It's easy to fall into the cycle of wastefulness when you are not paying attention to what you're doing. When you go out grocery shopping, are you making your purchases based on a list you prepared beforehand? Are you traipsing up and down the aisles, picking out whatever item of grocery that takes your fancy, or things that you think you might need. I went grocery shopping today and the person I went with did exactly that - picking up items of fresh foodstuff that caught her fancy. It didn't seem to occur to her that all those items have an expiry date and that she can't possibly consume all that food before their expiry date. Eventually, what ends up happening is all these items will fill up the refrigerator, and unfortunately, as is often the case, many of these items get forgotten at the back of the fridge or bottom of the fridge drawer. I have seen the fridge drawer filled with duplicates of the same items, many of which have expired or dried up and become unusable.
There was a time when I made this very same mistake. My grocery shopping trips didn't use to be based on a list. I would just buy three or four items that I know I needed, and the rest of it I made up as I went along up and down the aisles. There's been many an occasion where I find expired foodstuff in the fridge and had to regretfully chuck them out. Such wastefulness!
But now I see the importance of preparing a list to go grocery shopping. My husband taught me that. Yes, to say that I am a late bloomer doesn't even begin to describe what I was like before I got married (that will be 19 years ago this March!). I remember the first time we went grocery shopping and he insisted we prepare a grocery list first. I thought he was being stuffy, I felt it was pretty 'square' and stifling. Boy was I wrong. It's ironic that it's only when I saw what my friend was doing - grocery shopping from the hip - that I realise how important it is to have a list and treat grocery shopping as a necessary task rather than a leisurely excursion. You'll end up spending less and wasting less.
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