Essential Tips for Lowering Your Grocery Bill (Part 3)

This is final post in my series outlining essential tips that I follow for keeping my grocery bills under control. As I noted in Part 1, there are many methods for cutting the grocery bill that go way beyond shopping at discount grocery stores, taking advantage of in-store specials, and using coupons. Specifically, there are several areas that I focus on to keep my grocery costs down. They include:

1. Dinner Menu Planning
2. Shopping Strategies
3. Pantry Management

I covered dinner menu planning and shopping strategies in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, respectively. In this post I will discuss some key tips regarding how to save money on groceries via pantry management.

Pantry Management

1. Don’t Exceed Your Pantry’s Effective Capacity. You know, I’ve been in houses where the kitchen pantry is so loaded up with food products that it is a wonder that the residents can find anything at all. How can you tell when your pantry has reached its effective capacity? Well, you’ll have to rely on common sense. The key term is “effective.” If cans and boxes are piled up in such a way that you are not sure of everything that is hiding in there, you have exceeded your pantry’s effective capacity.

2. Organize Your Pantry. An organized pantry is a happy pantry. Organized pantries are easy to survey when making the shopping list and prevent inadvertent purchases of items that you already have on hand.

3. Audit Your Pantry Quarterly. Every three months, take an hour or two to reorganize and clean your pantry. Take stock of everything you have. Be sure to select dinners for your next multi-week dinner menu that utilizes items that are nearing their expiration or use-by dates. Toss items that have expired or exceeded their use-by dates. Note items that are running low in quantity so you can try to take advantage of future specials and avoid having to buy them at the last minute.

4. Rotate Your Pantry Stock After Each Shopping Trip. To minimize the number of items in your pantry that have to be tossed because they reach their expiration date, always rotate your stock.

5. Treat Your Freezer Items Like an Extension of Your Pantry. I consider the freezer to be an extension of the pantry, so manage it the same way. Because of the nature of the food stored in the freezer, potential losses of food stored in the freezer tend to be greater than food stored in the pantry.

6. Properly Store Your Frozen Meat. Don’t store your meat in the butcher packaging. Instead, rewrap it and store it in freezer bags marked with the date the meat was frozen. Frozen meat that is properly stored can avoid freezer burn and stay good for up to four months and sometimes longer.

With a little commitment, it’s not difficult to see a significant reduction in your monthly grocery bill. By utilizing dinner menu planning, prudent shopping strategies, and sound pantry management, it won’t be long before you see real results.

If you liked this article, please be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed.