Keeping a full pantry for little money

My pantry and freezer are always full, despite my food budget being below £700 a year. I think that it is so important to have a stock of food as we never know what is around the corner. Recently I have injured myself and so can’t drive or walk to any shops, and haven’t been able to forage for 2 weeks.  Luckily we already have a wide variety of food to chose from.

People ask me how we do this. They know that I rarely go shopping. Here are some of the things that we do.

1. Add things to the freezer or larder every single week. I try to add as much as I take out. This maybe by stretching the few ingredients that we have in. An example might be that we only have 1 egg left and so I will make 6 waffles with basic staples and eat 2, and put 4 in the freezer. Another example might be that I use a can of tuna to make fish cakes and freeze 4. This week I have added 2 bags of rhubarb that has been growing in the garden, 340g of butter made from out of date cream costing £1 for two cartons, 5 jars of rhubarb and ginger jam, some wild garlic pesto, a jar of mixed dried (in the sun) herbs, and lots of salad has been added to the fridge from my raised boxes.

2. Batch cook. I don’t do a lot of batch cooking but left overs are frozen to make another meal.  When I bake I put most of it into the freezer so that I don’t eat it in one go. If cooking potatoes I will cook double the amount to freeze.

3. Use community fridges. We don’t go often to ours as it is a drive away, but it has got us through some lean months in winter. The Olio app and food banks may be helpful to some people as well .

4. Have no waste. We use everything that we can. Stale bread makes bread crumbs or bread pudding. Potato peelings make crisps, brocolli stalks go in stew, wraps made into crisps. Things like stale rice crispies can be baked to make them crisp again. In fact everything is used or goes into the compost.

5. Only buy things when on offer if we can. We bulk buy when things are on offer, or reduced. There is very little that we pay full price for. I don’t do a monthly or weekly shop. If I do go shopping, I will always spend a few pound extra stocking up on things that will come in useful later. I think ahead all of the time.

6. We grow our own fruit and vegetables in the garden.  We buy very few vegetables or fruit and preserve them for winter. Even when we didn’t have a garden and lived in a flat, my window ledges were full of lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, and strawberries.

7. Forage. You don’t have to be an expert forager. The things I forage most are apples, blackberriees, wild garlic, nettles, and elderflower. These are recognised by most people. They add nutrition and variety to our food. We have blackberry compote most weeks in the winter.

8. Barter. We have gluts of things like foraged apples, or raspberries and courgettes from the garden. We swap them for things that are luxuries to us like cheese or tuna.

9. Know what we have in our cupboards and freezer. I keep an inventory. That way I can be on the lookout for discounted items before I need them and I don’t buy things that I don’t need.

10. Know the price of things and buy in bulk if you see a bargain. Prices are going up all of the time. I bought lots of sugar for 55p a bag nearĺy 2 years ago when prices were rising rapidly. We still have some left.  They are £1.09 now. Now and again this year I have seen some for 85p. I buy a few bags to replenish what I have used. It is important that I have sugar for preserving. It is important to keep an eye on world news. I warned Mr S that coffee was going up, as harvests were poor. He bought 4 bags of coffee beans just after Christmas. This saved him £16 as they have gone up £4 a bag since (35%). Sometimes we will buy in bulk as a family to save money if it is an expensive item.

11. Don’t be proud and accept free food when you are given it. Rather than see food waste people have given me ends of joints which I have turned into stews, wilted veg which I have turned into soups, and food that has gone past the best before date which they did not want to eat. I pay them back with home made jams or cake when I make them.

12. Make food from scratch. It actually costs less in the long run. We make things like bread, yoghurt, preserves, sauces, ice cream, and buy as little as we can from the supermarket.  My yoghurt costs a third of the price of store bought. Each week I will make 2 or 3 things. I make bread once a fortnight and freeze to save on energy.

There are probably lots more things that we do but those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.  Do you do anything different? Are you like me and never manage to empty your freezer to defrost it? 😁