Get Your Pantry Ready for Fall — 12 Things to Buy Now

Learn 12 essential pantry items to buy now before fall price hikes, with tips on storage and saving money all winter long.

Key Takeaways

Buying pantry staples in bulk before fall price hikes saves money.
Proper storage extends the shelf life of produce and dry goods.
Plain salt and white vinegar are versatile, inexpensive essentials.
Seasonal produce and seconds from orchards offer great value.
Planning pantry purchases around the store’s calendar maximizes savings.

What the video covers

Late August to September is the best time to stock your pantry before fall price increases.
Buy plain canning and pickling salt in big boxes, not iodized or small containers, for cost efficiency and long shelf life.
Purchase gallon jugs of white vinegar for multiple household uses including fall canning and cleaning.
Stock up on dried beans in bulk for economical and long-lasting protein options.
Buy old-fashioned rolled oats in large containers for affordable, versatile breakfast and baking ingredients.
Purchase large sacks of onions and potatoes now, storing them properly to last through winter.
Winter squash like butternut and acorn are abundant and affordable; choose ones with stems and no soft spots.
Buy orchard 'seconds' or utility grade apples for making sauces, butters, and dried fruit without paying premium prices.
Store pantry items properly in airtight containers to prevent pests like pantry moths.
Following these buying and storage tips can save money and ensure a well-stocked pantry for fall and winter cooking.

Chapters

Why should I buy pantry staples like salt and vinegar in bulk now?

Buying staples like plain salt and white vinegar in large quantities before fall helps you avoid higher prices during the winter and ensures you have essential ingredients for cooking, cleaning, and preserving.

How can I store onions and potatoes to last through winter?

Store onions and potatoes in a cool, dark, dry place with good air circulation, such as a basement corner or unheated closet, but not in the refrigerator, to keep them fresh for months.

What are orchard 'seconds' apples and why are they recommended?

Orchard 'seconds' are apples that may not look perfect but are still good for cooking and preserving. They are sold at a lower price and are ideal for making applesauce, apple butter, and dried fruit.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Come January, you're going to stand in your kitchen needing something: flour, an onion, a jar lid, and you're going to pay whatever the store is asking that day because it's January and you need it, and they know it. That's the whole game right there.

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right there. The store has a calendar and their calendar is not your calendar. Their calendar says, "Charge the most when people need it the most." Your calendar, if you're smart about it, says, "Buy it when it's cheap. Put it

Speaker A

The store has a calendar, and their calendar is not your calendar. Their calendar says, "Charge the most when people need it the most." Your calendar, if you're smart about it, says, "Buy it when it's cheap. Put it away and skip the whole conversation."

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stock to make room for the holiday markup. So, today I've got 12 things to buy now before fall prices land. And number one is the best clearance trick.

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Right now, late August into September is the single best stretch of the year to fill a pantry. Gardens are dumping produce, farm stands are heavy, and stores are about to clear out summer stock to make room for the holiday markup.

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Plain canning and pickling salt or a big box of regular salt. It's about as cheap as a grocery item gets and it never goes bad. Ever. Salt is thousands of years old and it's still fine. Here's why it's

Speaker A

So, today I've got 12 things to buy now before fall prices land. And number one is the best clearance trick. I know most people walk right past it every September. Let's start.

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big boxes now. Put one in the back of the cupboard and you're done with salt until spring. One note, get the plain stuff for canning and pickling, not iodized. The iodized kind can turn your pickle brine cloudy and dark. Doesn't

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Number 12, salt. Plain salt. Not the pink kind from a mountain somewhere that costs $9.

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gallon runs three or four dollars, and it keeps basically forever. The mistake people make is buying the little bottle in the salad dressing aisle. Same vinegar, twice the price per ounce, prettier label. Go find the gallon jug.

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Plain canning and pickling salt or a big box of regular salt. It's about as cheap as a grocery item gets and it never goes bad. Ever. Salt is thousands of years old and it's still fine. Here's why it's on a fall list.

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makes about six cups cooked. That's roughly four cans worth for the price of one can sometimes less. And right now, before soup season starts, and everybody remembers beans exist, is when you stock them. Get a few pounds each of whatever

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Everything you'll want to do this winter runs on salt: brining, pickling, curing, baking, keeping the ice off the back step. And the little canisters cost three and four times as much per pound as the big boxes. Buy two big boxes now.

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Beans that sit for a very long time take longer to cook and may never get truly soft. So, this isn't a bury it in the yard situation. Buy what you'll eat in a year or two and rotate. A pot of beans

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Put one in the back of the cupboard and you're done with salt until spring. One note, get the plain stuff for canning and pickling, not iodized. The iodized kind can turn your pickle brine cloudy and dark. Doesn't hurt anything, just looks like something went wrong.

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goes in cookies, in meatloaf, in bread. Per bowl, oatmeal costs pennies. The little flavored packets, same oats, a spoonful of sugar, and about six times the price. They're charging you for the envelope. Buy the big containers now.

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Number 11, white vinegar. The gallon jug. I go through vinegar like most families go through milk. It's my window cleaner, my rinse aid, my fabric softener, my weed killer, and come fall, it's my pickle brine.

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store it, all of it. I finally wrote it down in one place. It's a book. It's on my website, and the link's right below the video. Go grab it if you want it.

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A gallon runs three or four dollars, and it keeps basically forever. The mistake people make is buying the little bottle in the salad dressing aisle. Same vinegar, twice the price per ounce, prettier label.

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you'll pay. all winter buying them three at a time. This is harvest glut. It doesn't last. Here's the part most people don't know anymore because we all got used to buying 5 lbs at a time.

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Go find the gallon jug. It's usually down low by the floor because the cheap stuff always lives by the floor. Grab two. When the fall cleaning and fall canning both hit at once, you will not be sorry.

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something that makes potatoes sprout faster. Opposite corners of the room. Do that and you're eating September potatoes in February. Number seven, winter squash. Butternut, acorn, the whole family. Farm stands are drowning in them right now and pricing them

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Number 10, dried beans. A pound of dried beans makes about six cups cooked. That's roughly four cans worth for the price of one can, sometimes less. And right now, before soup season starts, and everybody remembers beans exist, is when you stock them.

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A good butternut will hold 3, four months easy, sometimes longer. Pick the ones with the stems still on and no soft spots. And don't wash them. Washing takes off the natural coating that helps them keep. Buy eight or 10. Line them up

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Get a few pounds each of whatever your family eats: pinto, navy, great northern, whatever, in a jar with a tight lid. They'll keep for years. One honest note because I won't oversell.

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Orchards don't advertise on the road sign. Almost every orchard sells what they call seconds or utility grade.

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Beans that sit for a very long time take longer to cook and may never get truly soft. So, this isn't a bury it in the yard situation. Buy what you'll eat in a year or two and rotate. A pot of beans and a pan of cornbread will feed a family for $2.

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say, "Do you have seconds?" That's it. A half bushel of seconds becomes applesauce, apple butter, pie filling, dried apple rings, none of which care one bit what the apple looked like. This is a September and October window. When

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And that math has not changed in my lifetime. Number nine, oats. Old-fashioned rolled oats. The big canister or the bag from the bulk section. Breakfast all winter and it goes in cookies, in meatloaf, in bread.

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ounces. That little jar is one of the biggest markups in the whole store. You're paying for the jar and the brand name, not the cinnamon. Same store, different aisle or a discount groceryer or the bulk bins, cinnamon, nutmeg,

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Per bowl, oatmeal costs pennies. The little flavored packets, same oats, a spoonful of sugar, and about six times the price. They're charging you for the envelope. Buy the big containers now.

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three Christmases ago isn't dangerous. It's just not doing much. Buy fresh, buy cheap, buy now, use it this year. All right, we're past the halfway mark. And everything so far you could pick up this week for maybe $40 total, but the last

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Pour them into jars so the pantry moths don't find them. That part matters. Learn it the easy way, not the way I did. And breakfast is handled until Easter.

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Same story as the beans, bigger numbers. A one pound box of rice next to a 20 lb sack of rice. Read the per pound price on the shelf tag, and you'll see the little box costs two and three times as

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By the way, the whole pantry system I run, what I buy, when, how I store it, all of it. I finally wrote it down in one place. It's a book. It's on my website, and the link's right below the video. Go grab it if you want it.

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warning, does not. It has oils in it that go off in six months or so. So, buy brown small and white big. A sack of rice, a shelf of beans, and a strip of bacon. And there is no snowstorm long

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That's all I'll say about it. Number eight, onions and potatoes, the big sacks. Right now, farm stands and even regular grocery stores are selling 50 lb sacks of potatoes and big bags of onions for a fraction of the per pound price you'll pay all winter buying them three at a time.

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quart or the half gallon instead of the cute little bear, reflect that. And honey does not spoil. It'll crystallize.

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This is harvest glut. It doesn't last. Here's the part most people don't know anymore because we all got used to buying 5 lbs at a time.

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and it's a baking ingredient that never goes to waste. Buy the big jar from someone local while the harvest is on.

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Potatoes and onions store for months if you treat them right. Cool, dark, dry, and air moving around them. A basement corner, an unheated closet, the garage if it doesn't freeze, not the refrigerator.

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A stick of butter comes out of the freezer months later exactly the way it went in. And butter is one of those items that creeps up going into the holidays when every kitchen in America starts baking at once. So when you see

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And here's the one rule, not next to each other. Onions give off something that makes potatoes sprout faster. Opposite corners of the room. Do that and you're eating September potatoes in February.

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grumbling at the dairy case, you're pulling August butter out of the freezer at August prices. It's the easiest hedge in the whole grocery store, and almost nobody does it. And number one, the September canning clearance. Here's how this works. stores stock canning

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Number seven, winter squash. Butternut, acorn, the whole family. Farm stands are drowning in them right now and pricing them accordingly.

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bought cases of brand new jars for less than the price of the lids alone at full price. Now, here's the joke. Canning season is not over. September and October are applesauce, pears, tomatoes, apple butter, some of the biggest

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And a hard winter squash is one of the few vegetables that needs no help from you at all. No canning, no freezing, no equipment. It sits on a shelf in a cool room and it just keeps.

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never expire. Rings never expire. New flat lids keep for years in the box. Buy them at half price this fall and you're set up for next summer before next summer's prices even exist. Even if you don't can, those jars are the best dry

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A good butternut will hold 3, 4 months easy, sometimes longer. Pick the ones with the stems still on and no soft spots. And don't wash them. Washing takes off the natural coating that helps them keep.

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the big sack versus the little box. They print both prices on the same shelf.

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Buy eight or 10. Line them up somewhere cool where they're not touching each other. That's the whole method. Cheapest vegetable insurance there is.

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The whole system is built on one simple bet. That you shop when you need things, not when they're cheap. That you'll walk in tired on a Tuesday in January and pay the January price. Because what choice do you have? The pantry is the choice.

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Number six, apples, but not the pretty ones. Here's the thing. Orchards don't advertise on the road sign. Almost every orchard sells what they call seconds or utility grade.

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to shop three days at a time. So, here's your first step, and it's small. This week, do two things. Buy one gallon of white vinegar and one big box of plain salt that's under $10, and walk the clearance aisle of whatever store you're

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Apples with a spot, a funny shape, a hail mark, same apple inside. They go for a third, sometimes a quarter of the price of the display apples because they can't sell ugly at full price and they know it.

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Somebody's grandmother did something with green tomatoes that I've never heard of and I want to hear it. I read these and half my best ideas come from you all. Next time I'm going to show you what I actually do with a half bushel of

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You have to ask. Walk up and say, "Do you have seconds?" That's it. A half bushel of seconds becomes applesauce, apple butter, pie filling, dried apple rings, none of which care one bit what the apple looked like.

Topics:pantry stockingfall grocery shoppingbulk buyingfood storage tipsseasonal producebudget cookingdried beanswinter squashcanning suppliespantry organization

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