Food Storage Essentials For A Frugal Healthy Home

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With the cost of living skyrocketing, my food costs have also gone up. It’s likely that you have noticed the increase on your recent grocery trips as well. So many of us are struggling right now, which is why I made some new goals for myself in the new year. I want to learn how to preserve my food with canning and jars. I also intend to learn more recipes for my fresh produce, including how to make jams, soups and sauces. Last year my garden produced more food than I could eat and some of my peppers, tomatoes, and green beans went bad before we could eat them. Food waste guilt is something I personally struggle with. I want to waste less and save more money, and I believe that one of the habit shifts that can do this is storing our food properly.

Being as sustainable with my food choices as I can has always been a priority of mine. I do my best to be intentional when I shop. About a decade ago I started using jars to store my fresh fruits and vegetables in the fridge and last year I purchased stackable fridge containers with colanders to keep my food fresher longer. With just myself and Matthew to feed on a daily basis, often times the bag of lettuce or container of blueberries would go bad before we could finish them all. Most food is packaged and sold in large family sizes. When it’s just you or a small family, the extras often go to waste. Or, if you do have a big family and buy in bulk, food waste can also happen when food is not stored and organized properly. The containers (which I linked below) keep our fruits and veggies fresher longer so that I could food before it went bad. The containers bought me a few extra days, and in some cases a couple extra weeks!

This kickstarted my food and lifestyle goals for the new year;

One. I want to learn how to can, jar and preserve my extra produce. Tis is a life skills that I wish I had learned when I was younger and I feel that there is no time like the present to learn it.

Two. I wish to reduce our food waste this year by only buying what I need and keeping what I buy stored properly for freshness.

Three. We wanted to get a small chest freezer to store our extra produce, homemade sauces and soups, and extra meals. This will also enable us to buy essentials when they’re at a good price.

Four. Meal prepping. I also plan to cook extras of our favorite meals and freeze the leftovers in individual servings so that we can heat them for lunches and dinners when we are too tired or busy to cook. Hopefully this will help us make healthier meal choices when we’ve had a long day and save us money on groceries and eating out.

The Honeywell chest freezer we ordered arrived this week and we installed it last night. The goal is that when we see food at a good cost, we can stock up on essentials and freeze them. The small freezer in our rental does not get cold enough for ice cream and it is too cramped to hold much food. The chest freezer is going to make a big impact. I’m also excited to have ice cream again.

Now, I am not someone who likes to stock pile too much (especially frozen foods as they can go back if you lose power for long periods of time and they can also go bad if left in the freezer for too long) but I do like the extra security of being able to stock up on essentials when the prices are low to help us keep our food costs down. I also like the idea of being able to store extra home cooked meals for those days when we are busy or too tired to cook and want something healthy and delicious. I also intend to use it for our extra garden produce this year.

Linked below are some of the fridge and freezer essentials that I have bought, just ordered today for our new freezer situation, or have on my personal wish list for this year. The items are mostly eco friendly, are nice to look at and most importantly are reusable and meant to last. There are glass jars for homemade chia seed puddings and yogurts, silicone and glass containers, plastic food storage with colanders (still keeping an eye out for some good glass options!), some bento boxes and my favorite glass water bottle with a silicone cover.

The second list has freezer safe containers. My mother recommends using freezer bags over containers as you can squeeze out the air before sealing and it will stay fresher longer without freezer burn. So I shared my favorite reusable bags, including Stasher bags. There are also silicone trays for freezing soups and sauces (bonus is that you can pop them right out as the silicone is flexible and it is safer and healthier than plastic), silicone jars, pyrex containers, and freezer safe glass containers. Not all glass is safe to freeze! Some glass can break when frozen or when thawing out. That is why is it so important to make sure your glass containers are freezer safe before putting them in the freezer.

I hope that some of the items on this list help you to kick start your food saving (and money saving!) goals this year. Clicking on the photo will link you to the product.