The Nest

No cooking new stuff until leftovers are gone. Simple.

I clean the fridge out every time before I go shopping so I don't have to worry about it when I bring the groceries home.

Buy only what we need and freeze/toss stuff that's excess if need be. Plus we have an extra freezer, that helps.

Send leftovers with my husband for lunch. :)

Sheppard's Pie for the meat, and then throwing out things that have gone sour.

sometimes, I usually give it a week, and then its in the trash

Nothing stays in there over a week at our house.

I have a wonderful husband who eats leftovers for lunch and dinner.

We make sure leftovers are eaten before anything new is cooked...so either for lunch or dinner the next day.

I do a weekly clean-out of our fridge to keep things organized and also, to avoid disgusting surprises in the Rubbermaids!

we don't have left overs often.

Cleaning out the fridge Sunday mornings -- that's grocery shopping day (need room for new groceries) AND the night before trash day (old stuff immediately goes out in the trash - no smelly garbage).

You guys are too good! Our office fridge (which inspired this question) could benefit from all of this advice!

well, usually my husband will take the leftovers to work but if he gets tired of them he just tells me he is taking them. But when i finally do go through the fridge there is some pretty bad looking stuff in there. But try to atleast clean it out every other week.

I freeze our leftovers so instead of buying frozen lunches, we can heat up our home cooked food. Also, no one wants to eat the same thing 5 days in a row, so it breaks up our meals. We can cook new meals, freeze leftovers, cook new meals, eat leftovers, etc. Hopefully that makes sense!

After dinner, I package the leftovers in lunch size tupperware containers. So if we have meat, potatoes, and vegetables, a little bit of everything goes in each container. That way, lunches are already made so it's easy for my husband to grab something to take to work in the morning, and easy for me to heat something up for lunch.

I clean out our fridge and freezer everytime I go grocerey shopping, otherwise the new food won't fit.

Have teenagers and then you will never have leftovers...

make sure that anything I make that will have leftovers can be made into another meal and not wasted - take lunches to work every day also.

Pretty much all the suggestions that everyone else wrote. Leftovers, making things into another meal....we don't overbuy cause I HATE throwing away stuff. It's money right in the garbage!

Agree!!

We only cook for two and rarely have leftovers. Also, I regularly remove any expired food.

Purge!

I'm with everyone! Hate throwing food away because it's a waste of $, and I feel guilty knowing others are hungry... Leftovers become lunches or quick dinners, but we usually only cook enough for two each meal.

We actually just cleaned ours out last night...we now have a plan...we have a half shelf dedicated just to leftovers so *hopefully* we will not get a pile of leftovers shoved to the back of the fridge!

Feed it to my husband for lunch. Never have to worry. Thats one reason my mom loves to have hinm over, no leftovers in her fridge either. =)

I clean out our fridge once a week on Thursday (the day before the garbage truck comes).

toss it. I know it sucks to throw food out but I hate having rotting food in the fridge. If it doesn't get eaten a few days after I made it, I toss it.

Take leftovers for lunch and make a grocery list. Usually my overcrowded fridge is because I forget about items I already have..

I go through all leftovers and plan a meal for the rest of the week on Sat or Sun with what's in both fridge and freezer and toss what's old or will be.

Leftovers - what are leftovers? My husband can't stand to see something go in the fridge for the next day or freeze it for another meal. About the only time I have food in storage is when I make soups and stews!

If it was a good meal, call your leftovers "saving a plate" and give it to family or friends. They'll appreciate the free meal, and sometimes even offer to "save a plate" for us too. It's a good way to swap recipes as well.

Not a good meal? That's what dogs are for. :)

With the two of us it's more like how do we fight the lack of food?

Try taking leftovers for our lunches. i will admit hubby is better at this than I am.

clean it out weekly when we do the grocery shopping.

we got a separate freezer so we can stock up on meats and veggies and we clean out the fridge every weekend