With regards to our city’s new system of alternate weeks recycling different items I noticed in our weekly newspaper last week a letter to the editor which was sweet and short – “From now on – to hell with recycling!” If you apply ‘choice architecture’ you can see why people would give up recycling, when something is no longer a simple option many people will revert to the simplest option which is chucking it in the bin.
Choice architecture
In the August NZ Healthy Food Guide there is a discussion about ‘choice architecture’ (Thaler & Sunstain, Nudge) and how the strategy can be used to improve areas such as health, wealth and happiness. The idea is that by making the best option the simplest option or the default option we tend to choose it more readily. We definitely have found ‘choice architecture’ works when it comes to avoiding takeaways as much as we can over the last eight months. By having our meals planned ahead with the ingredients already bought and meat taken out to defrost the night before it makes the simplest option cooking which we therefore choose even when we are tired or busy. When meals aren’t planned or ingredients are missing then the simplest option becomes takeaways.
White Vinegar Convert
Today was one of those WOW days. Hubby came and told me had cleaned the toilets!! Still recovering from the shock I asked him what he cleaned them with – “that vinegar stuff”! They of course weren’t cleaned to a woman’s standard but it didn’t really matter as it was such a break through moment that I really couldn’t complain. In addition I got the bath cleaned and the window sills in the bedroom – all with that “vinegar stuff”. I think he sorts of likes the fact that he can just wander around with the one spray bottle. Last week we were shopping in a unfamiliar supermarket so we were going up each aisle and it was such a shock when we hit the cleaning products aisle. I suddenly realised that in our normal supermarket it is an aisle we haven’t got near in months!
Yo-yo Recycling
Today was the first morning of our city’s new recycling programme. We can once again only recycle 1 & 2 plastics and now we have to alternate our recycling – one week paper/cardboard, the next plastic, cans, glass. The problem of course with this system is that at 6:30am in the morning wandering around the house bleary eyed trying to get to work is not the greatest time to be working out which week is which. I must have got it right though as it was gone when I got home. I have a feeling that some people will find it just too hard and end up stuffing all their recycling in the rubbish. It will be interesting over the next few weeks to see how much recycling gets put out in our street – maybe I’m the least organised person in the street and just don’t know it!
Monthly Analysis of Spending
Being the beginning of a new month today I went over the spreadsheet of our spending for July to analyse our spending categories and see if there are any further things we can cut. The Money Man would be proud of me. We lived within our means last month and actually saved some money. I am really thrilled with this as we had a $1400 ACC bill to pay in July so that was a huge bill for us. Our groceries (including our rare takeaways) bill was down by $95 on June mainly by trying to shave off a little bit each week when we go supermarket shopping – putting off things that can last for another week or only buying certain products if they are on special. I know it is still possible to get our groceries down a bit more but I will have to think up ways to do it sneakily as hubby tends to get a little irritable if he feels his food amount is being threatened and the cats wake me up in the small hours of the morning if they think their portions are getting too small!
Spring time
I knew I wasn’t imagining it – NIWA have issued its national climate outlook predicting that spring will arrive early this year for NZ. I think it’s time to start trying growing my peas soon. Good old Prof Walker reckons he starts his first crop in early August RNZIH – Horticulture Pages – Growing Peas. Lots of other good advice can be found on bestgardening.com Vegetables – Peas and Mangetout. I dropped around to my mother-in-laws this morning and her peas are already over 10cm tall so it’s inspired me to get going!
Daffodil Sunshine
We received a gift of daffodils at the weekend from friends who own a lifestyle block growing daffodils. They were in bud form when we were given them but have now opened and are a beautiful sign each day that spring is on its way. It was a good reminder that small gifts can end up being some of the best gifts. Plants especially are a great gift even for people without green fingers. For those people you can pot up their plants e.g. bulbs, herbs etc so that the person has to do little but enjoy the plants. Starting early and growing from seed can make gifts a lot cheaper. When dividing bulbs at the end of spring you can package the spares nicely and use them as gifts.
Grey Days
I haven’t written for a while. Someone in my life experienced a big down patch and the side effect of that was to throw my life slightly off the tracks for a while while I dealt with their problems. It’s taken a few weeks to realign some things and get things back in order. The World Health Organisation predicts that depression will be one of the leading causes of disability in the world by 2020. The Ministry of Health has launched new practical information on their website to try and support people getting through tough times Depression – home.
Nestle condensed milk
Growing up I remember my mum boiling condensed milk for 2 hours to turn the milk into gorgeous caramel for my favourite pudding. I had never made the pudding myself because I don’t have the patience to watch something for 2 hours. So I was really excited when Nestle brought out Highlander Caramel – no more boiling required! My mum made it the first time, the second time I made it and both turned out great. However after the second time I realised there was obviously something in the caramel that didn’t agree with me after spending hours in the bathroom on both occasions – I’ll leave the details out. Checking the product the ingredients listed milk, sugar and carrageenan. I didn’t have a clue what that was so I went searching. It’s a thickening agent produced from red seaweed. There seem to be a number of people on the internet with allergies to it. Up to now I haven’t been an allergy person so I’ll do a bit more searching for the products that carrageenan is in – E407. I couldn’t find it in any of the products I have in the cupboard but that may be because we don’t have to list ingredients as specifically as some other countries. In the USA it seems to be in an awful lot of products. There is lots of discussion on the internet regarding long term negative health effects but that’s OK as I will be trying to avoid it as much as possible as the short term effects are pretty harmful for me. Position papers discussing that carrageenan is not harmful can be found on MARINALG WELCOME and Carrageenan Consumer Info: Global Food Committee reports that there is no concern regarding human consumption of carrageenan
Japan Festival and storage
If you’re in Wellington and looking for things to do the Japan Festival is on at the Town Hall this Saturday from 1pm – 7pm http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2009/jul/wellington/japan-festival-of-wellington. Even though I visited Japan at least 13 years ago it is a country that has a very special place in my heart. Reflecting on Japan this morning got me thinking about the solutions they find for storage given the restrictions many of them have in terms of their house space. So I went looking for sites on storage solutions as I have been busy over the last few weeks trying to sort out my ‘messy areas’ – did you know you can hire declutter coaches? Found this site that has lots of interesting articles on decluttering your life http://www.inorderorganising.com.au/articles-a-free-tips/articles-a-free-tips.html. I might set up a link category for the websites that I find useful that are about organising things. I find organising yourself definitely does help you ride the tough times better – I organised my wardrobe about a month ago and it has definitely helped me get up each morning to face a job that presently I wish I wasn’t at. I can even show visitors my wardrobe – definitely a first in my life!