First cigarettes, I can not believe anyone would spend $35 for a carton of cigarettes, which will kill you anyway. Yes yes yes, I know all about how addictive they are, but if I was paying $35 per carton and it was literally killing me, my number one and only priority in life would be to quit.

Second is bottled water. I was standing in the check out line at the grocery store yesterday, and the woman in front of me, had 3 cases (24 – 12 oz. bottles) of bottled water for a total of $18 with tax. I was thinking to myself, you idiot, it’s free out of the tap! Most of the time, I think all someone is paying for is the imagine of drinking bottled water. I purchased a case of bottled water a few months ago (on sale), and set aside 18 bottles for any guest, and the other 6 bottles, I drank myself. Then I just kept refilling them and putting them back into the refrig to keep the water cold and available. Even if I had bad tap water, I would buy a gallon of water at the store, and use that to refill the smaller empty water bottles. Then I got the imagine, at almost no cost.

$1 - $2 for a small bottle of water just to have around the house ! Unbelievable wasteful.

That's my two wasteful pet peeves, what's your?

My pet peeve ref: wastefulness is people who act like gas is a luxury and run all over the place - down here in the rural south we have to drive miles to get somewhere - the gas costs add up - and some people don't have a clue!

Another pet peeve is people who don't even try to recycle....

Ref your pet peeves....no i am not arguing either! :)
1. As a smoker - I still TOTALLY agree with you! I try about once a month - and then fall off the wagon - but go back to it and try again. Keep hoping something will help me stay "on the wagon"....yes, I run reports in Quicken to see what i am spending! But, work is really bad right now - they keep my sanity.

2. Agree totally with regards to plain water - although the bottles are really handy for taking to work, etc. And those new FLAVORED waters are great for people like me who don't like plain water....MUST have lemon in it, and the bottles are easier to deal with on the run.

ANYWAY, make sure you periodically (weekly) sterilize those bottles you are reusing. Bacterial issues have been referenced in PRevention and Health mags (yes, I read them, even as a smoker)...

My peeve - bagged grass clippings. Come on people - leave it on your lawn.

I did do the refilling from a large jug for awhile, but just didn't have room in the refrigerator to consistently keep the open gallons in there. And while our well water does taste fine, it has a lot of iron in it & I quite frankly just like the taste of Aquafina better.

I do recycle the bottles though, so it's really only my $$ I'm wasting.

I offered a clean walmart bag to hang on a bucket chair in the SUV and the owner laughed at me, told me to throw that away. She had bought some new ones that looked exactly like my "used" one for that purpose.

I hate wastefulness because so many are starving in our world. The natural resources this country uses to waste and throw things away out of convenience is abhorrent to me.

Powerwashing driveways so they look like the inside of a home. Waste of water.

Throwing away grass clippings that could be excellent fertilizer, soil builder and replacing it with bought fertilizers made with oil byproducts from the middle east and chips from trees.

I could go on and on.

I second the cigs and bottled water. Just wash in hot water in the dishwasher. Never had a problem. Did you know syrup bottles make great water bottles. I like using them when working on the farm. Fill halfway and freeze, then top off with water. If it has a handle--use that to hang from your belt. Works for me!

They still sell cloth diapers and those diapers still come clean in the wash.

I get tired of families asking for handouts yet they have to buy pampers on the way home from having thier nails done.

I washed my own diapers and did my own nails.

Full-time working mom's are the exception, they have way too much on thier plates to have to deal with to deal with a daiper pail.

Fat poor people--carbs will put the weight on you quick and it is cheap food. That's why a lot of poor women are fat. Macaroni and spaghetti is really inexpensive compared to fresh foods if you live in a city like I do.

My smokes cost $58 a carton. I'm funding everyone elses low tax rates. How could anyone complain? Just kidding.

I really think this is one of those "cast the first stone" issues. We all have things which are money wasters.

Mine are all of the plastic bags we get at grocery stores. And I'm the worst offender to not take the old bags back.

Another is new vehicles. Just had to pick up a different vehicle because Plymouth no longer makes replacement parts for my 1990 Transport. Really irritated me to have to do that, so I bought a Toyota which does make replacement parts.

Gloria

My pet peeve is lawn watering. I hate to see people who have to have a perfect lawn (almost impossible in Florida without lot of chemicals and water), and they just have to water as many times as the restrictions will allow. These people also are the ones who have all their landscaping sprinklers going all the time, then want to know why their plants die of fungus. All that fertilizer and all those chemicals go into the ground water, and back into the wells that we get our drinking water from. Also, the runoff into the canals and rivers is causing red tide, which is a major health problem down here.

And don't get me started on golf courses....

