Washington County Employees

This past week, I started portioning and freezing large packs of meat and produce into single or double servings, removing the pressure to use them within 48 hours.

Not much is wasted here. Scraps go to the farm animals but we have been canning and dehydrating like food will disappear tomorrow. We grew a garden but honestly life was busy this summer and it suffered from lack of water, weeds took over can we did not the crops we planned on. However direct sales from farms, fruit trucks, farmers markets and...

I have multiple houseplants and often use BTI tea for my plants. I had 6 gallons made and ended up only using 3 gallons. It is on the spendy side so I did not want to waste it and found out I can freeze the BTI tea and then thaw and use the next watering.

I find I need to write and follow a list, otherwise I tend to grab impulse items that I don't necessarily need.

I created my household's favorites meal list and organized by type of meal - soup, grain bowl, salad, sandwich, noodles, etc because we usually like to switch it up a lot and eat different styles. But this also helped us get a little more planful in what we want to eat each week. Example: Mondays are always a busy night so now we plan for it to...

Meal planning has actually helped us not buy too much! Its much easier and cheaper to just get the ingredients we know we'll need for the week and avoid wasting food.

I started to use the "Anchor + Versatile" rule, i.e., I would purchase 2-3 anchor items (a main protein) and 3-4 versatile, long-lasting produce items (such as carrots, cabbage, pepper or spinach) that work across multiple meal types (soup, stir-fry, or wrap).

I often times purchase salad, thinking it is a healthy purchase and I will eat it, but find once I am home that is the least eaten food, and often end up throwing it away.

My first impulse is to buy in bulk, but I have found more often than not that leads to waste by perishable food not being consumed on time. I have been more aware that does not save money and am purchasing only what I need.

I feel that cutting back on restaurant meals and takeout in favor of home-cooked food and leftovers not only eliminates waste, but it definitely saves money. ✨