If your fruits and veggies are regularly going bad on you, and you're regularly tossing them out, then you might be buying too large a quantity of produce too infrequently.

A great way to save money on produce is simply to make sure that you use ALL of the fresh produce you've purchased, which is easier when you buy smaller quantities more often.

Vegetables last lots longer if you immediately remove the original store wrappers, wash them and store them in brand new clean wrappings.

For instance, cabbage can last for weeks under refrigeration, if it's stored properly. (And presuming it was fresh when purchased.)

The trick here is to NOT cut into the head of cabbage, but instead to peel the leaves off, just as much as you need.

The external outer green leaves are usually very thick & tough, and frequently are unnecessarily thrown away --- but after being well washed, under running water, the thick outer leaves of the cabbage can be minced and sauteed, then stuck in the freezer in small amounts - they are a welcome addition to a whole variety of homemade veggie soups, imparting both flavoring & thickening to the broth.

Simply contine to peel off a few leaves once or twice a week until the cabbage head is smallish, and then use it up entirely - make a bowl of cole slaw, or cook a cabbage-based casserole.

Green onions are delicious when fresh, but they are finicky and can turn quickly; before they have a chance to fade away into garbage --- carefully clean those you can't consume fresh, --- then chop up the green ends, tuck them into a tiny snack bag, and stick them into the freezer. Add these chopped green onions to your next homemade soup.

I have a friend who mentioned she'd stopped buying radishes altogether, because she'd always end up throwing away at least a third of them, sometimes more -- as they went bad before she could use them up.

She was using one or two radishes every other day or so, in salads. Until she got to the rotten ones, of course. I told her to instead, carefully clean all of the radishes and keep stored in an airtight container.

Then... instead of grabbing a couple WHOLE radishes, to instead take slices from both ends of each & every radish - slice off both ends of ALL the radishes every time she prepares a salad. In this way none of the radishes go bad, in fact, a small bunch of radishes can usually garnish salads for well over a week when used this way. Of course, much depends upon how fresh the produce was when first purchased at the grocery store.

Outer leaves of many lettuces are tough and sometimes bitter, unlike the hearts of lettuce which typically are succulent and moist & crunchy.

But those tough colorful, (vitamin-filled) outer lettuce leaves, if carefully washed under running water making certain that any bad spots are carefully disposed of --- these well-cleaned leaves which many people routinely toss out, as they are too rough & tough for salad fixins' -- are then absolutely fine and nutritious to use in many sandwiches.