How to purge food without throwing it away

When my pantry gets a little too full I look at what I have and make a meal plan based upon the contents before buying more food.  Often times I get almost a week’s worth of dinners from the food.  This prevents my pantry and refrigerator from becoming too full.  When either space gets packed it is hard to see what is on hand and duplicates are bought by mistake.  I like to “shop and cook” from my cabinets and fridge about once per month instead of buying ingredients according to a menu I have already created. 

This habit helps me cut down on waste and really use what I own!  Sunday as I prepped my shopping list I noticed I had leftover veggies that would only be alright for a few more days.  I needed to buy more but didn’t want to waste what I had.  So I made soup out of the older vegetables and made room for the fresher ones.  It was a tasty solution to my space problem.