Bulking Up

I am really enjoying the neurosis of the list. I highly recommend starting one of your own, it's very interesting to chart my days, and satisfying to see the little bars move even if it's only a tiny bit at a time. Yesterday I was able to achieve two goals at the same time, that being reducing weekly spending, and reducing waste. The reducing waste number is going to tracked very unscientifically since I am not nearly neurotic enough to measure how much waste we produce on a weekly basis. I got the idea after cleaning out our cabinets of all expired foods (an alarming amount) and stacking the folded up boxes in the entryway. Combined with the 3 or 4 snow storms we had after Xmas, and the garbage trucks inability to come up the slippery slope, we quickly amassed what I thought was an astounding amount of boxes. As many of you know although recycling is a good thing to do, the best answer is to not create the waste in the first place. I decided to combat the waste problem in two ways. 1. Buy as much as possible in bulk 2. Compost. Composting is something I have tried to do sporadically and it always ends up with a nasty bowl of garbage on my counter and me trudging angrily out to the edge of the lawn, where I dump the rotten food - which my dog promptly eats and then treats us to her lovely dog farts for at least two days. This time I am going to go to the hardware store and buy one of those nice black composting boxes and put it in a convenient location, and a small bucket with a lid for the counter. The bulk food is another story all together. This is actually a lot of fun. Yesterday when I was shopping I happened to have 3 different kinds of spices on my list. Usually that would put a pretty heavy dent in my weekly shopping budget. This week, I FINALLY checked out the bulk spices at the food co-op. All I have to say is duh. Why I hadn't done this sooner I don't know. I was able to buy enough ginger, red pepper flakes and chili powder to fill up a glass spice jar with some left over, for about a dollar each. Last time I bought red pepper flakes, it cost me about 4.00. Duh. Another huge savings was the bulk coffee. I got some really fancy Italian espresso for 8.99 per pound. Right now your thinking hey - that's about how much I pay for my little vacuum sealed packs. Oh really? Go look at the label right now, how many ounces in the pkg. I'm guessing 12. A friend tipped me off to this fact recently. A pkg of coffee costs .83 per oz but bulk coffee costs .56 oz. We drink an astounding amount of coffee here, so this is going to add up super fast. I filled an old PB jar with organic raisins for a dollar, which I have paid around 4.00 for in the past as well. I also bought lentils and granola in bulk at a huge savings. The bulk foods are going to be stored in just some standard Ball Jars which you can buy anywhere for about 7.00 per 12. I like this because I think they look nice, plus I can see how much of any one item we have at a glance.

Enough about bulk food! Last night we watched Knocked Up. This movie was hilarious. I'm not sure if it's as funny for people who haven't had kids or are married, but it was probably one of the best comedies I have seen in a long time. So far I have watched 2 good movies and 0 stinkers - yay!

That's all for today. I'm out.