Run the plan for a week, measure it and adjust
A planned week measured the same way as the baseline and set beside it, the top cause of waste matched to one change, and a rule for the weeks that fall apart.
Start here Essentials
At minimum, measure one planned week exactly as you measured the baseline, set the two side by side, and write one change for next week. Everything marked Go deeper is optional on a first pass.
- Collect the planned week's waste in the same bag, by the same rules, and log it in the waste log (measure it the same way).
- Total the week's food spending for groceries and eating out in the spending log (spending).
- Count the meals cooked as planned, swapped and dropped (meals as planned).
- Enter both weeks on the review sheet as two rows, the baseline and the planned week (side by side).
- Pick the top waste reason and write one change for next week, using the table of reasons (one change).
Minimum time: 15 minutes at the end of the week to measure and total, then about 20 minutes to compare and decide. Done when: the review sheet has the baseline and the planned week side by side and one written change.
1. Measure the planned week the same way Understand
Your starting week measured one ordinary week before anything changed: what the household ate, bought, spent and threw away. That week is the baseline. The weekly plan, How much to buy, Shopping and budget, Prep and batch cooking and Leftovers and using it up then built a plan and ran it. A planned week is a week the household ran from a written plan: the meals on the plan sheet, the food bought from the list, the prep and the leftovers handled the way this manual set out. This chapter measures that week and sets it beside the baseline.
The comparison is only as good as the match between the two measurements. EPA's household challenge, Get Smart: Take the Challenge from its Food: Too Good to Waste toolkit, measures normal weeks first, then measures again while the household tries new habits, and compares the two the same way. We follow its method. If anything about the measuring changes between the weeks, a difference in the numbers can come from the measuring rather than the kitchen.
The same rules as the baseline
| Measure | Keep it the same as the baseline | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| What goes in the bag | Preventable food waste only: food bought to eat that spoiled, and food prepared but not eaten (EPA's definition). Peels, shells, cores and bones go out as usual. Liquids such as soup, and food-soiled paper, stay out of the bag. | Waste log |
| The container | The same bag or lidded container, so a "half full" means the same amount both weeks. | Waste log, amount column |
| The unit | The same unit: if the baseline was "about 2 quarts", estimate in quarts or cups again; if you weighed it, weigh it again on the same scale. | Waste log, amount column |
| Days collected | Seven days if you can. If the bag fills early, EPA says to record what it held and the number of days, then start a new bag and total the week. | Waste log, days column |
| What and why | What each item was and its main reason, from the same list of reasons Your starting week used. | Waste log, what and reason columns |
| Spending | Every food purchase for the week: groceries, coffee, vending, food eaten out or ordered in. | Spending log |
| Meals | The same meals log: cooked at home, leftovers, eaten out or ordered in, skipped. | Plan sheet, or a note |
EPA's sheet says measuring should take no more than 15 minutes a week once you get started. It also asks households to keep to their usual routine apart from the new habits they are trying: its example is not to clean out the freezer during the challenge unless you normally do. A one-off clean-out puts weeks of old food into one bag, and that week then looks worse than the kitchen it measures. If a clean-out has to happen in a measured week, put its contents in a separate bag and write a note; the comparison uses the regular bag.
Which week to measure: the planned week you ran while reading The weekly plan, How much to buy, Shopping and budget, Prep and batch cooking and Leftovers and using it up, if you collected its waste as you went. If you did not, run the plan again for one more week and measure that one. Nothing is lost; the baseline still stands, and the second planned week has the benefit of practice.
2. Set the two weeks side by side
The review sheet has one row per measured week: week starting, waste amount, main reason, groceries, eaten out, meals cooked as planned, and the change for next week. Its first row was filled from your baseline when the waste log and spending log had one; check it against those sheets. The planned week goes in the second row. With both rows filled, each column reads across as a before and after.
Read each column on its own first. For the waste amount, write both numbers in the same unit, not only the difference: a cup less in a 2-quart bag is not the same as a cup less in a 1-cup bag. For the main reason, note whether it changed; waste that moved from "did not want the leftovers" to "spoiled" points at a different part of the routine. The money lines are read in section 4, and the meals count below.
