Do You Have Money Hiding in Your Pantry?
Thursday April 24, 2008
If you opened up your pantry and found money sitting on the shelves what would you do with it? Spend it? Save it? I'll bet you wouldn't leave it sitting there.
Now answer this question: Do you know what's in your pantry right now? And if so, do you know the exact location of each item? If not, you effectively have money hiding in your pantry. Spend some time organizing and inventorying the contents of your pantry, and unlock the money that's hiding within.
Doing so will prevent you from:
- Purchasing an item because you're not sure if you have it already
- Misplacing food until after it has expired or gone stale
- Buying groceries when you already have plenty of things that you could utilize at home
Organize Your Pantry:
- How to Clear the Clutter from Your Kitchen Pantry
- How to Keep Your Kitchen Pantry Organized
- What to Stock in Your Pantry
See how other Frugal Living Readers have organized their pantries and stockpiles:
Photo Credit: Irish_Typepad
I agree this is important to do often. I recently had to empty my mothers pantry after she died and i was shocked to find lots of products that she had bought over and over again simply because she did not realise she had them. I also found lots of out of date items which had to be thrown away. What a waste of money.
Yeah…..
the worst is if you find expired products………..
Please tell everyone that just because something has “expired” doesn’t mean it has to be thrown away, especially if it is within the last year (speaking of canned goods, etc.) They put arbitrary dates on packages. Often, nothing is wrong with the product. Look carefully to see if cans are swollen: if so, throw them away. But if the expire date was last August and this is April, just open it and see if it is still good. It probably is! Cereals might be stale past the x-date, but give it the smell test. If it smells good, eat it! Yesterday I bought some fresh meat that had been marked for quick sale, and I paid 1/3 the price. I cooked it,and it was delicious. That’s the way to be frugal.
Be careful, yes, but use your head.