My ancestry is Scottish. My husband and my kids often make the sounds of bagpipes playing "Scotland the Brave" around me.....usually, when I'm saying no to something due to the cost of that something. I have no idea where they got the idea that my thriftiness comes from the Scottish part of me, but they have that idea. And they make a point to air pipe that song..........
I've always been thrifty; in high school, I worked and put half of each weeks paycheck into a savings account for college and I still had money left in my pocket every payday. Some of my friends couldn't believe it. That thriftiness followed me into the early days of marriage, through very very lean days of early marriage. I remember a grocery trip once where a friend and I decided to go together....I was shocked at the amount of cleaning supplies and pre-packaged foods she purchased - she was shocked at how much more I had in my cart and how much more she had spent on what was in her cart.
So what's my point? I'm getting there in my round about fashion and it has to do with an article in my Sunday Morning paper....about plastic of all things. This writer, because of health concerns and the environment, tried to go plastic free in one week (and found she couldn't do it) and in the process began to re-use things she never re-used before; skip things she never skipped before etc.
As I read about all the little steps she was taking to limit her use of plastic, I couldn't help but think that I was a bit green before green was in....I have always re-used zip lock baggies, foil, plastic grocery bags as garbage bags. I have always used vinegar and baking soda and a tiny bit of ammonia for my housecleaning chores. I have always bought "real" meat that required home cooking and not the pre-cooked, pre-packaged stuff; seldom put my veggies in those little plastic bags unless I couldn't avoid it and shopped the fresh veggie markets whenever possible.
Like the writer, I think it would be great to go plastic free, but in reality, in our world as it stands today, it's almost impossible unless we milk our own cows, make our own cheese, raise our own laying chickens, bake our own bread, butcher our own livestock and use the old fashioned butchers paper.
We can continue to take steps in that direction though....the butcher we now use instead of the grocery chains to buy our meat uses butcher paper but, even he wraps it in plastic first if you are going to freeze it! At least the meat is only in the plastic after we purchase it....
Just for kicks though, I'm going to do what the writer did and pay a little closer attention to how much plastic even I use in my daily life....and try to go a bit greener in the process!
I've always been thrifty; in high school, I worked and put half of each weeks paycheck into a savings account for college and I still had money left in my pocket every payday. Some of my friends couldn't believe it. That thriftiness followed me into the early days of marriage, through very very lean days of early marriage. I remember a grocery trip once where a friend and I decided to go together....I was shocked at the amount of cleaning supplies and pre-packaged foods she purchased - she was shocked at how much more I had in my cart and how much more she had spent on what was in her cart.
So what's my point? I'm getting there in my round about fashion and it has to do with an article in my Sunday Morning paper....about plastic of all things. This writer, because of health concerns and the environment, tried to go plastic free in one week (and found she couldn't do it) and in the process began to re-use things she never re-used before; skip things she never skipped before etc.
As I read about all the little steps she was taking to limit her use of plastic, I couldn't help but think that I was a bit green before green was in....I have always re-used zip lock baggies, foil, plastic grocery bags as garbage bags. I have always used vinegar and baking soda and a tiny bit of ammonia for my housecleaning chores. I have always bought "real" meat that required home cooking and not the pre-cooked, pre-packaged stuff; seldom put my veggies in those little plastic bags unless I couldn't avoid it and shopped the fresh veggie markets whenever possible.
Like the writer, I think it would be great to go plastic free, but in reality, in our world as it stands today, it's almost impossible unless we milk our own cows, make our own cheese, raise our own laying chickens, bake our own bread, butcher our own livestock and use the old fashioned butchers paper.
We can continue to take steps in that direction though....the butcher we now use instead of the grocery chains to buy our meat uses butcher paper but, even he wraps it in plastic first if you are going to freeze it! At least the meat is only in the plastic after we purchase it....
Just for kicks though, I'm going to do what the writer did and pay a little closer attention to how much plastic even I use in my daily life....and try to go a bit greener in the process!
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