The Top 20 Money Saving Food Hacks

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Welcome back to the good life journey.

In today's video, we're offering 20

simple ideas to save money with food.

Let's go.

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And we have double good news today

because by implementing some of these

ideas, you will not only save a lot of

money today, but you will take little

steps toward creating a lifestyle that

is better for the environment, mainly

through saving food waste. Food waste

contributes around 8 to 10% of global

greenhouse gas emissions. What does this

mean? If food waste were a country, it

would be the third largest global

emitter after China and the US. All

right, let's talk about saving money.

I've left one of the best ideas for the

end, so be sure to stick around. I will

also share at the end of the video how

much money we throw out the window

through food waste and give us a simple

methodology so that you can estimate it,

too. Let's go. Number one is meal

planning. Meal planning avoids impulse

buying and it means devoting a little

bit of time each week to plan for the

meals ahead. Write down a very detailed

list of ingredients that you need for a

very specific number of meals. Some may

say here that they don't have time to

organize themselves. Well, sorry to

break it to you, but if you're shopping

multiple times per week, you certainly

have quite a bit of time and you are

wasting it. shop. Try to shop only one

time a week and stick to it and brace

yourself for a groundbreaking insight.

Number two, choose your supermarket

wisely. Of course, the food cost varies

strongly across supermarkets. And

although you may be receiving marginally

higher quality products, keep in mind

that in many countries, these higher

prices are also explained by just by

staffing a higher number of colleagues

within the shopping premises. Are you

willing to wait a little bit more in the

till to gather a lot of money savings?

Number three, be careful with existing

sales. It is very easy to make unplanned

purchases when you find a lot of items

on offer. Remember, keep calm and stick

to the plan. Number four, don't show up

hungry at the supermarket. A lot of

markets in different in different

countries actually increase the scent of

their products, for example, of baking

bread because this is known to wet the

appetite of their consumers and lead to

longerterm as sales. If your market is

offering free samples, excellent.

Continue with your shopping and once

you're done and ready to go to the

checkout, stop by again and treat

yourself for whatever they're offering.

Checkmate.

Another groundbreaking insight for

number five, buy in bulk. For non-p

perishable items, consider larger

quantities which will give you overall

better prices.

Number six, consider discount apps and

payback point programs. This varies a

lot country to country, of course, but

for example, Leel has an app that offers

um weekly discounts. It offers 10 to 15

different coupons, some of which match

your past history of purchases. So, go

ahead and take full advantage of this.

The best way to do this is to

incorporate this into your weekly meal

planning.

And beware of the payback points systems

of fancier stores. Of course, it's

better to use them than to not, but it

is still much better just to not go to

that store in the first place.

Number seven, buy food in season. Play

the laws of supply and demand to your

advantage and avoid overpriced items

that are out of season.

Be careful also to avoid early harvest

produce. For example, strawberries. Uh

hold your fire and wait a couple weeks

before the price gets reasonable. I find

it quite useful here to have a seasonal

calendar which we use here in our

household. It has roughly 50 to 60

different products and it gives you the

months of the year where they're in

season. And it's a really easy way to to

sort of keep track in this way. Also,

this applies for imported products. You

don't want to have a seasonal calendars

of every single country, but for the

products that you like to eat, I don't

know, kiwis, mangoes, these do vary in

price very strongly throughout the year.

So, it's important to have a little bit

of understanding of when the season is

in place. Number eight, lean towards

plant-based meals. So, eating vegetarian

and vegan meals has three main

advantages. It's good for your health,

it's good for the animals, and it's good

for the environment, and for reducing

greenhouse gas emissions.

Plantsbased proteins like beans, tofu,

lentils, or chickpeas are often cheaper

than animal protein.

And further cost savings are delivered

by cooking from scratch rather than

buying processed foods. Number nine,

batch cooking at home. Save money and

time by cooking in batch and cut and

store conveniently for further use

throughout the week. Batch cooking will

protect your wallet by reducing impulse

takeaways.

Number 10, grow your own herbs. Put your

balcony, window sill, or indoor space to

good use and gather some old pots and

start growing your herbs. This can not

only lower your food bill, it can also

be a relaxing and therapeutical

experience. Number 11, avoid the bakery.

Although this applies probably just to a

handful of countries and in some of

them, for example, in Germany, people

get up really early and stand in very

long cues to then buy overpriced bread.

Why not get a half an hour extra of

sleep and just buy your bread at the

supermarket on your weekly visit? You

can have the the large loaf of bread cut

in thin slices and then you can freeze

it at home and use as needed. Number 12,

check out food waste apps or other food

waste to saving initiatives in your

region. This varies across countries of

course, but there's some apps coming up

that are functioning in many countries,

for example, too good to go. And this

allows users to go to cafes,

restaurants, and shops, typically toward

the end of the day, and buy some of the

leftovers at a very discounted price.

