggest issue is with the claim that good Italian food costs too much and is time consuming to prepare.

I say "Nonsense!" and counter with a story near and dear to my heart: namely, my Italian parents' food odysey upon arriving in the United States in the 1970s. Like with many recent immigrants, money was tight in the Scordo household, and time was even harder to come by as both of my parents worked long hours. Yet food remained paramount. My mother struggled to find her native Italian ingredients, and when she did find a specialty shop, she quickly learned how expensive items like extra virgin olive oil, Parmigiano Reggiano, and quality meats and fish were in the United States.

Eventually, however, enough Italians immigrated to our region of the United States, and prices for Italian specialty foods came down. My mother also learned to bargain fiercely and often bought her food supplies in bulk and with the other Italian ladies in the neighborhood, earning deep discounts because of the quantity of food she and her friends purchased. (See also: Bulk Buying 101)

The solution to cooking great Italian at home isn't complex; it's centered on knowing which ingredients to buy, which dishes to prepare, and how to most effectively spend time in the kitchen. What follows are cheap, yet high-quality foods for making authentic and tasty Italian food at home with minimal time spent in the kitchen. Buon appetito!

Pasta

I'm sure you expected this; it's at the heart of Italian cooking. Most Italians consume pasta two to three times per week, and it's usually served as a starter for a given meal. The typical Italian pasta portion is also small by U.S. standards; one pound of pasta typically serves 8-10 people. Good quality Italian-made dry pasta can be found online for for a little under $1.50 per pound and is even cheaper when you buy in bulk. I like to keep the following pasta shapes in the house at all times: thin linguine, rigatoni, penne, and orzo. Boiling water and preparing pasta in the al dente (translated as "to the tooth") fashion is straightforward and fast. The sauce, or "condiment" as the Italians call it, can be anything from an easy tomato sauce to a bit of heavy cream and peas to extra virgin olive and thinly sliced garlic, and it shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to prepare.

Beans for Soup

Our Italian family consumes soup two times per week at least, and we refer to soup as our secret "diet food;" that is to say, it's incredibly tasty, satisfying, and low calorie. All of our homemade soups have water as a base and often include beans such as cannellini, pea, lentil, and chickpea. And, pound for pound, beans are some of the cheapest food items on the planet, especially when purchased dry. A good pot of from-scratch soup should not take more 30-40 minutes to prepare and can be the whole meal, especially when a bit of short pasta (such as orzo or ditalini) is added.

Pantry Items: Olive Oil, Canned Fish, Sun Dried Tomatoes, etc.

Yes, some of my favorite foods come in a can! Our family preserves, pickles, and cans sun-dried tomatoes as well as vegetables such as carrots, cauliflower, eggplant, and wild mushrooms. In addition to preserved vegetables, we keep lots of canned fish in oil in our pantry, including tuna, sardines, and anchovies. Canned fish is often cheaper than the fresh variety, and unless you have an excellent fish market, can be of higher quality and store longer. We like to buy and make our pantry items in bulk, usually setting aside the late summer months to preserve all of our vegetables and waiting for online sales to purchase our canned fish. Other Italian pantry staples include canned tomatoes, unseasoned breadcrumbs, olive oil, and dried oregano/thyme/rosemary. A well-stocked pantry is a huge part of eating like an Italian on a budget, just be sure to buy in bulk and make as many of the items as possible at home.

Bread

My grandfather always said that if a family has bread on the table, it will never starve. Nonno was right, and bread is the foundation of any Italian meal. Good bread is satisfying, usually cheap, and can be made at home or purchased at a local market. Bread also stores well in the freezer, can be made into tasty Italian toasts, and served with virtually any dish. Some of my favorite ways to use bread in a meal include a starter with diced tomatoes or a cannellini bean spread (this is usually called bruschetta or crostini).

This article is from Vincent Scordo of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

The Buy-Nothing Lifestyle: Lessons from a Frugal Experiment

Silicon Valley Blogger — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:00:11 +0000

Could you be ready for a lower-cost lifestyle? During the start of the year, many people resolve to make positive changes in their lives. They usually take on the goal to lose weight or to reduce their debt. But what about the "no buy" lifestyle? This sounds pretty extreme or somewhat absurd, but there are people who seem up to the challenge.

For instance, there's David Hochman, who was able to get through a whole month without spending beyond $100. In fact, his entire family was part of this frugal experiment. Their rules were simple: Other than the bare essentials, like fresh milk and fruit, the Hochman family would do its best not to buy anything.

