Basically, some things surprise me – I expected myself to be a much more wasteful person. But I simply don’t buy many unnecessary things. Back when I lived with my parents, I used to reach for cosmetics, trinkets, those seemed important… now I don’t even feel the urge to buy them.
But… I spend a lot of unnecessary money on food. I even end up throwing some away.
Somehow… I miscalculate… in the first half of the day I barely manage to eat, so in the evening my eyes are full, I want to grab as many food products as possible.
I live alone – it’s unreasonable to buy so much unnecessary food!!
At least I keep thinking that one plus is that alcohol is not at all an essential item for me.
I can go months without drinking it and not even remember it exists…
Try to shop for meals over a longer period of time. So instead of daily groceries - aim to buy for one week only, and then two weeks. Till you find you know the ingredients you like to use the most!
I’ve been living alone for three years roughly, and only recently realised what I should have for breakfast lol
It also seems like a pretty good plan to set specific days for shopping. For example, 2–3 times on weekdays, once on the weekend, or something like that..
I need to make more soup dishes to be honest. I don’t have patience for it though; to me it feels like I have to wait long time for a flavoursome dish lol
To be honest, I’ve had weeks or even months in my life when soup was placed right in front of me on the table — and I just didn’t see the point of eating it..
Only now do I realize that it actually has a lot of value. After work, it feels like I gain some good physical strength when I eat a big, hot pot of soup.
I look up the cheapest things to buy a while back and usually just try to stick to those but also I try to meal prep which really helps.
A buy a ■■■■ ton of rice, potatoes, oatmeal, pasta flour etc just so I have a backup supply then I buy stuff that can go with those to make it good like pasta sauce, butter, sugar, frozen fruit, soy sauce etc.
Also buying cheaper meats like chicken or pork. One tip I learned is if you learn to cook you can make really good tasting stuff for cheap. Also I recommend investing in a lot of spices and herbs to make different dishes.
But yea at the moment I’m doing meal preps which are a bit different but when I’m trying to save money I usually do that
make two kettles of spaghetti with ground pork and hamburger cooked together with some marianara…the marinara gets soaked up pretty much after the first couple days, but it’s still good…trying to help…this is what we do when we cook.
I keep a budget book. Right out my bills months by months. Things like red. Electric gas. Water.
Trash and sewage. Then there’s phone and internet. Insurance too. By the time all these things get added up. The budget is forever out the door. Is for more room for improvement. I’ve never having the cash. For things like.
That’s fixable, it’s under your control, you can change that. If you just shop smart and pay attention to how you eat. Shop sales and if you have room, buy larger, more economy size products or even buy in bulk. Here in the states grocery stores sell maxx packs or value packs of meat. It’s like 4 or 5 lbs of chicken breasts or pork chops or ground beef. If you buy one of those you can buy some freezer bags and divide up the package into one or two pieces of meat per freezer bag and put enough in the refrigerator to feed you for one or two days and freeze the rest and pull it out when you feel like having it. That’ll stop you from wasting and throwing away meat.
With vegetables I used to throw out a lot. I would buy vegetables or fruit and just let it sit there and end up not using it. I discovered the main reason I do that is laziness. I thought it was too much trouble to pull out a bell pepper or a tomato or a carrot and prepare it to eat. Preparing vegetables and fruit an be a little chore but I worked on my laziness and I’m more likely to pull out strawberries and cut the stems off and eat them. Or slice up a tomato for a salad or a bell pepper. It takes not being lazy and being aware of what you have in your vegetable drawer at all times so you know what needs to be used up. And also not buying too much fruit or vegetables at once when you know you can’t use it up in time before it goes bad.
If you’re into making big pots of soup or chili or stew you can make a recipe that serves just 2 or 4 or 6 and eat it that night and freeze the rest and just pull out one portion at a time when you want it.
Don’t shop at grocery stores when you’re hungry. When you shop while you’re hungry you’re more likely to buy junk food or unnecessary food. When you’re going to go shopping make a list and stick to it. Don’t throw that bag of chips or cookies into your cart unless it’s on your list.
Why can’t you eat half that chicken soup and put the rest in a plastic container with a lid and eat it the next day? If you need to, invest in a set of plastic containers of different sizes with lids to store food in. You can get some that are microwavable and freezer safe.
