Coming home after more than three weeks in Europe, our refrigerator was practically bare. Kris and I love food, and our fridge is usually filled to the gills with tons of good stuff, so seeing the vast emptiness was almost shocking. But in a good way.
One of the drawbacks to keeping a full fridge is that we sometimes lose track of what we have on hand. It sucks to dig behind the smoked salmon to discover…more smoked salmon! Which has gone rancid! I’m especially bad at remembering what I still have left to eat. (This is despite our attempts to use a leftovers list.) As a result, I waste far more food than I should.
Lori Bongiorno writes the Conscious Consumer blog at Yahoo! Green. Recently, she featured a step-by-step guide to wasting less food. She writes:
Americans are notorious for wasting food. Each year, we toss out about 27 percent of edible food, and the average family of four throws out about $600 worth of groceries.
Bongiorno’s tips range from the obvious to the not-so-obvious.
For example, she says it’s important to undertand how expiration dates work. Some are important to observe, but others aren’t. (Did you know you can often eat yogurt three months past the date on the package? I’m ashamed to admit that I know this from first-hand experience.) She also cautions against buying food just because it’s on sale. As I wrote this morning, cheap things you never use are no bargain.
Bongiorno’s complete article contains lots of other tips. For Kris and me, though, I think the key to wasting less food is changing the way we shop.
For the past couple of years, Kris and I have actually tried to make large, infrequent trips to the grocery store. There’s plenty of research showing that this is one of the best ways to trim your food budget. But you know what? If doing this increases the odds that I’ll waste food — and it does — then it’s probably not saving us any money.
The morning after we returned from Paris, I made a quick trip to the store. Despite the empty fridge, all I bought was milk, bread, fruit, and cheese. “I want to try something,” I told Kris. “I want to shop like they do in Europe. I want to buy what we need when we need it instead of stock-piling food all the time.”
While this is sure to cut down the food we waste, I’m not sure it will save us any money. But I’m willing to experiment to find out!
GRS is committed to helping our readers save and achieve your financial goals.Savings interest rates may be low, but that’s all the more reason to shop for the best rate.Find the highest savings interest rate from Ally Bank, Capital One 360, Everbank, and more.
This article is about Food
Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express. This site may be compensated through American Express Affiliate Program.
Discover is a paid advertiser of this site. Reasonable efforts are made to maintain accurate information. See the Discover online credit card application for full terms and conditions on offers and rewards.
SEARCH FOR RECENT ARTICLES
Yes, Becky – I always use supermarkets sales to get non-perishables. Stocks of toilet paper, toothpaste, detergents with a 1+1 offer? Yes please!
I think we should reward the kind of shops which sells specialties, treats and higher quality foods, where you buy less often but don’t mind spending a bit more.
And re: time – little shops are mainly for retired people, they eat less and love to was… spend time shopping in their neighbourhood, ha.
loading....
I traded in my huge silver ‘morgue’ style fridge (double doors and drawers!) for a small Kenmore fridge from Sears. I believe the fridge I have now is one step up from apartment size. Talk about a drastic change! The reason I did it was (a) less cost to run, (b) the morgue fridge was really all for show but it was HUGE. It was all ‘doors and casing’. The inside of it was nowhere near as large as it looked, and (c) I got tired of the expense of stocking a larger fridge – I felt compelled to buy more. Now, we go grocery shopping once a week with a list and a meal plan. I will say, that the fridge has to meet the needs of 4 people who each buy their own foods so on a Friday when we shop together, the thing is stuffed to the gills. But, EVERYTHING gets eaten and the fridge gets a good cleaning out every Thursday. The amount of food getting tossed out is zero, such a big change from the way I was ‘conditioned’ to do things before. I’m not sure where it’s written that we have to stock huge refrigerators and then empty the contents of them into trash bins. But then, I’ve noticed that since I’ve eliminated TV advertising from my life, I do many things differently now. Good to see you back JD and glad to see that you had a good vacation.
loading....
I plan my grocery trips really well – I have an aisle-by-aisle list I keep, I plan the meals for the week, and just get what’s on the list.
We STILL have tons of leftovers, even with “leftover night.” And I always buy too much fruit with the good intentions of eating more of it. Guess I just need to get honest with myself!
I love the worm farm idea that #2 mentioned…maybe this winter…
JD, if you keep track of this I’d be really interested in how it turns out.
loading....