Fat poor women..... LOL... this is me :) OK, I am not THAT poor, and do not smoke or ask for public assistance, but I do have PCOS, which makes you put on extra weight.. among other horrible things. The price of glucophage just to be "healthy" is HORRIBLE! we are talking $100 a month without insurance. And birthing 3 kids in 4 years (no, not twins) takes it's toll on a body :) But I am not lazy, I run and jump and play with my little ones, and the dog (a border collie). We get on the trampoline and play. But I guess that is because we live in the country, and I do not have to worry if the skinny neighbors are laughing at me. And I no longer care if passers by on the HWY are laughing at my breasts hitting me in the face, LOL. I am there to have fun with my babies! And I DO use disposable diapers, because I have 2 in diapers, and I would rather play with my babies than clean clean clean. I look at it as... what do I want to remember in 20 years? What will they remember in 20 years? I want them to have fun. And we buy "El Cheapo" store brand diapers.

Bottled water... I HAVE to buy water, because my well water is salty. But we buy the cheapest per ounce, big jugs usually, whatever is on sale, and only use it for human consumption. We bathe and wash dishes in out salty water.

My personal ones are the cigarettes, caffeine, and alcohol needs of others... I cannot understand it! But I do not ever judge someone else on their needs either. My DH smokes, and drinks coffee, and Mt Dew. Those are his guilty pleasures, and he is light on them. Alcohol is nowhere to be found in my home.. Except the rubbing alcohol for insulin syringes that I need when preg.

Credit Cards... OMG HUGE waste of funds, but it is VERY hard fro some people to get off of them... especially once they are reduced to using them for NEEDS, not WANTS.

And before someone says "quit having kids"... I love my babies, and wanted all of them. I may not be able to save much for retirement because I am providing for them, but I know they will take care of me when I am aged. AND... do you know why social security is failing? part of the reason is lack of contribution. There are less workers than were originally estimates because of falling birth rates, and birth control. So I am doing my part to save social security :)

But bottom line is... no one is ever frugal enough in some way or another for someone else. We all place different values on different things. But blatant waste in irritating, and inexcusable. I find it amazing that someone who makes 100K a year does not have enough money! That would be the lottery to me! But I also understand that they cannot live the way I do. And I know there are people sitting and typing on computers they paid $1000 for.. and I have NEVER paid for ANY computer in my life. This is a debate that falls in the same realm as politics. You cannot tell others what to do, all you can do is decide what is best for yourself. and decide to get along with others. Besides, if it weren't for the wasteful, I would not have any furniture in my home! Where would I scrounge from?! *gasp* OMG! I would never get free mulch!

Pleases be generous of heart, there is always someone being more frugal than you, and someone struggling more than you.

The minerals that are used in these containers for foods,sits in the earth for 1,000,000's of years.
Short sighted idiot man comes along,and because we live in a consumer society and cant look after our owns needs(like everyone could living on a farm)we have to go to a supermarket(which is the place that typifies our total dependancy on others,rather than being able to look after our own needs).
So this means we need food to be kept in a container so we can eat it later.

So the minerals are in the earth,are dug up and are refined,made into something that is only useful for a very short time,and put back in the earth(rubbish dump)but this time they are now totaly useless.

Idiots !!!!

2/ Plastics used for foods and packaging.

Chemicals put together that pollute the earth to make plastic for food use and packaging.
It pollutes the food we eat for the sake of "conveniance".
It to ends up as landfill,a place full of once usefull minerals and elements,but now are not because of absolute shortsighted stupidity.

Our "conveniance" will soon catch up with us,and this will not be conveniant.

My main pet peeve is destruction of wildlife habitats for the sake of a few $$$. Good for some, not so much for others. The poor animals have limited woodlands and I am constantly seeing dead deer on the side of the roads. I have seen more woodpeckers in my neighborhood recently than ever before. Why? Well, where else are they supposed to go? There home has become a shopping mall. That, to me, is a huge waste.

Interesting title to this thread: "What is your favorite wasteful pet peeve?"

Favorite, as in the wasteful practice you most enjoy complaining about others indulging in, or your favorite activity you indulge in that you know is wasteful?

I've given up complaining about other people's bad habits. It's far too easy to sit in judgement and determine total strangers are stupid, or make blanket statements about the morality of other peoples choices.

But, many communities prohibit washing your car in the drivway because it is NOT ecologically sound.
City ordinances are put in place to prohibit washing cars in drivways or on the street.

Washing a car in the drivway sends all that soapy detergent down the storm sewrs and right into rivers and lakes untreated or seeps into wells and into the water table. Most people never think of where all that detergent is going.

Commercial car washes are regulated and must send their used water down the drain where it goes to a water treatment plant along with all the other contaminated water that comes from peoples homes.

Yes, I know that every community has different water treatment systems and some do treat their storm sewer water also. I am just trying to point out that those who use car washes aren't just being silly.

We all have our frugal quirks and our own wastefulness. I've seen people roll their eyes when I rinse out zip lock plastic bags for reuse and I've been tsk-tsked by others for NOT washing and reusing wrinkled, greasy, burnt aluminum foil which I just throw away. (Although I use foil so sparingly I still have the big economy size roll I bought back in '90 or '91.)

