Want to save money? Make friends with your fridge! These simple habits will make your fridge easier to use and save you money on groceries in the process.
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Your fridge is where it’s at.
A kitchen standard since the 1940’s the fridge is the heart of the kitchen. Not only does it keep your milk cold and food fresh, but it’s also got a handy freezer to stash ice cream and freezer meals.
It’s also where kids stand staring pointlessly with the doors open waiting for dinner to appear and where leftovers sometimes go to die.
The family fridge is both a power house of food storage and a source of food and energy waste. The refrigerator can save you money, and it can also cost you money.
Making friends with your fridge is a great step toward learning to enjoy cooking. Let’s chat about simple fridge habits that will save your hard-earned dollars and make it easier to cook.
Clean and tidy the fridge every 3 days.
When you tidy your fridge, you’re freshly reminded of what food is on hand. This makes it so much easier to shop the kitchen or make dinner with what you have.
You’ll actually remember the leftovers that need eating, the opened jar of pasta sauce that needs using and the myriad condiments that could otherwise languish in the door.
Clearly, a good fridge tidy puts top of mind what food to use, but when you do it, you can also
- rearrange things so that they’re easier to find,
- make it easier for folks to eat the leftovers,
- dispose of the forgotten things that have gone bad and regain some mental and physical space,
- repackage half-eaten leftovers into smaller, more usable containers and avoid food waste.
Why every three days? Prepped food is good for 4 days, so if you’re giving the fridge a once-over every third day, you can gobble down the goods while they are still, in fact, good.
Regularly cleaning will also keep you in mind of how well your refrigerator is actually running. You’ll notice issues before they become real problems. And refrigerator problems are expensive!
Package leftovers in clear containers.
Gramma may have done her part for the environment by packaging leftovers in old Cool Whip containers, but she did her people and the leftovers no favors. How many times did something get forgotten or ignored?!
(Don’t like leftovers? Here’s what you can do to avoid leftovers in the first place.)
Instead, package leftovers in clear containers so that they’re easily identifiable. I love these. You can go one step further by packing them in single-serve portions so that the meal is easy to grab and reheat. Perfect for packing for lunch!
Pro tip: Label the leftovers with the date they are prepped. That way you know to eat them within 4 days.
Depending on how much prepped food you have on hand, if you repackage into smaller containers as it gets eaten, what’s left will look more appealing.
You can go one step farther and place all leftovers or “eat first” foods on the same shelf so they are easy to locate.
Prep fruits and veg so they’re easy to eat.
The crisper is notorious for turning good intentions into future science projects. You can nip this in the bud by prepping your fruits and veggies so they’re ready to eat.
You don’t need to meal prep vegetables for the whole week, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt!
At the minimum, prep the most obvious fruits and vegetables so that they’re easy to serve or incorporate into recipes.
- cut your own carrot sticks
- assemble easy meal prep salads
- cut grapes into smaller clusters for easy serving
- chop onions and celery
- dice tomatoes
- prep salad greens
There are lots of simple preps you can make so that the produce in your fridge is highly usable and not a landfill-in-the-making.
Be flexible with your meal plan.
Remember: there’s meal planning and there’s meal planning to save money. The second requires a little flexibility.
Your fridge houses the foods that are the most perishable, so check the fridge first. What needs using that might otherwise go to waste?
It’s possible that on Wednesday you’ve planned to make a pork roast, but your fridge tidy reveals that you’ve got Monday’s grilled chicken left to eat. Bump the pork roast to another night or freeze it so that you can enjoy the chicken while it’s still good.
(You can freeze the grilled chicken as well if you really have your heart set on pork roast.)
Make friends with your fridge. Keep it tidy and easy-to-use, this will not only help you avoid wasting food, time, energy, and money, but it will make it more fun to cook!
Money-Saving Kitchen Tips
What do you think?
Let’s chat in the comments!
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