How to Stretch Your Groceries

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Using what you have even when you want an easy way is a good way to save money, stretch your groceries, and practice delayed gratification. Learn how to stretch your groceries and you’ll level up your kitchen skills.

flatlay of groceries and canned goods on table.

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All of us have been there at one time or another, staring into the pantry, fridge, or freezer and thinking, “There’s nothing to eat in this house.”

While this truly may be the case for some families, for many of us, this is a gross exaggeration. “Nothing to eat” often translates to:

  • nothing I want to eat

  • nothing I want to prepare

  • nothing I want to battle my kids over

Hopefully, there really is something to eat. We just need to suck it up and get cooking. Sometimes that takes an attitude shift. Other times we just need a little inspiration.

I’d like to think that Good CheapEats provides that both of those things.

pink crepes on plates with an espresso cup nearby, hand holding a pink crepe.

Cooking at home is valuable, but it’s more than just food. It’s connection. It’s parenting. It’s a way to achieve better days and good health.

But, it also has a practical dollar-and-cents side to it as well. How to make the most of the food we have and stretch our purchases to make ends meet?

Here are some things that have helped me over the years:

A Pantry Challenge

Once or twice a year I take a few weeks or even a full month to do a pantry challenge, to reduce my grocery shopping and focus on using what we already have. I shop less and cook more.

Typically this takes a significant time investment and some good home cooking, but it also usually results in some money savings and better stewardship of the things we have.

I even create these wonderful concoctions that we actually want to eat again! Necessity really is the mother of invention.

I do a periodic “pantry challenge” for a number of reasons:

  1. I save money.

  2. I use up things I forgot I had — and learn whether or not I want to buy them again.

  3. I am reminded to count my blessings.

  4. It informs my future shopping to be truly what we want to eat.

Using what you have or shopping your kitchen is a great way to save money, avoid waste, and even save time, at least in the long run, since you won’t be running to the store, waiting in line, carting it all home, etc.

stack of three cans of pumpkin with a black background.

Making Do on a Regular Basis

Another way to avoid overspending on food is to “make do” on a regular basis. Home cooks have been doing this for centuries, but for some reason, in our modern era, we think we need to run to the store when we’re out of one ingredient.

Why not make do? Cook it from scratch. Use a substitution. Make a pantry staple yourself?

What if we ran out of power and had to live off what was already in the house? What if we experienced an unexpected job loss and needed to truly “make do” for a season?

What if some kind of emergency limited our ability to add to our food stores and we had to make the most of what we had?

After several years of doing “a pantry challenge,” I’m convinced that we could make a go of it for several weeks if we had to.

Would it be all the foods we loved? No, obviously not. But, it would be nourishment, and for the most part, it would be tasty.

Doing this on a regular basis is in a way “emergency preparedness”. It keeps my chops sharp and my spending low.

Take an inventory of your cupboards. What do you have? Make a list and see how many meals you could create with what you already have on an average day.

I read a statistic once that said the average US household has the makings of at least three weeks’ worth of meals. How far can you stretch your food storage?

eating a packed lunch in the car.

Make the Most of What You Have.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a doomsdayer and I don’t imagine that any awful thing is coming our way.

I do think spending a few minutes thinking about these things is good. Times are tough, and budgets are slimmer than they once were.

Years ago we hit rock bottom. We got a wake-up call when my husband was suddenly out of work for an extended period of time. All at once we realized that we couldn’t continue on the ferris wheel of revolving credit. So we sucked it up and made the most of what we had.

Speaking from experience, I do know what it’s like for the cupboard to get empty. It’s a humbling feeling.

God graciously used that season to teach us many valuable lessons. One was to learn how to make the most of a little.

And that has helped us to think through how to be prepared for emergencies: natural, political, or financial.

stack of pancakes on a plate with berries, butter, and syrup.

5 Ways to Stretch Your Groceries

Here are some techniques we’ve used to put good food on the table when it didn’t really seem like we had very much to begin with:

1. Make breakfast for supper.

You don’t need pancake mix or frozen waffles in order to prepare a great “breakfast” meal. In fact, making pancakes from scratch is almost as easy as shaking out a boxed mix.

This is my go-to recipe for homemade pancakes. It’s simple and filling and can be doctored up in a number of ways. It’s also usually cheaper than a prepackaged mix. If you really miss the convenience, make your own mixes.

This Eggless Pancake recipe will come in clutch on those nights you run out of eggs or when there’s a nationwide shortage and the price of eggs is sky high. Ahem.

Overall, breakfast for supper is super easy to prep and makes good use of pantry staples.

2. Have a weekly soup (or salad) night.

Making good soup is not rocket science. You can pretty much pull one together with very little work. If you’ve got veggies, broth, spices, and a starch like potatoes or rice, you’ve got the makings of a great soup. Serve it with crackers or bread for a hearty, cold-weather meal.

Thursday Night Soup is great for beginners — and you’ll quickly see that making soup from leftovers is as easy as can be.

Obviously, in warmer weather soup might not be what you’re craving. That’s when cold salads come in clutch.

holding a salad plate while watching the tv.

3. Go meatless.

We have had at least one to two meatless meals every night for years. It wasn’t because we had lofty social or health ideals, we just knew that meat was a more expensive component of a meal.

So, Beans and Rice and Pasta and Red Sauce are two of my go-to meals, even today, when the pickings aren’t as slim as they once were. They come together fast and easily — and my kids gobble them down.

I love Cauliflower Fried Rice for how easy it is to keep the ingredients on hand.

4. Bake it yourself.

Unless you have a great source of clearance breads, chances are storebought bread is taking a big bite out of your budget. I just saw that bread is $6 a loaf! Holy cow!

Flour, yeast, salt, and water are really all you need to bake a good baguette. Sugar and eggs add richness. Either way, these are ingredients that the average kitchen will have already.

Make your own cookies, cakes, muffins, and breads. And it doesn’t take much to make them beautiful.

5. Be satisfied without X, Y, or Z.

Years ago I would make a special trip to the store for one ingredient, spending time, money, and gas. Nowadays, I usually go without it. We’ve learned that we can live without a myriad of costly ingredients — and still be satisfied come meal time.

No matter the reason for “making do,” attitude matters. If you feel like you’re lacking, then you certainly are.

The power outage, gas leak, natural disaster, financial downturn — these all can be bad deals. And they are. But people throughout history who’ve faced adversity and triumphed had one thing in common — a desire to fight and overcome hardship.

Learning how to stretch your groceries is one way to do that. What are you doing to make do at your house?

More Good Ideas for Meal Planning

What do you think?

I’d be honored if you chimed in the comments section. What do you think?

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One Comment

  1. We did the pantry challenge with you for the first time for two weeks in January and it was so helpful! Not only did it help us save money and catch back up after a couple of unexpected expenses but like you said, the biggest benefit to my family and I was the mindset shift! We realized we COULD make do without some of our regular favorites and we had plenty of food – we never went hungry! Now I wait longer before going to the grocery store and make do until then and it is still saving us money even though the pantry challenge is over. Thanks so very much!