On Mondays I feed my family garbage. Not literally of course. Tuesday is our trash day, so every Monday I clean out the refrigerator and determine what stays, what goes and what really should be eaten now or it will go bad. And we don’t just necessarily eat only leftovers on Mondays, I try to be creative and make it into something interesting. A leftover hamburger may become a taco salad, leftover chicken breast a chicken Caesar salad, leftover lunch meat into a turkey & cheddar melt….and so on. It’s usually a big salad night for us as well, so that we don’t waste produce.
I like this Monday habit I’ve developed for several reasons. One is that nothing is in my fridge long enough to stink it up, or to become so unidentifiable that I don’t want to touch it.
But the main reason is that it’s really allowed me to focus on what we’re wasting on a weekly basis and how much money we’re throwing away. Sure, it may only be few slimy pieces of lunchmeat. But lunchmeat around here can be $9-$12 per lb. Just a few pieces of lunchmeat=$3 or $4. A bag of prewashed salad is $4 or $5 not on sale, so even if you’re only throwing out a third of the bag, that’s a buck or two.
This article from Slate quotes some studies that say Americans waste as much as 40% of our food. Forty percent! Are you wasting 40%?
Start monitoring what you are throwing away on a weekly basis and try keeping a mental tally. Next time you’re at the grocery store, before you purchase those highly-perishable items, ask yourself “Do I have this at home? Are we really going to eat this? Do I have a plan in place and a recipe in mind to use this item?”
Get into a garbage-night habit. Clean out your refrigerator weekly so that you’re mindful of what you’re using and what you’re wasting. Then turn that into actual savings at the store. It’s a very easy way to trim your bill–eat the food instead of throwing it away.
