3 simple ways to save $300 in your pantry

Pantry

 3 simple ways to save $300 in your pantry

I have worked in hundreds of homes and the #1 place that I see waste is in the pantry. 

Most often people:

1- Buy more food because they don’t know what they have. 

or 

2-grab another bottle of ketchup while they are at the store “just in case”...only to find later that they already have four bottles in the pantry (and three of them are expired 🤦🏼‍♀️)

Sound familiar? 

In a year, the average person throws away over 100lbs of unopened food because they didn’t even know what was in their pantry!  This is the equivalent of 5 trash bags and $300 in wasted money!

Not only do I see a lot of money go out the window with disorganized pantries, but I see a lot of time wasted with grocery shopping and meal planning. 

While these facts used to make me feel sad, I’m now happy to have the opportunity to help people avoid this type of waste and frustration, as well as start saving their most precious resources. 

And, I’m happy to help you with some of my favorite simple tips to take back control of your pantry- 

1) Make it easy to see what you have in your pantry

Store things so you can easily see what’s there. When you can see what you have you can take a quick inventory. I love storing canned goods so I can see them all at a glance. 

Being able to see everything in your pantry will help save you from the 4 bottles of ketchup fiasco I mentioned earlier. If you can see what you have, then you don’t buy haphazardly when you are at the store.

2) Group like items together

This way you know if you have beans or pasta when they are all in one place. Adding fun labels can help with this!

In another article, I mentioned that people sometimes spend up to 40 minutes looking for something they need. Do you really want to spend 40 minutes looking for that can of black beans when it’s Mexican night and you have hungry kids? Didn’t think so. When you group things together you save time (and your sanity).

3) Purge Regularly

Even if you are good about #1 and #2, food items will creep in - especially around the holidays or other celebrations. Think old cans of pumpkin or those specialty packages of hot cocoa mix you got as a gift and swore you were going to use. Tackle the pantry with passion and make it a regular practice to remove items you will not eat so you don’t lose sight of those you could be using to make tonight’s dinner. 

This also helps keep you from having expired items in your pantry, which is just a frustration in itself when you are in the middle of cooking.

Want to learn more about saving money (and sanity) in your home through organization? Check out my virtual services where we can tackle your home together and you don’t even have to leave your couch!

And, to find all my fav pantry products, check out The Simple Shop!