Less really is more

I discovered an interesting side effect to the Experiment last week.  As a household we are generating so much less waste.  Normally by the time trash day rolls around our trash can is full and our recycle bin is overflowing.  Not any more, we barely have enough recycling to roll out and the trash can is never full.  It's phenomenal how much packaging we use in every day life.  My pantry and fridge are less full now too.  No more stacks of cans of products I will never use, no more boxes of 2-month old crackers, no more mystery bags of grain.  I used to be terrible about eating leftovers, I tossed enormous amounts of food.  Now that those leftovers are the fruits of my labor I am greedy with them.  There is no way I'm going to let the pasta that Sophie and I made rot.  Those heirloom tomatoes that made my mouth water at the farmers market will be eaten.
I've also been making things in bulk.  For all my friends who dislike cooking, I highly recommend this.  Yesterday I made chili.  I had bought a huge chuck roast on sale and had the butcher grind it up.  In the same amount of time that it would have taken me to make one meal of chili I made 6, and I used up the tomatoes that were about to go bad, the extra onion in the fridge and the black beans from taco night.  We froze the leftover in bags, which take up a lot less room than tupperware.  This method really saves me on those days when my lovely, sweet, adorable children push every button I ever had and make want to scream and run away to Acapulco (I hear it's lovely this time of year).  It's just as easy to pull a bag of chili out of the freezer as it is to open a can of soup.
I know that these are not ground breaking ideas.  They've been in every women's magazine and how-to article for years.  I am simply proof that they work.  The trick is to use what you've got before buying anything else.  I find myself going to the grocery store more often but spending less.  I also know that I have more time than working moms to do these things.  But even a pot of chili, tossed on the stove and left to simmer on a Sunday, puts you way ahead of the game.  And oh, it makes the house smell like heaven.