How I'm Rebuilding My Bulk Pantry (step by step) - BLOG

I originally wrote this article in April and I'm finally getting around to publishing it. I'm about to place 5th Azure order and it indeed has already made a huge difference in our budget (see the bottom of the article)! 

Over the years, I've developed quite a system for storing and cooking out of a bulk pantry. I routinely buy 25-50lb bags of dried goods and cook almost everything from scratch. Now, 10+ years into this journey, I take for granted how easy this system is to maintain. But when I first started out, it was anything but.

I remember googling "How to store 25lbs of spelt" and getting lost in debates about using oxygen absorbers or storing everything in mylar bags inside 5-gallon buckets. Man, I even remember a good 17 years ago when I got my first bag of dried beans and felt really intimidated about how to cook it since I'd only ever bought canned beans.

At the height of my bulk pantry, I had a good 17-20 5-gallon buckets that stored everything from various kinds of grains, to multiple types of rice, lentils, beans, pasta, and so much more. I was working my way to a 3-month steady supply of everything, hoping to eventually get that to a 6-month supply (while actively eating out of that pantry). This working pantry is just practical and the everyday foods we actually eat. There's another segment of people who are preppers who are just stockpiling a doomsday pantry, but it's pretty useless if you don't actually eat that food or know what to do with it!

It's never a bad thing to be prepared. With a bulk pantry, you can so much more easily weather financial storms or actual storms. We all realized through 2020 that our food system is not nearly as stable as we might have imagined. But even more than that, a bulk pantry just makes sense. It is by far the cheapest way to run your kitchen, will save you oodles on your grocery budget, and is such a healthy, non-processed way to run your kitchen. Plus, once you get your bulk pantry set up and you get beyond those initial questions, it's the easiest way to run your kitchen! No more running to the store because you forgot an ingredient. You can whip up tortillas, or make a batch of beans, or throw together a Mexican feast with everything you have on hand! It's incredibly simplifying (and satisfying).

But why I'm writing here today is to give you a peek at how to start a bulk pantry like this for the first time. It can feel overwhelming to get started, and it can feel like it costs too much money to do. You look at these bags of grain for $35 and calculate that times 20 bags and think "I can't fit that in my grocery budget!" but the entire goal is to slowly replace grocery money you would normally spend on smaller items, like 2-3 cans of beans or a single loaf of bread. Your bulk pantry can start out quite modest, but with time, it snowballs into something significant!

I am restarting my bulk pantry, almost from zero. I do have all my 5-gallon buckets and glass jars, thankfully, but I am taking these steps myself to rebuild my bulk pantry food. I am hoping that in about 6 months, my bulk pantry will once again be rock solid!

At the height of my bulk pantry, all I had to do was look at my pantry each month and place my bulk food order with Azure Standard. Because my pantry was so stocked, I wasn't ordering little amounts of every item our family would eat that month; I was able to just buy a large 25-50lb bags of the items I needed to stock up on. At that point, I was spending about 60-80% of our grocery budget on bulk foods and our quality of food had risen so dramatically. Plus my pantry was amazing!

However, we were called to clean out our little house, downsize everything into a storage unit and leave Oklahoma behind for a move to North Carolina. It was not a move we had expected, but we are so thankful for where God has led us. But it meant a move into an RV for a year and a half while we relocated and figured out where we would land. Now, here we are, finally settled in our new house and ready to rebuild!

But when I look at my meager grocery budget and the goal of wanting to rebuild my bulk pantry (right now!!), I'm left with the same feelings that my readers have said to me "But it just costs to much to get started and I feel like I can only do a little bit!" And that's true! Because I don't have anything extra to aid this rebuilding (If I had an extra $300-1000 that I could throw into getting started, this could go a lot faster), I am just going to do it slow and steady. I've decided to pull $100 a month from my grocery budget for this purpose. I figure I can save just $25 a week from my normal grocery shopping to divert to this cause. And the goal is that, with each passing month, this will free up more money to put towards the bulk purchases since it really does save a lot of money in the long run!

The beauty of a bulk pantry is that once you get going, the snowball effect does indeed take over. Before you know it, you will have a fully stocked pantry and all you'll have to do is restock it from there. We are a family of 10, with 8 of those being boys. So we go through a lot more food too than the average family. When we were a smaller family, it wasn't nearly as hard to stock up the bulk pantry. So the length of time you'll get out of each bag will likely be longer than ours!

Here's what I ordered in my March Azure order: 

• Raw honey, 12lbs - $37.46
• Spelt, 25lbs - $36.30
• Whole oat groats, 25lbs - $16.12 (We flake them into rolled oats)
• Seed potatoes for the garden - $15

Here's what I ordered in my April Azure Order: 

• Black beans, 25lbs - $33.96
• Sugar, 25lbs - $35.88
• Brown sugar, 5lbs - $11.46
• Azure dish soap - $6.90
• Popcorn, 25lbs - $30.70

A small but mighty order that will go a long way. For the next 2-3 months, here are some items I will consider getting next:

• Unbleached all-purpose flour - $26.35
• Pinto beans, 25lbs - $44.19
• Green lentils, 25lbs - $38.51
• Brown basmati rice, 25lbs - $32.53
• Maple syrup, 1 gallon - $62.41
• Coconut oil, 1 gallon - $26.08

I will also layer in smaller items as well that are 1-10lbs usually like: yeast, baking powder, salt, millet, cocoa powder, pearled barley, spices, and items from Azure's cleaning line. I am excited to document this process this year. I am getting my second Azure order this week and already the snowball effect is starting to make a difference. I predict that over the next 3-4 months, it's going to make a significant impact on my grocery budget and buying trends!