Maintaining a lean kitchen can save you thousands of dollars toward early retirement.
I can't imagine feeling like my food costs are going up even though I haven't made any major changes. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average annual price of household food in 2023 was 5.0 percent higher than in 2022.
A study by researchers at Cornell University found that the average person makes about 35,000 remote conscious decisions a day. While this number may sound exaggerated, researchers have shown that we make 226 decisions each day based on food alone. When faced with so many decisions and making one choice after another, it's no wonder our mental energy and willpower become completely depleted.
You've probably heard the advice to always cook and buy in bulk to save money. On the contrary, keeping my kitchen minimalist for over 10 years is one of the major contributors to my early retirement. Here are three personal strategies that have helped me maintain this habit for over 10 years.
Build a lean kitchen with a zero-based budget
Maintaining a lean kitchen is a great habit to incorporate into your monthly budgeting routine to build on your zero-based budget. When creating your budget, take inventory of what you already have in your refrigerator, kitchen counter, and pantry. This not only prevents impulse purchases, but also ensures that every ingredient serves a purpose and you only buy what you need.
My husband and I have applied the “first in, first out” (FIFO) inventory management principle to our kitchen so that older products are eaten before newer products. The FIFO approach aligns with our habits of minimizing food waste and maximizing value by organizing the pantry and refrigerator to prioritize older items.
Once a month, if I notice any ingredients that have been sitting out for a while, I cook them in bulk and freeze them for future use. I used to think about filling the freezer with obvious things like meat and packaged frozen items, but now I'm freezing bagels, cookies, spices, and other things I used to force-feed without spreading them out. .
By making the most of your ingredients, you can reflect the principles of zero-based budgeting by reducing all consumables to zero each month.
Prefer fresh over bulk
We learned from our financial program participants that while buying in bulk may seem like a cost-effective option, it often leads to unnecessary spending and waste in the long run. In my experience as a coach, buying in bulk only makes economic sense for her family of five or more. I recently became a Costco member for the first time. Although I like buying certain items there, I find myself buying more random things (like giant stuffed animals or desserts) than when I go to a regular grocery store.
A lean kitchen prioritizes freshness over quantity, allowing you to buy only what you need, when you need it. Fresh produce not only tastes better, but it's also generally healthier than bulk packaged produce. Even better, buying fresh once a week gives you more flexibility in meal planning. We enjoy going to our local international grocery store once a week and challenge ourselves to try new protein sources and produce more than we did the week before.
Rather than being restricted to consuming large quantities of the same product, you are free to experiment with a variety of recipes and flavors. Not only does this make meals more enjoyable, but it also reduces the chance of food fatigue, which makes repeated meals uninteresting.
For example, buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken for convenience at the beginning of the week, but add different carbohydrates, spices, and vegetables to turn it into different meals throughout the week. One rotisserie chicken transforms into tacos, fried rice, chicken salad sandwiches, chicken noodle soup, and spring rolls with just one purchase.
A custom we adopted out of our love for Korean culture is the idea of ”banchan.” Banchan refers to an assortment of small side dishes served with the main course of Korean cuisine. These side dishes include kimchi (fermented vegetables), namul (seasoned vegetables), pickles, kamaboko, tofu, and other small dishes.
reduce kitchen clutter
A cluttered kitchen not only reduces efficiency but also causes waste. Unused gadgets, expired materials, and duplicate items clutter precious space and honestly drive me crazy. Friends and family who visit our house comment on how clean the kitchen is and how organized the refrigerator is.
My Filipino mother always kept her kitchen packed with leftovers in the fridge, meat in the freezer, pots and pans she had collected over the years, and a collection of plates and utensils that grew seasonally. My rebellion is to do the opposite.
You don't need a lot of kitchen equipment to make delicious meals. The tools we use most often are:
- Air fryer replaces toaster, oven, and deep fryer.
- A pot for boiling pasta, noodles, and soup.
- Set of two different size pots.
- Wok – We use this most often.
- A bamboo steamer that fits perfectly over a wok.and
- Combo rice cooker/slow cooker.
I no longer keep the free cups I received at events. We've stopped collecting coffee mugs, and we're not on board with the next water bottle fad. We use his set of 8 reusable storage containers and change them out once a year to keep our fridge organized. Once a month I reorganize my kitchen and put everything back where it belongs.
For us, the big change in saving money was one simple switch to eating on smaller plates or bowls. Normal dinner plates are 10 or 12 inches, but we eat on 7.5-inch plates. Our bowls are smaller than the large cereal bowls found in other American homes. The non-Asian friends we invited to dine commented on how small our plates were, but shared that over time they too had changed their habits to smaller plates.
By making fewer and higher quality food choices per day, you can free up more brainpower to make better, tougher choices economically. Maintaining lean kitchen habits can have a huge impact on your financial health and sanity.
