wasting $ and food

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I agree.. sit down.. plan the menu.. maybe you can plan it better and more in synch with eachother and just swap out the proteins.. so for example tacos.. you have meat ones and he can have fish.. same ingredients.. you could also do that with stir fry or anything really.. and freeze!!! We freeze stuff in individual containers, and just about anything will freeze. Then you can have quick easy meals that are healthy whenever you want.

Agreed! Planning is the bestest way to save $$. We plan on cooking extra and using the leftovers in another meal that week. for example, we had hot beef sandwiches from leftover roast beef, and tonight's extra roasted chicken goes in chicken and noodle soup tomorrow.

This wasn't covered yet, so I just wanted to point out that ground turkey can be used in just about any recipe that calls for ground beef. Chili, for example, is great with ground turkey.

I freeze almost everything from cream cheese to lunch meat. sounds weird but it is fine once it thaws. The cream cheese texture is slightly different after it's frozen, but I don't use it on bread or anything, I throw it in the crockpot for meals, so it melts in fine.

Freezing beans was the most helpful tip I ever received.

You don't want to eat chickpeas and black beans for days on end so I use what I need for the meal whether it be ½ cup or 1 cup then freeze the remainder. To thaw, I just run warm/hot water over them in a strainer. I also freeze the remainder of canned diced tomatoes and strawberries and banana. I clean and dice the fruit then freeze them for my protein smoothies. This means when strawberries are $1 like they are this week, I can go nuts and nothing will be wasted. Yes, bananas keep in a freezer FOREVER! I bought 16 bananas and they lasted me about 6 months.

I plan almost all my meals, and I try to waste as little as possible and am usually successful. I keep all my bread, english muffins, tortillas in the fridge and they last a good few weeks in there. I also store all my vegetables in sealed plastic ziploc bags in the produce drawers, if they were fresh when I bought them, they last at least a week like that. Certain fruits you should keep on the counter and eat as they ripen, and others I keep in the fridge but don;t wash until I am ready to eat them - such a berries. For grapes, when I get home from the store, i pick them all off the vine, wash them and store them in the fridge in a bowl - last me a good few days, up to a week. For all fresh stuff, I only buy what I think I will need for that week, and if I have leftover bananas - i make some muffins and then freeze them.

You also have to learn to look at what you have left in the house and plan meals around that. If I have a bunch of english muffins or some leftover cinnamon bread I know I need to incorporate that into my breakfast. If I bought a lot of fruit, I have to choose to eat that as a snack over other non perishable stuff I have that will last. If I buy feta cheese for something and don;t use it all, I look for a recipe where I can use the rest next week- or throw it into some eggs or a salad. If I have a ton of canned tomatoes I make some pasta sauce or a chili - double batch for freezing. You just need to look at what you have and figure out how to use it up before you buy more stuff. Be creative! I created an egg, cheese and mashed black beans with salsa sandwich on an english muffin when I had extra black beans from dinner one night. It made for a great breakfast and i make it all the time now.

I have a problem too with fresh fruit and veggies. Lettuce starts rotting after 4-4 days..I always read expiry dates. I also cook for 2 people and it's hard sometimes. If I know, that the two of us can't eat the fresh stuff, I invite people over to share it. Also, I've learned never to buy fresh stuff at CostCo. Doesn't work for me.
Another issue I have, is that I like to buy packaged sliced turkey( with the nutition on the package) for sandwiches. I'm the only one that eats it though and because I ration it out, I can't seem to buy a small enough amount. It seems like I have to buy just a few slices at the deli or it expires. Good luck.
I guess we have to shop every 3 days to keep a healthy supply of fruits and veggies.

I bought a food sealer and I'm so glad I spent the money. I live alone so fresh foods go bad too quickly for me to finish them. With the food saver I can cut up fresh vegetables and seal them in individual servings and they last a lot longer. For example, I love green peppers....I can slice them and seal them and enjoy them for a week or more after they've been cut and cleaned. I also make vegetable soups in the crock pot, then freeze them in individual bowls. Then I pop the frozen soup out of the bowl and seal it. When I'm ready to eat it I just put it back in the same bowl and microwave. I can make whole salads, then put a damp paper towel over it and seal it and have a fresh salad every day that has already been cut up. With things like tomato sauce I freeze it in ice cube trays and seal a few cubes at a time. When I need sauce I just cut one open and heat it. I don't like to cook so I do a lot of crock pot and freeze meals.

I used to have the same problem about food going bad, but that was before I actually started cooking (I used to never cook except for breakfast on the weekends). For me the key is menu planning for the week and using the soon to expire foods right up front. I too eat a lot of chicken as that is my main source of protein, so I know that I have to cook and consume it within three days of buying, so I plan the meals accordingly.

For the veggies, maybe lower the temperature for that drawer in your refrigerator, I think this has helped me a lot. Also, I now put cut onions (it takes me awhile to finish an onion despite trying to use a lot of it for an anti-inflammatory diet) and other cut veggies that I cannot use all at once (though I often try to use it all at once) in brown paper bags, in the veggie drawer of the fridge as I read that light is what really deteriorates the food.

Now I bring lunch to work too, so this definitely helps me with consuming the soon to expire foods. For instance, I make my own tikka masala sauce and cook chicken with it enough for 3 meals, and it is consumed in about 1.5-2 days since I bring it for lunch too. I am not a fan of repeating meal after meal, so I change it up and insert a different meal in between.

Tortillas are my weakness, and as much as I love my uncooked flour ones (I think they last a bit longer than the pre-cooked ones and are WAY better, I like the Tortilla Land brand), I rarely allow myself to eat them as the calorie count increases significantly. So I store them in my fruit drawer in the refrigerator, and eat them with breakfast when I make eggs, or sometimes when I'm going to use chicken by cooking the chicken with cumin, onions, garlic, and fresh salsa. If I run out of naan bread or lavash, I use tortillas as a substitute.

Another thing that helps is to only buy what I really need, this forces me to use other non ready to expire foods in my fridge and pantry, so this alone has helped me finally use things sitting in my pantry and at the back of the fridge. Something about less is more goes really far. It also prompts new menu ideas.

Also, I've found many of the staples that I use like Bob's Redmill 13 Bean Soup and Soo Foo are also in the bulk foods section of organic based grocery stores, so I don't have to buy a whole large package, I can buy much smaller amounts. These grocery stores may be a bit pricey, but for organic, good, clean food, I'm worth it, plus things are generally packaged a lot smaller, so it works out better for me.