How to Stretch Your Groceries and Waste Less Each Week [5-Day Challenge To Spend Less]

🛒 How to Stretch Your Groceries and Waste Less Each Week

Do you ever find yourself staring at a fridge full of food thinking, “There’s nothing to eat”… then heading back to the store anyway? You are not alone. A lot of us want to shop less, maybe just once or twice a month, but end up going every week because food goes bad, plans change, or we run out of essentials.

The good news is you do not need a huge stockpile or a complicated meal plan to make your groceries last longer. With a few small changes in how you shop, cook, and store food, you can waste less, save more, and go further between trips to the store.

To help you get started, I created a simple 5-day Use It Up Challenge. Each day focuses on one small action to help you make the most of what you already have. Try it on your own or invite a friend to join you. Let’s stretch your groceries together.

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🥕 Day 1: Use One Veggie That’s About to Go Bad

Let’s start with a simple win by using one vegetable that is on its way out.

We all have them. That zucchini hiding in the back of the fridge. The carrots starting to go soft. The spinach you thought you would use by now. It is normal. But using them before they spoil is one of the easiest ways to save money and avoid food waste.

Your goal today is to pick one vegetable that needs to be used and build a meal or snack around it. Toss it into eggs, blend it into a smoothie, roast it, add it to soup, or stir it into pasta. If you cannot use it today, consider chopping and freezing it for later.

This habit will help you get creative, waste less, and delay the next grocery run.

💬 Action step:
Take a look in your fridge and pick one vegetable to use.

💰 Bonus Tip: Start Earning Cash Back on Groceries

Before we get into the challenge, let’s start with something easy that helps you save money every time you shop.

Cash back apps are a simple way to earn money on the groceries you are already buying. You just scan your receipt, link your account, or activate offers before heading to the store. It takes just a few minutes and can really add up over time.

Here are a few of my favorite free apps to get started:

Fetch Rewards – Scan your receipt from any store and earn points toward gift cards. You do not need to select offers ahead of time.
Ibotta – Activate grocery offers before you shop, then get real cash back by uploading your receipt or linking your store account.
Upside – Great for gas, groceries, and restaurants. Just check in or scan your receipt and get cash back straight to your bank or PayPal.

Even if you do nothing else, using these apps can help you stretch your grocery budget with no extra work.

How to save money on groceries!

🙋🏼‍♀️ Have you found yourself throwing away vegetable after vegetable, month after month?

🙋🏼‍♀️ Do you think about your food habits and get discouraged?

🙋🏼‍♀️ Are you tired of never having a plan and watching your food budget balloon out of control?

🙋🏼‍♀️ Does the thought of grocery shopping stress you out?

🙋🏼‍♀️ Have you tried meal planning before and failed?

I know those frustrations well. I have felt the pure, unadulterated annoyance that food can bring. It’s never fun knowing that you went over budget and had to throw out all the produce you thought for sure you were going to eat… and now you’ve wasted money and didn’t eat healthy.

That’s why I created this course. How To Save Money on Groceries has been 2 years in the making. 2 years of crafting a step-by-step guide on how to…save money on groceries.

This course will help you maintain a healthy lifestyle, stop food waste and give you tips and tricks to harness your best grocery life. You’ll save money, learn how to spend wisely, and most importantly, you’ll learn how to lower your food cost so you can spend on the things that bring you joy!

❄️ Day 2: Use Something from Your Freezer

Today we are heading into the freezer. If you are anything like me, things get buried in there and forgotten until they are covered in frost and totally unrecognizable.

Your goal today is simple: pull out one item from the freezer and use it.
This could be frozen veggies, meat, bread, leftovers, or even fruit. You do not have to build an entire meal around it, but at least get it back into rotation.

This habit keeps you from buying things you already have and helps you actually use the food you paid for. The freezer can be your best money-saving tool, but only if you keep it from turning into a food graveyard.

💬 Action step:
Take one thing out of the freezer and plan to use it today.