One week against another week does not show that planning works, or that it failed. A single week is noisy: a work trip, a guest, a sale, a sick day or one forgotten bag of greens can move the numbers more than any habit. EPA's challenge sheet says "many families" cut their waste by 25 percent or more, and gives no data for it, so we do not repeat it as a result to expect. This manual does not say whether your result is good, or what your waste or spending should be. The review shows what happened in your kitchen in these two weeks, and gives you one thing to try next.
Meals cooked as planned
The third measure is meals cooked as planned: the number of planned home meals that happened on their night, or within a day of it with the same food. For each planned meal at home, mark one of four outcomes:
| Outcome | What it means | Counts in "meals cooked as planned" |
|---|---|---|
| As planned | The planned meal was cooked or eaten as a planned leftover on its night, or within a day of it with the same food. | Yes |
| Swapped | A different meal from the plan or the backup took its place (swaps in The weekly plan). | No; note it |
| Dropped | No meal from the plan happened; the household ordered in, ate out or skipped. | No; note what happened instead |
| Planned out | The plan itself said "out" or "ordered in" for that night. | Not counted either way |
The counting rule is ours, written so the number means the same thing every week. A swap is not a failure. The weekly plan built swaps into the plan on purpose, and a swap that used the perishable first did its job. What the count shows is where the plan and the week parted: the same night dropped two weeks running usually says the plan asks too much of that night, and the next plan gives it a quicker meal or the backup.
The baseline row has no planned meals to count, so its cell stays empty. Its meals log still tells you how many dinners were cooked at home and how many were ordered in, and those two numbers can go in the row's notes for comparison.
Tracking three or more weeks
EPA's full challenge runs six weeks: two normal weeks measured first, three weeks trying new habits while still measuring, and a final measured week. Its worksheet averages the two normal weeks and compares them with the later weeks. An average of several weeks is steadier than any one week, because a week with a guest or a trip is balanced by a quieter one.
The review sheet takes as many rows as you add. To track longer:
- Add one row per measured week with the same rules each time.
- Average the planned weeks after three or four rows: add the waste amounts and divide by the number of weeks, and the same for each spending line. Write the averages in a notes row.
- Compare averages, not best weeks. A good week next to a bad one says little; three weeks that sit lower than the baseline say more, though they still do not say why.
- Keep the change column honest. If you made a change in week three, the weeks before and after it are the comparison for that change.
A single baseline week is the weak point of the comparison. If your baseline week was unusual (a holiday, an illness, a week away), measure one more ordinary week and use the two as your baseline, the way EPA's sheet uses two.
3. Match the top waste reason to one change
The waste log's reason column is where the review turns into a next step. The reasons Your starting week used come from the causes national studies record: ReFED's Food Waste Monitor sorts US household food waste into causes such as spoiled, did not want leftovers, left out too long and date label concerns, and WRAP's UK reasons (labelled UK) include food not used in time and food cooked, prepared or served in too large an amount. ReFED's summary of why homes waste food names spoilage from poor food management, unplanned purchases, bulk buying, not knowing how to store or reuse food, and confusion over date labels. Each of those causes has a part of this manual that addresses it.
The top waste reason is the reason behind the largest share of the week's bag, by your own estimate. If one item filled most of the bag, its reason is the top reason even when three other items had three other reasons.
