October New Year's Resolution?

We continually see on the television that every year the average family throws out hundreds of dollars worth of food. I have always smugly shook my head in disbelief, 'Not me!' I would whisper under my breath - that is until yesterday....
This week I have been packing away the kitchen cupboard contents in to boxes ready for our impending move. I thought I'd do a double whammy as my daughter's school has a food drive today and I could donate any non perishable, in date, unopened items we won't use.
I chuckled to myself that I would not be finding much for the school and would buy a few items for them whilst shopping. Not so.
The first cupboard was a breeze, a few hundred Tupperware containers holding a host of surprise items; the half eaten packet of Ryvita circa 2013 when I decided it was time to shed a few pounds, some sticky marshmallows my daughter had tried last Christmas and didn't like, some healthy veggie crackers I bought to balance the nutritional value of my daughter's lunch bag - they were like eating cardboard, the list goes on.

I ended up with 4 carrier bags of discarded food and 3 bags for the food drive.
I wouldn't even hazard a guess at how much the discarded food had cost me, but now I know how the Government arrive at those figures.
Yes, I'm ashamed about the wasted food. Not only could it have fed a hungry family for a couple of days, but it could have saved me a ton of money too.
So, I will continue to eat my yoghurts a few days past their sell by dates, peel the not so pretty outer layers off the lettuce and eat the middle instead of throwing the lot on the compost heap. I'll take Jamie Oliver's advice and make the stale bread into breadcrumbs instead of giving it to the birds and buying breadcrumbs from the store. I vow to use the over-ripe fruit in home-made smoothies instead of consigning it to the compost heap too.

This is a photo from the internet, not my fridge!

Even with those 4 bags of throw outs, I still feel smug. I'm thrilled that my cupboards are almost empty now, there's less to pack up and we donated plenty to needy families.
Lesson learned. In future, I will not hoard half a bag of raisins in case I make more chutney next year, I will try to decipher 'sell-by' dates in stores before I buy (not an easy task in Canada), if my daughter nags me for the latest cracker, cookie, healthy option, I will make her eat them all instead of her giving up on the first mouthful.
Wow, this is my first New Year's resolution - and it's still only October!