I eat a ton of eggs, so I buy 2 1/2 dozen and they usually go quick... add to that some sausage and hash browns and you have the breakfast I eat everyday.

Lunch I usually eat out. Sometimes I will get in the groove of making stuff for a week and I'll just eat it everyday of that week... this gets old pretty fast though.

Dinner I typically buy the items I need on my way home and then make it and eat it. If there are leftovers it's lunch for the next day.

I freeze bread too!

Fruit and Veg I buy for the week. Usually broccoli, carrots, cucumber, spring onions, baby spinach and tomatoes sit in my fridge drawer. I eat either steamed veg or a salad every day so there is little waste.

Fruit, I usually avoid bags of apples and oranges cos I end up throwing them away. Lately I've been buying a melon - eat half for breakfast on two mornings. 2 banana's and tinned pineapple slices!! Basically, I stick to small portions/tins that I will eat either in one or two sittings.

Meat, I either buy in bulk and freeze or on my way home for that evening. I make sure I leave it out to defrost every morning. If I forget, that's when I visit a shop on my way home, usually!

Milk, I tend to buy 2pints per week and drink it.

Eggs, half a dozen per week.

Cold meats - hmmm yeah, I threw too much away last weekend and I regret buying so much. Must get better at this, but its not something I eat every day, just when I fancy.

I also always have frozen vegetables in my freezer for when I run out of veg and can't get to the shop.

Oh, and frozen banana's and grapes!! Grapes are delish frozen and I make a banana 'ice cream' with the banana's :bigsmile:

I know I don't live alone, but there are things I buy for me that the kids won't eat and vice versa.

Bread - I'd recommend the refrigerator vs. freezer. Just seems to maintain the consistency better. We go through bread in spurts in my house. Usually one loaf out and one in the fridge (it will last at least a week if not longer). As a single, I woud recommend taking out half the loaf (or less) and putting it in a ziploc, then leaving the rest in the fridge.

Veggies - I love veggies, the kids are very selective. I usually have fresh mushrooms, onions and carrots. Whatever I don't use of the onions/mushrooms, go into ziplocs. I've found that Trader Joe's sells a lot of veggies in smaller containers or frozen (such as pearl onions).

Milk - I only pick up a quart at a time unless we have longer than a 3 day weeknd. I hate wasting milk.

Alfredo Sauce - I like to make my own and most times the kids won't eat it. I use the ziploc twist top containers to keep it fresh longer.

I buy frozen "lean" meal for my lunch or make tuna salad. I also buy smaller containers of Miracle Whip, salad dressing, etc. I never had to worry about those things spoiling before. lol

When I was married, I used to go shopping 1 or 2 times per month. Now I go 1 or 2 times per week.

Milk; Rammen; Bread; Peanut Butter; Protein Powder

Cheapest way for a single man to live.

I buy 2 loaves, put one in the freezer.

I would freeze bread as well, buy small amounts of milk although it would usually go sour before I could drink it all. Eggs I would buy the 6 pack the grocery store has. Spices, I would borrow my roommates. I often made hot dishes or fixings for meals like tacos and eat that through the week. I rarely bought meat as I hate touching raw meat, but I would freeze portions of ground turkey for later.

I switched to soy milk because it lasts much longer than regular milk. I keep my bread in the refigerator and that usually gives me about 2-3 weeks before it goes bad. I try to go to the farmer's market every other week for fruits and veggies since most things can last about that long. I'm also lucky that my job provides breakfast and lunch M-F so I don't have to worry about those meals - I just have to focus on dinner and the weekends.

Some of the other single guys in here have more simple tastes than I do. I need to mix up my meals to keep it interesting. I can't eat the same meal day in, day out.

I know it's totally girly - but I suggest "Pintrest" food/drink section. I get 95% of my recipes there - 5% from Rachael Ray. She tends to use fresh, healthy ingredients and her stuff is quick so you aren't spending days in the kitchen.

I'm open to it. Perhaps if I need inspiration. I have a cookbook that keeps things relatively simple and helps mix it up.

I get tired of planning and slinging meal after meal sometimes though. I'm happy when someone else cooks something for me.

Yeah I have found some great things from pintrest for food. My newest favorite is using a muffin tin and either lining it with either ham or bacon and filling it with egg and any veggies topped with some cheese and bake at 350 for 30 mins. I have 2-3 at a time and they usually can last 3 days in the fridge and easy to reheat.

Love all of the above!!

My biggest tip is stretch things out into several meals. It really helps if you can eat the same thing a couple times a week.

For example: last week I bought a roast. Cooked it in the crock pot with some potatoes. Ate some of it, but it was denser than I expected so I sliced some of it to make sandwiches out of, cubed half of it and the next day threw the cubes, the potatoes and all the broth into a pot with carrots celery spices and some veggie base and made a soup that tastes a LOT like the steak soup at SaltGrass. I've often made soup with chicken scraps like this too. Then you mix up the meals. The meat is the same all week (in this case roast beef) but you’ve got soup, regular sandwiches, bbq sandwiches, wrap, beef for salads, and of course the first night of just eating roast and potatoes.

When I can, I buy packs of chicken breast and lean beef and then slide them up, season them, and freeze them. When I come home it's quick and easy to fry them up into a stir-fry or for a sandwich, or throw in some pasta. 20 minutes tops.

