Image courtesy of patpitchaya at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
I view life as being made up of many strands, all interconnected and affecting each other. Each strand represent some aspect of a person’s personality or a stream of experiences. They are separate, but intertwined, each affecting the other. I looked in my fridge over the weekend, and noticed how cluttered it was. I was reminded of how I had been feeling about our finances lately. Let me show you what I mean:
- Pizza : I found a container of leftovers from our favorite local pizza place. We got back to town late Saturday evening after being at a lake all day, and didn’t want to take the time to make dinner.
- Cilantro Lime Coconut Rice : We made fish for dinner one day last week, along with cilantro lime rice for a side dish. I made a double batch, thinking I would have it for lunch during the week. The week came and went, and the rice still sits in the refrigerator.
- Steak bites: I found left over pieces of steak from last weekend’s steak kabobs, which were targeted for lunch with the leftover cilantro lime coconut rice. But the day I was going to take with with me, we got Subway instead. The rice and the steak bites never got eaten.
- Vegetable Soup : Vonnie made a can of Vegetable Noodle soup for lunch last week, and only ate half of it. The other half went into the fridge. It’s still there.
- Salad Mix : I bought a packaged salad along with carrots and cucumbers to help us get our vegetables and eat healthier. None of the supplies have been touched.
Ok, I think you get what I’m saying. There is a lot of leftover food in my refrigerator. But how does that reflect on how things have been going with our finances as of late?
Not Following The Plan
Before we go grocery shopping, my wife and I do meal planning for the week. We don’t necessarily assign a meal to a day, but we come up with enough meal ideas for the week. The reason we had so much left over food in our refrigerator is because we hadn’t stuck to our meal plan. Similarly, we hadn’t been following the cash only spending plan we had been so successful with.
Overspending
We broke our meal plan by going out to eat unexpectedly several times during the week. Because of the unplanned dining out, we spent extra funds on food. Not only did we unnecessarily spend money on food even though we had food in the house, we actually went over budget in the entertainment category for the week.
Wasteful
Some of the food has now reached the point where it needs to be thrown away. That’s wasting not only food, but also money. It felt a lot like one of those weekends when we get to Sunday night, find that we’ve spent all our entertainment budget but can’t figure out where the money went.
It didn’t surprise me that the state of our refrigerator mirrored what has been going on with our finances. I know we’re on track with our groceries when grocery shopping day arrives and the fridge looks bare. That wasn’t the case this week, and our finances shared that perspective. I cleaned out the fridge, and prepared myself to start a new week. We also wiped the slate clean with our finances, started over, and created this week’s spending plan. We’ll see what the refrigerator looks like next weekend.
What does your refrigerator look like right now? Does it remind you of your finances??
My fridge is stocked with basics plus leftovers from the weekend. I hate wasting food, so we’re pretty good about only buying what we will eat. It helps that we live so close to several grocery stores. I don’t mind popping in a few times a week to buy fresh stuff. It’s right by my daughter’s school.
Oh man, I have to do a single big grocery shopping trip. I’ve been working to eliminate those secondary trips – it just opens the door to buying more than I need and overspending.
I don’t do bad with it. If I need break and milk, that’s what I get! I usually have two kids with me and try to get in and out as quickly as possible.
Food waste is a budget killer. It’s an area we are stilling working on. It’s a challenge to prepare just the right amount of food for meals for a family of five, than you have the wildcard of teenagers not always being home for dinner. We have cut down on the food we buy since we make trips to the store so regularly to try and cut down on waste.
Ah yes, I know that wildcard as well. Although I’ve found that teenagers eventually return. Hungry. LOL.
I’m a lot like Holly. I don’t do this big grocery shopping thing or even meal planning per say, but shop often as to not food waste. I may not have the smallest grocery budget, but at least stuff is not going to waste.
No meal planning???? GAAAASP? You call yourself type A??? 😉
I hate wasting leftovers as well. We try not to have more than a couple leftover dishes in the refrigerator at a time. If we do, we freeze one of them to eat later.
The thought of budgeting, saving money by buying loss leaders, and then throwing leftovers in the trash is a waste.
I hate wasting as well, Bryan…..just goes to show you how out of whack we were this week!
Our fridge is starting to empty out. I do my big shop every two weeks, and my grocery day is coming up. There are a few leftovers, but I’m pretty sure they will be eaten before they have to be thrown away!
