How I keep my pantry and fridge stocked (as a two-person household)

I have a general question I thought you or a reader could help me with. Since you eat most of your meals at home and always have, how did keep your pantry and frig stocked? I am forever short what I would need and going to the store several times each week won’t work for me. Do you have any guidance on that subject?

-Maryanne

I’m guessing this is one of those questions that will have a different answer depending on who you ask. So, it’s a perfect one to do an Ask The Readers post on!

my current pantry

Even if I was the only source you asked, my answer to this question would have been different at earlier stages of my life than it is now. Life is in a perpetual state of flux, and things like my pantry/shopping routines have needed to adjust.

For instance, in 2020, when I was feeding five people three meals a day during the height of Covid, I managed differently than I do now, with a household of two college students.

my “pantry” at my last house, which was just some shelves in the laundry room

I’ll tell you about my current routines, and then I’ll ask readers to share theirs. That way you’ll get a nice sampling of the ways we all tackle this challenge!

For anyone just joining, I’m a single (divorced) full-time nursing school student with a part-time job at the hospital, and I’m feeding myself + my 18-year-old daughter (also a college student with a part-time job).

I fly by the seat of my pants a lot more than I did when I fed a bigger household, but even so, I do have some pantry routines that help me.

Produce

I get a Hungry Harvest box delivered every other week, largely because it encourages me to eat more produce. If my fridge is stocked with produce, I will usually eat most of it.

In addition to the Hungry Harvest box, I buy pretty much the same produce each week: grape tomatoes, cucumbers, bananas, berries, apples, and oranges.

Dairy/Eggs

This is another area where things don’t vary much. I keep cottage cheese, eggs, a variety or two of cheese, and a gallon of milk on hand.

I usually have some jars of homemade yogurt in my fridge as well.

Oh, and half and half for my coffee.

I buy extra butter and keep it in my chest freezer so that we always have it on hand.

Breads

I keep 100% whole wheat sandwich bread and Dave’s Killer Bread around all the time; I buy them in double packs at Sam’s Club and keep the extras in the freezer.

I also usually have some bagels here for Zoe; I buy a package, freeze some of them, and keep the others out on the counter for her.

I buy tortillas, but I usually store those in the freezer since we don’t eat them super regularly.

Canned/Dry Goods

I keep some basics around, like a big bag of rice, canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned tuna, pancake syrup, peanut butter, honey, tea, oatmeal, coffee, sugar, and flour, and I just add these things to my shopping list when I use them up.

The same goes for items like spices or condiments (BBQ sauce, mustard).

I also keep a box of Rx bars here and some other high-protein granola bars, plus seedy flatbread crisps from Trader Joe’s, and a box of Aldi’s version of Triscuits.

I keep some convenience foods on hand that Zoe likes too, such as some canned soup, ramen, and boxed mac and cheese.

Meat

I usually keep some meats in my chest freezer (a bag of shrimp, a few packages of chicken, some ground beef) so that I have some basics available for building a meal.

Miscellaneous

When I make a grocery list, I include the pantry items that I need to restock, plus the perishable foods I need. To help me keep track of what staples I need to replace, I keep a simple list on the side of my fridge and I write things down there when they occur to me.

You can obviously use any list you like (a piece of scrap paper works!), but if you want to print one like mine, here’s a printable PDF version of the one I made.

All I need to add to my weekly grocery list are any extras that a particular meal that week might need, like a special sauce/spice/type of produce.

And even if I don’t do any planning, since I have some pretty good basics in my fridge/freezer/pantry I can usually pull together a decent breakfast, lunch, or dinner meal.

Concluding Thoughts

At this stage of my life, some keys are:

keeping plenty of versatile staples around
mostly buying foods that have a long shelf-life/fridge-life (romaine lettuce vs. spinach, for example)
using my chest freezer

(Scroll to the end of this post for some of my thoughts on the value of a chest freezer even for a small household.)

Also, being flexible really helps. I usually have a somewhat loose plan for a few days at a time, but I modify that all the time based on what needs to be used up in the fridge, what leftovers we have, or what changes with Zoe’s schedule.

I am particularly flexible when I’m feeding just myself; I take a quick inventory of the food I have on hand and figure out what I can throw together that will use up the most things possible.

Which is how I ended up eating sweet potatoes like this last week!

Or how I ended up making this one-person pasta dish.