My husband and I used to do larger grocery trips; at one point, once a month and then every other week.
Now, we go once a week and it has made a significant difference in our eating and spending. We used to spend about $400/month on groceries (it’s just the two of us). Now we spend about $300/month, a reduction of 25%. We eat better because of more fresh produce and get a cost savings, plus we throw less food out. I’ve actually gotten our last two months under $275!
I write a meal list every week based on items already in the house. I use coupons to get items in bulk at my grocery store (there’s no Sam’s Club or Costco here!) and then build grocery lists around those items in the coming weeks. Shopping weekly lets me:
-Purchase fresh produce, milk, and bread and use it without spoilage
-Decide on meals that I actually want this week, not pick a meal that I may not be hungry for in three weeks
-Take advantage of sales throughout the month
-Have few enough items (<25) to go through self-checkout, rather than arguing with a cashier over my coupons or having to tip the bagger
It helps that my husband and I both cook. It's also easier to shop in the middle of the week because I feel like there's less pressure to hurry when cost comparing. While currently unemployed, I also shopped on Tuesdays when I had a job, just in the evening after work, rather than after lunch.
JD, I think you can absolutely make smaller grocery purchases work, especially with a small household size. Thanks for a great post and good luck!
loading....
I was raised in France, and even “worse”, Paris, where there isn’t much room. People don’t usually stock up because be it the fridge, freezer (that’s part of the fridge, usually) or cupboards, there just isn’t room.
I was surprised when I saw pantry rooms here, I had never heard of them. And freezers that not only stood on their own, but where double the size of my usual fridge+freezer?
When everyone was telling me to stock up, that it was cheaper, and better for the environment (less packaging) I thought “I have room to do that now!” so I did it.
That was a mistake for several reasons. One of them is what you’ve mentioned: things go bad. The smaller your family, the more important it is, because when a family of six might get two meals out of something before it expires, a single person will need to eat it twelve times! That can of course get extremely boring.
Another thing is, if you have no will, and food-wise I don’t, you’ll finish the bigger pack just as you would have finished the small one. You’ll reach for something that’s there when if you had to go to the store, your craving would have time to pass.
Buying just what you need might be more expensive than buying in bulk – if you were using what you buy in bulk, and at the same rate.
In my case, I’d just eat more, and let more go bad. Not very wise at all, small shopping definitely works better for me!
loading....
@Kim #49.
Indeed. Full fridge or freezer is more energy efficient. I’ve started refilling empties with water for the fridge and freezer, with the side benefit that here in earthquake country, you’re supposed to keep three days of drinking water available just in case.
loading....
I live on a very frugal budget and waste very little food and I do just the opposite. While I dont hoard, I have a well stocked pantry that includes items bought at loss leader prices including spices, baking products, broths,m pastas and rices and all hte basics needed to cook. I shop weekly or bi weekly for produce. HOWEVER, I know how much to cook per meal, and I am creative with leftovers when they exist. Ih ave many cookbooks and recipes that are just for one or two, include a crockpot book that has recipes for two.
loading....
I market daily or every other day for all reasons mentioned above, but also for another. I found in the past that if I buy in large quantity, then I find that my family EATS in large quantity. Teenage kids will eat and eat until there is nothing left. If I do a big shopping trip and try to buy for a month, most of it will be gone in a week. So now, I stop at the co-op most days after work (just like the Swedish do!) and get whatever essentials and dinner items we need. It works well – the produce is fresh and I don’t find that I spend any more.
loading....
another “euro-shopper” over here in nyc- we have a 4th floor walkup, so we can only buy what we can carry home and up 4 flights of stairs. no bottled water for us! it does help with buying only what you need though, you don’t want to have to carry 24 rolls of toilet paper around, and then stash it in the apartment for 6 months until you use it all.
loading....
Check out what my friend, Katherine, is doing over at Cook With What You Have: http://cookwithwhatyouhave.wordpress.com/
An awesome blog and business inspiring people to simply use what’s in their kitchen. Smart pantry, smart cooking, better health and less waste. I wish I could pull it together and do this!!
loading....
Live in a city in a 4th floor walkup and this problem will solve itself, believe me. I go to the grocery store/bodega every time I make a meal. It’s super easy since it’s right in front of my bus stop.
#59 cc — I wrote this and then read your comment. I’m in the same boat as you.
loading....