The budget is on track, but debt is not being paid off as quickly as I would like. I’m doing the debt snowball, and we have all the little things paid now, (yay!) and we are working on the larger debts. Those don’t disappear quite so fast!
I Love the look of an empty fridge Sassy Mama (at least right before i go grocery shopping) – it’s the sign of a perfectly executed meal plan!
Keep going on that debt…..you’re getting closer to the end ever day – keep that budget on track!
Ours is generally pretty bare because we don’t cook much. But right now it looks pretty good. We have a few items in there for my husband. We can’t eat out as much right now because he’s on a GERD diet. So in the fridge/countertop we have cereal/milk, instant oatmeal, muffins and bagels/cream cheese.
I have frozen meals that I eat and some protein bars (bought on sale) so that I don’t touch his food. Our bills has definitely gone way down. Of course, if he gets the all clear from the doctor in 6 weeks, he’ll be right back to old habits. Maybe he’ll still want bagels and muffins though.
Sounds like your refrigerator and your budget are on track, Abigail!
We are doing well right now because we just got back from vacation and have no desire to eat out. Last month was very busy and we were not as careful. I think being busy often equates with wasteful spending on convenience unless you are very careful. At least you realized it and are making changes.
We’re doing pretty well at the moment having just finished up a bunch of leftovers. But I have to say that’s not always the case. We do meal planning, but some weeks it’s a struggle to stick with it and then it shows in our budget as well.
I shop once a week. My fridge actually has a ton of fresh veggies in it because my garden is going crazy. I did notice that I wasn’t eating things as as quickly as I thought I would because some items went bad. So I need to remember to freeze things if I’m not going to eat stuff quickly.
Man, I hate food waste as well. I remind myself whenever we throw food away that it’s just like putting a $20 bill in the trash. We tend to do fairly well with it, though we’ve not always been that way. We do a big trip once a week, though we have several stores within a mile or so that we can pop into if we need something.
Seeing a $20 bill in the trash would certainly make more an impact. Sometimes we take for granted the food, thinking that we got at least some use out of it.
Our fridge is looking pretty bad these days too. Every point you raised was very recognizable to me. I too feel a satisfaction when I see an empty fridge the night before grocery day. The sight of random, rotting food is just not a good sight.
Even if the food is still good…seeing a bunch of unused food in the fridge makes me feel like I bought too much. I know there are proponents to buying food in bulk, I prefer to buy exactly as much food as I need for the week. Thanks for sharing, Prudence!
My fridge looks like I could give old mother hubbard a run for her money. By the end of the week, I try to have next to nothing in the fridge; my family is really good about eating all the food; we actually run out more often than we have too much. The only problem with this method is that we ran out of fruit on Wednesday, and so our lunches have been quite unhealthy the last two days.
I would LOVE your fridge. Although I hate running out of fruit too….when there’s no fruit I make BAD choices…VERY BAD choices. LOL.
Our fridge looks fairly full, but it’s all leftovers from home-prepared meals and fresh vegetables & fruit. I eat a whole food / plant-based diet, so eating out options are extremely limited. Except for things like cold cereal and almond milk, 99% of what I eat is prepared by me in our kitchen from ingredients I’ve picked out. If our fridge gets too empty, really limits the options for dishes I can make! 🙂
Hope can use them all up before they spoil, Kurt!
I purposely do not stock pile any food because this is a good way for me to control my weight. I have 14 days worth of food and that’s it. Payday comes along and I got out and buy another 14 days worth of food.
I admire your ability to get 14 days of food at a crack, Slackerjo……I have problems with just 7!
Good out of the ordinary way to gauge your budget – I like it! I’m lucky in that my wife is EXTREMELY organized with meal planning. We rarely leave the grocery store with additional snack food beyond what we plan to eat that week. I on the other hand? I’m not quite as disciplined. I will buy the more expensive craft beer or a bag or pretzels to snack on throughout the week.
I think it has a lot to do with lifestyle. We typically don’t buy much junk food or make a meal that serves more than the two of us, because we know we’ll eat that much. It has more to do with health conscious living than budgeting for us, but both our pocketbooks and our waistbands benefit!
-DP
That’s why I never go shopping when I’m hungry, DP. I’ll come home with all kinds of snacks…and over budget!