Donating some Shopping Savings as “Random” Acts of Kindness

In some places, you can find people asking for money outside of stores, including grocery stores. Halifax is one of them. I’m not a fan of giving them money, to be honest, because I am not sure where that money ends up being spent. Yes, that’s judgmental because I worry about not being approving of it if I knew. But I’ll firmly defend that with it’s my money and I’ll do with I want with it. I might note, though, that I am just as judgmental towards giving money to bigger charities that do things like hosts lavish celebration parties they reached their goals, or pay their CEOs exorbitant salaries in the eyes of most.

All that judgment doesn’t mean I don’t give to others. I just take a different approach than most, one that requires more work, to know or plan on how to spend that money in ways I approve of. I work hard for it and save it, and I’m not about to give it away so people can become reckless with it, possibly even harming themselves rather than helping that thwarts my good intentions in the first place. If good intentions were bricks on the road to Hell, then I’ll make sure I lay them, not have others lay them on my behalf, thank you very much!

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Try Mixing Cereals for Variety

When most people think of eating cereal, they think of getting a box and pouring out some to eat. That’s fine. But if they wanted variety, they usually had to get a variety of cereals and rotated when they ate each. Even then, if you were limited on cereals you were willing to eat, or could eat, like the generally bland, but healthy ones, there’s not a great deal of variety.

Now, what if you were to buy a variety of cereals, but mixed them some of the time you ate them, and not some of the other times? You’d have more variety for the same cost, and some varieties you can’t buy in stores.

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Better Ways of Getting Closer to Your Food Than Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Only Eating Animals He Kills

Yes, Mark Zuckerberg is only eating animals he kills himself these days! That’s his latest “personal challenge”, which, for context, have included things like learning Chinese in 2010 (continuing) and wearing a tie every day in 2009.

Mark’s reason for doing this?

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Bring Your Own Bags and Containers to the Farmers’ Market

Why are farmers’ market goers shopping like they were at the supermarkets in the 80s when it comes to bringing their own bags and containers?

People who shop at the farmers’ markets tend be more health and environmentally conscious than the average person. They go there for the fresh food that’s better for their health. They go there for less processed food than is available at the groceries store or other places, that is also better for their health. They go there to buy local and support local farming. They go there to buy local and minimize GHG emissions from less food miles, which is a green myth but they deserve points for trying to be environmentally conscious.

So why are they still insisting on getting a bag for everything they buy instead of bringing their own, even when grocery stores are offering rewards for bringing your own bag?

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Earth Day Pledge Update #2 – My Farmers’ Market Experience

For Earth Day 2010, I made a pledge to eat better.

I then defined “better” with four specific goals.

This is an update on goal #1, which was to spend more money on groceries at the farmers’ markets than in the grocery and other stores. That’s without having to go to extremes of not eating what I want or paying unreasonable prices for similar products in the grocery stores.

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