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

[Bathsheba]

What sort of 'fridge do you keep? Is it overpacked or can you clearly see every item?

I can clearly see that we only have about 8 items in our fridge at the moment:

Milk
Eggs
Butter
Capers
Mayonaise
Yogurt
Juice
Cauliflower

It doesn't worry me that it has got this low. We've temporarily stopped doing big weekly shops in favour of buying fresh daily. We have a few bills to pay and this will work a treat. Best of all I don't snack as much and very little goes to waste!


Our pantry is also looking nice and "minimal".

This is the best money saving tip i can give anyone. People spend so much food on things that end up getting lost and forgotten about in their fridges and pantries.

Or do you hate the look of an empty fridge or pantry?

[feeb]

My fridge badly needs a cleanout!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stuff in there thats out of date forgotten about and possibly no idea what!

[Bathsheba]

I was thinking of my mother's fridge too.... she lives by herself and constantly stocks her fridge with way more than we do as a family of 5. It is always jam packed so that you can never find anywhere to put anything.

[Miss.September]

We pretty much eat ours out every week. I do a weekly shop and by shopping day, it's looking fairly bare. Nothing much goes in the bin, which makes me really happy!

[Bathsheba]

Yes, hardly anything is wasted here. I have worked in commercial kitchens and seen sooo much waste.... terrible! Swore I would never waste food in my own kitchen. We can't afford to.

I buy in bulk only if the item is non perishable. Otherwise it's fresh all the way. I understand living on a farm or out of town can mean you have to stock up... but we have more than 5 supermarkets within walking distance! It's seriously easy to just buy things on a daily basis and not risk the waste.

[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 It ****s me though, because I always end up throughing out stuff that has gone out of date and hasn't even been opened!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

[krysalyss]

I would actually spend more that way as if I buy every day I can pick up whatever my latest cravings might be. LOL. We only have a mini fridge at the moment and it doesn't fit much in so we are pretty careful about how much we buy each time so it doesnt go off.

[Mak]

You are so right - especially about the snacking!!! We periodically eat out the pantry and fridge/freezer as I tend to purchase multiples of things and then we change our meal plan/preferences! Such a good idea and saves heaps of money and waste too.

[Pandora]

Are you going to do the meal plan first, before the farmers market? That way you won't buy what you don't need?

Say me whose refridgerator is full of mystery boxes and forgotten leftovers.

[Bumperstump Cummerbund]

Are you going to do the meal plan first, before the farmers market? That way you won't buy what you don't need?

I understand what you mean, but no, I'm doing it the other way round. I've never been to the farmers market before, so I don't really know for myself what kind of cuts they'll have, all my info is from the woman I work with. But I know what kind of cuts I'll use, so I don't intend buying anything I wouldn't know how to cook. Then its just a question of separating out the meat into meals to be frozen, ticking off the relevant items in my pantry and writing down a (hopefully very small) list of additional necessary ingredients. For instance, I have a lot of those packet meal bases, that need things like sour cream or mushrooms - I don't keep those things in stock, so to use up the pack I'd hafta buy the sour cream y'know?

It all makes sense in my head anyway

[Sopdet]

I can see every item, I am a minimalist fridge person.

I have in there at the moment:

Milk
A block of real parmesan cheese (in a plastic container)
Jug of water
Bottle of lemonade
Meat keeper with frozen steak in it (have taken it out for dinner tomorrow night)
Tupperware container with fresh veggies in it (again for dinner tomorrow night, bought them today)
A container with lunch for tomorrow in it
Half a loaf of bread
A plastic bag with stuff to throw away (some leftovers) which will go out on bin day.

I clean my fridge out every week, work out what needs to be bought for the week (farmers market on Wednesday).