Avoid Waste with a Leftover Listby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 28 Sep 2007 02:21 PM Eating at home is one of the best ways to save money and practice a frugal lifestyle. If you followed my earlier article about calculating your cost per meal, then you know how great the savings is. Just yesterday, for example, I made a vat of homemade chicken noodle soup. Not counting the electricity cost in cooking, I estimate that the entire vat cost me about 40 cents, and that included a generous amount of egg noodles, carrots and leftover chicken pieces. The soup will serve four of us for two days. However, if we never get back to that leftover soup, we will just throw all of that savings down the drain if our frugal meal goes bad. A great way to keep track of your leftovers and avoid having to throw anything out is by posting a leftover list. Get a magnetic dry erase board (many businesses give these away for free, or check for one at your local dollar store). whenever a leftover dish goes into the refrigerator, write an entry about it on your board. Include the name of the dish, the amount of servings and the date it was made. This way, you can see what is available, what needs to be eaten next, etc. It makes leftover night easy, because you can simply read off the list instead of standing there at the refrigerator, moving stuff around and checking with everyone about what they might like to eat. Think of it as a menu instead of cleaning out the refrigerator! As meals are consumed, you can check them off, cross them out or just erase them from your board. Try this idea for any food that you frequently have to toss out before you use it, such as fresh produce, half-eaten lunches, etc. Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here. Related Articles How Much Does It Cost to Eat at Home? Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantfrugal tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags frugal, Food, leftovers, saving money, thrifty Discuss this article
|
Frugal categories |
