I think I am just going to try to eat up everything in my pantry....

[ScrimpAndSave]

Rather than go shopping every week. I buy things and completely forget about them!

[musicalbabe85]

That's what we decided to do this past week! Every night, besides tonight, we had a meal from something I've pulled together out of the freezer and pantry. I still have sooo much stuff that I need to fix. I made this coming week's menu partly from ads and stuff we still have.

[cschin4]

Yes, I do that as well. That is why I quit stockpiling and no longer buy things in bulk. I found that it was really a waste of money because I bought stuff and didn't use it.

[rob62521]

If you need menu ideas based on the items you have in your pantry, try this site:

CookingByNumbers.com


Years ago Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote about grocery shopping and the fact he would buy the same things every week and he and the kids would eat the easy stuff and leave the rest. He said he had a freezer full of chicken legs and wings, lots of flour, a few onions, etc. So he made it a rule he couldn't go shopping until everything was gone. He said some of the meals weren't exactly gourmet, and it forced him to be creative, but he was still eating. One example was he had an egg, flour, and an onion, so he made a pancake type thing. It was a cute article, but really showed how we often don't use what we have.

[disneysteve]

I decided the same thing not long ago. I had to clean out our basement freezer in the process of getting ready to celebrate Passover and the amount of stuff that ended up getting trashed was ridiculous. My wife and I have already spoken about being more conscious of what we're buying and making more of an effort to use up what we have already.

[aida2003]

I'm glad we're not the only ones finding food in the refrigerator or pantry that has to be trashed. I keep telling my DH that in my opinion his coupon game is not as useful as he claims it to be. We accumulate stuff and I end up throwing some out. But we're bad, so that's my relief

[momof1in150]

Our extra refrigerator is really old so we decided to empty the refrigerator and freezer and unplug it a couple of weeks ago. I shop once a week and shop based on a menu plan so we really don't need to stock pile. Sometimes if chicken or ground beef is on sale I will buy an extra package or two but that is it. We have a large pantry for dry goods and with the prices of pasta and other wheat products rising I have some of that stockpiled in there.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

About the time I joined this forum, I was thinking about getting a chest freezer. There are times of year when I really could use more freezer space than on our upright refrigerator-freezer. But I also realize that sometimes we will buy a chicken or ground beef or something, put it in the freezer and then forget about it until one day we open the freezer to get out coffee (stored there for freshness) and have one one of those "Oh yeah, we bought this meat two weeks ago!" moments. I decided that if we had a freezer, we'd stock pile too much.

Having no built in cabinets and no pantry, we do not easily overstock on shelvable items. This ancient kitchen has both advantages and disadvantages.