Did you know that there might be things in your pantry that will cost you money? I’m not kidding. Put your pantry on a frugal diet by eliminating certain things that could be making you spend more.
Take a few minutes out of your day to look over your pantry. If you spot the following items, get rid of them quickly, before they cost you more money.
Items that require expensive purchases
Get rid of food that needs other expensive items or ingredients. Can everything in your pantry be turned into a meal with inexpensive ingredients? Or do they need to be paired with other gourmet foodstuff or fancy gadgets that you need to purchase? Some examples are if you have a bread machine mix but no bread machine, or a pasta mix but no pasta machine, or a prepared meal that requires expensive exotic mushrooms.
Flour moths
Flour moths start out as little wormy things that get into your flour, oats, cornmeal and even seeds. You can tell they have been there either by spotting the worms themselves or finding that there is web like material in your food. The larvae turn into flying moths that then lay more eggs. If you have an infestation, it is important to get rid of anything that might be infected because it isn’t edible. They can wipe out your pantry stores. The more food, the more flour moths. To prevent it from happening again, free any grains or seeds for 24 hours when you first bring them home and keep everything in air tight containers.
Expired food
Food that has expired or soon will expire is money in the garbage. Take a look at what you have and make an effort to use it up before the end sates. Rotate the stuff in your pantry and don’t purchase anything that you don’t regularly use. You may need to get a little creative, but think of almost expired food as free meals that you might other wise have tossed.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right.
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