| Main reason in the waste log | What it usually points to | A change to try | Where this manual covers it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spoiled | Perishables bought before the week had meals for them, eaten in the wrong order, or stored where they do not keep | Buy fresh items for a named number of meals; plan the most perishable food first; put it on the eat-first shelf; check its storage | Kitchen inventory, How long food keeps, The weekly plan, Shopping and budget |
| Cooked or served too much | Quantities from habit or a recipe's yield rather than the people eating | Work the amount from people, portions and times served; scale the recipe; plan the extra as a leftover | How much to buy, The weekly plan |
| Did not want the leftovers | Leftovers served again as the same meal, or with no day and plan | Turn the leftover into a different meal; freeze a portion the day it is made; give every leftover a day | Leftovers and using it up, Prep and batch cooking |
| Left out too long | Food past the 2-hour limit at room temperature, or cooling too slowly | Refrigerate within 2 hours; cool large amounts in shallow containers | How long food keeps, Prep and batch cooking |
| Worried about the date | A date label read as a safety date when federal guidance treats it as quality | Look the food up on the storage card; learn the label phrases and your state's rules | How long food keeps, the storage card |
| Did not taste good | A meal or recipe the household does not like, or a food past its best quality | Change or drop the recipe on the meal list; use produce past its best in a cooked dish | Your meal list, Leftovers and using it up |
| Other | Read the "what" column for a pattern | Name the step of the routine where the food was lost | The chapter for that step |
The table gives the usual match, not the only one. Read the "what" column before you choose. Salad greens marked "spoiled" may point to buying (a bag too big for the week's meals), to the plan (the salad night was late in the week) or to storage (the greens sat in a warm part of the fridge). The change goes where your own note says the food was lost. Test it
One change at a time
Write one change in the review sheet's last column: a single step you will do differently next week, specific enough that you will know at the end of the week whether you did it. "Waste less produce" is a hope. "Buy salad greens only for the two salad nights on the plan" is a change.
We suggest one change at a time for a practical reason: if next week's bag is smaller after three changes, you cannot tell which one mattered, and if it is bigger, you cannot tell which one to undo. One change, one week later, gives you at least a hint. EPA's challenge lets a household try one or more strategies at once, so this is our method, not a federal rule. And even one change across one week is a weak test, for the reasons in the Limits box above: the next weeks settle it.
Utah State University Extension's Create Better Health guide to frugal meal planning lists "review and adjust" as the last of its six planning steps: look at what worked and what did not, and adjust for the next week. That is the step this chapter adds to the routine. Your kitchen system puts it in the weekly loop.
A change can sit in any step of the loop: "for how many meals" written beside every fresh item on the list; half the bread frozen on shopping day; the most perishable dinner on the first night after the shop; a midweek look at the fridge on the same evening each week.
What national studies find, and how they measure it
The reason list in your log comes from national studies, and those studies measure in different ways. Their numbers are not targets for a household and do not compare directly with one another or with your bag.
| Study | Method | What it found | What to keep in mind |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReFED Food Waste Monitor, residential sector, 2024 | A national model built from data sources, updated March 2026 | Of about 23.4 million tons of household surplus food, inedible parts were about 29 percent, spoiled about 25 percent, did not want leftovers about 9.7 percent, left out too long about 6.7 percent, date label concerns about 5.3 percent | Modeled, not measured in homes; it counts inedible parts, which your bag leaves out |
| Yu and Jaenicke, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2020 | A statistical model of USDA food-acquisition survey data | The average household in its data wasted 31.9 percent of the food it bought; healthier diets and higher income went with more waste, lower food security and larger households with less | Modeled from purchases, one study; we read the abstract only |
| Neff, Spiker and Truant, PLoS ONE, 2015 | A national survey of 1,010 adults about their own habits | The most common reasons given for discarding food were concern about foodborne illness and wanting to eat only the freshest food; three-quarters said they waste less than the average American | Self-reported: what people say, not what they throw out |
| Two US kitchen-diary studies, summarized in EPA's From Farm to Kitchen, 2021 | Households kept 7-day kitchen diaries: 182 in Oregon (2017) and 613 in Nashville, Denver and New York City (2016 and 2017); the second study checked the diaries against trash sorts | Fruits and vegetables were about 40 percent of household food waste; prepared foods and leftovers 23 to 28 percent; inedible parts about 30 percent by weight | Closest to your own method: a week of recording at home |
| WRAP, UK Food Waste Key Facts, July 2025 (UK) | UK national estimates for 2022, with reasons by weight | Of edible food thrown away: cooked, prepared or served too much 25 percent; personal preference 22 percent; not used in time, looked or smelled off 22 percent; not used in time, past the date label 17 percent | UK figures; UK date labels and habits differ from the US |
Two things follow for a household. First, spoilage and unwanted leftovers are large causes in both the US model and the UK figures, which is why this manual spends Kitchen inventory, How long food keeps, The weekly plan and Leftovers and using it up on them. Second, Neff's finding is a reminder that people tend to underestimate their own waste, which is the reason this manual measures a bag instead of asking how much you think you throw out.
