Consider cooking it, then you have something to eat.
I love cooking, just can’t ever get motivated to do it
If your problem is you buy ingredients but can’t be arsed to turn them into food? Resist those beautiful fresh veggies and go get the frozen bag of the same thing. Not only will it keep until you really want to cook, it’s already washed and cut, and it has all the same vitamins. Since you’re already saving money, splurge on the better brand.
Also, go ahead and get some prepared food for no-cook days that are still cheaper than delivery. If you’re inspired to cook that very day by a particular ingredient, make it a simple way, because shopping and stowing is also a whole chore.
Canned ingredients as well! Especially handy for easily modifying cheap staples like ramen and rice. Great for filling out leftovers and making them last longer.
A couple of strategies depending on the problem you’re dealing with:
- if you don’t have time, make simple meals that minimize prep. There are cookbooks dedicated to this concept and highly recommend picking one up. “30 minutes or less” meals were a god send for me in college.
- if you don’t like the food you’re eating, explore new types of food. This is often a more expensive endeavor as it may require you to buy new spices, cookware, etc. again, cookbooks are a great help here. Most Americans eat a combination of Italian and Mexican food. Try making your own Chinese or Indian food.
- if you are lazy, consider a food prep day. I do food prep on Sundays and makes cooking through the week much faster and easier. Also helps to cook large batches that can refrigerate and reheat in the microwave or toaster oven. Make dishes that taste better with age. Chili, marinated dishes, etc. fall into this category.
- if you’re too lazy for that, then eat out and don’t cook. If you value not wasting food over your money, then this is the best choice overall. It’s the most expensive option but if you’d rather not cook and have the resources to just eat out, then do so.
Lack of motivation (assuming you’re not neurodivergent) often is a result of not having a plan or you find the activity tedious. If it’s the latter, I’d go the simple route and try to keep your cooking as easy as possible. This is essentially true if you’re new to cooking.
If it’s the former, consider meal planning. I plan my meals a week in advance, taking into account left overs I already have, left overs I’m planning on making, food I need to buy, and other factors.
If you’re neurodivergent, I’m hesitant to provide advice as I am not a doctor but I suggest talking to your therapist about it and seeing if they can help you.
Have you considered cooking simpler dishes that require far less work?
Here’s a simple one:
- Brown one 1lbs of ground beef (takes about 10 minutes) in a skillet
- pour off the excess liquid fat (not down the drain of your sink. Put it in a container and throw it in the trash if you don’t plan to use it for another recipe_
- Add 3/4 cup of water to the meat in the skillet
- one pouch of this:
Stir the contents of the pan on and off for about 2 minutes.
You now have a 1lbs of taco meat.
Empty a bag of lettuce into a bowl. Scoop out the taco meat and put it on the lettuce.
Sprinkle cheddar cheese on top of it.
You’ve got taco salad and it took you a bit less than 15 minutes.
Sounds like you have an answer.
I finally found the answer to all problems in my life: just be motivated to do things. I’ll start tomorrow…well, next week at the latest.
I only buy fresh stuff if I’m going to cook it that day, otherwise frozen or canned. Then I also always buy food that takes little to no preparation and/or make a lot of anything I’m making when I have motivation and freeze that for the days (which are most days for me) when I’m stuck with no motivation. So I always have some food that’s easy to make or just heat up that won’t go bad (at least within a few days). I can’t say how it is where you live, but here in Sweden there’s been a great increase in the variety of frozen veggies etc. Stuff I’ve never seen before like many kinds of beans, mushrooms, avocado, some salad types etc. which is awesome since they keep for much longer.
Then stop buying it.
But then they have nothing to eat.
Yeah …
Strategies against this include cooking for several people (well, that ain’t happening), doing meal prep several days in advance / cooking larger portions that you can eat over a couple of days, and buying frozen ingredients (still better than buying entire frozen meals). Some non-frozen ingredients keep for a long time, too, e.g. dried rice or noodles, onions, pickled vegetables.
Something that worked for me is always shopping for a specific meal. Instead of buying ground beef because I might want burgers or tacos or chili, I instead buy everything for a chili. It’s lead to less “oh I forgot I had this beef in here” and more “I better use this nice, fresh beef to make chili because otherwise I’ll go hungry.
It’s not a perfect system, and seems really obvious in hindsight, but has been a paradigm shift for me.
better use this nice, fresh beef to make chili because otherwise I’ll go hungry.
My issue is that I often end up choosing the “go hungry” option over the chili option
and I love chili
This, I typically make a stir fry or something that will last a long time for me
100% the longterm ingredients. I have an emergency meal which is just rice, frozen peas and carrots, and crushed cashews. I probably have green onion and definitely have numerous sauces available, too.
Your emergency meal sounds healthier than most of my regular meals, lol! It’s usually just fries, zucchini and some kind of frozen meat or fish (all baked). Fresh zucchini probably doesn’t last long enough for OP’s needs, but it does last really long for fresh produce. Though part of it is that I kind of follow FODMAP so onions and legumes are out for me.
Not sure what FODMAP is. Regardless, if it works for you it’s pretty much always better to eat something than go hungry, and really if baked fries are the only “negative” there I mean how bad is it really? And it’s not like I don’t ever eat fries.
We cook and eat the food.
Go away, you tankies with your common sense
I cook the food
Then eat the food
Then poop the shit
Then recycle the… Wait… I think we better stop at that.
I got a chest freezer for $200. I freeze everything before or on its expiration date.
