We waste a lot of money on food each year. Something like, 165 billion dollars worth.
No one likes to waste food, but we’re probably all guilty of it. In the spirit of frugality, I thought I’d round up a few ways to cut back on food waste and make the most of your groceries.
Keep Track of Perishables With Your Receipt
I wrote about this over at Lifehacker, and I incorporated it into my own grocery routine. Check out this short video to see how easy this tip is:
Find the True Expiration Dates of Food
Harvard conducted a study a couple of years back that found most of the expiration dates on food are total baloney (yes, baloney–all this food talk is making me hungry). They’re based more on marketing and less on health standards. So, if you’re going by the label, you may be tossing out perfectly good food.
For better food expiration dates, check out EatbyDate.com, StillTasty.com, or the USDA’s FoodKeeper app.
Each of these are databases that give more accurate expiration dates for a number of foods. You can learn when food actually spoils, based on how you store it. You’ll even get tips for prolonging its shelf life, and FoodKeeper will send you reminders for stuff you have at home. All solid options.
Use a Backup Grocery List
Meal planning is essential for staying within your budget, and the apex of a meal plan is the grocery list. It keeps you from mindlessly buying a bunch of stuff you don’t need, only to throw it out later. But we all get busy. The week gets away from us. There are days when grocery planning sounds like the most dreadful of chores.
For those days, have a backup grocery list ready. This is your go-to, tried-and-true list of stuff to buy at the grocery store. This list should include enough food items to make your weekly meals–no less and no more. And those meals should be easy, too. Your list might only include noodles, ground beef and tomato sauce for making a week’s worth of pasta. That’s fine–it doesn’t have to be exciting. It’s simply a default list for those weeks you don’t feel like planning.
Try the Inverted Pyramid Method
On those weeks that you do have time to meal plan, here’s the easiest method I’ve come across for getting it done. Start with your biggest meal of the week, and work your way down. Use any leftover ingredients you’ll likely have from that meal to plan the next meal. Then use any potential leftovers from that meal to plan your third meal–and so on, until you’ve got a week’s worth of meals.
Above is a (poorly designed) example of this method, showing you how the ingredients overlap.
“Iron Chef” Your Meals
This method is a crowd favorite. It’s resourceful, and it’s creative–what’s not to love about it?
Here’s how it works: you try to make a meal out of only the leftover ingredients you have on hand at home. It’s sort of like the show Iron Chef in that you’re limited by the need to use those ingredients. It sounds silly, but this method is responsible for some of the tastiest dishes I’ve made–chicken lettuce wraps and gnocchi to name a couple.
But what if you’re not feeling very creative? Not to worry; that’s where Supercook comes in. Head to the site, enter the ingredients you actually have on hand, and Supercook will pull up a list of recipes that you can make.
These are just a few methods I use to optimize my groceries and avoid waste. I might not put a dent in that $165 billion. But by planning, keeping track of what I have, and making the most of leftovers, I’m able to keep my own grocery costs down.
Managing your money is like going to the dentist or standing in line at the DMV. Nobody wants to do it, but at some point, it’s inevitable: you need to clean your teeth, renew your license, and manage your money like a grown-up.
I’m admittedly guilty of this habit as a result of my OCD, however, I’m not proud of contributing to the appalling amount of money wasted each year. I toss items in the bin on the exact expiration date, at times prior if I feel something’s sat untouched for too long. I still do so with food items bought solely for my son and I, and may never overcome the anxiety of not tossing our food. Although, over the past few years I’ve slowly relinquished control of food eaten by the rest of the household and am still learning to allow other members of the family decide what they’re willing to ingest. I still fight the gnawing urge to grab and toss daily, but, armed with the knowledge and links you’ve provided I now have multiple visual guides to help and will be visiting them frequently. Very insightful post, thank you for the information!
That’s good, I hope it helps! I understand the urge to toss, those “sell by” dates can make you feel odd for eating past them. My boyfriend still gives me the side eye when I tell him stuff is perfectly fine to eat despite the date on the carton, jar, etc. Hopefully seeing the “true” expiration dates will help a bit 🙂
That receipt hack is my favorite of the bunch. I’m regularly forgetting what’s in this drawer or that. My protestant sensibilities make me hate waste, too, especially food waste.
Thanks for the tip.
It was mine too! So simple, so easy.
Never heard of super cook! Great tip, can’t wait to try it. I have really been battling the waste issue. We have 3 1/2 working adults in the house (the college student is here half the time) with crazy schedules, and so dinner is never the same. What I started doing is shopping twice a week instead of one so that we can buy smaller amounts and see what actually gets used. I also have a well stocked pantry and freezer and started planning dinner for the next night while I am cleaning up from the current nights dinner. This helps me use up whatever might go bad soon. It has helped us cut down on the garbage and the grocery bill.
Oh, Supercook is one of my faves. You can also filter the recipes by cuisine and meal type (breakfast, dessert, etc.). Great tool.
Shopping twice a week sounds like a good idea, especially if you have the basics taken care of, and you’re just picking up fresh stuff that you’ll use up completely.
I loooove SuperCook. Genius website. We often have plenty of ingredients but no real idea of what to make with them. My HB is the chef and he typically makes enough of one meal to last us an entire week, plus leftovers for me to bring to work! We’re also composting regularly which helps me feel less bad when that last bit of lettuce turns brown or the carrots go soft. We have wormy, happy soil as a result!
Perfect! I should get better at making meals that last all week long. I’m not great at the bulk meal thing.