While this sounds like a pretty extreme way of cutting costs, realize that this was just an experiment to determine how feasible it was to live on very little. (Although extreme saving is somewhat of a sport for some people.) David Hochman's Reader's Digest narration of his family's adventures reveals he learned quite a few things, among them:

Their cupboards had a LOT of food that got them through the month. David's most priceless find: a can of black beans.
The free food samples at Costco helped them get by with less.
They could score some free stuff by answering surveys from sites like MySurvey.com.
A plumbing emergency could actually be solved by a shot of dishwashing liquid poured into boiling water and poured down a drain that was threatening to regurgitate sewage.
There are generous people out there who are willing to give useful things away. For instance, someone offered a free 52-inch plasma TV on Craigslist. (Well, the benefactor just didn't want his ex-wife to get the TV during their divorce proceedings, but that's another story.)

Towards the end of their frugal-living adventure, David and his family found it more and more difficult to keep things together. The pressure of sticking to this financial challenge was starting to affect their relationships, leading to frayed nerves. By the end of the month, they were bickering, feeling irritable and stressed out. Clearly, there is a downside to radical savings methods and forcing ourselves to adapt to very stringent, limited budgets.

On the other hand, there were also a lot of valuable lessons learned from this experience. Things turned out differently for David once the experiment was over. He had expected his family to return to its previous spending habits, but they didn't. Instead, David's family members stayed close to home and learned how to keep their frugal habits in place. Their experience with extreme frugal living allowed David and his family to realize that they could live on much less and to appreciate the things that they already have. By these measures, this experiment was a success.

David recalled a rich person once telling him, "Money is important only if you don't have any." Indeed, that can be a bit of a paradox: Most of us actually have so much, but it's a pity that we don't always appreciate the things we already have.

For more examples of extreme savings challenges, check out this list of one-year challenges that other folks have embarked on. Here's a look at a few of them:

The Compact is a group of people from San Francisco who've made the commitment not to buy anything new for an entire year.
The Great American Apparel Diet is an ongoing pledge you can make that involves not buying any new clothes for a year.
What about promising to skip on dining out and entertainment for a year? Check out this blog called noteatingoutinny.com/.

So how about you? Could you possibly learn to live on much less?

This article is from Silicon Valley Blogger of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Ask the Readers: Are You Saving Up for an Emergency?

Linsey Knerl — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:13:33 +0000

Comment #16: I was amazed to find a lot submitted by Terry D - "I was amazed to find a lot of people blogging about preparing for The End Of Life As We Know It. Peak oil and climate change are worrisome enough without trying to stockpile supplies in my garage or basement. I buy more if I find an item at a good price, but I also don't eat the canned beans until the ice cream and cookies are gone. I hope we have some warning before a catastrophe strikes, because I won't be in very good shape otherwise."

Tweet from @Gumnos - "Large backup stashes from sales (e.g. cereal or pasta & sauce), but not saved intentionally for emergency purposes."

12:03 PM Sep 10th from web

Living in rural American, there are many opportunities to save for a rainy day. In lieu of cash, gold, or savings bonds, many families have turned to laying hens, small-breed cattle, and extravagant canning and freezing systems to be sure they will always have food on hand. Even with the economy looking to be a bit more "up" these days, some are still insisting that investing in canned goods is always a safe bet -- perhaps one that may provide the ultimate in security should some unforeseen disaster happen (remember the Y2K that never was?)

While I believe in storing up for a couple months, just in case we can't get to the store (which is located almost an hour away), we haven't yet taken the plunge toward 2-5 years of food being stashed away.; The time, planning, and financial investment is a bit out of reach (and I'm not sure where I would put it all, anyway.) What about you? Are you someone who has a careful plan toward long-term food storage? Do you cause your friends and family to roll their eyes at your apocalyptic ramblings of how to store grain for 2011? Or are you barely managing to keep a week's worth of nutritious food on hand for when you cousin's kids come over?

We want to hear your thoughts on food storage. Do you do it for emergency insurance? Do you have it only as a result of amazing CVS deals gone wild? Is it something you feel is important? Crazy? Tell us in the comments and you will be entered to win our weekly $10 prize? (That's enough to order a good book on canning and freezing!)

Win a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate

We're doing two giveaways -- one for random comments, and another one for a random tweets.

How to Enter:

Post your answer in the comments below, or
Tweet your answer. Include both "@wisebread" and "#WBAsk" in your tweet so we'll see it and count it.

If you're inspired to write a whole blog post, please link to it in the comments or tweet it.

At the end of the drawing, we'll update this post to include (and link to) all of your helpful responses.

Giveaway Rules:

Contest ends Tuesday, September 14th at 10:45am CST. Winners will be announced after September 14th on the original post and via Twitter. Winners will also be contacted via email and Twitter Direct Message.
You can enter both drawings -- once by leaving a comment and once by tweeting.
Only tweets that contain both "@wisebread" and "#WBAsk" will be entered. (Otherwise, we won't see it.)

Good luck!

This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: