The Pope in his Easter message had one very interesting line:
Help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible.
Pope Francis
The phrase that really caught my eye was “.. the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible…”, and specifically in terms of what this does to our finances. Overcoming hunger is very important but I will leave that to the religious blogs to discuss, but monetarily there are countless examples of waste financially, do any of these ring a bell?
- How much clothing have you donated to whatever “charity” called you that still had the price tag on them?
- How much food do you throw out, that is still in the package?
- How many “fees” are you paying for being late paying for things, or because you can’t be bothered to go an extra mile to use a non-fee ATM?
The word convenience seems to have become synonymous these days with waste. It’s inconvenient to go that extra mile, so I’ll just pay the $1.50 fee from the ATM (and then the $1.50 fee from my bank) to take only $20 out of the bank, because I need some cash. I know people who have said that to me, I believe my eye twitched a bit when I heard it (nervous tic), it takes a lot not to ask what is wrong with them.
What other wasteful lifestyle things have I missed?
I absolutely hate when I have to pay fees for no reason. I once had to pay my monthly bank fee cuz the balance in my account went below the minimum and I swear I was in mourning for a week.
A few things we have given up over the years: Extra furniture or even entire rooms in the house that are never or only rarely used – the formal dining room & guest room you only go into to clean, for example. The expansive lawns and the swimming pools maintained but almost never used, the RV parked in storage 11 months of the year. The 3rd or even 4th car, either a junker for hauling stuff occasionally, or a ‘fun’ vehicle.
You missed the wastefulness of our time. something we can never get back, or buy for that matter… If we were more efficient with our time and did not just waste it by driving from here to there, or watching mind numbing TV, or… well you get the picture. Interestingly time is free, and probably if we thought about it, we could use our “wasted’ time in far more useful ways, which could benefit society… But alas, we’re human so we won’t… – Cheers.