Save money on food by making it last longer
September 23, 2008 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under groceries
One good way to save money on groceries is to make the groceries you buy last longer – or at least last as long as they can.
Freeze leftover sauce right away. Actually you can freeze leftover anything right away, but my issue is sauce, hence the mention. I make homemade spaghetti and other sauces, but once in a while, if there’s a super sale, I’ll buy. With just my son and I in the house, we’d never eat an entire jar of sauce, so into the fridge it goes, where once in a while it sits until it’s nicely fuzzy. Bad planning. I’ve taken to freezing sauce and other items to save them.
Set your fridge below 40 degrees F and never stuff it totally full. For food to stay fresh and at the right cool temperature, air needs to circulate. Now, your freezer is another story – stuff that freezer to the max to save $ on energy.
Don’t store perishables in the fridge door. Of course anything in the fridge is perishable, but dairy and eggs will go bad quicker if they’re constantly exposed to outside the fridge air and off kilter temps.
Freeze all breads. This is an iffy tip. Some families devour a loaf a bread a day. However, as noted there’s just the two of us in my house, so bread lasts a while. In a small family, you should freeze bread, muffins, tortillas, and any other bread-based item to keep it fresh until you eat it.
I’ve heard that you should store cottage cheese upside down to make it last longer. I HATE cottage cheese, so I wouldn’t know, but it’s worth a shot.
Put most produce in the fridge, even items like bananas. Bananas will turn brown in the fridge, but only the outer peel. The one item to store on the counter would be tomatoes. It won’t make them last longer, but they quickly lose their taste in the fridge.
Have a back up plan for every item you buy. If you buy an item and there’s any sort of question about your family eating it before it goes bad, then you need a back up plan, or you need to quit buying that item. My two major back up plans are soups and ice pops. If I have leftover noodles, veggies, or tofu, it can go into a soup. Ice pops are even better, because I will seriously toss anything into a mold and freeze it up. Old fruit, left over beans, scrapings of the jam jar, that very last bit of juice, milk mixed with chocolate, yogurt that expires, and even old veggies. I freeze it and my son always eats it – there’s some sort of kid allure when it comes to frozen treats. If you’re an ice pop newbie, read: 32 Unique Homemade Popsicle Recipes & Ideas.
What tips do you have for making groceries last longer?
These are some great money saving tips. Thanks.
We have an almost new fridge with 2 produce drawers. I could never get the slide thingys (LOL) right to keep the produce at the right level etc. I finally gave up and started putting a paper towel in each bag after shaking off most of the moisture from the store sprinklers and then putting the bags in the drawer with the levels open just a bit. Everything I have put in that way has lasted for forever without shriveling or molding. I forgot about a green pepper I had and went to look at it and it was perfectly fine so I looked at the receipt and it was over a month old. Romaine lettuce has stayed good for over a month as well.
I don’t like to rely on paper products so I tried kitchen towels and they didnt do as well. I do use towels for the romaine lettuce but it is a waffle weave cotton towel, not terry cloth. When I do use the paper towels they are still in good enough condition to use to use for wiping up something after.
I dont advocate leaving things that long as I think they may loose vitamins etc but it is better than my produce going bad in 3-4 days like was happening before.