Number 13, eating out. Be honest with

yourself. Is it a pleasure or is it a

habit? Dine out too often and you might

find yourself falling into the traps of

hydonic adaptation.

You may start taking the experience for

granted or find yourself comparing the

quality of today's food to yesterday's

instead of actually enjoying the

experience. You eating out too much is

usually one of the key factors

undermining our budget. If you're a bit

of a foodie and eating out is your main

passion, by all means continue with your

outings.

However, if you only eat out just to

avoid cooking, well, maybe it's a good

moment to reconsider this costly habit.

Number 14, invite people over for

dinner. Are you on board with cutting

out your expenses with dining out, but

worry about the social outcome?

There are certainly ways around this.

Why not reach out to your friends and

organize a potluck at your place next

time around? Number 15, energy saving

hacks in the kitchen. Okay, I have five

tips for you in this category.

First, don't use the stove to heat up

water and use an electric kettle

instead. Use the pot first to determine

how much water you really need to boil.

Second, cover pots and pans while

cooking so you can lower the heat on the

stove and use less electricity or gas.

Three, double check if your freezer or

fridge are set at reasonable

temperatures. Fourth, examine your

fridge on a regular basis. Have you

identified any odd bottle or jam jar

sitting towards the back untouched for

the past 6 months? It takes a lot of

energy to keep these products cool. Go

ahead and eat it. And number five, use

the toaster instead of the oven when you

can. For example, don't defrost your

bread in the oven, but use the toaster

instead.

Number 16 is organize your fridge. I

personally find that when you have a

organized refrigerator, it is much less

likely that you waste food. everything

is tidy and you're more mindful of what

still remains and what needs to be

eaten. One idea is to group similar

items in designated areas. For example,

maybe fruit and vegetables in one place,

dairy products in another, and so on. I

personally also like to have a small

space where I have leftovers that I plan

to incorporate into the next meals. This

typically avoids food waste quite a bit.

Number 17 is smart use of the freezer.

And here I have three tips for you.

First, use the freezer for prepared

meals and for leftovers. Second, freeze

some items directly after shopping to

reduce the chance of going to waste. For

example, I do this with broccoli, which

I chop first, and I also do it with

bread. And number three, are your

bananas ripening too fast? If you think

you can eat them in the next few days,

definitely go ahead and place them in

the refrigerator. Otherwise, go ahead

and cut them up and put them in the in

the freezer, and you can have some tasty

banana ice cream in a few days time.

Number 18 is learn to store fresh food

to prolong their freshness. For example,

root vegetables such as potatoes and

carrots should be kept in a cool and

dark place. Apples, oranges, and pears

can be kept at room temperature but away

from direct sunlight. Of course, here we

can have as many tips as there are

products. What I would encourage you is

to just to Google how to store each

product efficiently and then start to

incorporate this little by little into

your daily routine. Number 19 is take

stock of your pantry.

Despite our best planning efforts, we

often forget about the odd package, can

or jar. Review every now and then and

try to make a meal out of these products

before they go off.

All right, congratulations on making it

to tip number 20, which is make a food

waste inventory. This at the outset, I

know sounds quite boring, but trust me,

it takes no time and is extremely

worthwhile. So go ahead and place a

blank sheet of paper and tape it to the

front of your refrigerator. And at the

start of each month, record every single

item that you throw away together with

the value of the product. For example,

um I threw away a yogurt 25 cents. You

throw away two bananas, 40 cents. Half a

jar of some random sauce, €1. And so on.

At the end of the month, after 30 days,

add up all of your total um expenses and

multiply by 12. And voila, you have your

annual estimated food waste uh bill.

Okay. So, how much did our household

waste uh in food in a year? So, I did

this little experiment in September

2023. And despite having already

optimized a lot of the ideas that that I

disclosed today, our food waste bill was

15.4, which is €185

per year, almost €200 that we just

literally throw out the window. I

certainly wouldn't be happy walking down

the street and throwing a €200 on the

ground, would you? Why do we feel

different about throwing food in the

waste can than we do of just throwing a

bill on the ground in the street? All

right, these are all the 20 food saving

hacks that we have for now. Did I miss

any? Do you recommend something that

works for you? Please let us know in the

comments below. As a final takeaway,

please take these 20 tips with a grain

of salt. The idea is not that you

implement every single one of them

against your will, but rather that you

pick and choose the two or three that

resonate with you and that are low

behavioral changes that can help you

save money. Okay, that's all for now.

Good luck. Thank you for watching and I

hope to see you in the next video.

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