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Finally! I have waste and this is not a good thing. Cleaning out the fridge of leftovers and just an overall general clean out as *I* felt it was time and just looked cluttered – boy did I ever hit the jackpot 😦
Wasted:
* 1lb (approx) grapes – they totally waved at me
* mini watermelon – it had been rolled to the back of the shelf and buried
* 3 clementines – they were already molding when I dumped out the crate into the produce drawer
* 4 individual portions of yoghurts (well past expiry – hidden with watermelon)
* remnants of a block of cheese – used for snacking
* head of lettuce
What this tells me is when I let dad unpack the groceries, he just shoves it all in vs letting me play Tetris or Jenga and re-organize the fridge and pull the old stuff to the front to be eaten first. Its like a game…I let him unpack a few times and it turns out alright. The one time I don’t follow up – BAM! Instant shove-fest. Trust me, I do not feel good about this waste but there must be some sort of lesson in this. I am sure of it. When will I ever learn?
How’d you do?
On Friday’s, I share what food items that I have ‘wasted’ by letting spoil during the week from forgetfulness and/or neglect. Kristen over at The Frugal Girl has inspired me to publicly post in hopes of reducing waste. (Food Waste Friday is now being co-hosted every other week with Simply Being Mum – pop on over to take a peek!)
This year, Christmas seems to be both a wonderfully joyous time as well as a very sad time for those in/close to the city of Toronto.
The City of Toronto (and surrounding areas) has been heavily affected by a recent ice storm – aka Ice Storm of 2013. It pains me to see the sheer volume of tree’s beautifully crystallized in ice only be snapped in half. A lot of people have suffered through the past few days without electricity and may still not have it back as of yet or until Friday – as of last reported updated. Having suffered through not having any electricity for 4 days back during the flood in July 2013, I truly feel for those people except now they’re dealing with extreme cold & ice vs extreme heat & humidity.
Wishing warm thoughts to all as well as a very Merry Christmas.
Have a safe one.
Tempted to report that I’ve gone a month without any waste – that would be four whole weeks – but I did toss a tiny bunch of grapes that were left in the container. I love my Ziploc plasticware (BPA free of course) BUT its hard to see what’s in there. I can’t justify swapping out/buying a new set (opaque/clear) and glassware won’t work with dad. He’s likely to drop them/break them or just not use them b/c they’re heavy for his preference. Any tips on that battle?
How’d you do?
On Friday’s, I share what food items that I have ‘wasted’ by letting spoil during the week from forgetfulness and/or neglect. Kristen over at The Frugal Girl has inspired me to publicly post in hopes of reducing waste. (Food Waste Friday is now being co-hosted every other week with Simply Being Mum – pop on over to take a peek!)
Friday the 13th…interesting. No waste again so that makes 3 weeks in a row! 😀
How’d you do?
On Friday’s, I share what food items that I have ‘wasted’ by letting spoil during the week from forgetfulness and/or neglect. Kristen over at The Frugal Girl has inspired me to publicly post in hopes of reducing waste. (Food Waste Friday is now being co-hosted every other week with Simply Being Mum – pop on over to take a peek!)
I’ve been trying to de-clutter this house for the past year. That was one of my major goals for 2013. Have I been successful? Yes but not as much as I had hoped. Let me start by saying that my home is nothing like what you see on the show “Hoarders” but its still pretty cluttered in my opinion – yet clean 😉 I’ve managed to thin out the ‘stuff’ and corral it into smaller contained area’s to be dealt with later. And then life happened. I seem to either go in spurts of all or nothing.
Looking back over 2013, I can honestly say that I have made a significant visible dent in removing things from this house but I guess the rest is more about mental clutter. I am my worst enemy because I seem to be sabotaging myself with the thoughts (guilt?) about the total amount of money spent on items that I am having trouble setting free into the universe. I don’t really care where it goes as long as its anywhere that is not under my roof. Yes. I do know that in the long run it is costing me more to try to find a place to store and keep these things. The kicker, these things aren’t even sentimental to me. So why do I try to hang to them? Why am I delaying their departure? *scratches head*
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and have sort of come to the conclusion that I think it’s because it will actually take longer to go through and toss then it really will. I’ve played this purging game before and I know this to be true. Yet, I still can’t bring myself to just ‘start’ which is all I need to get my ball rolling. Bizarre huh?
What I have accomplished successfully this year is to stop bringing stuff into the house unless it needed to be here. I thought about all of my purchases, mostly needs vs wants without depriving myself of anything. I have also stopped stockpiling in terms of increasing it but rather limiting myself to only keeping a few of our most commonly used items on hand so we never truly ‘run out’ or have to pay full price for these items. I’ve also taken inventory of what we do have on hand, forcing myself to shop or use up what we have here first before buying new. I found it very alarming that I had accumulated so many trial sizes of shampoo’s & conditioners over the past year or so as well as other HBA items. (freebies, samples and those purchased for house guests or for intended future travel) As a result, when I ran out of hair conditioner and only had bottles of shampoo left – instead of immediately buying another bottle (easiest option) – I decided to put my current bottle of shampoo back into the cupboard to finish later and commit to only using trial sizes of shampoo & conditioner til they’re are all gone. This will serve a few purposes: saves money, helps reduce the inventory instead of letting it go bad and needing to being tossed, free up space, helps my hair revive itself (hate it when hair gets used to one brand of shampoo/conditioner and it gets dull)
I guess the next area’s to tackle (upcoming list for 2014 anyone?) include:
* my corralled piles of ‘stuff’
* my entire wardrobe – why do I hang on to so many pieces of clothing ‘just in case’ especially the outdated ones and ones that don’t fit?
* the kitchen drawers – who needs 1.001 knives that are beyond rescue via sharpening along with a bounty of ‘as seen on tv’ gadgets/contraptions that have never worked
* the food storage containers that seem to multiply faster then rabbits
* the attic – this is a big one and joint effort (Dad hoards things ‘just in case’ – gee I wonder if I’ll ever need that bent out of shape, warped/scratched frying pan from 1982? And my sister’s boxes of ‘stuff’ which she thought she could always store here even though she’s had 3 homes of her own over the past 15 yrs. Why she never took them with her is beyond me but I think if you haven’t even thought about them after that many years, its safe to say its not needed/wanted. HA! I should quiz her on what she thinks she’s got up there LOL And yes, I’ll admit, more of my own stuff that I’ve been hanging onto for no real reason as well – why should I be excluded from the blame game?)
I’m sure there are other area’s I’ll tackle as well but they don’t seem as significant as the area’s I just listed. Let’s see how well 2014 goes in terms of de-cluttering 🙂
So tell me, how do y’all motivate yourself to just ‘start’ de-cluttering?? I need tips!
No waste this week thank goodness – take two! I feel motivated to see if I can keep this up for next week. You know “I think I can, I think I can!” Wish me luck! (Guess it doesn’t hurt to admit that we didn’t really go grocery shopping this week thus forcing us to use up everything we have on hand out of necessity, right?) 😉
How’d you do?
On Friday’s, I share what food items that I have ‘wasted’ by letting spoil during the week from forgetfulness and/or neglect. Kristen over at The Frugal Girl has inspired me to publicly post in hopes of reducing waste. (Food Waste Friday is now being co-hosted every other week with Simply Being Mum – pop on over to take a peek!)
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