Household food-waste cost calculator

By Charles-Adrien Fournier, iOS developer and creator of FridgeBuddy · Updated

Enter your grocery spending and your own estimate of what goes unused. The calculator shows the possible annual cost and what a realistic reduction could keep in your budget.

Use your own estimate. “Unused” can include food discarded, spoiled, or forgotten.
This is the portion of your current estimated waste you hope to avoid—not your total grocery spending.
Estimated annual grocery spend €7,800
Estimated annual food waste €1,170
Potential annual savings €351

Reducing your estimated waste by 30% could keep about €29 per month in your budget.

How the estimate works

The calculator uses only the values you enter:

  1. Annual grocery spending = weekly grocery spending × 52
  2. Estimated annual food waste = annual grocery spending × estimated unused percentage
  3. Potential savings = estimated annual food waste × realistic reduction percentage

It does not use a national average, inspect your purchases, or send your inputs to a server. The result is a planning estimate, not a guarantee or financial assessment.

For context on the scale of the problem: according to the UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report 2024, households worldwide wasted an estimated 631 million tonnes of food in 2022 — about 79 kg per person per year, or roughly 60% of all food wasted across retail, food service, and homes.

Turn the estimate into a smaller experiment

An annual number can feel abstract. Start with one repeatable change for four weeks:

  • Track the foods your household most often forgets.
  • Check what expires soon before planning meals.
  • Search the pantry inventory before shopping.
  • Move items that need restocking into a shared shopping list.
  • Review which products were repeatedly marked as wasted.

Then update the calculator with a more informed waste estimate. The goal is not perfect accounting; it is enough visibility to decide whether the new routine is helping.

Where FridgeBuddy fits

FridgeBuddy cannot guarantee savings. It supports the behaviors behind the estimate by keeping food visible, sending expiration reminders, sharing inventory with the household, and showing consumption and waste patterns.

If dates are your main challenge, start with the food expiration tracker guide. If duplicate purchases are the bigger issue, read the pantry inventory guide.

Related FridgeBuddy guides