There has never been a better time to start building a pantry stockpile. With the rising cost of food and food insecurity, having an adequate pantry supply is an important thing to prioritize and organize. It can be daunting, especially on a fixed income, single incomes or anyone who is worried about the economy. However, you don’t need to deplete your savings to begin a stockpile. All it takes is a little planning ahead and buying a little extra when your budget allows.
A stockpile isn’t acquired overnight. To lessen the financial burden of your stockpile, I always suggest investigating your local grocery flyer and buy what is on sale, while remaining within your grocery budget. The idea is not to panic and overspend, rather to “stock up” on things that you regularly use that are on sale, so you don’t have to pay full price for them and you already have them on hand when you need them.
Another thing to take into consideration is fluctuating inventory and supply issues. If there are items that you normally buy but don’t always see them in stock, those would be good items to attempt to stock up on first so that you have them when you need them and don’t find yourself in a bind when you’re faced with an empty grocery store shelf.
The golden rule is to only stock items that you and your family will actually eat. There is no sense in buying food for your stockpile that will sit there to only eventually expire or be thrown away. At the beginning of the pandemic, I found myself getting wrapped up into some of the hype with panic buying and I purchased a couple of items that my family didn’t regularly eat. I decided that those items would be better donated to our local food bank, than go bad on my pantry shelf.
The next rule of thumb when stocking up on sale items would be to buy one for now and one for later. If you have a little more wiggle room in your grocery budget, then I would suggest buying a couple extra while staying within your budget. However, buying one for now and one for later is how you start stocking your shelves at the bare minimum. You will slowly begin to see that even buying just one extra item to add to your stockpile will help you slowly build it up. Personally, I have found with the supply chain issues lately, most sale items have a maximum limit that they will allow each customer to buy. When I see limits posted and it is an item that my family regularly consumes, I will almost always buy the limit posted, even if it means having to put back another item in my cart that I could wait to buy. Or I make note of what I am spending on my stocking up items that week, so that I know how much money I’ve “borrowed” from my next weeks grocery budget.
When building your stockpile, it’s of the utmost importance to keep certain pantry staples in mind and how to properly store them for longer term storage. There’s no point in buying 10 bags of sugar if you don’t have somewhere for it to keep properly. I have been noticing an increase in cost for most pantry staples at my local grocery store, such as flour, sugar, rice, cooking oils or sprays, spices, butter, meat. The scarcity of some of these items is also concerning. I am not telling you to go and clear the shelves in a panic. But with careful planning and your budget in mind, you should be able to slowly create a stockpile of these items so that you have them on hand when you need them, not when they are on for full or rising price.
