Saving and Stockpiling

It has long been my method of grocery shopping to shop the sales to stock my pantry, fridge and freezer. (Rather like this post about the Buy Ahead Principle.) So when I am planning my menu I try to make it almost exclusively with what I have on hand, then with what I can get on sale. In a perfect world my grocery money is devoted to buying fresh stuff and sales. This means that my shopping cart can look kind of funny...like the time I had the flu and my husband and oldest daughter went shopping and bought 15 boxes of pasta and 10 jars of pasta sauce! But I am okay with that.

I recently discovered the Prudent Homemaker, and she takes preparing, planning and stocking her pantry to a whole new level! While I don't have the room for that kind of stockpiled pantry in my little California house, she certainly gave me some excellent ideas and re-energized me to get back to it!

She also recently wrote an excellent guest post on "What Are The Gaps in Your Stockpile" which is also very interesting and challenging.

These two pages really got me thinking about just getting to the next sale to really thinking about how I can build a stockpile and really use it to cut our grocery bill, and be better prepared for life's unexpected surprises, rather then just using it to make life a bit easier.

What tricks to you use for saving on your grocery bill? Have you discovered any new must-read posts about this? I would love to hear your thoughts as we are always learning!