What do you buy that you never manage to finish?!

[andannabegins]

I couldn't think of a less convoluted title but this morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had almost finished a bottle of lemon juice yes I had pancakes for breakfast, it's the summer holidays) before it goes out of date, that never happens! I always have to throw away lemon juice, olbas oil, vanilla essence. What do you never get to finish before use by dates?!

Ooh pesto, tubs of Philadelphia cheese, pickled beetroot, pickled onions, tubs of plain yogurt ...

Jars of pesto, occasionally hummus. Dried herbs and spices, very often - I still use them.

Humous

I've taken to freezing pesto in ice cube trays, then i just defrost in the microwave while the pasta boils.
I'm going to try freezing lemon juice because the drink sounds nice, but that seems to last a long time anyway.
I often have to chuck out the last bit of milk.
Yes to olives. I always think I'll eat them up, but somehow they work their way to the back of the fridge and then i forget about them.

Olbas oil expires?!

Hairspray. I buy a can when I'm feeling fancy with my hairstyles and then realise my hair does whatever it wants to and I stop styling it until the bottom of the can starts to rust and it ends up in the bin.

Pesto here too. I'm going to try that freezing tip.
Ends of cheese.
Never any leftover veg as we have guinea pigs.

Hand cream.

I receive it a lot as gifts, think I'll try it as this may just be the time I'll use it...nope, not used one up yet.

Olives, pesto, curry paste, cream cheese. Thinking about it i would say pretty much anything that comes in a jar.

It's very wasteful and I hate it.

I use ice cube trays or muffin tins for freezing things like pesto or left over tinned tomatoes. Anything like lemon juice gets made into cordial or a pudding.
I also freeze bread, cheese, butter and milk in portions. It drives DF mad but we just don't have money to waste and rarely throw food away.

Pickled red cabbage, use a couple of spoonfuls at Christmas back in the cupboard for the rest of the year.
Nail varnish (tend to get shellac fingers and only paint my own toes)

@ProfessorofPerspective me too! What is it about olives going mouldy?! Picked onions or jalapeños don’t do it! Feckers.

@Picklypickles On the celery front, chop the next one you get in full and stick in a bag in the freezer. Then just grab a handful and stick it in the pot when you need it.

Mint jelly, redcurrant jelly and apple sauce. We have a roast about once a year!

Lip balm, lip stick, eye shadows where you have to buy a pallet only to use one of the colours, nail varnish

Jars of Thai green curry paste. So annoying - I don’t want to use a whole jar in a week (too much of one dish, and no freezer space to store a mega batch) and anything over two weeks and it goes furry, even in the fridge. And no way am I making my own, much too fiddly.

Olives are lucky to last two days in this house, no chance of them going mouldy.

Celery just gets added to anything I’m cooking that usually has onions and / or leeks, which seems to work fine.

Another vote for freezing celery and pesto. I do both of those.

As far as jars of sauces etc goes, I go years past the best before dates and rarely have things go off, smell bad etc. I'm nearly to the bottom of a bottle of Thai fish sauce that expired in 2012 and it's no more or less Stinky than it was when it wax fresh. Fuck knows how it's lasted so long, it's quite a small bottle and we have thai curry every month or so.

Waiting I buy plastic tubs of red and green thai curry paste (May Ploy brand) and they are in the fridge for months if not years without going furry.

Philadelphia, I only buy it for DH and he eats it once in a blue moon. If I'm on the ball I put it in a pasta sauce or something but often it goes mouldy,
Coleslaw, I have a bad habit of buying reduced coleslaw from M&S we eat some but then it always ends up looking a bit dodge and watery
English muffins, we always end up with one mouldy one

Is a freezer not a normal thing then? We have what I thought was a fairly average fridge freezer (same width as a washing machine, slightly taller than me) and the freezer contains all the stuff like pastes, bread, veg etc that we don't get through and it doesn't really take up much room so plenty left for, meat, oven chips etc, but I see loads of comments on here about people not being able to freeze things despite the average Mumsnetter being more affluent with a far bigger house than us in our small 2 bed ex LA house.

I used to waste loads of pesto, curry paste, Thai green paste etc - but now thanks to a mumsnet tip I now open the jar and freeze the remainder in an ice cube tray, then put them into freezer bags. One of my favourite tips!

Apparently you can also do this with something called 'leftover wine' although I have yet to discover this phenomenon

Jars of pesto here too! Also grapes and pate.

Use the lemon juice to clean your draining board! It’s like magic.
Or to treat athletes foot!

Someone rescue me from myself. Can’t believe I know this stuff.

Bread

Hummus.

Why are you supposed to eat it within 1 day of opening?? (I usually ignore that but still don't manage to finish it).