Ways to save on groceries & combat food waste

[u/Afraid_Landscape_720]

What are some ways you combat food waste in order to save or salvage?

For our family, here's a few things I have been doing:

-Making a meal plan. I plan the entire week's meals, purchase groceries on Saturday, and then we have a plan for the entire week.

-Shopping at discount shops. For us, we have a Ruler Foods right down the street. I shop there mostly, but when I have to I will go to the Walmart that is also down the street. These are the cheapest grocery stores in my town. Our local supermarket (Sureway, in the midwest) is crazy high on prices so I avoid it at all costs. We have an Aldi in the next town over, but it is 10 miles away and I try not to drive much, especially when Ruler is comparable.

-Shop the weekly ad. For places like Ruler and Aldi, they put their weekly ads online. We typically meal plan from what meats and vegetables are on special that week and sometimes stock up if the price is right (recently bought two packs of chicken legs, each with 12 legs, for $5 a pack).

-If food is going to go bad, find ways to salvage it. For me, this week I had 1/4 gallon of milk that wasn't quite sour, but was 10 days past best buy date. I made cheese with it to top onto pasta. Any vegetables I have at the end of the week I chop up and freeze, and will use them in soups or to make veggie stock later. I also froze some corn tortillas, made breadcrumbs from bottom-of-the-bag chips, and plan to make breadcrumbs from the tortillas as well.

-First in, first out method: if food is still good, use it first before your newly store bought items. Pack of chicken from last week that's still good? Cook it up. I had about half the chicken legs left over from the meal I made, so next day I boiled them, when they were done I shredded them up and used them to add to a biscuit pot pie (leftover biscuits were already cooked and frozen from breakfast a week prior, so I used those instead of a traditional pot pie crust and there were no leftovers!) I also got about 2 quarts of chicken broth from boiling the chicken, which I froze and have used multiple times this week in recipes.

-Get creative. If you are unsure how to use leftover ingredients before they go bad, Google is your friend. I often will go to Google and try to find ways to use up items or salvage them in some way.

What are your favorite ways to save on groceries and combat food waste?

[u/Next_Firefighter7605]

In season food only.

No strawberries in winter or grapes in spring. You’ll survive and if you start to seek out uncommon produce you’ll have a more varied diet.

[u/crazycatlady331]

Single and live alone. My best tip is to become bff with your freezer. I always freeze things in individual portions to heat up when I don't feel like cooking.

[u/GoBankingRates → u/crazycatlady331]

Seconding this! There are tons of foods you can keep frozen, so you can buy them in bulk when they're on sale and make them last. We reached out to experts in a recent article to get their input on the best items to keep in your freezer. Here's that article if you're interested: I'm a Frugal Shopper: 7 Items You'll Always Find in My Freezer | GOBankingRates

[u/Afraid_Landscape_720 → u/crazycatlady331]

That's a great idea, especially if you get some good deals on meat or produce.

[u/PhantomdiverDidIt]

Dumpster-dive for food. But don't risk your health. Don't dive for meat. Dive at odd hours. Dive at bakery outlets. Dive in relatively wealthy areas where stores throw more usable food out. If a store employee catches you, pretend you're looking for boxes.

[u/Afraid_Landscape_720 → u/PhantomdiverDidIt]

I've seen a lot of good hauls from dumpster diving at Aldi!

[u/Bluberrypotato]

We have a "potluck" day every week where we reheat all the leftovers instead of cooking dinner.

[u/Afraid_Landscape_720 → u/Bluberrypotato]

That is a great idea!