Sometimes if its mushy veggies I make a stock and freeze it for the next meal. If its too far gone i have a compost jar in the kitchen and a bin outside.
I started a garden and an edible native hedge this year. I have tea herbs and squash for free now and working on a seed propagation.
I started a coop mushroom grow with my neighbors since he felled some hardwood and I had the plan. The leftover mushrooms we dont eat will be either sold at market or made into liquid cultures.
Were talking about going in on a local half cow or pig. He says if my garden keeps growing we can buy the plot behind us together and start a farm. Would cut grocery costs a lot.
My wife and I have pantry weeks where we dont go grocery shopping, we eat whats in reserve, soak dry beans, thaw last weeks on sale chicken breast and pressure Cook em, make a flatbread and have some curry.
Instant pot helps too. Thinking about getting coturnix quail to feed good scraps to and get eggs out of. I can plant cover crops for em on the last strip of lawn I have.
It doesn’t have to be wasteful forever.
Be organized, have a weekly menu. I’m sorry this is the solution. My bad.
“the only solution is being responsible” well fuck guess I’m SOL
I feel exactly the same way, man. I fucking hate this shit.
This isn’t “THE” solution though. Plenty of other options. My favourite is meal prepping - spend three hours cooking for the entire week, put it in the fridge. Instead of an hour / hour and a half each day. You only have to clean up after yourself once too.
Issues are you need to prepare things that reheat well, or that you can quickly “cook up” each day without it taking too long. I.e. “just add the sauce to the salad” type of deal.
This happens to us - if I cook dinner for everyone, two of us eat, if I cook dinner for two of us, everyone wants to eat. If I make enough for leftovers, nobody takes them to lunch. If I don’t make enough, they ask why there is not enough for lunch.
Things that help on your question though -
Canned beans, canned tomatoes, canned coconut milk, canned pumpkin, jarred spaghetti sauce, spices - a lot of our staples are not perishable.
Do you live where you can stop by the store on the way home? Then don’t buy perishables for the week, buy them for the meal you are making.
Some foods and meals freeze pretty well, freeze them and keep a list of what’s in the freezer so you remember to eat it.
I hate meal planning but it helps a lot. I sometimes put a note on the fridge “we have food for dal with spinach, chicken & cabbage, sheet pan gnocchi with sausage and broccoli, eggs and potatoes” or whatever we have the food to make, and cross them off as they are made.
Some foods make other foods. So if I make a hunk of pork, it’s pork, rice and beans then enchiladas then burritos, and so on.
Meal plan. Write what you’re cooking for the week, buy only ingredients for that.
Anything uncooked goes in the freezer, you can defrost and cook/reheat a lot of food, stop throwing stuff away.
It’s not for everyone, or even most people probably, but I deal with it by buying virtually the same thing every week, once a week. No impulse buying. So, I eat everything I buy, every week, because I know exactly how much I eat for each meal, each week. I waste nothing. I don’t need a list, I know the path through the store I will take, and I’m in and out in about 20 minutes, including checkout.
I decided to stop thinking about food as entertainment or reward, and now think of food as only nutrition (as much as I can, it’s not easy, but that’s the idea.)
I just hunt and eat the homeless. I work for the municipality so I just leave what I don’t eat around park benches, bus stops and the front of stores to scare the rest away.
I do this sort of thing with pets from the animal shelter
Buy food that has a long shelf life - lentil, rice, beans, canned vegetables, salsa jars. As a bonus it also doesn’t have to be refridgerated.
That! And then forget you have them for three years because ADHD.
You now have gout from eating too many preservatives.
That’s … not what causes gout.
High sodium intake from too many processed foods can absolutely cause gout.
Utter nonsense.
If you say so, I’ll just keep taking my allopurinol so my foot doesn’t swell up again.
Yes, and what does sodium intake have to do with anything?
You would need to eat an exceptional amount of canned food to get gout - and rice and beans doesn’t have artificial preservatives.
A freezer and a pantry full of canned and dried foods.
Only buy fresh meats and veggies when you are actually gonna cook.
Freeze leftovers in single portion sizes.
Eventually you’ll have a bunch of homemade frozen dinners to choose from.
i didn’t start cooking until I got a big enough kitchen to store plates, forks, knives, spoons, glasses, cooking pans/pots&utensils, cutting boards, leftover food storage, dish towels, and food cupboards and pantry.
rentals rarely have enough for that.
but once i got enough space to have that stuff, and then saved up to buy that stuff little at a time then cooking became a lot more sensible. (middle aged bachelor)
i have recipes that i don’t have to think about that create leftovers.
And that is the goal: LEFTOVERS
Leftovers are your bread and butter of saving money and not having to cook.
I live walking distance from 2 small super markets, I walk to those near every day and just get a few things and I also get hello fresh and I always cook those. So generally my fridge is pretty empty but I always eat well. Just in Time Home Economics you could say.
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Consider therapy or medication.
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Buy nonperishables in a higher ratio, such as canned, pickled, or dry goods.
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If you’re not concerned about your health enough to cook your own food every day, then just don’t buy food that has to be cooked every day.
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Remind yourself why you’re doing it, set a timer, and get it done. “This is for me. I love good food, I love my body.”
- Food prep. It maybe cuts down on variety but you only have to cook once. The rest of the time you’re just warming something up.
I second food prepping. If you want more variety, separate some of the prepped foods from each other so that you can mix and match.
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