My waste pet peeves:

1.) People who BUY garbage bags and throw away the free ones that they carried their groceries home in.

2.) People who don't believe in 'leftovers'. I've eaten in peoples homes where after dinner EVERYTHING that was served is given the heave-ho into the garbage. I'm not talking about what was uneaten on people's plates but the food left on the platters and serving bowls.

I've been to picnics and BBQ's where even the barley used ketchup and mustard bottles got tossed because the owners were to lazy or whatever to take then home. I just don't understand that.

I would intervene and take them home myself but I usually succumb to pressure from my date who says I am going to "embarrass" them by taking a armload of leftover food or half empty condiment bottles home from a party.

3.) Excessive, unnessary packaging for things sold at the store. Most of this needless packaging is merely to make the item appear more prominent on the store shelves to attract the eye of the harried shopper. The stuff serves no purpose and is peeled off and tossed into the garbage as soon as the item is home.

Being frugal can unleash creativity in ones home. Except for the upolstered items, my entire home is furnished with thrown away furniture. I actually get compliments on my style. I don't just drag any old thing in, I am picky and only use the cottage style things I find. There never will be a second market for fiberboard entertainment centers. LOL.

When I was younger, I worked in a law firm in a larger city. Down the street from my house was a very affluent neighborhood, with a Salvation Army store right on the corner. I bought most of my clothes there for under $5. These were designer things that were usually only one or two seasons old, but the rich can't be seen in last year's fashions, so I gladly snatched them up.

One day the girls in my office came to me and asked me how much I was getting paid. I, of course, told them I couldn't tell them that, but why did they want to know? They said because of my clothes. They thought I was messing around with the boss or something, because I only wore designer clothes. I laughed, and invited them to go shopping with me. From that day forward, we all wore "reused" designer clothes, and were good friends.

The only paper produt I believe in is toilet paper! I have tons of old towels that I cut up and use for the kitchen and for cleaning. I make dinner napkins out of cotton scraps from sewing projects. I get my knick-knacks and such from the thrift store, garage sales or e-bay.

I never buy a brand new car. My new home came with a sprinkler system but I hardly ever use it. I get lots of new plants from clippings. I trade "art projects" with other people. I bring my own coffee to work and everyone knows my cup.

However... I do waste my money and my health on those dreaded coffin nails (cigarettes)! I belive everyone needs at least one bad habit and cigarettes are mine.
Just my recycled, and reused, 2 cents worth.

Debbie

ggsnail

Hi I am the original poster.....

What are you talking about??? I never said I pay $1 for anything including soft drinks.

Maybe your comment wasn't directed at me personally or anyone in particular, then you should mentioned that in your posting, that it was just a general blasting of people who are frugal and think spending $1 for something which is free is somewhat wasteful.

Also, if you are buying bottle water on the go, just as in a convenience stores, it usually runs about $1.30 - $2.50 per bottle depending on the size. Yes, size does matter.

Additionally, if you re-read my original comment I said paying $1 for something which you can get for free is rather silly. I never mentioned anything of the health issues of cokes (or whatever you call them in Texas) vs water.

Yikes! For someone drinking bottle water and not Coke, you seem to be "jumping" a lot, as in this case to wrong conclusions.

Y'all try to top that.

Deefar

My second peeve is ppl who throw away refundable cans and bottles. I don't care how cheap it sounds, 10c is 10c! And a few 12 packs a week can add up fast.

#3 is the vending machines at work. I see ppl spend $5 or more a day for lunch and snacks when they can make their own and bring them with for a fraction of the price. Its not like it takes long to put together a sandwich and chips, or leftovers from dinner.

#4 Air conditioning! I will admit, its nice when you go grocery shopping, or if you work somewhere unbearably hot (like me) its nice for 10 minutes at a time at break. But for your home, there are much cheaper and healthier ways to cool off. Fans work wonders when used properly, as do shade trees. We are lucky to have two huge old oaks on the south side of our house that keeps the temps inside 10 to 15 degrees cooler in the summer. It can be 90 outside, but inside its still a balmy 75 degrees =) We also have exhaust fans upstairs that pull the hot air out.

I agree with the bottled water thing. I do buy one bottle once or twice a month, but I refill it several times a day. I just get a new one if mine gets too worn out. I also keep an extra in the freezer so I have ice water to take to work. As far as smoking goes, I plead the fifth =-)

GW

Deefar

Bottled water is certainly something that 20 years ago I wouldn't have believed that people would pay for on such a large scale. Certainly people get to spend (waste) their money however they like. But be clear on your facts.

"here in Florida, most of the tap water is undrinkable." I visit Florida almost every year for several weeks. My mom and sister both live there and so do a few friends, and we have travelled all around the state visiting them, going to the Everglades, the Space Center, Disney world, shopping for sail boats, going to boat shows, looking for a place for my mom to buy, etc. I have not been ANYWHERE in Florida that the tap water is undrinkable. And water is my favorite drink, I don't soda rarely, don't drink coffee, etc.

I lived for a year in Ecuador, where you have to boil all your drinking and food preparation water, or get dread diseases. I have been to China 3 times for a total of 7+ weeks. You also have to boil all your drinking water there. I lived on a sail boat on and off for a total of 15 months. You fill your water tanks at the same places you fill your fuel tanks, it is desalinated water and tastes like crap, but I drank it. Sometimes we added juice mix or something to make it palatable. But I wasn't going to buy and schlepp around gallons of bottled water instead, although we had some visitors that did that. Having had to deal with truly undrinkable water, I appreciate free water that won't make me sick!

If you don't like the taste of your water, say you don't like it, but don't pretend that it is undrinkable. Very little tap water in the U.S. is undrinkable.

"The water bottles have a short life for reuse if my understanding is correct. After a certain time they leach out chemicals. I'll try and look that up." I thought that was true, too, since a tech friend had emailed me about it. I posted something like that in another group, was told that is untrue, and read up on it. A grad student did a paper that everybody heard about, but it turned out their results weren't valid. You can use your bottle over and over forever, you are just supposed to wash it once in a while so that a certain bacteria doesn't grow in it.

As for buying bottled water not hurting anybody else, I read recently how many millions of tons of plastic are used to bottle water. That is a huge waste overall since we could just drink tap water and carry it around in reusable cups and containers. Uses up petroleum faster that could be better used for something else. But there are so many wasteful things out there, seems like people drinking bottled water are not much of a problem compared to war, pollution, destruction of wilderness, etc.

Marcia

More waste: Our elected officials who continue to exempt these ego-feeding gas guzzlers from fuel efficiency requirements for auto makers.

Wayne in the Adks.

the fact that is runs between 30 and 70 bucks a month for the priveledge to have a low-quality drug pumped in through your optic nerve confounds me.

the simple fact that you are legally allowed to get pregnant while on public assistance- you just admitted that you can't provide for your OWN needs- what makes you WANT to bring a child in to such a situation? (as an adoptee, children are a sacred duty, not playthings, pets, or fashion accessories)

I live on the wrong side of the tracks (the quarry, the landfill, and the treatment plant are all on my side) in the least fashionable zip code in the county- but man, the sight of 16 year olds in year-old SUV's with PDA's that make phone calls, surf the net, and take pictures while kids in their own school district are struggling to keep themselves in clean underwear annoys me.

in general, people who live in places they're not paying for, using utilities they're not paying for, driving cars they're not financially responsible for...bothers me.

I can't be the last kid on the planet who needed to get a job working for cash since they were too young for 'working papers' because it was that or have them turn off the power-

and I'm certainly not the last person to turn their back on manicures, hair salon visits several times a year, shoes that have no other purpose than fashion accessory...and the media that promotes it...

but sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one who sees a connection.

Bottled water. I must admit that it is a neccessity here. I use this only for drinking water and in the most cost effective manner.

Rain barrels are a highly under utlized in our area.

Pet peeves, there are many.

Mostly .. that man remains content in ignorant consumer bliss.

Wheeli-bins: where the household cannot be bothered to sort out their recyclables. The sign of a lazy mind IMHO. (Wheelis are big green containers that take all the household rubbish, no exceptions except for toxic things.)

People using rubbish skips (dumpsters?) to throw out building materials that could be used elsewhere. Clear to see why the cost of housing keeps going up.

For the smokers: just today I came across a release of information to say that smokers are more likely to have their vision destroyed when they get older. Emphysema might be acceptable but blind? Sympathy to all those trying to kick the habit. Is nicotine chewing gum any cheaper?

Plastic water bottles & bags filling the dumps.

Too many Sunday newspaper ads waste paper. Too many catalogs in the mail.

People who throw away things which could be donated to a thrift shop.

People who put hazardous materials, like dead batteries, in the trash. Our county has Hazardous Waste Roundups every weekend for hazardous waste drop-offs.

People who are too selfish and lazy to sort recyclables. However, Vetivert, some communities (like mine) do not request that residents sort. All the household trash goes to a recycling center where it moves along belts and people pull out the recyclables. This had to be done because, shamefully, not enough people were sorting to reduce the waste stream from our community.

I have a lot of other gripes, but these are what came to mind.

Neighbors who are unloading bagged mulch, fertilizer and peat moss from their SUV while they tend a large pile of BURNING leaves!

Greg

Does no one make lunches any more?

-S

The amazing thing to me was that it costs only about $17 per week. I imagine that a baby would use more than that much in disposables in a week. In areas with serious water problems maybe washing diapers used up too much water, but around the Great Lakes we have a lot of water and are low on landfill space. So it seems like a great deal. They don't seem to advertise, you just have to look them up.

