I found this Money saving tips from Sandra Lee from Food Network on their website. I’ll introduce some of them from time to time, and expand with my own optimization tips. Today’s tip is…

Sandra’s Tip: Buy staples in bulk to save money and stock your pantry smartly.

• Buying items in bulk such as a 5lb bag of onions will save you money. Buying a whole chicken and cutting it yourself will save you more than 50%. Buying meat in bulk is also a great way to save money; family packs of chicken or 3lb bags of ground meat.
• Keeping a few key items on hand like seasonings, baking mix, condiments and lean protein will ensure that a tasty meal is just a mixing spoon away.

Kitchen Wizard Tips

• Buy spices in bulk section and keep them in small jars (old spice jars or baby food jars.) Spices’ shelf life is short, only about a year, yet the average home cooks don’t go though one that fast, so we end up with a collection of old spices. Especially when you try something new or seasonal (Thanksgiving etc.), just buy a little bit.  Then you’ll be spending about 25 cents vs. $5, 99% unused.
• Buy rice, cereal, beans, flour, sugar, etc. in bulk section.  You don’t have to buy a large portion, and you’ll be saving a lot of money for their packaging as well as “Advertizing”.
• Another thing which is far cheaper in bulk section is dry yeast.
• If your family is small, you can still buy in bulk, as long as you freeze them in individual portions, so that you will have no waste.  (At a single person household, avoid buying bulk pack, it gets bad before you can go through one.)
• Buying whole onions and vegetables and cut them yourself saves a lot of money.  These pre-chopped onions, and veggies costs about 3 – 5 times more, and it doesn’t take that long. (For onion chopping tips, click here.)
• Don’t buy too much just because it’s cheap – there is an opportunity cost here – if you don’t like it, or spoil it, that money will go down the drain (just like spices.) Wouldn’t you rather keep that money in your pocket, would you?

On our next post, we’ll talk about stocking the pantry…  So stay tuned.

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Tagged as: beans, bulk, food network, grains, money, onion, rice, sandra lee, saving, spices, staples, tips, vegetables