Frugal mum claims she’s saving £560 a year by not factoring in expiration dates

A frugal mum overcomes the cost of living crisis by disregarding food expiration dates and using her intuition to create delicious meals instead – saving at least £560 a year.

Dr. Marianne Trent, 41, a clinical psychologist and founder of Good Thinking Psychological Services from Coventry, said she ignores how most people judge the appropriateness of their food because she’s been raised not to “necessarily take the expiration date or expiration date” as a gospel and to use your eyes and your nose’.

She emphasized, “I’m not a food engineer. I’m a psychologist, but I think we can empower ourselves to use the senses that our ancestors have used for many, many generations to keep ourselves safe.’

Marianne, who is a big fan of freezing, explained that she will never take any chances with meat and will always stick to the given dates unless frozen, saying she has tried and tested methods to determine the suitability of her guarantee food.

She is willing to use food as long as “it’s not moldy, and it looks the same color as when it was first bought, and it smells good.”

“I actually taste double cream sometimes,” she added.

“If I want it cold on a dessert, I’ll make sure it’s in date, but if I’m cooking with it, and it looks and smells good, then I think the heat is going to do the job anyway.” make safe.’

Marianne is a big believer in making the most of what you have and thinks yellow sticker shopping is not necessarily the best way to overcome the cost of living crisis as it can encourage unnecessary purchases.

She explained, “It’s often a lot of heavily processed foods, which isn’t necessarily what I use in our house anyway, but I’ll always be watching it.”

“There’s a recent ad from the Nationwide Building Society with clips of real people talking about the financial crisis.

“It has a lady in it saying she uses a yellow sticker box and she ended up buying baconaise. She said “I don’t even know what baconaise is, but that’s a good bargain”.

“I’d say that’s not necessarily a bargain because if you didn’t know what something was, then you don’t necessarily need it.

“Psychologically, we shouldn’t be too guided by what we see.”

Marianne said her frugal ways save her money, but she complements her approach to sell-by dates and sell-by dates with meal prep.

According to the mother, her methods save her at least £10 a week, and her grocery shopping for her family of four costs between £70 and £120 a week – including cleaning items such as toilet roll.

She said, “Before I go shopping, I’ll make sure I’ve planned out all the meals that will be in it for the week.

“I try to plan exactly what meal I’m going to cook so that I only shop for the details on my shopping list. Because if we do it impulsively, then we randomly scatter around the store and then we can come home and think, “I spent a fortune but don’t really have anything to cook meals with.”

“A little more planning can go a long way in making sure you’re as smart as possible.”

While Marianne admits she’s signed up for food waste apps like Olio and TooGoodToGo, which offer unwanted or expiring food for free or for a small fee, she believes it’s not the most economical option.

She explained, “I saw someone on Facebook the other day — I think it was TooGoodToGo. It came from a corner store and she ended up with literally an entire table full of Jolly Ranchers, the American candy.

‘I don’t want to have a whole closet full of that. So yes, I’m glad someone is benefiting from these apps, but that’s not necessarily the way we should feed our bodies just because it’s free or cheap.”

Marianne said she ultimately believes that Olio in particular would probably work well for people who live in large communities and want to share food, something she said she does when she cooks a large dish.

“When I’m cooking a big pudding at home or something, I often text my neighbors to see if they want cheesecake or some crumble, and they always do,” she revealed.

But while Marianne is willing to use her intuition when it comes to the dates on her family’s food, she tries to keep certain things as fresh as possible.

She admitted, “I used to look at the dates when I was in stores and try to buy the longest possible dates for meat or milk.

‘I’m not an expert on food safety. If someone is immunocompromised and has health restrictions or allergies, they will want to make different choices than the ones I make for myself and my family.

“It’s a matter of just doing things that make you feel comfortable.”

Marianne said that, as far as she knows, she has never gotten sick from eating food past its expiration and expiration date.

“I think the only time I’ve ever had food poisoning was from a slightly flakey shrimp sandwich I bought at the store,” she said. “And that was supposedly in-date.”

The mom said that while she knows a lot of people who aren’t like her, she imagines people who enjoy cooking from scratch will share her views.

“I think people who cook a lot from scratch are more like me because doing that gives you the power to taste your food as it goes along,” she admitted.

“If you have a bit of a dodgy pepper, that’s a little funkier, you might want to have a salad. It also works great in a frittata and onions.”

“If they’re a little softer than you’d like, they’ll still cook wonderfully, or you can pop them in the oven and roast them.”

Marianne said her relatives are now feeding her food they no longer want, allowing her to make a decision about its suitability.

“They just think they’re helpful,” she said. “They often bring me things and say, ‘Oh, I don’t really want to eat this, but I thought you might want to make up your mind.’

And also looks. I don’t think cans ever age. There are probably cans from the 1940s that are good to eat. I don’t know if I would eat it.

“I’m just trying to use my senses, be really sensible, and make choices that feel safe and nourishing, and won’t be too wasteful.”