How to stock your homestead pantry on a budget! There are many great reasons you might want to have a well-organized homestead pantry! Including grocery shopping less often, saving money by not eating out, preserving produce from your garden, reducing food waste, and being prepared for an emergency.
But – how do you load your homestead pantry full of nutritious and wholesome goodies in the best (and most cost-effective) way possible?
The garden can be a powerful tool when stocking a pantry on a budget, but it’s certainly not the only way to manage your food frugally.
Here are some of our best tips for how to stock a pantry on a budget!
The Well-Stocked Homestead Pantry
A well-stocked pantry isn’t about having a lot of items. It’s about having the right combination of ingredients to make the foods you like.
So, what does a well-stocked homestead pantry look like – and how should you start?
A lot depends on dietary restrictions and personal taste, but you’ll want to account for all the food groups and incorporate a good variety of fresh and preserved ingredients.
I know my pantry has all the right things in it when I can go grocery shopping every three weeks to top up on fresh items like eggs and milk and any other essentials.
Growing Food to Fill Your Homestead Pantry
A garden is an excellent source of inexpensive (or arguably free) produce!
Your garden will feed you with fresh fruits and vegetables in the growing season, and preserving your surplus harvest for your pantry can save you money throughout the year.
If you don’t garden, stock up on produce when it’s in season (and cheap!) and preserve it.
Some of the best ways to preserve fresh produce are:
Learn Canning
Canning is my favorite preserving method because of the long shelf life (about a year) and the sheer variety of canning recipes!
It’s more than jam. Preserve fruit in syrup. Make your ketchup or salsas. Can carrots, beans, pickles, sauces, and chutneys.
It is even possible to can meats and broths. Although, these foods are best when pressure canned to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.
Purchase a Dehydrator
A dehydrator is another tremendously versatile tool. Apple chips, fruit leathers, dried herbs, dried vegetables, dried beans, and jerky! A dehydrator handles all of these delicious goodies – and more!
In the fall, when I’m in harvest mode, my dehydrator runs continuously. The dehydrator is such an easy way to preserve food. All you need to do is prep your ingredients and load them into the machine.
Dehydrating food in your homestead pantry is much easier than you think.
You can snag a premium food dehydrator and begin experimenting! Try dehydrating fruit, jerky, herbs, beef, dog treats – and more.
Maximize Your Freezer Space
If you’re serious about stocking up, I would recommend buying a second freezer. Chest freezers are inexpensive and use little electricity.
You can freeze produce, racks of ribs, steaks, turkeys, boxes of burgers, ducks, or anything you want in your freezer. Perfect if you don’t have time for more labor-intensive preservation methods like canning.
(I recommend a chest freezer of at least 7 – 8 cubic feet so you can store at least a few turkeys, chickens, and racks of ribs. If you get a freezer smaller than a few cubic feet – you may get disappointed with how little volume you have to store food!)
I remember the days when you had to shop at hardware stores to find a freezer. These days – you can buy decently-sized chest freezers on Amazon for very inexpensive – plus many of them offer free shipping. Win/win!
Plus, if you like to fish or hunt, a freezer in your garage or basement is the perfect place to store your catch.
Read More – 30+ Edible Plants You Grow in Tiny 5 Gallon Buckets!
Participate In Pantry Exchange
Fellow gardeners, if you’ve ever had a fruit tree in its prime, you know what it feels like to be completely inundated by fruit. In my case, it’s an apple tree, and I’ve tried it all: apple sauce, apple butter, apple cake, apple chutney, apple pie, apple crisp, apple chips – the list goes on!
Get a bit more variety by organizing a pantry party with a few friends who have a surplus of a different crop. For example, I might swap jars of apple sauce for strawberry jam or homemade salsa or granola. By the end, everyone should have a little bit of everything — and it’s all homemade!
Buying Food to Stock Your Homestead Pantry
We all need to go to the grocery store sometimes! But, what we don’t all need is to arrive at the grocery store without a plan and spend more than we wanted on the wrong foods.
So, here are some tips for stocking your pantry on a budget:
- Make a list before you go! Making a list helps you avoid distractions. It also minimizes the chance of you forgetting something and having to go back.
- Choose foods that you like to eat, not just the foods you think you should eat. You’ll be less inclined to order out if you have food that you love, and you’ll also be less prone to waste foods you love.
- Focus on whole foods. Whole foods are versatile, and they tend to be cheaper than processed foods.