🥫 Day 3: Make a Meal Without Opening Anything New

Today’s challenge is all about using what is already open or partially used.

Your mission is to make a meal without opening anything new. That means no new jars, no freshly opened boxes or bags. Look for leftovers, opened produce, or pantry items that have already been started.

This is a great way to finish what you have before adding more clutter to your fridge and pantry. It helps prevent forgotten half-used items from going bad and makes cleanup easier too.

For example, I used up leftover rice, half a can of beans, and the end of a salsa jar to make a quick bowl for lunch. Nothing fancy, but still filling and cheap.

💬 Action step:
Look through your kitchen and build one meal today using only opened or leftover items.

🧂 Day 4: Use One Thing from the Back of the Pantry

Today we are going deep into the pantry. Not the front where the snacks live. The back. The shelf where random cans and mystery grains go to be forgotten.

Your goal is to find one item you have not touched in weeks or months and use it in a meal or snack today. It could be a can of beans, a box of couscous, a soup mix, or something you bought for a recipe and never made.

Using what you already have is one of the fastest ways to reduce waste and lower your grocery bill. Plus, it clears space and helps you avoid buying duplicates.

If you find something expired, do not beat yourself up. Just toss it and take it as a reminder to rotate your pantry more often.

💬 Action step:
Go check your pantry or cabinets. Pick one item to use today.

More ways to save!

Upside: Earn 20 cents per gallon on gas cash back when you download the app and scan your first receipt.
Fetch Rewards is a free grocery savings app that rewards you just for snapping pictures of your receipts. That’s it. Really. Free gift cards on groceries on thousands of products every day, no matter where you get your groceries. Just scan your receipts and get gift cards from retailers like Amazon, Target, Ulta, Applebees. Use code QHKBH to earn 2,000 points ($2)!
Rakuten: Get cash back on online purchases and automatic coupons and savings with their browser plugin… and remember, you have to make a $30 purchase to get your $30 for free!
CIT Bank: BEST High-yield savings account, your bank shouldn’t be charging you money, instead, YOU should be making money off your money!
Build Wealth by Investing in Index Funds Course: I’ve teamed up with my friend Jeremy from Personal Finance Club to teach you everything you need to know to invest in index funds! How to open an account, how much to invest, and how to choose an index fund. You’ll gain the knowledge and confidence to optimally invest and build wealth for decades.

🍽 Day 5: Combine Two Random Ingredients into a Meal or Snack

Today’s goal is to take two random ingredients you already have and combine them into something you can eat. They do not have to go together perfectly. This is all about experimenting, using what you have, and proving to yourself that dinner does not have to be fancy to be satisfying.

Maybe it is rice and canned pineapple. Maybe it is leftover ground turkey and a bag of frozen peas. Maybe it is oatmeal with a scoop of peanut butter and half a banana. Use your imagination, trust your taste buds, and have a little fun with it.

This kind of flexibility is what makes your groceries stretch further. The more you get comfortable making meals with what you already have, the less often you will need to run to the store.

💬 Action step:
Pick two ingredients and see what you can come up with.

🎉 Final Thoughts

This challenge isn’t about doing things perfectly. It’s about paying closer attention to what is already in your kitchen and being more intentional with how you use it.

By using one veggie before it went bad, pulling from the freezer, finishing open items, and finding creative ways to repurpose food, you proved that stretching your groceries is totally possible, even without a fancy meal plan or a coupon binder.

These five habits may seem small, but they can completely shift how you approach food, waste, and your grocery budget. The more often you do them, the less stressed you will feel about what’s for dinner and how often you need to go to the store.

If you are ready to keep building on this progress, grab my free 7-day meal plan and grocery list. It includes simple meals, a done-for-you shopping list, and ideas the whole family will actually eat.

And if you want to go even deeper, check out the full How to Save Money on Groceries Course. It is packed with short videos, printables, and strategies that help you cut your grocery bill without giving up the meals you love.

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