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Australians toss out thousands of dollars in unused food every year. One of the simplest ways to save money on groceries is to make sure you’re not wasting food. To avoid this problem, personal finance site Clark.com suggests keeping a list of stuff you toss.
It’s a pretty simple idea. Every month, just keep a running list of food you throw away. Next to each item, write down how much you paid for it. Writer Mike Timmerman explains:
How much food do you throw out every year? If you’re like the average person, you waste 30% to 40% of what you buy! I got the idea to start a list of the items that I throw away after writing a story about how restaurants like McDonald’s keep track of everything that goes to waste, including how much it costs them. Here’s a challenge: Try reducing your monthly grocery budget by the dollar amount that you wasted the previous month!
Your amounts don’t have to be exact. If you toss out half a loaf of bread, you might write down the cost of half the loaf rather than the entire loaf, since you did use some of it. The point of the exercise is to just give you a general idea of how much money you waste and what kind of items you toss out.
This way, you can avoid buying those items in the future or just focus on getting more use out of them. For more detail, head to Clark’s full post at the link below.
These 5 lists will help you save more money in 2017 [Clark.com]
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