Things in Your Pantry that Cost You Moneyby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 28 Jan 2009 10:26 AM
Take a few minutes out of your day to look over your pantry. If you spot the following items, get rid of them quickly, before they cost you more money. Items that require expensive purchases Get rid of food that needs other expensive items or ingredients. Can everything in your pantry be turned into a meal with inexpensive ingredients? Or do they need to be paired with other gourmet foodstuff or fancy gadgets that you need to purchase? Some examples are if you have a bread machine mix but no bread machine, or a pasta mix but no pasta machine, or a prepared meal that requires expensive exotic mushrooms. Flour moths Flour moths start out as little wormy things that get into your flour, oats, cornmeal and even seeds. You can tell they have been there either by spotting the worms themselves or finding that there is web like material in your food. The larvae turn into flying moths that then lay more eggs. If you have an infestation, it is important to get rid of anything that might be infected because it isn't edible. They can wipe out your pantry stores. The more food, the more flour moths. To prevent it from happening again, free any grains or seeds for 24 hours when you first bring them home and keep everything in air tight containers. Expired food Food that has expired or soon will expire is money in the garbage. Take a look at what you have and make an effort to use it up before the end sates. Rotate the stuff in your pantry and don't purchase anything that you don't regularly use. You may need to get a little creative, but think of almost expired food as free meals that you might other wise have tossed. Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right. Favorite Deal Websites: Related Articles: Getting Creative with Almost-Expired Food Pantry Challenge: What You Can Do with A Box of Potatoes Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments  thequeenofthecastle (413) 29 Jan 2009 12:42 PMWe use to have a rental house where we used a little add on laundry room as our pantry. Because it was an add on it was not well insulated or sealed and the warmth made it an appealing spot for vermin. We got these moths and they destroyed about half of our food and they were so hard to get rid of. We kept thinking we had gotten them all and they would show up again. So, moral of the story, stay on top of it and if you think it might have them, just ditch it. Ugh. Thanks for the advice Mary Ann, great as always.  Mary Ann Romans (26876) 29 Jan 2009 01:19 PMDid you know that one of those myth busting shows proved that they survived levels of radiation that would kill a human a thousand times over? They even survived the cockroach. Ugh. AuntJamelle (125) 08 Apr 2009 10:40 AMI keep my bags of flour, cornmeal, sugar, etc. in the freezer if they are not currently emptied into my airtight cannisters. That is something I've done for years and I have never had any "bug" trouble. Thank goodness! Community Tags frugal food, frugal living, pantry, stockpiling Discuss this article
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