I'm a blog junkie, and one of my favorite large-family blogs posted an informational piece on how to set up a pantry for bulk buying. "Well," I thought to myself, "Why am I wasting my time reading this? I could write my own!" So I am. Not that anyone cares about how I set up my pantry... except for me! But I keep hearing, "How do you do it all?" about my life in general with having five kids (really, five kids isn't that many) and homeschooling and activities etc, etc, etc. Bulk buying and a well-organized pantry is one of the ways I do it. Whatever
it is.
Above is the left side of my pantry, top and bottom shelves not showing. Yes, you see an entire flat of strawberry jam with two jars already gone. Above the jam is twelve packages of organic fettuccine from Azure Standard and every kind of pasta Costco carries.
Above is the right side of my pantry, top and bottom shelves not showing. It is hard to get a decent picture of the inside because the door is so small and there are so many shelves! I try to keep my shelves organized similar to how shelves at the grocery store are organized. That way if I want to know if I have any olives, I just have to look by the pickles or fancy vinegars. If I'm looking for olive oil, I check the baking section.
I bought a ton of these plastic storage containers at Costco a year or so ago. The beans are on the left and the nuts/seeds are on the right. When a container is emptied, I refill it from the buckets that I keep under the shelves:
Um, yeah, I do have 75 pounds of rice. I admit it. Sigh... I also keep rice in those plastic containers from Costco. I have one for white, one for brown, and one for basmati. I mentioned in my previous post that I bulk buy a lot of my dry goods from
Azure Standard. One of my favorite items is Rolled 9-Grain Flakes from Montana Milling. The ingredients are: Hard Red Wheat, Oat Groats, Triticale Berries, Rye Berries, Dehulled Barley, Soft White Wheat, Spelt Berries, Hard White Wheat, and Flax.
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| F helps me move oatmeal to a bucket, 1/2 cup at a time. |
That is some pretty awesome stuff, no? All those whole grains? Wowza! Imagine one of those little Bob's Red Mill bags of multigrain hot cereal at the grocery. I just looked one up on Amazon.com and a one pound bag of 5 grain cereal was $7.49. It costs about as much as a hot meal from McDonalds, but so much healthier. And really, $7.49 isn't that much for a meal for a family. BUT...
...I got
50 pounds for only $22.95. Actually, I bought two 50 pound bags, so I filled five entire buckets with 100 pounds of food for the price of two pizzas at Roundtable Pizza. Now, let's do some math. If 1 lb of Bob's = $7.49, 100 lbs would be $7.49 times 100 = $749.00! Compared to $45.90? Why wouldn't you buy in bulk after that? (And by the way, Azure Standard has that same BRM 5 grain cereal for much, much cheaper.)
So, after we move all the cereals, grains, etc into the buckets that buying in bulk paid for, I print off a dated label (label maker also paid for by bulk buying), and make sure my handy plastic containers in the kitchen cupboard are full...
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| Ooo! Mis-labeled food! It should say 9 Grain Flake, not 10! |
And then we have hot "porridge" for breakfast, at least twice a week! I was telling some lady somewhere that my kids were complaining about having to have eggs for breakfast again and how one whined, "Can't we have porridge instead?" I was mystified why the lady was laughing until I realized porridge is traditionally boring, lumpy, nasty, and gross. But not this porridge.
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| Nine of my 26 buckets |
Important things to remember about food storage is date things so you know how old they are, use proper storage containers (I use food grade buckets with
Gamma lids), use what you store, and check your food for spoilage, insect damage, etc. No brainers there! Well, break time is over and off I go to fill the rest of the buckets!
