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Tips to Save you Money and Food Waste

These 3 Tips will save you time, money and food waste. In this busy day and age, nobody wants to waste time and for certain nobody in their right mind wants to waste money or food.

3 Tips to Save you Time Money and Food Waste

So I'm going to share with you some of my tips.

1. Save Time

Save time and get batch cooking! 

Everyone is so busy these days at work or at home looking after a house and kids and with a lot of people being at work full time. 

So there are times when you perhaps feel it's impossible to keep up and might not be coping very well.

Of course, I hope that's not the case as I know it is hard. But if you can spend just a couple of hours in one day per week batch cooking you'll have go-to meals in your freezer for most of the week.

Now don't think I'm going to suggest you have the same meal all week long! No, no of course not.

Be clever and cook for example a big batch of Beef Chilli (Chilli con Carne) or Bolognese then leave to cool before dividing into portions and freezing.

One day in the week you can have Chilli with either rice and the next week you can serve it in taco shells or over a jacket potato.

How about making your own Pasta Sauce?

It's so easy and it can be frozen too. Next week you can cook something completely different like my Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet (posh word for casserole) The recipe uses Quorn so is meat-free but of course, you can use meat sausages.

So you will now have 3 different meals in your trusty freezer.

Here's my really easy 'Cook from Frozen' ingredients No Copping or Weighing Beef and Bean Chilli Feast recipe I developed for Iceland the frozen food store a while back.

But of course, you can't beat good quality fresh 5% fat minced beef.

You can buy those microwave and freezer safe plastic containers cheaply enough  (to be honest I've seen them cheaper in Asda).

But if you are serious about this and I hope you are because your life will be so much easier in the long run then personally I'd spend a bit more on glass food storage containers with plastic lids.

They will last for ages and you can use them time and time again. Be realistic when choosing which size suits you; you don't want storage containers so small everyone ends up half-starving!

2. Save Money

Following my batch cooking tip above you will also save money by cooking yourself.

The meals you make will be far healthier than any ready-made foods you can buy and what's more, you know what you put in rather than someone else deciding. Better for you and your family.

Most of us have a smartphone these days and I'll let you into a secret and tell you what I do.

I've got the Grocery app for Tesco and Asda and then if there's an item I often buy, for example, our Ellie and Jim cat's particular brand of cat food they like (spoilt kitties I know) I check the price on both before buying it.

Yes, I hear you say you don't have time to shop here there and everywhere and if you're completely out of something then yep just get it from whenever suits you. 

But mostly these two shops are pretty much within easy reach of each other.

So if you're organised and I like to think I am, then just go once per month and stock up on items you regularly buy like toilet rolls for example and buy when they're a  Billy bargain.

We don't have kids but I noticed big brand nappies were half-price the other week in Aldi - well there's a massive saving so surely it's worth a trip for something that you are going to use loads of.

Another tip is you can always search for online promotional deals from websites such as DontPayFull ðŸ˜‰

3. Save Food Waste 

You may or may not already know this but you can freeze fresh ginger and it turns out just fine and dandy; I do it all the time.

It annoys me that most (not all) supermarkets tend to sell fresh ginger root in bags so you end up buying way more than you really need then coz you've no idea what to do with the rest and it ends up in the bin.

So next time you buy fresh ginger, leave the skin on and cut it into suitably sized portions say 1 to 1½ inches.

Okay in centimetres, something like I dunno 2½ to 3 cm and pop into a freezer bag and it will live comfortably in your freezer until you need it.

Fear not that it doesn't look quite as nice as it once did because it tends to look like it's gone a bit squishy; trust me it's still fine. After being out of the freezer for 10 minutes you'll find it is easier to peel and slice than before it was frozen.

Peppers can easily be made into a delicious red pepper Soup and vegetables can be turned into vegetable soup. 

Leftover Chicken from the Sunday roast can be frozen and used another day to make a nice Chicken Pie.

Roast Beef can end up as Healthy Doner Kebabs and so the list goes on.

I hope my tips are helpful and if you have any tips to save time, money or food waste be sure to share them by leaving a comment.

2 comments

  1. I definitely need to get batch cooking! Great tips, will let you know how I get on!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HI Beauty Secrets and Essentials. Thanks for your comment and yes batch cooking is the way to go!

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Jan