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!

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!).

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

(We still find ourselves wasting food).

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!

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!!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

I’d say the biggest negative against doing what JD says is the TIME spent. Going into the store takes time. Period. Is that what you want to be doing? Of course, they count on your being hungry, seeing something else you really want.

One problem here is that the little stores don’t seem to have “sales” so you are always paying full retail price (or even more–sometimes the price is higher than what is printed on the package if it has a preprinted price). That hurts.

I think that the best thing is to buy less–but going shopping daily just isn’t fun. I’ve gotten to hate shopping, in fact.

A way to avoid this is to fill up your fridge or freezer with old milk jugs filled with water. They occupy the volume (less open air to chill in the first place) and once the door is closed, they are already cold/frozen and help cool off the air around them. (It’s similar to extra ice packs in a cooler)