Save money on pantry staples with a permanent marker

My mom is moving, and she has sent some of her pantry to my house. She's a bit of a food hoarder, with an even larger pantry than I have. I have instructions to shop her pantry before buying myself groceries.

I'm reminded of one of my biggest money saving hacks for keeping a large pantry.

A permanent marker!

I'm putting it away, and it is a reminder to me why I try to mark everything that goes into my pantry with its best before year.

Pasta that expired in 2020, and 2022.

Peanut butter that expired in 2025.

Etc. ...

Has she eaten these things, since ? Yes, lots! Thats why she has so many of them! She goes through a ton of peanut butter and pasta.

But things get pushed to the back, ignored,  and missed, and keeping a scrupulous first in first out system is challenging.

Neither of us are very choosy about past dated things, but I am tossing some expensive gluten free pasta and a few other odds and ends. Also annoying are things that we could have donated to a food bank since neither of us will ever eat them, but they're past dated.

I loathe food waste, and it sort of ruins the point of keeping a deep pantry to save money.

As I sort,  i write, in big permanent marker, "26" or "28"  or whatever the last 2 digits of the year are. I typically write on the top of cans, and the side of boxes.  When I rummage in my cupboards, looking for dinner, I tend to pull out things that are close or past dated, and use them begore they reach that stage where i no longer trust them or they don't taste as good as they once did.

Anyways - back to sorting and musing. Trying to figure out what I can make with past dated lemon juice, herring, pasta, coconut milk, and canned cherries.... !

Maybe put the past-dated stuff out, where they'll annoy you into finding uses for them? Some things can safely be shared with the local wildlife, or subbed-in for pet & livestock food.

That's exactly what I do - past dated stuff normally gets sat on my counter until I use it.  Past dated rice, for example, is destined for my homemade dog food.

Right now I am sorting.

"REALLY past dated - garbage"
"past dated  - use soon - keep in kitchen"
"Close dated -  sit on my basement pantry shelves, and
"far dated - store in box"

Honestly, its unlike my mom to have this much out of date. Usually I recall her sorting her whole pantry once a year or so.

Maybe some of the way past stuff can go to compost, or even directly into the garden? Sometimes life just gets away from us all...

There's not a ton to trash - pasta will be composed, and a couple cans of weird things like mango chutney and creamed coconut that are 4 years past date.

But lots in the "eat me soon" pile.

Musing about this as I sort - i think the change was when I moved out and she started having a lot of trades people working in her basement joking about "where they'll go when there's an apocalypse ".

She switched to keeping stuff in opaque totes instead of on open shelves in her basement. Way harder to keep things rotated so that the oldest items get eaten, and to know what you have to avoid overbuying. Previously we kept more of a "grocery store" style organization system, with shelves.

Probably a good reminder that I keep meaning to bujld shelves and start storing things in what was likely once the pantry instead of on open shelves in my utility room.

So far lessons learned : mark things with their dates, if buying close dated food, have a plan to use it soon, and avoid storing large amounts of food in plastic totes. Also avoid storing food in too many locations (like the pasta, which was stored in her kitchen, in her laundry room, and in the basement).

Catie, please, before you toss "outdated" stuff contact your local food bank. They have specific and legally valid protocols for determining if stuff that is past "best before" is still safe for human consumption.

It would be a shame to compost something that a hungry neighbour could safely eat. My 2c.

That said, I can imagine that cleaning out someone's pantry is a bit overwhelming and you have to choose your battles.