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Too many times when I engage a friend, family member, or stranger, I hear that the reason they don’t give more to charity is that they don’t have enough money. If you are like me, you would love to have more money to do the things you want to do! And you would love to have money left over to give to a favorite cause. On a regular basis, we have calls to give to charity. Sometimes it is a cashier at the grocery store or direct request from the payment terminal. Or, it could be requested through the charity offering return address labels, for a contribution. Well, I have found a hidden source of money!!

Why we don’t have Money to Give

We all have expenses

We all have set expenses each month, and our biggest expense is often groceries and eating out. I recently visited the SunBasket.com website and found great information. For those of you who don’t know about SunBasket.com, it is a meal in a box dinner preparation company. You sign up for a few meals a week, and they send exactly the amount of food you need for the recipes. No Waste. On their website, I noticed an InfoGraphic that had some shocking statistics:

A Typical Adult Throws away about $26 worth of leftovers a week.

A Typical Adult Throws away over $1300 of food each year.

An Average American will throw away of $80,000 worth of food in their lifetime.

We need to be more intentional with our shopping. Placing an emphasis on what we truly need or want for a particular week. In addition, we need to use the food that we purchase. Making a family pact that we will use the food on hand,  instead of heading back out to the store because we were not in the mood for leftovers. Plus, we would save on our trash bill by reducing our overall garbage footprint. These savings would result in us having the money needed to give more to our favorite charities, while not missing out on anything at all.

Cleaning Out the Refrigerator

Whenever I clean out the fridge, I look at how much food is being thrown out. It is way less than it used to be as I work hard to be an intentional shopper, purchasing items my family will eat, and only buying the right amount each week. Over 30% of food produced in the US is thrown away each year. Daily, enough food is thrown away to fill up a major stadium. Yep!

We would save time and money if we would simply have the conversation with ourselves and say, “Eat what you already have”. In our home, we have “Catch as Catch Can” Days. I am not sure when it started, but I even incorporate it into my menu planning. On those days I put all of the remaining leftovers from dinners past out on the counter. Yes, the single serving of green beans, the 1/4 cup of refried beans, the leftover Fried Rice, the Random Piece of Chicken. Family members can choose those items, the random can of soup in the cupboard no one really wants, the heel of bread for toast, or the odd TV Dinner we thought we would eat when we tried to branch out in our flavors.

Why We don’t have money to give.

Plan a Catch as Catch Can Night

Having a Catch as Catch Can night helps us to reduce food waste, reduce cost, and truthfully….helps us appreciate the next night when I cook much more!

Recently my sister who is a Vegan stayed with us for a while. When she left, there were about 8 bags and boxes of Vegan frozen foods. Instead of tossing it, or letting it go to waste, my son ate Vegan lunches for about a week. He loved getting to try all of the various items, I loved the savings on the food budget, and the food did not go to waste.

What do you do to save on food waste and food cost?

Have this conversation

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Why we don’t have money to give.