I learned to buy produces with different density so they will have different rate of perishing. I’ll get spinach, broccoli, and squash for instance. I’ll eat them in that order throughout the week. If I eat the squash first, the spinach would be sure to wilt by the end of the week.
loading....
27% is a ton of food! I eat all the food in my house before taking a trip to the grocery store.
loading....
My husband, the grocery shopper, tried this for the past couple of months to learn to budget better, but it sort of backfired. It could have been bad timing too with a new baby in the house
He ended up spending almost 200$ more AND he bought more snack/crap food because it was within the daily allowance he set for himself… So, he’d buy only what we needed for meals that day, but he’d think-hey, why not also buy this for snacks tomorrow? We’d end up eating the snack stuff too fast because there wasn’t all the stocked up good food!
So, check your willpower
It might have worked better if our grocery store/markets were closer by too. I hate that it wastes all those car trips!
Good luck!
loading....
I purposely bought a condo that was a two minute walk from a grocery store so I could shop daily. Planning meals and buying food once or twice a month doesn’t work for me at all because I never know what I’ll feel like eating that day and I have thrown tons of food away like that. Even if my shop across the street isn’t the cheapest, it is cheaper than buying stuff I’ll have to throw away because it goes bad before I fell like eating it!
loading....
I shop for groceries about once a day, unless I’m eating left-overs from last night’s meal. We keep around some basic ingredients that don’t spoil readily and buy our meat and produce as needed. Of course, it helps that I live in a small community and a trip to the grocery store isn’t a big ordeal.
(We still find ourselves wasting food).
loading....
JD you might have noticed that in Europe everything is smaller – smaller homes, smaller pantries,smaller refrigerator, smaller portions…y’ll get the picture! This automatically reduces wastage. Mcmansions & Mcfridges don’t help.
.
Shopping frequently will increase expenditure, lead to less planning & organization, temptation to buy impulsively and a whole lot of other things JD will post soon
A very practical way to waste less food is meal planning as some other bloggers have pointed out. Serve in a soup kitchen or tour a poor nation to realise how blessed you are and not to waste.
My wife says:
(A)Buy food items that can have multiple uses – 1. vegetables that can be used in salad, soup, sandwiches, raw
2. roast chicken that can be eaten as is, in a sandwich, soup, salad
(B) Eat what you cook/buy
(C) Get creative with small quantities & leftovers of food
loading....
About 3 years ago, I decided to start planning better. Two tools: a fridge whiteboard and a paper calendar of the month. On the paper calendar, we note evening engagements (a lot; my husband is a theater reviewer), travel, etc.
I come home on Saturday mornings with most of our produce and meat for the week from the farmer’s market and staples from the grocery store. I look at the calendar to see when we have evening plans. Then, I plan each night’s menu around the produce, staples I want to use, and meat. If we have evening plans, I plan for quicker meals or the crockpot. If I have more time, something a bit more elaborate might happen.
This approach has a lot of advantages:
1) I always know I have the ingredients for the meals I intend to prepare
2) If something doesn’t sound appealing one night, I can make it another night.
3) No waste b/c the meals are planned around produce.
We do end up going to several different stores (one has bulk goods, another has vegetables and fruit and dairy that we can’t get at the market, etc) which feels like it eats up time. Still, this has helped us tremendously.
loading....
There are no good grocery stores convenient to where I live, so I make a big stock-up trip about once every 3 or 4 weeks. I pick up things like milk and bread at a nearby drug store. There are some farms in my area where I buy fresh produce (although not as often as I like, because they close before I get out of work).
I think the freezer is the key to infrequent shopping and avoiding waste. When I have leftovers, I package them into individual serving sizes and freeze them, like home-made TV dinners. I also buy a lot of frozen vegetables since fresh ones don’t last between trips. I actually don’t have much food in my refrigerator (I mostly use it for beverages), but my freezer is usually packed. I wish there were a refrigerator in which the freezer side is bigger than the refrigerator side!
loading....
After spending a year in the UK where most fridges are the size of what we Americans would consider a “Dorm Room” fridge, I marvel at the size of my current fridge back in the states now. It’s never full! It’s just me and my husband, and we are both big on eating leftovers. He likes to eat until just about everything in the house is gone before we make a trip. I’m a little more moderate. I do keep a well stocked freezer- I find this saves money on impulse eating out. But when it’s just two people, a traditional American Fridge is way tooo big!
