This week, our Frugal Friday series features some of our reader’s top tips for reducing food waste. Feel free to add your own!
From Megan:
Keep any kind of bread fresh longer buy popping it in the fridge. A half pan costs more per slice than a full loaf, but if you won’t use it before it gets moldy, just keep it in the fridge – you’ll get much longer out of it. Great for wraps, too.
From Grace:
Freeze leftovers, you might not feel like eating them the next day but you’ll be so delighted to find it in the freezer some night when you cannot be bothered cooking!
From Julie:
A recent offer in SuperValu enabled me to get 2 dinners and 8 afterschool lunches for my 6 year old. A chicken at €2.49 provided a roast dinner for 3; the left overs I used the following day in large vol-u-vents (with onion sauce& whatever you have in the fridge). I then used the bones to make fab homemade soup which my daughter loves and means I can HIDE numerous nutritious veg. I froze the soup into individual portions.
From Joanne:
Have a ‘fridge night’ once a week, (or more often) where you make an effort to eat all the leftovers and odd things in the fridge. It means that you won’t be throwing out old food and it makes you get creative.
Friday 5 June, 2009 at 12:56 pm
I freeze all the bread I buy and don’t use the first day – then take out slices (always freeze in slices) to make sandwiches for lunch. Works really well for proper brown bread or “fancy bread” – the rosemary and olive oil or sundried tomato types. Also keeps my lunch chilled and means I never throw out any bread and means I can vary my lunch by picking slices out of different loaves (the exciting life I lead…)
Saturday 6 June, 2009 at 12:10 am
Before going grocery shopping, always take a good look at your fridge: the priority is getting rid of the leftovers from the previous week, then you can think about what is missing.
Know what’s in your fridge like the back of your hand.
Monday 8 June, 2009 at 3:54 pm
With the long stretch in the evenings I have been heading out for a stroll at about 9/10pm. I have picked up some real bargains in the marked down sections of the supermarket. Last sunday in my local Tesco Express I managed to get the following for €2.77
1 rack of lamb (down from €12-sth to €1.18)
2 packets of Tesco mash
1 bag of potatoes
1 punnet of chestnut mushrooms
1 tub Mulligatawney soup
1 tub Chicken & Veg soup (both soups still had 2 days till their use-by date)
I think I got such great value as I got their so late but a lot of people were on the same wavelength and there were quite a few around. Last night I headed out again but went to a different tesco and for €3.74 I got:
2 chicken & broccoli bakes
2 Tesco Mash
Packet of breakfast pancakes.
Large Steak (not round, but a large, thick, juicy cut – enough for two )down to €0.90
Farmhouse veg soup.
If you live near a Tesco it might be worth a look late in the evening. If there is nothing you like, no harm, but could be some things there to stock up the freezer and cut down on the weekly spend!
Wednesday 10 June, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Never go to the shops hungry and always take a list! Try to eat a meal or a snack before you go, it means you shop with a full stomach and you don’t purchase things you don’t need. This also helps when you are trying to watch your budget and waist line.