Tip 1: Check the fridge before you shop

Stop buying food you've already got!

How many times have you shopped for dinner only to get home and find you already had half the ingredients in the fridge?

Food waste researchers say 68% of us waste money double-buying ingredients. So, your first Food for thought tip is to check what’s in your fridge, freezer and cupboards before you go to the shop.

Every. Single. Time.

Tip 1

Start tracking what ingredients you've got in your fridge, freezer and cupboards.

Task

1. Download your ingredients tracker by clicking the button be below.
2. Print it out and put it up in your kitchen, or save the digital version to your phone.
3. Log the food you’ve got in your fridge, freezer and cupboards along with the amounts and expiry dates.
4. Update the amount of each ingredient as you use it and cross items off when you’ve used them all up.

Tool

Your FREE Food for thought Ingredients Tracker makes it easy to see what you’ve got at a glance.

Get your Food for thought Ingredients Tracker

Next week, you’ll use your food tracker to decide what to make for dinner. Let the saving begin!

Keep going!

You’ve made 1 out of 8 changes on your Food for thought journey. Make all 8 changes to save up to £83 a month.

How keeping track of what you've got reduces waste and saves you money

Research was undertaken by the Waste and Resources Action Programme for its Love Food Hate Waste campaign. This research found that food going off before it’s eaten is the reason behind 40% of avoidable food waste in UK households.

Using an ingredients tracker: 

1. Stops food going off. 
   You can see at a glance what’s hiding behind your fridge and cupboard doors so you’re more likely to use food before it goes out of date.
2. Helps you fine tune your food shop for savings. 
   You can see easily what ingredients you already have in and how much, so you don't double buy or buy too much.
3. Helps you meal plan. 
   It’s easy for you to see what you’ve already got in stock and whether it has to be eaten soon before it goes off. This means you can plan meals around what you’ve got - saving on money and food waste.
4. Reduces over-buying. 
   You're more likely to resist the temptation to impulse buy food and that means you're less likely to be left with uneaten food that's gone off.