Free tool · for home cooks & meal planners
Free Pantry Inventory Starter
A pantry list usually dies on the Saturday it's started, because somebody tries to inventory a whole kitchen at once. This free one-tab starter is built for the opposite: list one shelf, and stop. Type what you have, how much you want to keep on hand, and (for anything perishable) a date — and the sheet works out how many to buy, the days left, and flags each item In Stock, Low Stock, Out of Stock, Use Soon, or Expired. It opens on a worked example so you can see it running before you type anything.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Flags every item In Stock, Low Stock, Out of Stock, Use Soon, or Expired — color coded, from the numbers and the date you typed.
- Works out how many to buy from your keep-on-hand level, so a low item comes with a quantity attached.
- Counts the days left on each best-by date; a negative number means the date has passed.
- Opens pre-filled with a clearly fictional example whose dates move with today's, so the flags always demonstrate — overwrite it with your own shelf.
- Comes as a fillable spreadsheet (Excel, Google Sheets & LibreOffice) and a printable PDF — nothing to sign up for, nothing saved anywhere but your own copy.
Own it, don't rent it
Want the workbook that writes the shopping list?
This starter flags what's low and what's close to its date. The full workbook takes it from there: it WRITES your shopping list for you — grouped in your own category order, with how many to buy and an estimated total — and a use-it-up list of everything about to turn, soonest first. It also prices your shelves, logs the freezer with looked-up use-by dates, tells you whether a price is actually good, tracks what waste is costing you, and includes a 73-food storage life reference, across an 11-tab workbook (Excel & Google Sheets) plus three PDF guides.
A one-time purchase you keep and own — the structured file between a blank spreadsheet and a pantry app that stops working the day the company does.
A kitchen record you keep for yourself — not food-safety, medical, or nutritional advice. A date this file calculates is a prompt to go and look at something, never a verdict on whether food is safe to eat. Follow the label, trust your own eyes and nose, and when in doubt, throw it out. The example items are fictional. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.