Each year 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food thrown away each year. Shockingly, nearly 40% of all food in America is wasted. Food waste in our home makes up about 39% or 42 billion pounds (FeedingAmerica.org). In this episode, I share 15 tips on ways to save on your grocery and food bill and minimize food waste…12 tips plus 3 bonus tips
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Podcast Transcript
Dr. Sev
Today we’re going to be talking about ways to save on groceries. It really should be ways to save on food, not necessarily groceries. But you’ll get the gist of it as we go through. And I may end up throwing a bonus or two in there. Without further ado, let’s jump right in. Now some of these may be new for you. Some of them may be refresher. But one thing I do know is that keeping money is a behavior. There’s a saying that says making money is an action, but keeping money is a behavior. And so there’s nothing wrong with being reminded that we can change our behavior. And in changing our behavior, we end up saving money.
Let’s talk about the first item. Buying in season, there are things that the farmers will grow that are outside of season. And when that usually happens, they’re more expensive. For example, avocados, when you buy avocados in season, you’ll find it’s 59 cents 60 cents each. When it’s out of season, it’s usually two or $3. I never buy it out of season. So there are certain things, pay attention to what’s in season, what’s out of season, and the things that are in season, you want to go ahead and purchase those. And a trick that I use, I purchase items in season and I cut them up and I flash freeze them. Because when you go into the grocery stores, there are bags of fruits and vegetables that are frozen, and they have fresh, frozen those and put them in bags. So that’s what I do. I lay them on a baking tray, put them in my freezer. And once I put that in the freezer, and it sits for a little bit, maybe 15-20 minutes, then I take them, put them in a baggie and put them back in the freezer. Because when you flash freeze them, what you’re doing is you’re allowing them to not stick together. That’s something that I use to save money. So I buy in season, and I put it in my freezer so I can use it when it’s out of season. So that’s something that you may want to consider.
Dr. Sev
Number two is to minimize waste. And here are some ways that you can minimize waste. And before share that let me share some stats with you. Each year, over 119 billion that’s billion with a B, pounds of food is wasted in the United States. And there are people who are hungry in the United States, that’s another topic for another day. But that equates to 130 billion meals and more than 408 billion in food thrown away each year. And this is a statistics that comes from feeding america.org. nearly 40% of the food that’s produced in this country is wasted. And food waste in our home makes up about 42 billion pounds. Now, forget about the food waste. How much money are we wasting? Or how much money are we losing by having that volume of food thrown away. So I want you to consider how you can minimize waste. Instead of throwing away overripe fruit, do you cut them up and put them in your freezer for maybe smoothies later, you can put them in soups, you can put them in flitters, you can blend it into pasta, there’s so many things that we can be creative, and take those foods that are on the verge of spoiling and do with those things. So we just need to use our leftovers, use our food that’s about to go waste in creative ways. Because again, it’s not about the food, it’s the money think about how much you’re spending. Because if I throw away those bananas, I’m going to have to go buy some more, right? If I throw away those oranges, I’m gonna have to buy some more. So that’s money that I’m using. So minimize waste as much as you can. Because that’s saving you money in the long run.
Dr. Sev
Number three, shop your pantry and refrigerator before going shopping. I’m guilty. There times I’ve gone into store, I’m thinking I’m going to make a certain meal. And I’m thinking I don’t have XYZ item at home. So I go ahead and buy it again. So what am I doing when I come home, I have three or four already in the pantry. So what you want to do is you want to go through your pantry, go through your refrigerator, go through your freezer, and see what’s there before you go shopping. Checking those items is going to minimize that you’re going to have multiples of those items in your possession. Because again, that’s money that you can use for something else, especially if it’s something that has long life to have that thing sitting there and eventually it may expire before you’re able to use it.
Dr. Sev
Okay, so number four. This is something I do a lot Google items that you have on hand already. And what I do is I may have some shrimp, I may have some potatoes. And so I go on Google and I say, What meal can I make with shrimp and potatoes, or what meal can I make with shrimp and peas or something like that. And it gives me some recipes. So I can use what’s on hand. So instead of me saying, I don’t have anything to cook, and go out to the store to buy some new items to create a new meal, I look at what’s there. And I request recipes from Google to come up with something for dinner. Number five, if you use credit cards, and I’m saying if you use credit cards, if you don’t, don’t start, but if you use credit cards, earmark, the ones that give you the best rewards for shopping at the grocery store, I use one credit card just for shopping at the grocery store. And for gas. That’s all I use it for. And I paid off every month. And it gives me back enough of a cashback that I can save. And I’m strategic with that 3% back that I get from shopping, or from the gas, I’m very strategic with that. Be strategic and use that savings for saving money on groceries.
