I
n August 2016, I stood in
front o f my pantry and sur-
veyed t he bulging mess.
Then I op ened my fridge,
freezer a nd the cupboards
above t he fridge – where I
had e ven more food stored.
I h ad a mountain of edible food,
even tho ugh I had made a conscious
effort not t o spend much money on
groceries. I remembered what it was
like t o throw out and donate lots of
food b efore I left Taiwan and moved
back t o Australia, and how sad I felt to
waste s o much. I started with a clean
slate and an empty cupboard, and
vowed I w ould never let that happen
again. Y et, somehow, I had enough
food t o survive for months in the un-
likely e vent of a nuclear holocaust.
This r ealisation was the genesis
of m y $50 a week challenge. While
living o n a lower food budget requires
planning a nd often more time in food
preparation, I managed to live on
$50 a w eek while working full-time
and b eing a mum to two active boys.
Oddly, I f ound it easier: buying less
meant f ewer decisions a bout what to
cook, a nd less time unpacking gro-
ceries a nd later throwing out food
that h ad gone bad.
Was living on only $50 a weekLIFE LESSONhard? Yes ... and no. I cooked for my-
self a nd my boys, who were only four
and s even at the time and they had
dinner w ith their dad a few nights a
week. W e still indulged in ice-cream
on F riday nights, and had treats like
biscuits a nd yoghurt. I baked muf-
fins, b anana cake and biscuits for
school l unches. I still made their fa-
vourite m eals, such as slow-cooked
butter-roasted chicken and risotto
(using h omemade stock made from
the c hicken carcass). In winter, my
boys w ould wake to the smell of
fresh, w arm, super-soft bread from
the br eadmaker. We kept up our
Sunday m orning tradition of pan-
cakes i n the shape of gingerbread
men – m ade simply from flour, milk
and e gg.My top ten tips to save
These tips will help you take con-
trol o f your food spending, be more
aware o f what you are putting into
your b ody and help the environment.
Budget f or $25 per teenager or adult.
REDUCE FOOD WASTEAn estimat-
ed o ne third of food produced global-
ly i s wasted. That’s 1.3 billion tonnes
of f ood never eaten. This equates to
roughly U S$990 billion*. The main
trick is not to buy too much in the firstJune• 2019 | 95PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES; *FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANISATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS