I shop the same way, Tammy, buying only what we need for the next week or two, so I rarely have "extras" in my pantry. I don't have the room, for one, to store lots of foods, and we eat so many fresh foods that they would just go bad. We don't buy a lot of canned or boxed goods, as you know!

~Elizabeth in Alaska

I shop similarly to you - very few processed foods. We do have some cans though: canned salmon and tuna, diced tomatoes, a few cans of beans (usually I make and freeze my own but these are for emergencies), refried black beans, etc. We also have some (gluten-free) grains like quinoa, various whole grain rices, brown rice pasta, etc.

Instead of dedicating a whole month to using up the pantry, I usually have 1-2 days per week where I try to make a meal that solely relies on what I already have in the pantry (I meal plan before grocery shopping). Some of the pantry meals I can think of off the top of my head include pancakes for dinner (we have several variations, including dutch babies, our recent favorite!), eggs with refried beans and salsa, tuna or salmond and crackers/crudite or salmon patties, sometimes rice and beans, sometimes pasta with sauce and beans, etc.

I find it's much less stressful to simply buy the quantities we need of healthful foods and not worry about every sale. And also don't end up with bits of stuff so much anymore. We don't have Costco here, but buy a few items at Sam's and most foods at the commissary, other than raw milk and our meat, and eggs, which we provide ourselves.