Living Simply or Simply Living.

I hate waste. In a land of plenty when so much of the world is lacking, I simply cannot tolerate any resources being wasted. I will eat slightly moldy bread or cheese instead of throwing it out. I always turn off lights when I leave the room, I only drive when necessary, I try to remember not to leave the tap running when I brush my teeth.

My wife and I lately are realizing that we’re in our thirties and staying healthy6 is very important. We’ve been eating way less processed foods and buying organic fruits and vegetables and free range meats. We make as much of our own stuff as we can, form salad dressing to gifts. It’s a fun way to be creative and it’s a way not to spend or waste money.

We considered cutting off television, but, unfortunately, some bonehead didn’t read the paperwork before he signed it and found himself locked into a contract. It would be wasteful to pay a termination fee, which, of course is how they set it up.

Since our apartment has a gym and a pool, we cancelled our gym memberships.  We stopped paying for an extra garage for storage and, instead, spring cleaned our way down to using apartment storage, which also saved us a pretty penny.

I've never been a picky eater and I think this is partly because my family never had a ton of money. We weren't poor, but certainly we didn't have extra money to replace our groceries because they didn't taste good. We made due with what we had, learned what we liked and what we didn't and shopped accordingly. I've carried this well into my adulthood. I had a roommate a couple of years ago who bought a box of cereal he thought he liked. The next morning, I found the box, the bowl of cereal and the milk int he garbage. When I asked him about it he said that he didn't like that cereal after all. So,he threw it away!

I find that so wasteful and selfish. When there's a family of four in Malawi living on a dollar a day, what right do I have to throw away some food because I don't like it? This sounds a lot like my blog "Who's the one Percent."

But I digress...

We no longer take our dogs to be professionally groomed, but we do it ourselves. My wife now does her hair  with a friend at home, instead of spending big money at a salon. We always eat leftovers, both form cooked meals and the occasional night out and I'm always very patient and liberal  regarding the freshness of food in our fridge.

We're going to be putting together an herb, and grow basil and a few other herbs that I use a lot.

We’re still learning how to live simply but it helps that neither of us is materialistic and don’t go out too expensive dinners or concerts except on special occasions.

There’s certainly more we can and will do, but, for now, we’re learning to want less and live more. It’s amazing how little you miss when you go without something by choice.