I think the official name for use-what-you’ve-got approach is Reverse Meal Planning, but whatever you call it, it’s a good skill to have in your frugal toolbox.

Maryanne, I hope I understood your question and that this was helpful. Send feedback if further clarification is needed!

Alrighty, guys! Help Maryanne out by sharing how you keep your kitchen stocked.

P.S. This guest post from Kristin (of Going Country) might help anyone who is trying to grocery shop less often. Kristin is a veritable expert on this, since she lives literally in the middle of nowhere. Check out her 10 tips!

P.P.S. 7 Reasons You’re Eating Out So Much

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

WilliamB

Monday 18th of November 2024

I think this is a great question. Here's my answer: Always Have a Spare.

In practice it works like this: 1) Know what I grab for. I can provide a list if anyone wants.

2) Keep at least 2 on hand - the one in use and the spare. When I finish the one in use, I open the spare and put the thing on the shopping list.

If I eat a lot of it, I keep more on hand, such as my boxed cereal and yogurt breakfast. Sometimes it means the spare stays in the pantry for a long time, such as the quart jar of mined garlic.

I save money by: 1) Buying a big container (20 lbs of rice, a gallon of soy sauce) then decanting a smaller amount for everyday use (rice into a 2qt jar, soy sauce into a little bottle).

2) Stocking up on animal proteins for the chest freezer when it's on sale. My usuals are chicken parts, shrimp, and ground meat. (Remember to keep a running list of freezer contents.)

3) Stocking up on spares when they're on sale. If I'm running short of pantry space, I focus on either what I eat a lot of (frex, the cereal) or what's most expensive. I don't stock a lot of things that rarely/never go on sale, such as rice.

Sarah

Family of 7; minimal take out. I order groceries from my local Kroger branded store or do Costco Instacart delivery or Whole Foods delivery. For me, keeping track of what we need and what corresponds to my menu plan for the week is so much easier when I can be in my kitchen whole shopping.

JNL

Much covered. And isn't it a relief not to be fending for a family of ever hungry teenagers any longer? My plan basically consists of having staples on hand and buying produce that is in season. Also I try to be flexible and replace ingrediens if needed (or too expensive or rarely used to make me want to buy). We shop at several places and I tend to get heavy stuff homedelivered and do a bycicle round to individual shops and the produce market where I fill up on favorites sold there. I never like to go to more than say four addresses on one round, so the visits to the baker and the greengrocer are more frequent than the one to the cheese and the nut stall, or the herb/spice stall. Our eggs are delivered to our doorstep by a boy who gets them straight from the farmer, to the envy of A.Marie I believe. They are very good and it is so convenient not to cycle with them!

We're also a two person household and do most of our cooking from scratch. My husband works outside the house whereas I work from home. During the week, I cook; on weekends, he cooks. I'm always shopping for our staples on sale and always keep a large amount of produce, both fresh and frozen. I love kale, so I'll often buy big bags on clearance and part them out for the freezer; I also freeze ginger and cheese.

We do a mix of meal planning and reverse meal planning. Example: I bought marked down Italian sausage and threw it in the deep freezer. I'll thaw it out this week and use half for spaghetti Tuesday and the other half for Zuppa Toscana Thursday. (We eat meatless every other day.) Today is pumpkin lentil soup to use up the last of the roast pumpkin from this weekend's Friendsgiving recipes, which I had planned and shopped for (and roasted the pumpkin!) ahead of time. Most dinners are planned to leave an extra serving for my husband's work lunch the following day, but I try to keep easy things like canned tuna on hand to throw together a quick tuna sandwich when there aren't leftovers.

MommaJo

DH and I have an agreement, if something is almost empty, put it on the shopping list which I keep on the fridge. I glued a magnet to a pen so its handy right next to the list. Every Saturday morning, before I go to the grocery store, I look at what's on sale, then I open the fridge and freezer, meal plan with what I have and what's on sale, and put anything I need on the list. About twice a year, I clear out anything expired and make a mental note not to buy THAT again, since I didn't use it. After company comes, they usually leave ingredients I don't normally use, so I either figure out a meal to use it, or I bring it (unopened) to work with a sticky note "company bought this, I don't want it, help yourself". What helps me the most is always knowing what I have. That took some organizing, and buying lazy susans help me to see all of my canned goods and spices. When I was young, I did have a little pre made shopping list that listed the basics, that helped me to get my head around grocery shopping for staples.