Marcia

As far as wasteful habits, I live in a country where recyclable or second hand goods are scarce. The social stigma of using other people's cast-offs is very strong here and looked down upon in a major way. Be grateful that in the US folks at least have the option to get second hand. Bottled drinking water is defintitely on my list of unbelievable waste. There are very few if any reliable plastic bottle/newspaper recycling options. NOt one diaper service in the whole country, and many many more poor than you probably think. NO city compost programs, no curbside recycling in any major city, and very, few in some of the smaller towns, none at all in the boondocks. Being responsible for your garbage and where it goes is considered a silly American idea and I get laughed at regularly , as we "have so much more to worry about" in Israel. It all goes directly into teh landfill. A compost pile is considered throwing garbage where it doesn't belong. My biggest peeve are the $200 jeans, etc. that nearly everyone will buy for themselves or their kids so they can be in designer stuff, while they owe money to everyone and can't pay their bills. I have so many more, don't get me started......batya

Also, my roommate keeps replacing a grocery store bag that I have managed to stretch to fit our kitchen trash with a larger kitchen bag. We get the grocery store ones for free ... and it actually reduces our waste to have less space to put it.

And then there are the car trashbags. I just use a dollar store bungee cord (6/$1) and loop it around the passenger headrest and attach a grocery store bag to it. Works just the same.

I have to disagree here.
Health departments give out free condoms. Welfare recipients have Medicaid which provides free birth control.

The only answer for reducing unwanted pregnancy is education. There are way too many people, rich or poor, who still practice unsafe sex.

How about the wasteful pet peeve of building office buildings thathave no openable windows, so the "environmental controls" circulate nasty air? I read once that they build them that way so office workers won't jump out!!!

last but not least...junk mail!

I will shut up nowLOL

For example, bags are overused in our society. Paper bags are biodegradable but still come from trees. Those gross plastic bags are the worst, though, because they are a huge source of litter.

The Earth supports you, not the other way around. Nature doesn't care how much taxes you, or anyone else, did or did not pay.

Big corporations are currently being allowed to pollute OUR air, and OUR water, with complicity from the government. Mercury levels in OUR oceans have risen to the point where pregnant women are advised to not eat fish.

Most people (especially big corporations and our current government) care only about increasing their own wealth. However, *agents of nature* have no concept of money.

You choose the *agents of nature*

*God's will
*ecology
*actions and consequences of destructive acts

My most important peeve about the world:
The oil lobby hindering the development of alternative energy sources to replace petroleum-- oil, natural gas, gasoline. I know the technology is out there to use\reuse renewable energy sources.

Recycling is a beautiful thing. :) Conservation is better.

Bottled water (seems to be a popular one)
$4.00 espresso drinks (OK, coffee lovers, lemme have it :-) )
Anything bought solely for its snob appeal
Overpriced merchandise sold as school fundraisers (sorry, but I'd rather write a check and have 100% of what I spend go to the school instead of buying overpriced gift wrap, etc.)
Planned obsolescence - it's cheaper to trash something and buy an new one than it is to replace it, and anything electronic is out of date in a week. Plus a lot of stuff is so poorly made that it breaks as soon as the warranty is up. So the landfills are full of stuff that is either still good or would require little effort to fix. Workmanship just isn't valued anymore.

Around here, the trees are taking over what used to be prairie.

Better they be used for firewood and save the propane.

One of the invasive trees around here is actually a native, the eastern red cedar. The natural control of the tree (fire) has been mostly eliminated and these are taking over both the prairie and the oak woods, and they are a major fire hazard. They aren't even good for firewood.

Back to my point, trees are a renewable energy source for me.

Leaf blowers drive me crazy! They "waste" the neighborhood's peace and quiet, not to mention gas. I watched my neighbor use his on his driveway, so prim and clean. Funny he never noticed all the dust had settled on my front porch. Then he pays to go to the gym to get his exercise! Drives there of course, 1/2 mile away.

About having kids-I chose not to have any and am very happy about that. Now, have you noticed that well-off kids cause the most waste? Can you tell the houses in your area that have kids by looking at how many garbage cans are out on the curb? How stuffed the garage is with once-used item? How the harried mom uses products that save her time- but cost more, and cause more waste and pollution? How she buys things she knows are useless or unhealthy because the kids pester her til she gives in? I am not telling people not to have kids. You cannot say that to people in a democracy who want to have kids. But the idea should be talked about so people realize they have a choice: one kid, not two, two rather than three, or none if you like. And of course they have a choice about how to raise their kids to be responsible and frugal or wasteful.

" 1/ Tin cans and glass jars for foods.

The minerals that are used in these containers for foods,sits in the earth for 1,000,000's of years.
Short sighted idiot man comes along,and because we live in a consumer society and cant look after our owns needs(like everyone could living on a farm)we have to go to a supermarket(which is the place that typifies our total dependancy on others,rather than being able to look after our own needs). So this means we need food to be kept in a container so we can eat it later."

Too funny, if we all lived on farms, who would invent and make oh, I don't know, computers? Run the networks, be our doctors, teachers, truck drivers, etc etc. How about we try to buy our food locally when possible instead :)

People who "blow off" strategies that would save money and help the environment without even trying to learn how to do them.

