What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[Sally PB]

I emptied the shelves with all our canned and dried goods and decided that I would use what I had. With the exceptions of buying fresh milk and bread, I just used up whatever we had in storage for those 4 weeks.

"Eat from the larder." Great way to save money when it's tight, great way to use up the older stuff on the shelf.

I have no trouble doing that, but it's a harder sell to DH.

 

[gtaus]

I have no trouble doing that, but it's a harder sell to DH.

I guess we have just proved that opposites attract! On average, we are doing OK.

 

[igorsMistress]

Dear Wife is a Filipina. A few years ago, she went back to the Philippines for about a month to spend time with her family. So, I had to make all my meals. I emptied the shelves with all our canned and dried goods and decided that I would use what I had. With the exceptions of buying fresh milk and bread, I just used up whatever we had in storage for those 4 weeks.

I'm not saying I had my favorite foods at every meal, but I did manage to reduce all our canned goods in half and made a nice dent in the dry goods as well. Also, I took advantage of that process to use up all the oldest food in storage first, kind of rotating the food stock at the same time.

I think I only went to the grocery store once that 4 weeks, like I said to buy fresh milk and a loaf of bread.

When Dear Wife got back, she was happy to see how much stuff I had emptied from the shelves. I have since tried to convince her that we need to do something like that periodically, and empty those cupboards of the stored food, but that runs against her nature. Back to going to the grocery store 3X per week, buying new food for supper, and the old canned and dried goods just get shoved to the back of the shelves.

Oh well, if she goes on vacation again, I'll have lots of new "old" food to go through for another 4+ weeks.

I understand wanting fresh food over boxes and cans. The problem is what happens if something happens? I don’t feel comfortable if that pantry isn’t almost overflowing though, so I try to rotate in the canned goods with some regularity.

 

[TooCheep]

I understand wanting fresh food over boxes and cans. The problem is what happens if something happens? I don’t feel comfortable if that pantry isn’t almost overflowing though, so I try to rotate in the canned goods with some regularity.

Yup. When you eat some, try to replace it and keep the rotation.

For some dark humor, try to compare old to new prices when you do this.

 

[gtaus]

I understand wanting fresh food over boxes and cans. The problem is what happens if something happens? I don’t feel comfortable if that pantry isn’t almost overflowing though, so I try to rotate in the canned goods with some regularity.

I think it's best to have a well stocked pantry full of goods that were bought on sale. You can save lots of money that way. But I think the key to the method is the rotation. That is where we fail at my house.

I would like us to practice the FIFO method, First In First Out, so that the oldest stocked goods are used before the newest supplies. In reality, we live under the FISH method, First In Still Here, as all the old goods get shoved to the back of the cupboard shelf.

 

[Sally PB]

For some dark humor, try to compare old to new prices when you do this.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

In our house, whoever puts groceries away just knows, and automatically puts new stuff at the back of the pantry and moves old stock to the front so it gets used first. We've even taught our kids this, that's just how it gets done.

 

[gtaus]

In our house, whoever puts groceries away just knows, and automatically puts new stuff at the back of the pantry and moves old stock to the front so it gets used first. We've even taught our kids this, that's just how it gets done.

When I was a teenager, I had a part time job stocking the shelves at the local grocery store. I learned to put the new cans in the back and move the old cans to the front. I carried that over to my home habits as well. But I'm the only one in the house with that method.

And I always check the date stamped on the food when I get it at the store. Dear Wife bought some packaged lettuce salad last week. I asked her if she checked the date on it. Of course not, it should be fresh.... it was already past it's Best By date by 2 days! Well, I ate the salads fast, but point is she could have picked a fresher package if she took time to look at the dates on the package.

Funny thing is, Dear Wife is the first one to toss out any food that is beyond the Best By date. I'll check it out and eat the food as long as it is still good. Questionable food gets tossed out into the chicken run. Good thing to have chickens! Too many leftovers... chicken treats!

I cannot remember the last time we had food that went bad, but I have some pallet wood compost bins to dump out moldy food into if needed. We are pretty good in eating most of our leftovers, or putting it in the chicken bucket, before it goes bad.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Our chickens don't get many kitchen scraps, poor things. Occasionally we'll have a bit of lettuce or part of a tomato that gets past us, but we're pretty good about eating leftovers. Recently I was grounded from cooking for a whole week because we had so many leftovers, but we ended up eating them all!

That was TORTURE, Lol!

 

[igorsMistress]

Yup. When you eat some, try to replace it and keep the rotation.

For some dark humor, try to compare old to new prices when you do this.

That’s not dark humor, that’s enough to make you mad for real.