~ from my home to yours, living the Working Pantry lifestyle ~ surviving today's economy ~ a can-do spirit and attitude ~

Friday, July 19, 2019

Summer Series 2019: Week 5


I hope you're enjoying this summer series, here we are at week 5!
Here’s the question/comment we’re addressing this week …
It would be great if you could cover the differences of building a pantry for a single or couple, versus one for a family. Also, how to have a smaller pantry without the items going bad or out living their shelf life (effective storage ideas?). Thanks.


The difference in pantry stocking for a single person or couple versus one for a family is simply the amount you store.  For a family you store more, for a single person or couple, store less.
Some of the guidelines I'm sharing below work across the board for anyone considering keeping a well-stocked pantry but are especially true for the single person or couple.
Store what you eat, eat what you store.
Don’t store more than you’ll eat before it goes bad.
Pay attention to ‘best buy’ dates on items you purchase to go in your pantry.
Rotate!  Rotate!  Rotate!
Know what’s in your pantry!
Eat from your pantry meaning don’t just let your food sit in your pantry until it ruins … eat it!
For storage ideas, I would purchase small size portioned items or purchase normal/bulk size and preserve it into meal size portions.
Variety is an important key in keeping a well-stocked pantry for everyone but especially for the single person or small family.   Here’s a post I wrote on pantry stocking for the single person.  I think it will help to give you some ideas (make sure you read the comments too) … 
Until next time, 

patsi      

Sharing 42 years' experience of frugal living and pantry building (if you include my frugal childhood, well that would add a few more years to my experience!)

A Working Pantry

My second blog:  From This Heart of Mine 

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

A Working Pantry is a way of life, a lifestyle if you will!

My pantry is intentional, purposeful, simple, practical, frugal and what works for my family.  It’s the food items and household supplies that keep my household running smoothly ready and available when they are needed.  It’s my contribution to our family’s economy and my work-from-home ‘job.' 

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6 comments:

  1. Well, speaking as a single person with a fairly well socked pantry - I couldn't agree more with what you wrote - both in today's post and in the original one from 2018.
    Along with being on my own, I have some mobility issues and I don't drive - so I use public transit or I walk - often with my bundle buggy. Having food in my pantry ensures that if the weather is crappy, I'm not feeling up to it - or I'm having a really busy week (I still work 20 hours/week) then I don't HAVE to go to the grocery store. I can always pull something together.
    A couple of summers ago we had some bad storms and lost power for 3 days - I had food and water - disposable plates & cutlery - a battery powered radio - and my landline still worked when cell phones were down - and this is in a city of 3 million people! Being able to just stay put in my little apt. and concentrate on keeping cool kept my stress levels down.
    My friends often laugh at me for doing this - but as predicted - I had to help out a few friends who were down to very little - even TP! I had the last chuckle.

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    1. Margie, LOL, I love your comment! You are one wise lady!!!

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  2. The key for me is to really think about what I am going to purchase and if I don't need more of it then don't buy it no matter how cheap it is. We just looked through all the cheese we have in our spare fridge to know what we need to purchase tomorrow at Lidl. When the kids were home and even before our local kids went to Germany we could really use quite a bit of food but that has drastically changed. We are getting better about this but now we are letting a few things run a bit low. I think we are about to find a good balance.

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    1. Lana, sometimes it takes trial and error, doesn't it. As seasons in our lives change so do our pantry needs. Your so right, if you don't need an item, no matter how cheap it is or don't know how you can use it, then it needs to stay on the store shelf! Otherwise it's not only a waste but it's taking up space that could be used to store something you will eat.

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  3. Hi Patsy and everything you said is spot on.

    We are a couple with no children at home and it can be challenging to stock for fewer people but with planning it can be done. Normally we buy the larger tins or bags of food and staples as they are cheaper in the long run here and cook meals to last 2 days so everything is used. You can freeze the second portion or have the same meal two nights running.

    To start our pantry building we marked the purchase date on the grocery item to see how long it would last us and then we stocked accordingly to build our pantry from there. By doing this you know how much you are using and can stock according to your individual family size and you will have little waste.

    I so like the stock what you eat and eat what you stock as that is imperative to eating your stocks so things don't go bad and having foods you regularly eat.

    Rotation of stock and putting the newest products to the back to the shelves and older to the front also helps you to rotate through your storage and eat it before best by or expiry dates.

    I think it is important to find a system that works for you and stick to it. We made some mistakes on stocking too much of some products in the beginning but then honed our skills to correct those.

    Sewingcreations15 (Lorna).

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    1. Lorna, Great advice! I think, if we're all honest, that even us seasoned pantry builders sometimes get it wrong with how much of an item to stock. Sometimes it's not enough and sometimes it's too much. Much of the how much depends on our circumstances and where we're at in life. We just do the best we can and if we see we have too much of something, I figure out a way to use it and make note not to stock as much of said item anymore. Here again, there's no such thing as a perfect pantry and no such thing as a perfect pantry builder. We just do the best we can and go on, there are no pantry police!

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