Frugal Living. Store Cupboards.

One of the main things that enable us to live here and live as frugally as we do is our store cupboard. It’s a huge part of what we do here. Yes we grow as much as possible and freeze it, pickle it, dry it, make every kind of preserve I can think of. But there are many things we just cant grow and don’t want to live without. Yes I know its probably possible to manage without things like loo rolls, shampoo, and the basic dry goods type of staples… and although we want to live frugally and healthily, I also feel there is a quality of life issue if you start wiping your bum on leaves …

Not that I’m against other people doing that if they so choose… its just not for me until something dreadful happens to the world and then loo paper will be the least of my worries…

So until then I buy it… and store it, our main problems happen during winter and early spring when the rental lettings are few and far between. Which means we don’t have an income… So during summer and when/if we get any money in, I tend to take a little here and there and stock up on basics.

I have a winter stores list, and it covers things like loo paper, flour, rice, pasta, oats, butter (which I freeze) baking soda, Bi carb, washing up liquid, and coffee… all the day to day stuff that makes life and cooking easier… Yes its stuff we could manage without, but mealtimes would be extremely boring at times.

I like to go into winter with at least 3 months supplies… more if possible, so when you add all this to our stored and preserved veggies we could look after ourselves for months without grocery shopping.

I don’t go spending a fortune though, I tend to spend just an extra 5 euros each time I shop, or choose an item from my stores list and just get that… like 4 jars of cheapy Jam (Intermarche 89cents) or 10 bags of flour… (Intermarche 33 cents a kilo) That way, I can build up my stores without missing the cash…

If I see an offer on meat, I tend to buy a couple of kilos here and there, we don’t eat lots of meat so a kilo will do us lots of meals…

Belly Pork is cheap and tasty and very versatile and under 2 euros a kilo, and you get a lot of meat for a kilo…

Liver is about the same, so is chicken. Our main problem is cheese, Rick doesn’t like much cheese apart from English cheese, I like most cheese of any kind…But its very expensive and doesn’t keep, freezing it just ruins the taste, so we generally have to manage without.

I’ve just bought a bag of cheap chorizo sausage, I happened to see at 2.69 for a kilo, there is 10 in there and although I don’t suppose they are the best Chorizo in the world, I use them in winter stews, so they don’t need to be fantastic…



I also use my store cupboard as a way of saving money for paying a bill. When we have a good stock in, it means I can not buy groceries for a couple of weeks without even noticing the loss… and that frees up any money we have to pay a bill…

Even before we came here I did a similar thing, each week when you grocery shop, spend an extra couple of pounds on buying duplicate items. If you do that over about 6-8 weeks, you should end up with extra weeks groceries in the cupboard. Then make sure you put aside the money you would have spent that week on food… save it, pay a bill with it, its like gaining a free week… you’ve not noticed the extra couple of pounds here n there, but it soon mounts up in your food cupboards…



I also every now and then have a use up week… I go through and look at what’s been in there a while, any opened packets, anything I’ve had too long, or got tons of… and get creative, if it means we eat a lot of Rice one week… or pasta sauce… then that’s what we do… I make up my mind not to buy anything and just use up all the ‘use up stuff’ that I have, and its easier if you menu plan too…

When you menu plan, it makes grocery shopping and cooking so much easier. You tend not to overspend or impulse buys if you’ve worked out the menus in advance. You have a specific list and stick to it. I just have to make sure I keep away from the crisps … they are my weakness… I can walk past the chocolate and sweets… but have to be dragged by the aisle with the crisps and nuts…