8 Great Tips to Decrease Food Waste and Save Money (2024)

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Did you know that when you decrease food waste in your home it can save you money and keep our Earth happy? The average family wastes nearly 30% of their food each week. Wasting food is like throwing money down the drain. With the rising price of groceries, there is no excuse to toss out surplus food. With a little help you can plan your meals right, decrease your grocery list, save money, and improve your environmental impact. Check out my favorite tips to reduce food waste and save money.

Reasons to Decrease Your Food Waste

Did you know that food sent to a landfill never actually decomposes? Instead wasted food goes into a plastic bag that is then taken to a landfill and later turns into greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Not only are you adding to the growing wasted space of landfills, the environmental impacts of wasted food are too large to ignore.

We also waste a ton of water and energy when we waste food. Just think for a minute about all the water and energy it takes to grow a plant. Remember that all food comes from plants on some level. Even the meat you eat had to eat plants in order to grow. Every time we throw out food, we are wasting water and energy.

Of course there is also the issue of food insecurity. Nearly 13% of Americans worry about food security. With one-third of all food produced going to waste every year, this number is startling. We clearly have enough food in American to feed everyone, yet we continue to send food to landfills.

Here are my favorite 8 tips to decrease food waste and save money:

Tip #1: Store Food Correctly

Proper food storage is one of the best ways to preserve the life of good food. Not only should you properly place your fresh fruit and vegetables in the right spot, but you should also have the right containers to store excess food items such as leftovers.

Click here to see the best quality food storage systems on Amazon. I swear, this is the easiest way to prolong the life of your food. I swear by the clear containers so you can actually see that is in them.

Here’s a quick cheat sheet on how to store fresh produce.

What to store on the countertop- all of these should ripen at room temperature. Once ripe, you can move to fridge to lengthen shelf life.

Tip #2: Practice “first in, first out” with leftover food

Always try to eat what was put in the fridge first. For example, say you have take-out leftovers from Tuesday, and leftovers from Wednesday’s dinner, make sure to eat your take out leftovers first.

You can even designate a certain area of your fridge as the “eat first” section. We do this with a sticky note so my husband and kids know that we have food ready to eat before they start making a new meal. This is a really great way to make sure your family is eating nutritious food before eating junk food!

Tip #3: Get creative with ingredients that are about to go bad

This is my favorite tip! It’s like competing against yourself on a cooking show. You get a bunch of random ingredients and try to make something tasty from it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.

Don’t be afraid to try ingredient substitutions when cooking a meal. If you have something on hand that might work in a pinch, do that instead of going out to the store to buy something new.

A quick Google search will turn up all sorts of easy ingredient substitutions.

I was able to use up some leftovers to create this beautiful pasta for lunch.

Tip #4: The freezer is your best friend

You might be surprised by how many things can be frozen for later use. I consistently freeze spinach, kale, and fruit that is on the verge of going bad to later throw in my smoothies.

I love buying berries at peak quality in bulk from our local farmer and then freezing them to eat out of season. You can do this with almost any of your favorite produce.

Check out this post to see how my Vitamix has helped me reduce my food waste. I can put almost anything in there, even celery leaves, and make the smoothest smoothies without any green chunks. My kids have no idea what is in their smoothies half the time.

Tip #5: Shop your pantry and the back of the fridge first when making your meal plan for the week

Don’t plan 7 meals for the week that involved you buying every single ingredient. Use what you have on hand first. I find that this allows me to put wholesome food on the table without spending too much money.

You might be surprised to find that you have all the makings for an amazing dish, and all you need to do is add a few items to your shopping list to round it out.

Pro Tip: If you need some inspiration with this one, try getting on Chat GPT and putting in the ingredients you have on hand and then asking for it to come up with a recipe for you. This acts as your personal recipe generator!

Tip #6: Fill in the gaps with more meal planning

Meal planning is probably the best tip you can have for reducing food waste and saving money. When you make a menu for the week and actually stick to it, you are much more likely to waste less food.

Make sure you only plan enough meals that you can eat.

Need some help with menu planning? Check out this post:

Tip #7: Only buy what you need

Here’s a novel concept: you can always get more at the store.

You can always run back out to the grocery store to get more if you need it. Multiple shopping trips is better than wasting your money on food that isn’t eaten.

While I would love to have a perfectly stocked fridge and pantry all the time, it doesn’t ever happen. I’d rather run out of something and have to make a second trip to the store, than buy too much and waste it when it goes bad.

Tip #8: Compost Your Food Scraps

Composting is a great way to recycle the nutrients in your food to make healthy soil. The best part about composting is the finished product! You will have amazing nutrient rich soil to feed your plants.

If you want more tips on composting, check out The Compost Culture. This is another website I run that offers all sorts of composting tips and tricks.

Food Waste is a Major Contributor to Greenhouse Gases

I could go on and on about the merits of reducing your food waste. I could probably bore you for days. I won’t do that.

Instead I’ll let you read this quote from a very well put togetherNRDC paperand I’ll give you some resources if you want to learn more.

Food is simply too good to waste. Even the most sustainably farmed food does us no good if the food is never eaten. Getting food to our tables eats up 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and swallows 80 percent of freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. That is more than 20 pounds of food per person every month. Not only does this mean that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, but also 25 percent of all freshwater and huge amounts of unnecessary chemicals, energy, and land. Moreover, almost all of that uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills where organic matter accounts for 16 percent of U.S. methane emissions. Nutrition is also lost in the mix—food saved by reducing losses by just 15 percent could feed more than 25 million Americans every year at a time when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables. Given all the resources demanded for food production, it is critical to make sure that the least amount possible is needlessly squandered on its journey to our plates.

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