Dr. Sev
Number six is meal planning and meal prepping. A lot of people say I don’t want to eat the same thing over and over again. But that’s not what meal prepping is. meal planning is separate from meal prepping, what you’re going to be doing with meal planning is you’re going to plan your meals ahead of time. So you know Monday, I’m going to eat XYZ, Tuesday, I’m going to eat this other thing. Wednesday, I’m going to eat whatever. So when you plan your meals ahead of time, you know want to go in grocery store yet because you know what your meal is going to be. And if you’re one of those who say I don’t want to eat the same thing every day, then when you prep your meals, you can prep something for Monday, something different for Tuesday, something different for Wednesday. But the bottom line of doing the meal planning and meal prepping is that it minimizes the possibility of you stopping on the street to say I’m going to get something to eat because I’m tired, I don’t want to fix something, you already have something at home that you can take out of the freezer or out of the fridge to fix for your meal.
Dr. Sev
Another thing that you may want to consider in the same vein as meal planning and meal prepping, is having a meatless day, one day per week. Because what that does is it helps to lower your expenses. meats are typically the most expensive part of our meals. So if we can plan ahead, maybe do some soups or or our breakfast for dinner or something be creative and minimize how much meat we’re using. If we’re meat eaters, how much meat we’re using in our meals that will help us save money. You want to shop the circulars mark your calendar for the days when meat goes on sale at your favorite grocery store. Because there are days when your grocer will mark down means. So if you’re aware of those days, you can shop those days and put that as part of your meal planning and your meal prepping. And prepping and freezing meals ahead of time gives you quick options for when you’re on the go. Especially if you have little ones and you’re involved in sports, it helps you to have those things on hand so you can grab them on the go.
Dr. Sev
The one that gets me sometimes is number seven, which is shopping on an empty stomach. Try as much as you can to shop on a full stomach, our eyes are the ways to our stomach. And we’re more likely to buy things we don’t need when our stomachs are demanding to be fed. That just happened to me recently, where I was in the grocery store, I was hungry and I bought some things I typically don’t eat, got in the car when I got out of the store had a few pieces and it’s still downstairs in the pantry because I was hungry and my stomach demanded to be fed. So you want to shop on a full stomach. And that’s number seven. Number eight, partner with friends and family and shop at membership stores. I have a friend who we share the cost of Sam’s membership. And that allows us to not spend as much because we both have small families. So we’re partnering with that with each other so that we can minimize the cost of the membership. Another thing that you can consider is if you have family members who live in the same area, you could purchase maybe in bulk. So let’s say you bought a 20 pound bag of rice. You can split that between three or four families. Your food won’t go to waste, whatever it is you’re purchasing, you know you buy juice, you’re buying sauces wherever you buy it in bulk. You split the cost of that food or whatever it is you’re purchasing. Then you’re a go to minimize your costs because again, it’s going to minimize your waste. And it’s going to minimize the possibility of spoilage. If you’re able to do that.
Dr. Sev
Number nine is don’t buy hygiene products at the grocery store, I want you those of you who use hygiene products to do an experiment, go to the grocery store, and look at those hygiene products, paper products. And I want you to compare that with buying it at the big box stores, or like an Aldi or somewhere, compare those and see what the price is the same thing. Just compare the prices. And you’ll notice that you’re paying a premium when you buy hygiene products at the grocery store. And don’t buy the products do you want to do a comparison to be able to see, I buy this thing on a regular basis. And I pay $3 at Publix. And when I buy it at Sam’s, I’m paying $2. So it’s more beneficial for me to buy it at Sam’s. So you want to do some kind of price comparison to see the things that you buy on a regular basis, what the cost is, and how beneficial it is to purchase it somewhere else. Because we have a tendency to buy the same thing at the same type of store all the time. But we want to examine what it is we’re purchasing and how much it’s costing us at each of these stores to determine what I want and where to buy that item.
