food waste "friday" #2

a month later, i cleaned my fridge for the second time.  ahem.  i think i keep telling myself that if i don't clean out the fridge, that the stuff moldering in there isn't *really* there.  i'm sure there's stuff that we threw away in the interim, but i tried to restrain myself until i was ready to take a picture, so hopefully it's fairly comprehensive.  (i did have a few failed cooking nights, which i don't think i'd necessarily count as food waste.  the saddest was 6 potatoes, 1 onion, and 2 bell peppers that turned into glue rather than hash browns for breakfast burritos.  there's just nothing you can do with that.)

not as bad as i thought it might be!  we have a cup of sauteed mushrooms that matson didn't like and that i couldn't find a cover for ($1), so they shriveled in the open fridge (whoops), a cup of cut up mango with wheat germ that mats wasn't in the mood for and that i forgot to address later ($1), a container of bitter quinoa because i forgot to rinse it before cooking ($2), some bits of baby finger food that mats kept not eating and finally got stinky ($negligible), month-old pureed spinach ($1), leftover rice ($negligible), a bit of steak fajita that got shoved to the back of the fridge ($2), and some leftover ground beef that HAD been in the freezer but was thawed for mac n cheese but not used in full and left in the fridge ($1.50).  the beef didn't stink, but it's been in the fridge for long enough that i wasn't going to risk it.

on the plus side, i get a lot of leftovers containers back!  on the down side, according to my ball-park estimates, that's $8.50 wasted.  i just checked my last post, and would estimate that one at about $6 wasted, which brings us to:

2012 cost of food waste: $14.50

score one for frugal

not in the food waste category - i haven't cleaned out my fridge since that first post three weeks ago.  oops.  coming soon, though.

in the clothing category, though, yes!  scott carries a soft leather briefcase to work and school - he has his laptop in it daily, and schoolbooks to read on the train on class days, so it gets a workout.  we got him a nice leather bag a few years ago, and it was working great until a few weeks ago when the little leather tab that holds the d-ring for the shoulder strap snapped.  not so useful without a shoulder strap (it does still have handles, but super cumbersome, especially on school/train days).

we went back to the outlets this weekend, were totally misled by signs that said, "final clearance!  70% off lowest ticketed price, whole store!"  sounds like that'd be 70% off of everything, right?  nope, just clearance items.  the first bag scott picked out was $120 after any discounts, the second bag was $70 but on the verge of being too small.  we went ahead and got it, but my thrifty self wasn't thrilled with the solution - why were we paying so much money for a bag that may not even be a good fit?

i was looking at the old bag when we got home, though, and got to thinking ... might this be fixable?  i took it to the tailor across the street from us on monday, and lo and behold - yes!  but at what cost?  $14.  kid you not.  (i had to run home to grab the d-ring, and when i got back the guy said, "okay your total will be $21."  since he had told me $14 literally 5 minutes before, though, he honored his original estimate.  i felt kind of bad because i want to support a local business and i know they need to earn their living ... but you can't change your price like that.)

so, after this fix and a nice polishing by me (the leather's looking a little worn), his old bag will be good as new, for a savings of $56 over the price of the new bag!  holla!