Playing the Online Coupon Game - and Usually Winning

I am a total sucker for discounts.  Once I've established I am buying an item, for personal or business purposes, I am getting a huge kick out of finding online coupon codes to insert at checkout.  I began to notice how many check out systems ask for a coupon or promotional code, so I opened a new window, googled the company name and "coupon" and all these sites popped up.
Just bought 25 shipping boxes.  By googling the company + coupon, a code for 5% off popped up.  In this case, that totaled 43¢, but why not?  I've scored free shipping and numerous other discounts.  All that it took was an extra minute to search coupons.  Note, though, not all codes are valid.  I just wasted about 20 minutes on a clothing site trying to insert code I found on line, none of which worked.  But more often than not, they are valid. I treat it more like a sport than a strategy.
Presumably the coupon sites get a cut if you enter the company website through their site; they often have clickthroughs.

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: LEFTOVERS!

The Art of Leftovers

If you’re someone in the habit of stashing lots of leftovers in the freezer, assign a weekly No Cooking Night and eat them.  My mom called this Review.  The plan is to take all the little dribs and drabs and serve them.  (This is in addition to a No Buy Week.  You’ll really be on a roll.)

Store leftovers in clear containers.  Weavers Way sells pyrex sets with matching covers.  I know from experience that putting leftovers in random opaque containers effectively camouflages the food, guaranteeing it will spoil.

Try not to automatically deposit leftovers in the fridge.  Instead, pack them up to take to work for lunch or put a label on them and freeze them.  One of my pre-Passover adventures is thawing random unmarked containers.  Labeling always seems like a lot of work at the time, but it beats the alternative of stocking your freezer with mystery items that you are very unlikely to find useful or appealing.  Sometimes I need to thaw these packets just to identify them. 

Of course there is no such thing as a zero waste house.  Start composting, find a neighbor who composts, or hire a pick-up service like PhillyCompost.com.  They you will truly being doing your part to close the waste loop, making the best use of both your dollars and the earth’s resources.  Bon appétit!

Image  from www.chicaandjo.com

Bring Back the Clean Plate Club: Shopping for Food

When shopping for food:

It is the 21^st century.  Thankfully we live in the USA.  We are not experiencing famine, nor are there food shortages like in Soviet Russia.  We don’t live in remote areas waiting for the Wells Fargo Wagon.  Don’t shop as if you won’t have another opportunity.  Buy what you need, not what you imagine it might be a good idea to have in your pantry.  Those good idea purchases often sit so long they outlive their appeal.

Buy a smaller refrigerator and get rid of any older second refridge.  They are inefficient, and the extra storage encourages you to accumulate more food than you can realistically consume.  Likewise, limit yourself to a refrigerator freezer and skip the freestanding unit, unless you grow so much food it makes sense to store it frozen. 

Schedule a No-Buy day or week.  I attempt to consume all the food in our freezer and pantry before Passover. This is extreme, but makes me mindful of how much surplus I accumulate, even being careful.  Try a week of no shopping and see what you learn about your habits.  We have an ingrained fear of deprivation; learning to identify and ignore that voice is very helpful in cutting back on waste. 

Plan meals that use what is actually in your refrigerator and pantry.  Google is great for this.  Once I wanted to use up a partial container of ricotta, along with a can of pumpkin.  Voila! A wonderful ricotta pumpkin pudding. 

If you are a parent, don’t permit children to heap food on their plates and not eat it.  Serve very small portions and let them take more.  I actually enforced this rule with our children’s guests as well as our own kids.  They quickly learned that I expected them to eat an apple if they took one, or to finish the cereal if they poured it into the bowl. 

Once my children moved out of the house, I discovered I never drank a quart of milk before it spoiled.  Now I put half of it in the freezer as soon as I purchase it.  It is fine for cooking and coffee.  I keep powdered milk in the pantry as a backup, which eliminates special trips just to purchase milk. 

Bringing Back The Clean Plate Club: Eating in Restaurants

End-user waste: that’s a value neutral term denoting all the food we trash.  Along with the food, we also waste all its embedded energy and the expense of growing, processing, marketing, buying, and transporting it.  This is crazy, no?    

Avoiding household food waste is a snap - all that is needed is planning, discipline, and commitment.  Unfortunately, when it comes to food, we humans aren’t very good at any of those.  Food is cheap, demands on our time are ever growing, good intentions fall by the wayside.  Out the food goes.

In American Wasteland, Jonathan Bloom includes many practical suggestions for shrinking our waste “food-print”, like sticking to a prepared list when shopping.  

When going to a restaurant:

Know restaurant strategy:  labor is expensive, food is not.  There is an arms race for portion size, so don’t be all surprised when gargantuan dishes come to the table.  Expect it and plan for it.  Order an appetizer instead of an entrée, or split an entrée.  If by some chance you are still hungry (this has never actually happened to us, but it’s a possibility), order more food.  Why do we care what the waitstaff thinks?  They should care that we are upset by the idea of their providing so much food that it practically guarantees waste.

Typically restaurants will provide huge styrofoam clamshell containers to take home, no matter what size your leftover is.  Plan ahead and bring ziplock bags with you.  Or perhaps upgrade to a covered plate and tote designed for just this purpose.  Don’t be shy about taking bread, since restaurants are not allowed to serve it to the next patrons, and as soon as you leave the venue, in the dumpster it will go. 

Let’s all try to get past our embarrassment, worrying someone will think we are cheap.  Why is it tacky to take home food, and OK to throw it out?  It should be the reverse. 

Lastly, eat what you order.  If you don’t want to overeat, you need to under-order.  There are much better ways of watching your caloric intake than throwing away uneaten food.