Dr. Sev
So number 10 is buy generic. Did you know that many of the generic items are manufactured in the same plan as the name brands. Now, not all things generic are going to taste as good as the name brand, depending on what the generic is, and where it’s manufactured. But for the most part, generic items are going to taste the same or sometimes even better than the name brand items. So you want to do some experiment to see how you can buy generic because, again, it’s how can I impact my bottom line? I need this thing I have to eat it I have to eat. So how can I impact my bottom line? The price of food is going up? How can I save money in my budget? Alright, number 11 is prioritizing using the things on the verge of expiring or going back. Many times we buy new things, and we just put them in front of the pantry or we put them in the front of the fridge. Well, what happens is we’re using those newer things, and then the things that the back never gets used, and they go back. And every time you throw it away, you’re not throwing away an apple, you’re not throwing away lettuce, you’re throwing away money. Because as I shared before, over 119 billion pounds, billion pounds of food is wasted in the United States. And 42 billion of that is in our home is wasted in our homes. So how can we minimize that because that’s money we’re throwing away. We say we don’t have money, we don’t have money to save, we don’t have money to invest. We don’t have money to, to you know to put aside. But where’s our money really going? Is it going in the trash.
Dr. Sev
All right, number 12 is to start a garden. Now even if you live in an apartment, there are ways you can do things, maybe a little vegetable garden, maybe a little mint garden, something that you can use to save money. And I want to share this little thing with you real quick, where I planted a garden last summer. And I got some squash, I got red bell peppers, green bell peppers, Dragon tongue, beans, I got basil, I got all these things. And I was able to make what is that thing called the basil that you can use on me, I was able to make that with some garlic and cheese and other things. I was very creative, and I save a lot of money. And you just need a small pot, you just need a pan or something in your windowsill and that saves you money. So even if you don’t have a big backyard, there are things that we can do. Because again, I think about when we’re in college, we were created with a little money we have but now that we have these jobs, were bougie. I can’t eat leftovers, but you edit in college because you had no choice. You know, I can’t eat the same thing every day, you probably didn’t go because you had no choice. But now we make the money and our mindset has changed about the way we do our groceries. Because as I shared before making money is an action but keeping money is a behavior and so we have to learn how to change our behavior when it comes to hard money and how we handle our money. Okay, so those are 12 items that I said I’m going to share but I do have a few bonus because I always give extra. I always do more than what’s required.
Dr. Sev
So the other one I want you to do which is these two are some of the most important and I don’t know why I had them as a bonus but create a food budget. Because what that does, it helps to keep us within a certain barrier per se. If I know my food budget for the week is $300, I’m going to be more strategic in what I purchase. And that’s what a food budget does, I give myself a certain amount that I am going to spend on food every month. And when that money is gone, it’s gone. So because I know that I am very strategic in how I play with things throughout the month to make sure I stay within my budget. So a food budget is going to be something that’s going to be helpful to you. If you create one, I know you’re limited by how much you’re going to spend. And then you’re not going to be tempted to use a credit card to make up for that. The other one, again, which is very important is shop with a list. Many times I have gone into store in the past, and I pick things up, oh, I’ll just get this, I think I might use that. Let me get this, I may use it, let me get that I may use it and ends up that it stays in my pantry. And when my daughter had food driving her school, I just handing it over to them. Or when the bank says okay, we’re collecting food for people, I just handed it over to them because I had no strategy. So when you shop with a list, going back to our meal planning, when you plan, you shop with a list with specific things that you’re going to purchase.
Dr. Sev
And a lot of these things are common sense. A lot of them you may already be doing or you may have slacked off from doing. But the bottom line is this. Saving money on food and groceries requires discipline and it requires conscious decision making. Because again, it’s not that you’re saving money on groceries, you’re saving money bottom line, our paychecks are not going up as fast as the cost of food. So how can we be creative? To save money shop with family members? What can we do to save money so that we are not just spending our money. And the last thing I want to share is don’t just buy because something is on sale? If it’s not something that you’re going to use, how many times have we done that? I’m going to buy it because it’s on sale. And I buy it, but I don’t really use it. But I’m trying to save money. But did I save money by buying it on sale? No. I bought it on sale. I mean, I thought I saved money. But I really didn’t. Because I didn’t end up using it. So I hope these are tips that you can come back to and make a note. If there’s something that you are not doing that you can probably start doing something that you are doing, you could do more of it. That these will help you to save money on your groceries because again, foodstuff is going up, the price of food is going up the price of everything is going up. And we have to be creative in what we do, how we handle our money and what we can save so that we can keep more of our money in our pockets.
