How Many Items are in your Refridgerator? (Do you ever "Eat It Out"?)

[Kazmar]

Well I went and spent $400 on food the other day and our fridge is tiny sooooo, it's fairly packed! It ****s me though, because I always end up throughing out stuff that has gone out of date and hasn't even been opened! We just didn't see it as it was packed in the back

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

I was JUST talking about this with DH last night Bath - stalker much?

My fridge isn't that bad, but I have thrown some things out recently. My pantry is absolutely overflowing, and I have no idea what's in there We've got our local farmers market on next weekend, so I said to DH that I'll be writing up an inventory of the meat we buy, and an inventory of exactly what is in the pantry, and comparing the two to make meal plans for however long it takes to empty them out. From then on, we'll be working purely from fortnightly meal plans, so there shouldn't be any wastage/clutter.

Sounds good in theory

[MrsFabuloso]

My fridge is pretty good. We shop fortnightly and every fortnight, I am down to the dregs. I make and effort not to buy surplus food and will make a concerted effort cook things before it's over it's use by. Like when we went shopping this fortnight, DH put in more potatoes and pumpkin, which we didn't need, but I will just make sure I make some pumpkin and potato soup and have 1-2 baked dinners in the next fortnight so it won't go mouldy or gross.

At the mo, it's fairly full since we only went shopping last Thursday. Plus DH brought some beer which makes it look fuller than it is!

I ideally want to make up some fortnightly menu's and coinciding shopping lists, I actually worked on it a bit today, but it's taking some time to get it all sorted!

[Phteven]

I like to think of my pantry as a mystery box.

[maz]

I like to think of my pantry as a mystery box.

mines a lucky dip hon

I like to have food in the house....especially coming from living on the streets and with a sister who never bought food.

If my kids are hungry I want them to be able to eat what they want. We dont have waist either...I cook nearly every day and once a week it left overs.

[Bathsheba]

I guess you have to do what works for you but I find that I am more inclined to "impulse" buy if I go into a supermarket with a trolley (with the vague intention of filling it) instead of just my arms Each day i buy only what I can carry. And if I can somehow manage to skip a day like I did yesterday when my boys were home with colds then all the better... love days when I don't spend anything. I also don't drive so even if I use a basket in the supermarket I only buy what will fit underneath in the cargo section of my pram.

ETA: I think it helps to be able to be creative and cook from scratch. Give me the basics: eggs, flour, milk and some flavours like vanilla etc I can whip up something. Scones, Breton Flan (only takes half an hour). My kids are usually happy with a big bowl of pop corn (the plain kernels, not the flavoured sachet things)... always a staple in our house that I bulk buy because it doesn't go off quickly. We eat cereal like muesli as a "snack" food too.

[maz]

impulse buy...sorry Bath...gotta have the $$$ for that

[briggsy's girl]

we have "staples" that we don't let run out that live in the fridge - half of one shelf is tinned fruits and other things like that which we replace as we use them (so if a tin of pineapple gets used we replace it next shop. there is always beetroot, pineapple, peaches etc. the other half of that shelf is cheeses - we buy cheese by the kg as DD likes it, plus we use a lot in cooking so running out isn't something we want to do.

the top shelf is for leftovers from the night before (we always cook more so that i have lunch at work and DH has lunch at home - doesn't take much to bulk out a dinner with extra veg) DD tends to eat leftovers as well. we live out of the main shopping areas (takes about 20k trip to get to a decent shop) so we tend to try to avoid the need for bread. we do buy and freeze, but if we can have leftovers, it is better IMO. also on the top shelf is anything likely to perish any time soon. things like salami or kabana if we buy it for DH, yogurt etc. we do a check of best before dates each week before we shop and either cook stuff that is going to go out of date soon

third shelf has containers with chocolate or choc biscuits, and a container with coffee for DH's coffee machine.

bottom shelf has a drinks rack - it has drinks (obviously lol), celery gets laid on top of the bottles, ummmm, cat food if we use a tin for him and it has leftovers, and then generally a container with table scraps for the dogs)

the crisper gets emptied every week - we will make soup or spag bol or pasta bake and mix everything in before we go shopping again. this weekend DH bought some broc and cauli so i will make vegie bake with that in it at the end of the weekend to use it up. if it is something like carrot/broc/cauli and we don't want to use it immediately, it gets blanched and thrown in the freezer.

we don't have a lot of waste here to be honest. i DO like having a chance to start fresh sometimes, but it's nice to NOT have and empty fridge atm given we're financially not in a great place. it's nicer to know we have SOMETHING we can have all the time lol

ooh, pantry wise - ours is lovely! all tupperware modular mates - if it was a better shape, it would be awesomely organised - i hate that we have to stack stuff behind each other! BUT, nothing in there is out of date. we check everything every few weeks and then pull out anything nearing it's best before, and it gets used. i find it unendingly frustrating though to open food that is in date, and its' stale anyway! tortillas have been terrible for that lately!

[smiles4u]

I like to have food in the house....especially coming from living on the streets and with a sister who never bought food.

... i was the same Maz, after my getting kicked out of home for no apparent reason as a teenager, at that time i remember one time only having 8cents in my purse for an entire week cause i rather go hungry then not have my bills paid (i had so much pride), and i remember one time having to have a bread roll for dinner as that was all i could afford

I never want for my DD to experience that ever in her life so my fridge & pantry are stocked but not overly stocked just enough without wasting any food.

I like to pride myself in that no one leaves my house hungry

In my fridge i always have at any given time the basics - skim milk, cheese slices, blocked or shredded tasty cheese, eggs, yogurt, marg, butter, mayo, juice, deli meat and vegies !!!

We have a 447Litre fridge/freezer for 3 of us ... freezer is always full but fridge area is probably too big for what we need but having said that it's a perfect size and well used when we have DD's birthday parties.

[smiles4u]

whoops dble post !

[Glamourcide]

I love nothing more than an almost-empty fridge!! Because my fridge is usually so 'well-stocked' (ie, packed to the brim with a whole bunch of crud, some of it rotting or at the very least, past its use-by date) that to see it with lots of room means there's nothing unnecessary in there, whatever's left is good to eat and shopping day is just around the corner
Every few months I do a 'stocktake' of my pantry, see what I have lots of and do a meal plan to use up all the stuff that's been sitting there for months or is getting close to its use-by date, or has just been covered up with other stuff and forgotten about. I hate to see food go to waste (which means I'm constantly upset because the girls are SO bad for wasting food - a few bites here, another couple there, no I changed my mind, I now want to eat x instead of y, mum) so a bare fridge and pantry is a sign of success in my mind
And yes, reducing the snack attacks is another helpful feature, for me anyway... DH is ALWAYS carrying on like a pork chop about how we never have any snacky food in the house and mopes over a bowl of Coco-Pops for afternoon tea instead hehehe

I still prefer to do weekly shops over 'fresh' food shopping, I find it just costs far too much to go to the grocery store every day to get items, as I always end up buying more than I need. Easier to keep the impulse buying in check if I only go in once a week to buy actual food, then pop in a couple of times during the week for extra milk, bread, cold cuts and fruit & veg