4. Spending against your budget
The spending log has one row per week with two money lines: groceries, and food eaten out or ordered in. Shopping and budget set a weekly food budget from your own spending, with the USDA Food Plans as a reference if you looked at them (the budget sheet). The review sets the planned week's lines beside the baseline's, and both beside that budget.
Read three numbers, not one:
- Groceries. This line can go up in a planned week, because more meals are cooked at home. That is not a sign the plan failed.
- Eaten out or ordered in. This line can go down for the same reason. Whether it should is your decision; this manual does not set a figure.
- The total against the weekly budget you set. Above, below or about the same: write it in the notes. The budget is your figure, set by you, and this manual gives no financial advice about it.
A stock-up (a big bag of rice, a bottle of oil, a sale) lands in one week's receipts and feeds several weeks. Note it in the spending row so the comparison is not read as that week's cost of eating. A household that shops every two weeks compares a two-week cycle with a two-week cycle: the fictional Grant household's baseline was two weeks of groceries ($412) and eating out ($96), so their planned cycle is read against both figures together, not split into halves that the receipts do not support.
A lower total in a planned week is one week's result, not a saving this manual promises. What planning saves depends on your household, and this manual promises no figure. Prices also change from month to month: the USDA reference figures on the budget page are for August 2026, and food prices drift with them.
A rough cost of your waste
Your bag says how much was wasted, not what it cost. Where you know the price from a receipt, use it: two of four yogurts from a $5 pack is about $2.50. Where you do not, EPA's 2025 report Estimating the Cost of Food Waste to American Consumers gives national averages you can borrow. Its Table 2 lists, for 2023, the pounds of food each person wasted in a year by food group and what that cost. Dividing one by the other gives an average price per pound of wasted food. This division is our calculation from EPA's table, not a figure EPA publishes.
| Food group (EPA Table 2, 2023) | Pounds wasted per person a year | Cost per person a year | Our calculation: about $ per lb |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meat | 25.6 | $133.48 | $5.21 |
| Poultry | 13.9 | $55.81 | $4.02 |
| Other dairy (cheese, yogurt and the like) | 17.8 | $74.32 | $4.18 |
| Eggs | 6.8 | $20.07 | $2.95 |
| Fresh fruit | 22.6 | $44.58 | $1.97 |
| Fresh vegetables | 31.0 | $59.49 | $1.92 |
| Grain products | 31.0 | $42.41 | $1.37 |
| Fluid milk | 26.6 | $25.68 | $0.97 |
To use it, you need a weight: weigh the bag's contents by group on a kitchen scale, or skip this. For example, half a pound of spoiled vegetables at about $1.92 a pound is about $0.96 by this calculation. The figure is rough: EPA's prices are national averages from 2023 store data, edible parts only, and your store, your brands and this year's prices differ. EPA's own headline is $728 per person a year, or about $14 a week, and $2,913 a year for a household of four scaled from that, which includes food bought to eat away from home. Neither number is a target for your kitchen or a measure of it.
We do not use the often-repeated "$1,500 a year for a family of four". EPA's report says it rests on USDA's 2010 prices, and that many food prices have risen more than 50 percent since.
5. Weeks that fall apart
Some weeks the plan does not survive: someone is ill, work runs late every night, guests arrive, shopping day is missed. A plan that only works in a quiet week tends to be dropped the first time a week is not quiet, so write a rule ahead of time for what to do when it happens.
A fall-back rule is the household's short written answer to "the plan is not going to happen this week; now what?" Its job is to protect the food that is already bought and the meals that matter, and to let the rest go. The order below is ours, built from the rest of this manual.
- Keep the meals that use the most perishable food. Look at the eat-first shelf and the leftovers log. The meals that use those foods stay on the plan, even if they get simpler.
- Freeze what will not be eaten in time. Cooked leftovers keep 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator under FSIS guidance, and FSIS says to freeze leftovers within that time. Freeze them while they are still inside it (Prep and batch cooking).
