To Fix Your Food Budget, Trim the Waste

livemint.com:

WSJ’s Personal Finance team presents a series on how to fix your financial life in 2024. Last in our series: tackling the tricky subject of food budgets. If you’re wondering where your food spending is going each month, look in your trash can. After putting a roof over our heads and getting around town, food is the biggest expense in our monthly budgets.

Rising food costs topped the list of consumers’ financial concerns this year after a period of rapid inflation. It is also one of the hardest categories of spending to rein in, as cutting food costs can mean changing how much, and what, we eat. With food prices still rising, most people can meaningfully reduce their food spending without clipping coupons or incorporating more instant ramen into their diets.

The easiest way to cut back on how much you spend on meals is to reduce the amount of food you waste, financial advisers and dietitians say. About 20% of food purchased last year ended up in the garbage, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from BLS and ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste. Americans threw out $252 billion worth of food last year, according to ReFED.

That works out to nearly $1,900 per household, or about $150 a month. “Everyone has that aspirational, rotting bag of spinach in their fridge, and that is something you don’t need to be buying," said Tori Martinet, a California based-dietitian and former food-service executive. The most common mistake she sees among new clients is grocery shopping for a version of themselves that doesn’t exist—especially at the beginning of the year, when people are looking for a fresh start and eager to hit health goals.