The $20/$20 Challenge: Krista From Washington Shows Off Her Stockpile

I’m so impressed with our $20/$20 Challenge entry this week because Krista stocks her pantry without having a car! They try to walk when they go grocery shopping for the exercise and because it’s cost effective. Sound like anyone you know? 😉 Here’s her story:

Hi Mavis! I’m Krista from Washington {the same one that passed on the Rhubarb Cinnamon Jam recipe a couple years ago}. I’m super excited to submit the photos of my pantry and food storage and think the $20/$20 challenge is such a cool thing to do! Thank you.

I’m a mom to two older teenage boys who are fairly picky eaters and a wife to a husband who appreciates pretty much anything I cook. I cook dinner 6-7 nights a week mostly from scratch, but do stock up on easy side dishes and quick meals to have on hand for the kids to make or for days when I don’t feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I also bake desserts & breads and can jelly/jams.

Since our sole vehicle finally died and went to car heaven back in October, getting groceries has been interesting. I’m thankful for the stockpile we have been able to rely upon from my couponing days, but also super thankful for grocery delivery through Safeway as well as mail order meat. Although we’re not able to do as much stocking up without a personal vehicle, my husband and I make use of backpacks as well as a wheeled cart for making grocery runs when the weather cooperates. Exercise + grocery shopping = win!

We have a very small yard that I tried to garden in for a couple years, however between the squirrels and moles, it’s just a never ending battle. One year we even built a cage around a square foot garden, but forgot to put hardware cloth under the soil, so while the squirrels couldn’t get in, it was basically a personal salad bar for the moles. Any tips on keeping the critters out would be much appreciated! I really miss gardening and never had a problem keeping animals out when I lived in the country.

Our house is on the small side so we store our food in several places. The main area of course is the kitchen and we keep the rest in the garage. One of my favorite tips is to keep updated inventory lists taped to the inside of the cabinet doors so you know what’s in there. I keep a big master garage pantry/freezer list on a clipboard in the garage as well. This makes keeping track of things so much easier.

We are big tea drinkers so we have a huge corner cabinet devoted to that. There is a lazy Susan in there that helps to keep it semi-organized. We also love coffee have a cabinet devoted to all things coffee as well.

Our deep freeze in the garage is awesome and annoying at the same time. It doesn’t have the cool dividers like your freezer, so we mostly use cloth grocery bags to keep items sorted and that works ok, but there is still a lot of lifting things out of the way to find what you’re looking for. We like to keep it mostly full with meats, butter, and vegetables. It’s also the place where we keep ice cream and quick frozen meals.

Extra packaged side dish items like stuffing mix, instant potatoes, dried beans, rice, etc are stored in totes in the garage. I do bake a lot, so I buy several bags of flour at a time as well as sugar and those also get stored in the totes. We have one junk tote where candy, hot chocolate, and chips go.

Our landlord put our old kitchen cabinets out in the garage, so we took the doors off and use them for more food storage. Here we have cereal, cooking soups and broths, salsa, canned refried beans, and some misc household items like laundry stuff and kitchen wraps/foil.

We have a couple of shelving units that hold more soups, condiments, coffee, and lots of sparkling water. We also store large packages of paper items and bulky kitchen appliances out there.

Thanks so much for the opportunity to participate in this challenge! I’m having a lot of fun learning ways of storing things and seeing what other people stock.

~Krista

Are you getting your pantries camera ready? You can participate in the $20/$20 Challenge by simply sending in pictures of your pantry. Find out more about the $20/$20 Challenge: Show Your Pantry – Fill a Pantry!