How much do you waste on food?
According to a study in the UK, not wasting any food will place you in a minority: apparently households waste on average £650 ($1,021) worth of food per year. I will be very surprised if the waste in the US is less although finding comparable data was not possible. Reading this I felt, I believe, rightful indignation; for three reasons.
My first thought (and reason) was that we live in a strange world where 80% of the population doesn’t have enough to eat and 20% consistently over eat. In the light of this distribution, wasting so much food sounds really morally wrong and irresponsible.
Secondly, I started thinking about all the things this money wasted on food could be used to buy. For my family, this is a very generous trip to Bulgaria to see family. There are so many good uses and causes this money could be put to but instead it is wasted on food.
And thirdly, about 19% of the waste in landfills is food which can’t be good for the environment. Biodegradable, true; but food rotting in landfills contributes to global warming. Continue reading
Coping with trouble: short term measures
As part of the Money Principle Ideas Generator competition I asked you, the reader, to share the three measures you will take immediately to ensure that you and yours survive serious economic trouble. As I said before, all responses were really fascinating. But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the measures that we take should be divided into ones that have short term effects, middle range effects and long term effects. I also did quite a bit of thinking about what I’ll do and have come up with some measures that I think may work for us. Today will share the things I would do/have already done for the short term. Continue reading
The Money Principle Store Cupboard: three things we learnt
When I asked my friend Elaine to write the articles on store cupboards there had already been some talk about it and I knew that she had worked hard to create one for herself and her family. We, however, were still resisting. Thinking about it, I have another friend who has a store cupboard – and although her reasons for creating and maintaining it are probably different it follows very similar rules to the one that Elaine has.
Once Elaine’s articles were in, and true to my promise that on this blog I will publish only practical suggestion I have already experimented with, we decided to ‘jump in’ with the masters of organisation and create our own store cupboard. We had to deal with three issues which very likely some of you are puzzling over as well. These were the issues of space, of construction and of content. Continue reading
How to create a store cupboard that works for you, your family and your lifestyle?
This post is the second article on store cupboards written by Elaine Colliar from It Can be Simpler.
Well, start from first principles – what does your family like to eat? And from that what are the staple foods that can be safely stored?
In our case, we enjoy cooking and eating ethnic cuisines, so we knew that every week there was likely to be a “something” with rice, noodles or pasta.
Come up with a “rough” meal plans for the entire period you wish to create your stock cupboard for. If you plan for a month, you will create a plan 12 times per year. If you plan for a year, then you can just do this the once. Continue reading
