Here’s how your household can save $1,026 in 2020
If you're looking for easy ways to save more money in the new year, eating your leftovers is a great place to start.
If we stop wasting food and start eating our leftovers, Australian households could save more than $1,000 a year each. According to the Rabobank 2019 Food Waste Report released today, Australian households are throwing away 13% of their grocery shop. That's 13% of the food we pay for with our hard-earned dollars straight in the bin.
Collectively, Australians waste 298kg of food each year, which is costing us over $10 billion. If fact, Australia is the fourth most wasteful country in the world.
Not only is our food waste costing us money, but it's also putting incredible pressure on our natural resources. According to last year's report by Rabobank, the amount of food we waste annually is equivalent to more than 4,400 times the capacity of Sydney Harbour. Plus, we're destroying more than six soccer fields' worth of forest each minute to make space to grow the food that we end up throwing away uneaten.
And before you shrug these statistics off as coming from large retailers and food production companies, the report revealed that 34% of our food waste is actually from Australian households. That's everyday people like you and me.
According to the report, the main reason we waste food is because we don't prepare it properly, with 21.4% of Australians surveyed saying this was the case. Following this, 19.8% said it was because they didn't know what to do with leftovers and 18.1% said they buy more food than they can eat. Our busy schedules are also a factor, with 18% saying they were forced to waste food they bought because their plans changed.
Tips to stop wasting food and save over $1000 a year
- Eat your leftovers. Get creative with your leftovers and turn them into new, different meals instead of throwing them in the bin.
- Meal prep. Plan your food out for the week, taking into account any nights that you might be eating out. If you've got a set plan for each meal, you can buy only the ingredients that you need.
- Get a compost. If you absolutely must throw some food away, it's much better to put it in a compost bin than into a landfill. If you're in a small space and don't have the option for a compost bin of your own, a lot of local councils have public community gardens with compost bins that you can use.
- Use the whole vegetable. Research ways that you can use parts of vegetables that you'd normally throw away. For example, celery leaves can be used for dips or soup.
Keen for more ways to save? Take a look at these 50 easy money savings tips.
