Living the Pantry Lifestyle - Ramblings about my monthly shopping day

As I mentioned before, last week was my monthly stock-up for groceries.  I must do this to make sure that budgeted funds go to groceries and they do not get used for something else during the month.  It takes some planning and list making but it is worth the small amount of preparations.

It is also a good excuse (and sometimes I need inspiration) to clean out the frig and reorganize shelves to prepare for bringing home the results of my "getting my food from afar" (aka: Meijers, Kroger, and Aldis).  I found out the hard way that if this is not done before the shopping trips, then old stuff in the veggie drawer can turn to mold because it is covered by new veggies... who then can also turn yukkie.

The one place I didn't prepare ahead of time last week was the "pantry" in the kitchen.  The lovely one with the chippy yellow paint on the outside and equally chippy red paint on the inside.  I probably should have taken a photo after putting away the food and such that belongs in that cabinet for it was topsy turvy ready to fall out the next time I opened the door.  Then again, I am glad there are no photos.

I am always worn out at the end of stock up day so along with the healthy stuff, I make certain there is a frozen pizza or something else available that requires minimum preparations for dinner that night.  Which is also why the putting away of the food and such is easier when I've prepared for it.

The yellow pantry was organized and cleaned up after a good night's sleep and the items needing to be slipped into gallon size Ziploc bags in the freezer were also taken care of the next day.  Otherwise, everything was ready for putting away groceries when I arrived home.

I slip individual packages of meat into the gallon size Ziploc bags to protect them in the freezer.  Also, items like fruit such as cranberries that have holes in the bags as well as the Irish butter are inserted into them... in separate bags, of course. These gallon size bags are reused  numerous times as they stay in the freezer.  If they are getting beat up over time, then I leave the package of meat in them to defrost on a plate in the refrigerator and throw them away after that.

This month I didn't buy very much meat because I needed the grocery budget to go elsewhere.  However, I will use the meat in the freezer left from previous months to fill in for meals this month.  I even have a turkey in the deep freeze that is going to become soup later in October.

I try to buy most meat on sale except the four organic grass fed packages of ground beef I buy at Aldis (which is never on sale it seems so I have to limit the amount) and the large package of tilapia I buy at Aldis. The turkey that will be defrosted was purchased around Easter on sale and the last ham purchased at the same time on sale will be used next month.

I used one of my paychecks from the seasonal part-time job I had many years ago to buy a deep freeze and it has been well worth the money.  Actually, a chest style deep freeze doesn't cost all that much although they do take more work to keep organized.

I hope these "off the top of my head" ramblings make sense.  Oh, I have a link for you, too.  I have subscribed to the Simple Bites blog for numerous years. It is one of the few "food blogs" I still subscribe to these days.  Aimee is Canadian so this week she is sharing yummy ideas for their Thanksgiving meal this weekend.  It has good advice for Americans to use next month.  (Can you believe Thanksgiving is next month already?)

Mentioned in this Blog Post
Simple Bites blog... here.