I admit it… I am not proud of it, but honestly I didn’t even realize I was one until recently…. I am a waster.
I am terrible about turning off lights, I let the water run when I brush my teeth, and lots of times I leave the refrigerator door open when I am pouring the boys apple juice. I can’t say I have been ignorant about it completely, but truthfully I am a little on the lazy side when it comes to this kind-of stuff. I have been sacrificing frugality (is this a word?) for ease.
Anyway, about a month ago now, I watched an Oprah (by the way Oprah has lost her recording place on my DVR schedule, more on that in another post) about how much the average American wastes, from food, to electricity, to time. She gave two families, one with high school-aged children and one with kids around my kids age (maybe slightly older) a challenge… they were not allowed to watch tv or use any of their electronic devises, including cell phones. They were not allowed to go to the store (of any kind), no bottled water, no eating out and they had to do it for a week. They started out by showing the us, the viewers, what an average wasteful week was like for the families and then we got to watch as they experienced what turned out to be a really interesting challenge.
As I was sitting there completely appalled by their wastefulness, I suddenly realized that I am not much better. Sure my boys don’t play five hours of video games a day and talk on their cell phones and we don’t have our TV on 24/7 in every room of the house (only one TV anyway), I often throw out food because I bought more than I needed and didn’t plan meals using the food we had. Unlike one of the families, I don’t buy my four year-old Starbucks 4 times a week, I do, however, buy myself a lot of coffee at a coffee shop when I could just as easily make it at home. As I watched, I realized that my wastefulness may not be in the same areas as these families, but I am still wasteful.
I was challenged by watching these wasteful families and decided to try and change some of the things that I do in my life, in order to be more frugal with our finances, food, time, and the amount of waste we create. Here is a list of what I have come up with…
1. stop buying bottled water- plan ahead and bring water bottle from home for everyone
2. only buy coffee at a coffee shop once a week and make my lattes at home (they are turning out pretty good by the way)
3. turn off lights when we leave the room, shut the door to the fridge all the time, adjust the water heater temp, and set the temp throughout the house as low as we are comfortable, turn water off during teeth brushing and remind the boys to do these things as well
4. limit the boys TV time to 1/2 hour a day if that (this is harder than I thought)…… I was appalled at how much TV the kids on the challenge watched…. video games too…. I am determined that I will avoid video games for as long as possible…I am NOT judging those of you who let your kids play them.
5. inventory what I have in our pantry and fridge and plan meals based on what we have already, avoiding the grocery store as much as possible- this has actually been pretty fun and Brandon is even getting into the challenge with me…
6. plan weekly menus and grocery lists- when I shop only buy what is on list (hard!)
7. clip coupons!!! … Never thought I would be doing this….I have a post coming on this later… I am amazed that in my first few tries I have gotten a ton of free stuff as well as saved myself so much money….I have some amazing websites to share later
8. recycle everything that I can- even those cans that I would rather just throw away because I don’t want to wash them out and that glass that I will actually have to drive to dispose off because it doesn’t go in our recycling cans (I am amazed at how much this has cut down on our waste) I am even getting things out of the garbage that others have thrown away that should have been recycled… yeah me!
9. limit our eating out… plan when we will do it and stick to it
10. pay attention to what is wasteful, what I don’t need, what my family doesn’t need
So far, I have done pretty well. Over all, I am being more conscious about what I do, especially where I spend my money. If you have ways that you are letting go of being a waster let me know…. I know there is so much more that I could do.
Hey Traci,
Good job keeping up with being a non waster. The way we make sure that food is not wasted is we are on a program called e-mealz
(www.e-mealz.com). It’s pretty cool. I hate having to decide what my family is going to eat for the night especially when it’s crunch time and the kids are screaming they are hungry, everything is frozen and my husband is coming home expecting dinner to be ready. You print out a shopping list (meal plan) for the week that they have made up, go to the store and get what is on the list andyou have your meals planned. All I have to do is look at the menu the night before and take out anything that needs to be thawed for dinner the next night. I substitute meals occasionally. It’s pretty cool check it out!
Heather
(this is about your friends adoption to Kaz)
I had left a comment that I knew some friends that just came back and If you wanted I could get their email, ect. ect. ect. Turns out, my friends have already been in contact with your friends. We spoke with our friends today at church and they told us everything you just posted (Kidney stones and all). My friends know your friends…..How cool is that!!
Michelle
[...] Item three. Our daughter, Traci has been doing some blogging again and it is pretty good stuff. She is introspective to a fault, I am afraid she got that from me, but she always seems to bring herself around to the positive which is how she is able to be so productive. With prices sky rocketing for everything, her decision to not be a “waster” will put her ahead of the curve. Read her blog here. [...]
I think you are on the right track. Was it Ben Franklin who said, “A penny saved is a penny earned”? However, you might push me over the edge. I might be frugal to a fault. Case in point: I have been caught with 16 2-cent (can’t find the symbol for “cents” Ben wouldn’t like that) stamps. I tried to buy 16-39 centers and was told they discontinued them. So here I was stuck with 32 cents of worthless stamps. Imagine my joy when the price went to 42 cents. Now I can use the 2’s for 1″s and cut my losses in half! I hope I have the numbers correct. Actually I use very few stamps thanks to email.
My menus for the most part are composed of stuff which needs to be eaten/
I do not know how many people have told me that some stuff should be thrown out. I didn’t know that. Maybe they are right and I should not be so proud of “going green” i.e. with stuff such as bread. If you had adopted this present kick before my very pleasant visit, you would have insisted on frying burgers with cool aid at home. I did pay the MacDonald bill , didn’t I? (That in istself was practically a miracle.)
I was surprised by your dad’s blog today when he wrote that he never did like the term “daughter-in-law”. If that is true, why did he get the first one for me? The truth is I am blessed with two of those things i.e L & V. Don’t you agree that “i.e. and e.g”. make for very sophisticated journalism? It is 9:53 and I must go back and read Summer’s stuff. I she flips my switch like you did, I won’t get to bed before midnight.
Love to all five of you.
Now should I sign my name or will it magically appear? I’ll take a chance and live dangerously.