I used to shop a few days worth at time in the UK. I currently shop a week at a time and find that I don’t buy that much more and sometimes, my week’s worth will spill over into the next week. I hate seeing food go to waste! I don’t like throwing my money in the trash can! I will be crazy creative with some leftovers before I throw it away! I know it can be harder to eat leftovers with a large family b/c sometimes you only have a small amount left. But that could be a lunch for one person to take to work– or even repurposed as ingredients into another meal sometimes. I think a lot of people could slash their grocery budgets by 30% and never miss it.
loading....
JD, I don’t see how you can avoid frequent shopping when your newish diet is centered on perishable foods. Gone are the days of stocking up on canned and processed foods! We’ve found that twice weekly shopping works well for all things paleo. I buy enough vegetables and fruit for 3 days worth of meals and snacks, and buy other items (nuts, meat, oils, milk, yogurt) as we need them. The only thing we stockpile is meat and even then we don’t do much. I buy our regular cuts when they are on sale–enough to freeze a few packages.
loading....
Shopping a few times a week and buying just enough for the short-term is my favourite way to get groceries.
There are several reasons for this: I don’t have a car, and I have limited storage space in my apartment, so I can’t really purchase in bulk. Also, this means my food is more likely to be fresh, it concentrates my efforts to use what is available (when I can see it all at a glance), and ensures that they rarely go to waste.
loading....
I think you should go over to Frugal Girl and do what she does for herself, JD. Require yourself to take a picture (and post it) of all the food you throw away weekly.
It will “shame” a person into not wasting.
Another thing..change your mindset. “Let yourself” run out of certain food items for snacks, for instance. It won’t kill you. Don’t always have a stockpile…unless you are disciplined enough to put it in the freezer before it goes bad (ham, for instance).
I’m like so many in that if my family knows I have a lot of something in the house, they will just eat it faster. I’ve had to quit making granola in huge amounts because my dh would just go and eat it at any given moment for a snack. This meant that what was supposed to last 3 weeks would only last 2, etc.
With only two in the house, I agree with those who say that you don’t need to keep it full unless you are having a party with a bunch of friends.
loading....
We used to waste a lot more food before we started making a weekly meal plan and shopping list. Having a plan helps us to stay focused in the store and buy less things we don’t need. We try to make weekly trips to be more efficient, but sometimes that doesn’t happen, but planning ahead helps avoid waste even when making a few quick spontaneous trips to the store.
loading....
We do a combo method for shopping. I plan out a week’s worth of dinners (trying to incorporate items -notably meats- we already have on hand) and figure out whatever else we need. Then I compare the preliminary shopping list to what we already have & what I could substitute in (this week I substituted ground chicken that’s been sitting in the freezer for ground turkey). I’m trying to incorporate items that will “eat down” our pantry & freezer since I think we have too much food. I will stock up on items when they are a good deal, but I don’t go crazy (NEVER AGAIN will I take advantage of the buy 2-get 3 free bottles of BBQ sauce…we just don’t use that much, even over 2 years!!).
I also keep a running list of what’s in the freezer (only have the freezer attached to the fridge). It’s much easier to keep up with that than try to rummage through the freezer with deadly cold hands. And it helps me see at a glance what we don’t need to buy.
Because I’m still trying to shop sales as needed and **only buying what we need for the week** (very important), our grocery bill seems to be lower. Shopping every day is too time-consuming (regardless of how much more or less money you spend..time’s more valuable!).
loading....
We plan meals over the weekend and do our shopping from a list for said meals. We plan our dinners so that we don’t need to cook more than three nights — leftovers are planned as another night’s meal, so we don’t have leftovers that go to waste.
The only times we’ve thrown away food in the last couple of years are:
1- When we try a new recipe and it’s really just not good.
2- When we overplanned and don’t get to making one of the meals we planned and the ingredients are (were) fresh and go bad.
3- When we’ve had a party and have junk food left over. That all automatically goes right in the can. Better to waste money than to eat it!
loading....
I shop at the farmer’s market once a week and buy only enough veggies and fruit for that week. For stuff like milk, cereal, etc, I make a trip to the grocery store when I run out. I’ve found this to be the best way for me to shop because with a less-packed fridge, I can see everything and usually consume almost all of it!
loading....