Author Archives: kellyvaughan27

Meal Kit Madness

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We’ve experimented with Blue Apron, Plated, and now Hello Fresh over the past 4 years or so. We love that there’s very little food waste, but there’s plenty of packaging and a big box has to get driven to our door once a week. I know how to cook, and I enjoy cooking, but I find we fall into a rut when I do the menu planning. I like that the planning and shopping are taken care of and exactly match what we need for each meal. It’s made it possible for us to cook good, balanced meals at home 4-6 nights per week while holding down our jobs and spending time with our toddler. But I know in my heart that it would be better to walk (or bike) to the store or farmer’s market to buy fresh ingredients, reuse bags whenever possible, and do our best to eat leftovers and find uses for extra ingredients. So how to phase out the meal kit?

One thing I’m experimenting with is Real Plans, which (for a small fee) provides a personalized weekly menu plan that you can tweak in all the ways you’d want to. It even generates a shopping list for you! Right now, we’re sticking with Hello Fresh and I’m just using this for the other dinners that we need to plan, to see how it works and start to get in the groove.

Progress report

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This week, I bought two plastic bottles (one water, one Coke) at times when I was caught away from home with no water. I also bought us each a new glass water bottle to try to prevent this going forward. Although I’m trying to avoid the “buying new stuff to go green” thing, in this case I realized that having a water bottle with me when I’m out means having 2-3 available – at home and work – so they are available to grab or already in my purse.

I canceled several catalogs via CatalogChoice. My original plan was to keep all our junk mail each week and get some stats on it before throwing it out, but we don’t really have space for that.

This wasn’t our strongest week for kicking the Amazon (and online ordering) habit. I bought a few items of clothing for my daughter from Kidizen, a great app for finding secondhand kids clothes; the downside is that it necessitates delivery. Most of the packages are small and come via USPS, which is coming to my door regardless, so I think it might balance out overall. My husband ordered some books, and I ordered a bulk order of an electrolyte mix (for running) which I couldn’t find locally except in single-serving packets. I also bought some shoes from a brand that’s not in stores. So, lots of packages, lots of delivery miles driven.

 

The “Do Not Buy” list

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I’m not sure where I got the idea for a “Do Not Buy” list – it might have been during the time that I read The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up and a half-dozen articles about it.

Wherever the idea originated, it honors a basic truth: an afternoon spent cleaning a closet, cupboard, or other space in one’s house almost invariably reveals stashes of single objects that one buys, unwittingly, again and again. For me, it is disposable razors. For my husband, dental floss and notebooks. We both buy quinoa and cans of black beans in apocalyptic quantities.

Our solution? Keeping a “Do Not Buy” list on the fridge. It lists items that we have large stashes of, that we are not allowed to buy until we’ve used up what we already have, at which point we can cross the item out and buy it only when needed. It draws our attention to the things we chronically, mistakenly think we’re out of, and helps us remember the existence of the stash and its location.

On the current Do Not Buy list:

  • quinoa
  • black beans
  • razors
  • sponges
  • trash bags

 

The things I do already

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It’s important to recognize the things you do every day that you take for granted. Here are some of ours:

  1. We bike to work most days. I do rely on Juno for a car on extremely cold, snowy, or rainy days, but I try to bike whenever possible. Public transit to my workplace is available, but very slow, hence the use of cars in a pinch. My husband takes the subway when he doesn’t bike.
  2. We live in a small apartment, in an urban area, allowing us to walk and/or use public transit frequently.
  3. Neither of us belongs to a gym, so we’re not burning electricity to work off extra calories!
  4. I buy very few paper books these days, preferring to read on my Kindle while also avoiding unnecessary clutter and avoidable use of paper.
  5. We buy toilet paper, paper towels, etc. made from recycled paper.
  6. I avoid extra printing at work by using Google docs for collaboration.
  7. This list has other suggestions for conserving use of paper. Proud to say we do most of them already! I don’t think we’re going to use family cloth instead of toilet paper, but I plan to experiment with cloth napkins and rags for cleaning.
  8. We have several reusable water bottles, for ourselves and our daughter. I’m not perfect at carrying mine with me at all times, something I hope to improve, to prevent those “I’m so thirsty!” moments when out and about.
  9. We have reusable grocery bags, though we aren’t 100% consistent about bringing them with us to the store.