• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
The Gracious Wife logo
  • Recipes
  • Family
    • Love & Marriage
    • Parenting
  • House & Home
    • Kitchen and Cooking Tips
    • Cleaning & Organization
    • Budget
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube

Home » For The Home » Budget

6 Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste

Feb 27, 2017 · 1 Comment

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Yummly
  • Mix

Save money and resources by wasting less food.  Stop wasting and start being resourceful now with these 6 easy ways to reduce your family's food waste!

6 Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste - Save money and resources by wasting less food.  Stop wasting and start being resourceful now with these 6 easy ways to reduce your family's food waste!  Frugal living - budget

Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste

Wasting food is always a bad thing. Not only is it bad to let good food go to waste when so many people in the world don't have enough to eat, but it's also bad for your budget! If you know your family needs to reduce how much food goes to waste, then you need to read these 6 Ways to Reduce Your Family’s Food Waste!

 

6 Ways to Reduce Your Family’s Food Waste

1. Have an "Eat It Up Day" - A really easy, and potentially delicious, way to reduce your family's food waste is with an "eat it up day." This is a day where you look at all the random odds and ends in your fridge, and find some way to put them together to make a meal. This is an easy way to create a unique soup, salad, sandwich, or stew! This works best if you do it the day before you go grocery shopping so the odds and ends don't get hidden in your fridge behind new food.  We also have a "Leftover Free-for-All" where everyone picks a leftover in the fridge to eat that night for dinner.  Anything is game, as long as it's leftovers.

 

2. Don't Buy More Than You Need - It doesn't do you any good to buy a ton of food on sale, then waste half of it. Instead, focus on only buying as much as you need, regardless of how good the price is. If you have a big freezer, you can buy some extra food as long as there's space in the freezer for it. And if you have a dehydrator or know how to can, you could also buy some excess to preserve. But in all other cases, stick to only buying what your family can actually consume before the food spoils.

 

3. Learn Food Preserving Tips -  Of course, you don't have to freeze, dry, or can your food to reduce your family's food waste! Instead, you just need to learn some basic food preservation tips. For example, keep ethylene gas producing fruits and vegetables away from ethylene sensitive ones or the sensitive ones may ripen faster. So don't keep your bananas and tomatoes next to your carrots and watermelon! And always put a paper towel in the bag/container of any produce that was damp in the store. Wrapping frozen food in heavy duty foil or putting it in a freezer bag helps reduce instances of freezer burn!

6 Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste - Save money and resources by wasting less food.  Stop wasting and start being resourceful now with these 6 easy ways to reduce your family's food waste!  Frugal living - budget

4. Make More on Purpose - Are you often throwing out leftover bits of things that you used in your recipes? To prevent that, just use up the whole thing by doubling your recipes! You can freeze the extra food (cooked or uncooked) and have a ready-to-go homemade freezer meal made without any extra effort!

 

5. Menu Plan - One of the best ways to reduce your family's food waste is with menu planning! After all, it's hard to have extra food left over if you're only buying what you need to make your family's meals for the week! Menu planning also helps you to make a better shopping list, which focuses your shopping better and helps you save money in the grocery store. So you save money in the store and later at home by not wasting any food! That's a win-win!

 

6. Be Ready with a Plan B - While having a menu plan is very helpful, sometimes life gets in the way. If something happens that ruins your original meal plans, be ready to use your ingredients in a different dish so they don't go to waste! You'd be surprised how many dishes can be made from the exact same ingredients! You may get to try something new that you really like!

What have you done already to reduce your family's food waste?

 

 

Did you like these Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste? Find more on my Frugal Living board on Pinterest!

If you liked these Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste, you might also like
Cooking and Kitchen Tips to Save Money - How we cut our grocery bill in half while over doubling our family size, and how you can too.

How to Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half

 

How to get started with budget meal planning to help you and your family save money and stay in your budget.

Budget Meal Planning Basics

 

These are great tips for beginners to start making freezer meals and freezer cooking. How to get started, plan, start cooking, plus tons of amazing freezer meals and recipes!

Easy Freezer Cooking for Beginners

See More Budget Ideas

Never Miss a Thing!

Join our newsletter to get new recipes, tips, tricks, and tutorials every week!

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.


There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.




 

6 Ways to Reduce Your Family's Food Waste - Save money and resources by wasting less food.  Stop wasting and start being resourceful now with these 6 easy ways to reduce your family's food waste!  Frugal living - budget
« Cheeseburger Biscuit Bake
20 Edible Easter Basket Fillers »
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Yummly
  • Mix

Budget, Family Activities and Ideas, For The Home Family, Frugal Living, Save Money

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jess Stuart says

    March 04, 2017 at 12:32 pm

    Food waste really bothers me, but I don't think my wife really cares. She "doesn't like leftovers" and when she cooks (only a few times a month) she will pick recipies that use like 25 ingredients, and over half of the food sits in the fridge and rots. She has been known to buy tubs of french-onion sour cream dip to eat with chips for her lunch, then brings the 90% full tub home when she gets off work. We accumulated 9 mostly full tubs of this stuff in the refrigerator before the oldest ones began to expire. I suggested she pack a small lunch-box sized cooler and keep the dip in there, or use her work refrigerator to store it. The response I got "I'm not doing that!". Jesus Christ, it feels like I married a spoiled 14-year old teenager somedays. We're doomed to basically throw away $80 a month forever. Sigh.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Picture of Michelle Medlin, The Gracious Wife

Hello! I'm Michelle!
I'm a comfort food lover and self-taught cook with five amazing kids and a firefighter husband, surviving mostly on coffee. I love to create easy and delicious family recipes, and share creative family tips I've learned along the way.
Welcome to The Gracious Wife!
MORE ABOUT ME>>

Spoon taking a bite out of curried carrot soup in a black matte bowl topped with a drizzle of cream, red pepper flakes, and fresh cilantro with a bunch of fresh cilantro and a linen napkin behind.

Curried Carrot Soup

Plate full of pan fried catfish next to lemon wedges next to a linen

Southern Pan Fried Catfish

A spoon taking a large scoop of turkey tetrazzini from a casserole dish

Turkey Tetrazzini

A red stuffed pepper topped with melted cheese and freshly chopped parsley with a bite taken out on a small white plate next to a fork.

Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers

Sloppy joe with a toasted bun sitting on a small plate in front of a Crock Pot

Crock Pot Sloppy Joes

Italian Beef Sandwich topped with provolone and giardiniera on a black plate with a second sandwich sitting behind.

Crock Pot Italian Beef Sandwiches

More Favorite Recipes

What's Trending Now:

  • A corner slice of chicken pot pie with golden crust on a small plate with a fork with a bite on it, on a rustic wood background with a striped linen The BEST Chicken Pot Pie
  • Biscuits stacked on a black matte plate on a white rustic wood background Southern Buttermilk Biscuits
  • Chicken Gnocchi Soup in a white bowl with a rustic wood background and breadsticks in a white and blue striped linen behind it. Copycat Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup
  • Egg salad sandwich cut diagonally with the halves stacked on top of each other on a plate on a rustic wood background. Classic Egg Salad
  • Homemade mayo in a mason jar with a butter knife scooping some out, with lemons and an immersion blender in the background Homemade Mayonnaise

Footer

  • About The Gracious Wife
  • Contact Us
  • Copyright Notice
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure

You can find me here too!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Disclosure

The Gracious Wife is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. All our thoughts and opinions are our own and we are not paid for or mandated to provide a positive review.

2022© The Medlin Group
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • About Us

Copyright © 2023 The Gracious Wife ·

352 shares
352 shares