8. Reduce food waste

Reducing food waste doesn't just mean eating things before they expire or go bad.  You can also use food that you would consider trash and "re purpose" it.  For example, when I chop up things like carrots, celery, or onions, I keep the parts you would normally throw away (i.e. celery tops) and put them into a freezer bag.  Then when I make chicken broth, I have them on hand.  Since you discard the veggies once the stock is made, you aren't wasting produce you could eat, just the stuff you would have thrown out anyway.   When you make a chicken (or even buy a rotisserie chicken from the store), don't throw the bones and skin out.  Use them to make chicken broth. It may seem intimating, but it is really very easy.  Here is a good recipe.   

(Tip:  Once the broth has cooled, pour it into small containers in 1/2 cup increments and freeze.  Once frozen, take the broth out of the cups and put them in a freezer safe plastic bag.  Then when a recipe calls for chicken broth, you are ready to go.)

My kids will not eat the "butt" of the bread.  So, I throw those into a plastic baggie and store them in the freezer.  When you collect enough, you can make your own breadcrumbs.  You can also do this if you find that your bread is starting to go stale.  (Although, if you find that you don't eat enough bread to use up the loaf before it stales or gets moldy, store your bread in the freezer.  It will last much longer and the only drawback is you have to wait a few minutes before it completely defrosts before eating it.  This works great for grilled cheese, because the frozen bread is hard enough that it doesn't destroy it when you put the butter on). 

Not only are you saving money, but you are also making food with ingredients you can pronounce and none of the additives that the premade stuff has in order to make them shelf stable.  

Note: Although I am sure it is obvious, please do not try to save food that has rotted, molded, or expired.  The doctor bills will far outweigh the savings!

7. Use up all the food in your pantry, freezer, and fridge.

This one doesn't need a lot of explaining.  The title says it all.  Take an inventory of the food that you currently have in your house and make a concerted effort to use it all up.  Start with the items that are going to expire the soonest (and throw away the ones that are already expired!).  Make it a goal to try to not buy groceries for one month (this excludes perishables such as milk since they will not last that long).  The average American family of 4 spends around $600 a month on groceries.  If you could cut this out for just one month, you could use all that extra money to pay off bills or to put into savings.  If you are stuck and can't figure out what to make, you can use websites like www.recipepuppy.com to help with your meal planning.  You just type in the ingredients you have and it will give you recipes that include those ingredients.  Also, make sure to use up the meat in your freezer.  After awhile, it does get freezer burn and then it does not taste very good.  Use it up.  You can always buy more when you find a good sale.  As you start using items up, you may be surprised at what you find pushed to the back of the freezer, fridge, or panty!  When the month is over and it is time to replenish your supply, remember the food you had to throw away because it expired before you got to it. Hopefully, that will prevent you from overbuying in the future. 

6. Make reusable “paper” towels

Making your own reusable "paper" towels does require a little sewing, so if you (or someone you know) don't have access/ability to sew, this one may not be for you.  The tutorial that I used can be found here.  I found the flour sack cloth at my local Wal-Mart Superstore in the section with oven mitts and kitchen towels.  They had white, red, and black.  I went with white just because I'm a traditionalist and I like my paper towels to be white :).  As stated in the tutorial, the towels are very large.  I cut 24 "select-a-size" pieces from each towel.  The way the towels are folded, you can just cut along the creases to get this size.  24 "select-a-size" pieces x 5 towels = 120 paper towels.  I used a serger to finish off the edges so that they wouldn't fray and viola...Done!  I put a small basket that I got from a thrift store for 50 cents next to the sink and I put the towels there (right next to the paper towels).  It did take a little while to retrain the family to stop using the paper towels, but it has sunk in and is working great!  We do still use the paper towels for really bad messes (like grease) because I really don't want to have to try to launder something like that out of them.  I'm estimating that we use one roll of real paper towels about every 3-4 months.  It might actually be longer than that.  The set of flour sack towels actually made so many, that I put half the stack away.  When the ones I am currently using get torn up or stained too badly, I'll pull out the ones I have stored away.  I've been using these for over a year now and they are holding up really well.  Not only are you saving money, but you can save a tree or two as well.