

I solved this by planning out all my dinners for the week and then buying only what I needed for those plus topping up any thing I need for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Any perishables get used because i mostly only have what I’ve planned for that week. I can recommend Recipe Tin Eats as a good resource for easy to cook meals.
When I find recipes I like I make an ingredients list so I can easily add it to my shopping list when I want to make it again. My lists are setup so I can just copy the whole meal with ingredients over to the day I want to cook it then copy the ingredients list straight from there and work it into my shopping list. I include all the herbs, spices, oils etc so I can check whether I have enough of everything while I’m refining the list.
I used to just wing it in the shops and during the week but I found it hard to make new things and ended up wasting so much food. This takes a bit more time planning but everything is fresh/defrosted when I need it, theres no stress with working out what I’m making each day, and I waste significantly less.