Much of this sounds like what I do already. A few years back I had 25 lbs of wheat and we never used it. Fortunately wheat is a long-term storage item and we've since used it up.
I had jars and boxes of grains and beans I never cooked with -- and finally composted the lot a couple of years ago. I kept some.
My pantry these days is nearly empty, mostly because of COVID. Rather than running out to the store to get
lasagna noodles say, I've been using up whatever I had: rotini or ? And I've been doing that since last March. I started buyjng produce in bulk last September, but we've used all that up, except the onions. My pantry and larder are near empty but I have no regrets. Being able to pull together dinner, or soup or stew from the freezer/pantry in the past few months has been very satisfying.
We're also getting ready for
retirement, and that has played in here too. I go through the pantry about every 3 months and do a cull. Eventually, I'll have it down to only what we use and
reuse and use.
Things I do, you might not? I have a box at the end of my cutting board, with the ends of the shelf-stable foods (beans, peas, etc.) that are too small for the pantry. I have a basket on a pullout. Both are "use this first" places. I don't mind feeding the
compost, but hate feeding it unnecessarily!