Even though I try to use everything up, I still sometimes end up throwing stuff out so I try to buy veggies that can freeze. For example, I didn't use all of my spinach bag after about two weeks. Froze the rest before it went bad. It will stir-fry easily later.

This not only saves money and is healthier, but really takes no longer than going out to restaurants/fast food. If you stop and think about it: Going home and making a quick freezer meal (either with stuff you bought or prepped beforehand) takes no longer than going to a restaurant. When you go out to eat, you have to wait for a table, wait to be served, wait for your check.

It does take longer than a fast food meal though, lol. But I just think of all the calories I save by eating myself and spend some of those calories on something yummy for dessert or with my meal.

I'm not currently living on my own, but when I was, the freezer was my best friend. I usually spent a couple of hours cooking most Sundays, and kept a couple of each dish out for that week (say, soup and two baked/casserole options), in the fridge, and froze individual portions of the rest, so that I had a wide variety of main dishes, breads (I got REALLY good at making foccacia), and small snacks (banana or carrot muffins freeze fantastically) in the freezer - I usually pulled something out to defrost for supper before I left in the morning (or took it with me to microwave, if a long day was in the offing). Bread was always sliced before freezing, and went straight from freezer to toaster, or into my bag in a ziploc bag for lunch. The freezer was also great for taking advantage of reduced or on-offer items (especially meat), and for keeping stocks of dairy items, sliced ham, butter etc on hand. That way, I did a fruit & veg shop once a week at a greengrocer or farmers' market (really not a fan of frozen veg., though I do keep frozen berries and bananas - always pre-peeled! - in the freezer for smoothies), and a supermarket visit roughly every two weeks for raw ingredients, with the occasional top-up of eggs or something un-freezable mid-week.

I really enjoy cooking, but agree that having to shop and cook for one on a daily basis gets tedious. Especially in my last few years at the Conservatoire, I was often in college 9am-9pm or later, up to six days/week, so the weekly, or bi-weekly in particularly frantic periods, freezer-stocking session made a huge difference. I guess that's my best suggestion - get into the habit of cooking a couple of main dishes each weekend - cook enough for 4-6 people, and freeze the portions you're not going to eat straightaway - you'll quickly build up a supply of meal options, and have variety. Big plus, it's always cheaper to cook in bulk, rather than for one - much less ingredient wastage, for starters.

Some favourites:

Chilli con carne - the meat and bean bit. Cooking a bit of rice/couscous to go with it isn't taxing. Meat sauce for pasta, spiced and fruited persian mince etc.
Chicken cacciatore/green thai chicken curry (usually made with drumsticks or chicken thighs) and other variations on the casserole theme - lamb/beef/chickpea and chorizo/sausage plus whatever vegetables you prefer (note. venison casserole is divine, but goes really dry when microwaved - too good to waste by reheating)
Risotto - freezes brilliantly. Pasta bakes/lasagne is fine too. Potatoes - not good, defrosted. Mashed is least damaged by freezing, if you want to.
Soups - those with lots of 'body' work better - butternut squash & chilli, panzanella, canellini bean and roasted garlic, curried parsnip, leek & potato (if pureed into a vichysoisse first), roast pumpkin
Bread dough - especially those intended for flatbreads etc. Breads in general - just slice it first!
Banana pecan/carrot/spiced apple muffins - roughly 100-120 cals each, made at home, in a normal, rather than king-sized muffin tin. Hits the spot if you've a sweet tooth.
Stewed fruits - spiced apple/rhubarb & strawberry/ mixed berries/pears with ginger or cardamom
I haven't experimented much with freezing fish dishes (except things like prawn risotto, which is great), but my guess is that anything in a sauce or liquid base would be fine.

There are some great cookbooks 'for one', but I'd be more inclined to take recipes you like for a group and just portion it out - saves time and money in the end.

Some of the other single guys in here have more simple tastes than I do. I need to mix up my meals to keep it interesting. I can't eat the same meal day in, day out.

That's half your problem, the more variety you have in your meals the more food you're going to waste. Also the healthier you eat, the more food you will likely waste. Why? Because you're buying mostly perishables instead of frozen pizzas which have no waste.

It takes a lot of planning, but if you figure out your recipes and shopping list ahead of time you can make different recipes that use the same ingredients. Like if you buy a loaf of bread you can make a sandwich, then french toast, regular toast, something with bread crumbs, etc. But you'd likely end up eating the same thing every week or so instead of the same thing multiple days in a row.

Also, when you cook, make more than you need and either eat the leftovers the next day or freeze them and eat them later.

I've done a lot better lately with not letting things go bad as quickly - as if I toss it out one week I don't buy it again until I know I'm for sure going to use it.

I stick to cereal and oatmeal for breakfast which is simple... lunch is fruit with a frozen meal usually (I buy about 5-10 each time I go depending on whats on sale - this is usually my main sodium consumption for the day)... dinner is either a salad, breakfast for dinner (i.e. eggs and veggies etc) or some type of sandwhich... and snacks scattered throughout the day...

grocery bills have gone down big time now that I'm more conscious about not making 10 portions of something of which half won't get eaten...