- Move or drop the meals whose food keeps. Pasta, canned beans and frozen vegetables wait for next week.
- Use the backup meal or a pantry night. The backup from The weekly plan (the backup meal) or a meal from the freezer. Utah State University's Be Well program, in its Back-to-Routine Meal Prep sheet, gives Friday to "a simple pantry night", and its advice is that meal prep "doesn't have to be all-or-nothing".
- Start again the next day. One ordered-in night does not end the plan.
| What happened | What stays | What moves or goes | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| A busy week: late nights, extra shifts | The one or two meals that use the eat-first food; the planned leftover | Longer recipes move to the weekend or next week; quick meals and the backup fill the gaps | Plan sheet, time column |
| Someone in the household is ill | Food already cooked, eaten or frozen within its time | Cooking nights; the plan shrinks to what the household can manage | Leftovers log |
| Guests for a meal or a weekend | The perishables, now used for more people | Quantities change; recipes scale up | Recipe scaler, buy calculator |
| A missed shopping trip | Meals from the inventory: the pantry, the freezer, the backup | Fresh-food meals wait until the shop | Pantry and freezer lists |
| Takeout on a planned night | The planned meal's food, if it keeps another day | The planned meal moves one night later, or its perishables go to the freezer | Plan sheet, swaps |
The food's keep times do not move when the plan does. A meal pushed to Friday still uses chicken cooked on Sunday, and Sunday is the day its count started. Check the eat-by day on the label or in the leftovers log before you move a meal, and if a leftover has passed it, it goes out (Leftovers and using it up).
Love Food Hate Waste, the UK campaign run by WRAP, suggests planning for busy days realistically from the start and building in a weekly "throw-it-all-in" meal that uses up what is left. Both make a fall-back rule easier to keep, because the plan already expects a week to go wrong. Hosting a dinner for a group is a planning job of its own; this manual covers guests only as a week that breaks the routine.
Habits take weeks
Penn State Extension's piece on planning around schedule changes says that new habits can take weeks, and that if you meant to follow the plan but end up ordering takeout, you try again tomorrow. Iowa State University Extension's Simplifying Meal Planning with Young Kids says the occasional drive-thru stop is fine, because the plan is still there for the rest of the week. Neither source says how many weeks a habit takes, and we do not either.
For the review, a week with two dropped nights is information, not a reason to stop: the count shows which nights to plan differently. A first planned week that went well does not show the routine will hold either; the next few review rows do.
Write your fall-back rule in the review sheet's change column, under your one change, starting "If the week falls apart:". Two or three lines is enough: the meal that stays, the backup, and the day you start again.
6. See it See it
Jordan, the amounts, prices and results here are invented for this manual.
Jordan's planned week. Jordan lives alone, cooks dinners, and ran the plan from The weekly plan in the week after the baseline: chicken thighs with rice and salad on Sunday, salad with eggs on Monday, chicken tacos from the planned leftover on Tuesday, pasta with sauce and frozen vegetables on Wednesday, a work dinner on Thursday, an ordered-in Friday and an eat-down night on Saturday, with black bean quesadillas as the backup.
- Known (measured the same way as the baseline): the same bag, preventable food only, seven days. Dinners cooked or eaten as leftovers as planned on four nights (Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday's eat-down). One swap: Monday's salad became Tuesday's tacos a day early, with the greens in the tacos. Two nights out or ordered in, both on the plan. Groceries $88; ordered in $36. Waste bag: about 1 cup (about 240 mL), half a bunch of cilantro and two slices of bread, both spoiled.
- The baseline beside it: two dinners cooked, one of leftovers, four ordered in; groceries $94, ordered in $71; about 2 quarts (about 1.9 L) of waste, mostly salad greens, half a container of cooked rice and two yogurts, for three different reasons.
- Top reason: spoiled. The table points to buying for named meals and to storage (Kitchen inventory, The weekly plan and Shopping and budget).
- Change for next week: buy cilantro only for a week with two meals that use it, and freeze half the loaf on shopping day.