For example, convenience foods. Many years ago, before I had kids, I had more money than time. This changed, and I now cannot believe how much money I wasted on pre-packaged meals and how much packaging material gets added to landfills when it's really not that hard to, say, peel a potato and add the peel to a compost pile.

Lessons I have learned:
**Compost kitchen waste instead of buying fertilizer.
**Use cloth diapers and hang them out to dry. Vinegar in a Downy ball makes them softer.
**Learn to cook as much as you can from scratch.
**Grow vegetables. That's what backyards are for.
**Learn to can those veggies - you can reuse the jars for many years.
**Learn to sew. Fix clothes that get ripped or have broken zippers. Make curtains and Halloween costumes.
**Make your own grocery bags. Some of mine are sewn, my favorites are 4 stretchy mesh crocheted ones that cost $1.50 each for the cotton thread.
**Vote with your money - buy products with minimal or recyclable/reusable packaging.
**You can get 10X as much popcorn for the same money if you pop it on the stove instead of in microwaveable bags.
**Stop buying expensive cleaning products. All you really need is vinegar, bleach, and baking soda.

Most frugal habits that seem like "too much" when you begin using them really do get easier, become second nature when you've done them for a while.

--PK

My pet hate are people who drive their 4wheel drive cars (I believe you americans call them SUVs) 250 metres to do the shopping, or drive their kids one kilometer to school

Bottled Water when we have very good water here from the tap.

Cigarettes ... am ex smoker ad cannot beieve the price they are now!

So called "Landscapers" who spray all kinds of pesticides and hericides all over my property when they are supposed to only be spraying neighbor's. They are supposed to notify you in advance but never do!

And those huge MCMANSIONS that are popping up all over on postage stamp size property. I watch a couple across the street in a house I call "House of the Seven Gables" drive in ,down comes the garage door and they never emerge until the morning when they drive out to go to work. No kids,No company comes over, never talk to anyone only her sister next door in another McMansion ( And NoI am not jealous ... I want land in a very rural setting where I can have chickens and goats,etc. ) ... Very Strange!

Here is another one-large towels. I have some of my mom's bath towels from 40 years back-they don't wear out easily. Mom's towels were a little larger than today's hand towels. Those new huge bath towels are used what, once in some houses, then washed. What a lot of water, soap and time are wasted, plus stress on the washing machine. And think of the use of towels in hotels.

I just bought some large hand towels. I put away or composted all but one bath towel. I use that one to wrap around me when my robe is in the wash-the hand towels are just fine for drying myself AND they dry out faster so they grow less bacteria (I assume), can be re-used sooner. And they don't stress my front-loader.

And don't forget all that cotton, the crop that uses the most pesticide and herbicide.

hee hee j/k of course

Speaking of bags, I use cloth shopping bags all the time. It amazes me how dumb baggers can be, always trying to sneak plastic bags into my cloth ones. They say, "Oh, I didn't want your bag to get dirty" as if I couldn't wash it. Or the worst recently was a guy who said while putting ice cream and pizza into a plastic bag is that he didn't want my bag to get wet. I said it would dry out. He said he didn't want my car seat to get wet. Of course it was POURING RAIN at the time and everything that went into the car got wet. I made him take the plastic bag away, but then he just wanted to throw it out. I told him I was trying to save the planet and he wasn't helping at all.

Americans and their huge houses and cars are probably the most wasteful thing. I have travelled to many countries and lived in a few, and other people really don't have such huge houses and lousy public transportation.

Marcia

So.... the 'dumb baggers' are deliberately TRYING to force you to be wasteful? Are they under orders from some evil Overlord of Waste to make you waste against your will?

I applaud your decision to use the cloth bags and recycle, but do you really feel the need to let the minimum wage grocery store employee know that you are more virtuous than they?

There is any number of reasons why stores might think you would want a plastic bag. For example, a lot of people freak out if something like chicken leaks onto other food or into a bag. I am sure they receive far more complaints about drips, tears, and cross-contamination than about too many plastic bags, so baggers are trained to offer them. Likewise, I'm sure many people would complain if they were offered what they perceived as a "used" bag, and the store would have less of a legal leg to stand on if someone got sick after using a "used" bag.

I'm not saying the stores and baggers are right; I use cloth bags myself. But there are reasons they do what they do that go beyond simply being "dumb".

"chinacat, well said. If you can't take care of yourself, what makes you think that you can take care of a child. Ppl who are on welfare should not be allowed to have children. Welfare ppl should not be allowd to buy porterhouse steaks and lobster with there foodstamps. If the working class can't afford to buy them why should the welfare ppl be allowed....it's not like they deserve it."

I say to each their own , lets worry about what we do as indivduals! How can anyone say that, I have seen, ( as a human services business owner) Very rich , "while married " women turn to state aid due to husbands,death,abuse, loss of jobs etc...how can someone open their mouths stating people on welfare should not, "be able to have children?" you never know what life has in store for you just today I have over 31 ppl come in that just got laid of from the big three they are getting food stamps and medicaid!...single women that worked in great jobs sheesh.....

