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Are you tossing cash in the trash?
By Deb |
A few weeks ago I cleaned out my fridge. What should have taken a few moments to toss away the spoilage took a good deal of my afternoon to accomplish. Before I knew it, I had filled two garbage bags full of old food, spoiled food, and food packages that had never been opened. I was mortified. If I was wasting this much food, could it be possible that we’re tossing hundreds–if not thousands–of dollars into the garbage each year?
According to a New York Times article, Americans waste about 27 percent of food each year. That’s more than one-quarter of our food budget, or more specifically, an estimated 96.4 billion pounds of food each year. With rising food costs, how much money are we really wasting?
In Living Debt Free in a Consumer’s World, I talk about “found” money. One way we can find extra money in our budget is to limit our food purchases. Buy only what you need each week and if you have a surplus of food, eat what you have before buying more. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
I’ve always liked to stockpile food, especially since becoming a single mother. In my earlier days of single motherhood, stockpiling food set my mind at ease. I knew that even if I ran out of money, my children would still eat.
However, if we’re tossing away food, we may as well be tossing greenbacks into our waste cans. Check out this picture from the New York Times article that shows how much food we toss each year: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin-popup.html
Now is a good time to limit your food spending each week to what you actually eat so that you’ll toss less cash into the trash and keep it in your wallet where it belongs.
Topics: Budget, Cash, Economy, Food, Thrift |
November 4th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Stop! DON’T TOSS THAT SPOILED/ UNAPPETISING / OUT OF DATE FOOD! Take it to your compost bin, and layer it in there. This will be the most expensive soil structure improver you ever use, BUT AT LEAST THE FOOD WON’T GO INTO THE LANDFILL AND YOU WILL GET SOME USE FROM IT! A compost bin, something as simple as an old metal trash can with the bottom rotted out, makes a perfect compost bin. DON’T DAMAGE THE ENVIRONMENT AND YOUR WALLET BY BUYING ONE OF THOSE GREEN PLASTIC MONSTROSITIES. Recycle a damaged plastic trash can if that’s what you have, one which is splitting at the bottom or has broken wheels or handles. Put it in a discrete corner of the yard, and all winter long you put your peelings, coffee grinds with paper filters, egg shells, used paper napkins, apple cores, and wasted food in the bin. Come spring you’ll have wonderful black compost to enrich your garden. Spring, summer and fall just dig a hole anywhere in the vegetable garden each day and bury your day’s supply of kitchen scraps, this makes them break down even faster.