- Assumed: that the two weeks are comparable. Jordan's own plan (The weekly plan) put the work dinner and the ordered-in Friday on the calendar, so they count as "planned out", not as dropped meals.
- Open: whether the drop in ordering in holds; whether the smaller bag holds; whether the change keeps the cilantro and bread out of it. Jordan settles all three with the next weeks' review rows. This manual does not say whether this result is good.
- EPA, Get Smart: Take the Challenge (PDF): the measuring method this chapter repeats, with the six-week worksheet that compares weeks.
- ReFED, Food Waste Data: Causes and Impacts: why homes waste food, the causes behind the reasons in your log.
- Utah State Create Better Health, frugal meal planning: six planning steps that end with review and adjust.
- Penn State Extension, Gearing up for Time Schedule Changes: planning only the nights you cook, and trying again the day after takeout.
7. Practice Practice
Minimum: one planned week of dinners measured the same way as the baseline, both weeks on the review sheet, and one written change. Time: 15 minutes at the end of the week, then about 20 minutes for the review. Materials: the same bag or container as the baseline, the week's receipts, the plan sheet, and a scale if you weighed the baseline.
- Collect. Through the planned week, put preventable food waste in the bag, by the baseline's rules. Jot what each item was and why on a note on the bag.
- Measure and log. At the end of the week, estimate the volume (or weigh it) in the baseline's unit, and fill a row in the waste log: week starting, days, amount, what, main reason.
- Total the spending. Add the week's receipts and orders into a row in the spending log, groceries and eaten out on separate lines. Note any stock-up purchases.
- Count the meals. Mark each planned home meal as planned, swapped, dropped or planned out, and count the first group.
- Fill the review. Check the baseline row on the review sheet against the waste and spending logs, then add the planned week's row.
- Choose one change. Find the top reason in the table in section 3, read your "what" notes, and write one change in the review row.
- Write the fall-back rule under it: the meal that stays, the backup, the day you start again.
- Keep measuring for two or three more weeks with the change in place, and average them as section 2's Go deeper block describes.
- Weigh one week's bag by food group and work out a rough cost from EPA's table, labelled as our calculation, beside what your receipts say.
8. Your kitchen Your kitchen
9. Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Was the planned week measured with the same bag, the same rules and the same unit as the baseline?
- Does the review sheet have both rows, with waste, reason, groceries, eaten out and meals cooked as planned?
- Was a stock-up purchase or a clean-out noted, so it does not distort the comparison?
- Is the change one change, aimed at the top reason, and specific enough to check next week?
- Is there a written fall-back rule?
- Does the review avoid reading one week as proof that planning works or failed?
Worked example
In the fictional example, Jordan used the baseline's bag and rules and recorded the amount in the same rough volume, so the waste column compares like with like: about 2 quarts, then about 1 cup. The spending lines are both filled. The meals count of four, with one swap and two nights planned out, follows the counting rule. The top reason, spoiled, is matched to buying and storage.
Jordan's change has two parts, cilantro and bread. Both act on the same step (shopping day) and the same reason, so we read it as one change to one step. The cost is the one this chapter warns about: if next week's bag is smaller, Jordan will not know which half did it. With two small items, Jordan accepts that. Jordan has not yet written a fall-back rule; adding one meets the last criterion. Whether the result holds is open, and the next review rows settle it.
Common mistakes
- Measuring differently the second time. A bigger container, a new unit or a clean-out in the bag makes the comparison meaningless.
- Reading one week as a verdict. One good or bad week is a data point, not a result.
- Changing everything at once. The next week then cannot say which change helped.
- Counting a swap as a failure. A swap that used the perishable first did what the plan was for.
- Judging the grocery line alone. Groceries can rise as eating out falls; read both lines and the total.
- Moving a meal past its food's eat-by day. The plan moves; the keep time does not.
What is still unresolved
Whether your change works, and whether a smaller bag or a lower total holds. One planned week cannot settle either; the next weeks' review rows begin to. This manual does not judge whether your waste or spending is high or low, and it gives no figure to aim for. Your kitchen system makes the review part of the weekly routine, so the rows keep coming.