The Garden Pooter!

"And those huge MCMANSIONS that are popping up all over on postage stamp size property. I watch a couple across the street in a house I call "House of the Seven Gables" drive in ,down comes the garage door and they never emerge until the morning when they drive out to go to work. No kids,No company comes over, never talk to anyone only her sister next door in another McMansion"

Much of this thread has been focused on back-and-forth banter about subjectivities, judgments, etc. I don't usually care to pitch in, but the above caught my eye and made me laugh.

I'd just like to good-naturedly point out that, well, howdy folks, I live in one of those "McMansion" houses. My partner and I are kidless at this point. And we both work long days, and relax (yes, often indoors) at evenings. Our families live far away, and most of our friends live in the city (and none of us like to blow gas driving long distances back and forth for everyday entertainment), so we don't get a lot of obvious company either. The Internet is a wonderful thing -- it's one more way to communicate over distance.

We're pretty happy with the house, even though we, too, would prefer to have lots of land in the country, and I would like to have goats and chickens and bat-houses all over. Our geography is somewhat restricted by our jobs and the amount of driving we're willing to do on an everyday basis (which isn't much). But among other things, the house was an investment, financially and personally. We're not going to need to move again (moving is a tremendous pain in the butt); we have plenty of space for the kids we will eventually have, and even for older relatives who might come to live with us one day.

One day, we would like to retire, and perhaps sell this nasty ol' McMansion. The place has already increased in value by quite a bit, because we chose the location wisely, and we're certain that trend will continue. When we're older, we want our needs to be met, we want to keep giving to charities we love, we want to go out for a nice dinner once in a great while, and we want to help our children and grandchildren afford college. And so we budget and invest what we can. In the meantime, we don't apologise for living in a large, nice-looking place.

Oh, yeah, and there's this: the house is energy-efficient. We don't spend much or consume extravagant resources to heat and cool it. We also don't soak our grass during droughts or dump chemicals on it. We use a reel mower (people-powered, no engine). We grow lovely food out back, and grow a lot of stuff from seed. We're also developing a bird garden to help give a little something back to nature, in this razed-out subdivision. It's nothing grand, but we do what we can.

We buy store-brand groceries and wait for sales, prefer to DIY our projects around the house (assuming we have the skills to pull it off), and re-use our bath and kitchen towels for long periods of time. We probably let them go a little too long, to be honest, because we don't like to waste water and energy.

Our budget lets us contribute to charities. I also volunteer in my community when I can, which keeps me away from the house a bit longer.

But you wouldn't pick up on any of that by watching my house from across the street, I guess. You'd probably have a much better idea of what we do in here if you crawled into my ivy-bed out front and peeked in the windows. Or knocked on the door to say hi. You'd be quite welcome, and I'd probably even share my tomatoes with you. :)

Sarcasm aside -- good for you ninjapixie! You're doing what you can in your corner of the world. Being frugal doesn't mean wearing a hairshirt and suffering; it's about being sensible and conscientious. You're building a habitat in your yard and setting an example in your subdivision. You're doing good and being a role model with contributions to charities. And you and you're partner are being practical and planning for your future, which seems pretty frugal to me!

Don't count your country chicks before they hatch.... Since you are just "shacking up" in one of those "McMansion houses" and not married.... statistically you and your 'partner' have a much higher rate of breakup then people who did not start off by shacking up but instead respected and thought enough of the other person to get married before starting to live together.

If you are gay.......well then I don't want to go down that path except to say, children need to be brought up in a household with a father and mother.

Yes, I listen to Dr. Laura and have read her books too (from the library).

Surely that's not appropriate here?

Ugh.

Kristin

But I will gently state that this person made some big-time assumptions, based on my post. They obviously say a lot more about him/her than about me. :)

I try to cycle everywhere I can (which is made easier by not owing a car) and people who drive really short distances amuse me. One of my neighbours drives the 10 min walk into town and I never see her with any heavy bags to necessitate the vehicle requirement.

I think I'd be a better eco warrior if I had more space. I'd like a composter and some water butts but I really have no room in my tiny garden as it is.

Pizza flyers etc are irriating I'm thinking of getting a plate made up for my front door which says I don't eat junk food so please don't waste your flyers on me.

I suppose one of my peeves would be the onslaught of stuff we get the weight of it is sometimes depressing. If you take your eye off the ball for a moment and don't immediately put all the papers,junk mail and envelopes from your mail in the recycling the place is a tip before you can blink and add to that the stuff you sort of want but which is also clutter like magazines and newspapers and I'm overwhelmed with rubbish every day.

While i'm at it, i will point out that most welfare recipients in the US stay on welfare only for a brief time (under 2 years, once in their lives, IIRC) and that most are white.