- Buy ingredients that are on sale at the grocery store and channel your inner Iron Chef! Sourcing inexpensive ingredients can also be a fun way to discover new recipes, try different foods, and get creative in the kitchen.
- Always check your dates when buying in bulk. Did you know coffee beans expire? I learned that the hard way! Expired coffee has a seriously funky flavor, my friends.
- Minimize food waste by prioritizing foods with a long shelf life. Dried beans and grains are great choices. Bean lovers, I would highly recommend investing in a pressure cooker. Dried beans are significantly cheaper than canned beans, and it takes less than an hour to make beans when they’re under pressure.
You can stock up on essential homestead pantry stuffers on Amazon – or you can make a visit to your favorite Trader Joe’s or Aldi and load up!
Homestead Pantry Essentials:
- Dried beans
- Dried pasta
- Canned meats
- Canned veggies
- Canned fruit
- Sugar
- Flour
- Tomato sauce
- Olive oil
- Bottled gummy vitamins
- MREs – meals ready to eat!
Also – think about water!
How long can your homestead last without water?
Stock your pantry with a few gallons of water. At least! And, also consider a portable water filtration or purification system.
You never know!
Pantry Challenges
Introduce the idea of grocery shopping less often with a pantry challenge! A designated amount of time (perhaps a month) when you attempt to live off the food you already have.
Pantry challenges are a fun way to clean out the cupboard, save money, and get a sense of how much food you are eating over a month.
Before you start a pantry challenge, you need to take a careful assessment of the ingredients you have, purchase a few vital essentials, and then dive into your month of “shopping at home.”
If you feel stuck, apps like SuperCook recommend thousands of recipes based on the ingredients you already have in your fridge.
Read More – How to Store Meat Without Electricity!
Budget-Friendly Tips for the Pantry
Are you building a homestead pantry without a big budget? Follow these tips so you can stock up without breaking the bank.
Experiment With Different Forms
Many foods come in various forms, some of which will last much longer than the form you use.
Celery is a good example. Soup recipes usually call for fresh celery, but you can swap celery seed and celery powder for a satisfying substitute, and they have a much longer shelf life.
Make Your Own
Some foods are best homemade! Bread is one of the most inexpensive foods to make, but a good loaf of bread costs close to $5 at the store. At home, it costs around 75 cents to make a loaf of bread.
I like to make a few loaves at a time and then freeze the presliced loaves. We break off pieces of bread as we need them. The toaster can defrost slices in about a minute!
What other foods could you be making yourself? Salad dressings? Tomato sauces? Jams? Soup stock?
When you make it at home, you also have more control over the quality of ingredients used. So you control the quantities of fat, salt, and sugar in your meals. It’s also a great method for stocking a pantry on a budget!
Substitute Ingredients
Your homestead pantry should have oodles of supplies so you can easily substitute in a pinch!
If you understand the purpose of an ingredient in a recipe, you can make substitutions or even skip ingredients altogether.
For example, eggs are often used in muffin recipes as a binding agent to prevent crumbling. However, a shredded apple also works as a binding agent, and it’s a genius addition to muffin batter because the sweetness of the apple also allows you to reduce the sugar.
In this case, a little knowledge of food chemistry can be remarkably liberating.
Homestead Pantry Core Essentials!
The next time you stock your homestead pantry – remember the core essentials for homestead pantries!
Homestead Pantry Core Essentials:
- Keep plenty of ingredients!
- Know your substitutes!
- Keep a variety of food groups! (Grains, fruits, veggies, meats.)
- Don’t forget the dehydrator!
- Barter and swap with friends!
- Add a few gallons of water – just in case!
- Rotate your stock – don’t let it spoil!
Pantry planning isn’t easy. It takes time to develop an accurate feel for how much food your family eats in a given time, but a well-stocked pantry is something to be proud of – time to celebrate! It’s super useful to learn how to stock a pantry on a budget!
You’ve established a great way to save money, minimize wasted food, and be prepared for anything.
Hopefully – this homestead pantry guide makes planning easier.
If you have questions or homestead pantry stocking tips – please share them in the comments below.
Thanks again for reading!
Suzanne Harris
Wednesday 1st of September 2021
Excellent full article and so helpful to stock up my pantry. Love the ideas of swapping with friends or neighbors , true community in action. Just convincing others it is time for prepping action.
Elle
Wednesday 1st of September 2021
Thanks Suzanne!