I've figured out a way to hook a quart milk jug underneathe the counter of the sink, and I've made a conscientous effort to put my compostable waste into that. I go thru about one of those containers a week, so I simply dump it into the compost every week.

Score for me!

I also never buy Saran Wrap or anything like that, well I haven't for 15 years or so. I reuse bags other stuff comes in, and my brother-in-law saves his cereal bags for me. Those are handy for many food storage purposes, and even seal with a vacuum food sealer.

Bottled water is another pet peeve, studies keep showing that people can't tell the difference between it and tap water, and that it isn't any healthier. Plus it wastes money and tons of plastic to bottle all that water which we have coming out of faucets in our house already.

Interesting thread, also interesting to hear from the person in the McMansion about why she does so. You really can't judge a book by its cover ALL the time. I also have a very good friend who lives in a McMansion. I make fun of it (it is way too huge) but her hubby gardens a lot and composts and scavenges lots of great things out of the yuppie neighborhood trash. So they do their part in a way, although they use tremendous energy to heat and cool the place.

Marcia

One about me (cause I'm not perfect either). I buy water bottles (always in bulk) and re-use little of them. Maybe I'll set another grocery bag next to the soda can bag and start cleaning and refilling; Do my part.

Emma

My husband does this and I swear if I ever end up snapping and putting weed poison in his soup that's gonna be the thing that does it. UGH! I got on his case about the butts in my back garden often enough that now he puts them out before he goes in the back gate ... and leaves them on the ground there. Gee, thanks, honey.

Kristin

The Garden Pooter!

McMansions are fueling our economy, i can see their investment value if nothing else.
But, i have an interesting story about a McMansion neighborhood. being the queen of cheep, i was looking to buy a used swing set for the kids (the trash picked one had finally died)i responed to an add in a trader paper, the owners wouldn't be home, but feel free to look at it out back. the owner's lived in a McMansion neighborhood, large houses, neatly clipped lawns. as i drove through the neighborhood, i saw many 2-3,000 thousand dollar 'playscapes', but i neither heard or saw a single child! nor a single dog, cat or person! it was like something out of the 'twilight zone'! i'll never forget that eerie feeling.........

This all depends. Where I used to live, we used bottled water because there was all sorts of chemicals you could smell in the tap water. I once put out an aluminum pan of water in front of a radiator to humidify the bedroom, and within a week the water had eaten holes (!) in the aluminum. The final solution to that was to buy a water softener to treat all the water coming into the house. It was expensive, but it worked.

In my current house, the piping is old and there's rust in the water. I use it for showers and washing, but refuse to drink it, cook with it, or even give it to the cats. Even after running it through a filter, it was pale brown. So bottled water for those specific uses, until I can save the money to completely redo the plumbing.

My in-laws have well water which is strongly contaminated by sulfur. Taking a shower or washing the dishes stinks like rotten eggs. So they have to get bottled water for cooking and drinking, too.

If I lived in a place like Long Island or even New York City, which has great tap water, I probably would get a couple of bottles and then refill them with tap water and reuse them forever. But where I am now, I can't do that.

Kristin

Smokers, those of you trying to quit, don't think about what it cost a carton, think about your families sitting around the Thanksgiving table and your grandchildren asking questions about you because you are no longer there. All my aunts and uncles (smokers)died in their 60s and the remaining grandparent (smoker) is down to one lung. 90% of the people I know who are smokers didn't make it to age 70 and if they did their health is severely compromised. The money $ is the least of it.

Your families need you to be there and they cannot replace you! Pat

Lee

Carol

Over-packaging on products, junkmail, finding out that packaging for things I bought cannot be recycled (we have limited facilities)... the fact that we pay for garbage services through the city but also have to buy $1 per bag garbage tags in order for the city to even pick up our trash! We solve this problem by recycling everything possible, composting whatever possible, re-using what we can, and paying a friend 50c to take our garbage directly to the dump instead of $1 per tag for city services. Does anyone else have this same set-up with their garbage collection?

I don't mind getting plastic bags from the grocer because I do re-use them but it would certainly be better if I used cloth bags. I have always been kind of intimidated to do this because we typically grocery shop once a month and get a LOT of groceries so I don't know how many bags I would need and don't know how to make them.. though I COULD make them myself.

I really dislike any kind of wastefulness. My DH and I are polar opposites in this area. He could care less about what gets thrown away and often used to toss his glass bottles, metal and tins cans and pop cans into the garbage when I have told him over and over that I recycle them. He is just lazy. I finally got him to just put everything into the sink and I take care of getting it washed and out for recycling.

This will probably sound horrible but one of my biggest pet peeves about my own household is the cat litter waste! DH had three cats before we got together and if I had my way, we'd have none, even though I LOVE cats. I just get so irritated about the amount of money we need to spend on the litter, the amount of time I spend cleaning it, and the fact that it is all pure waste. Any suggestions for this would be great but so far I have come up with nothing... short of letting the cats live outside, which is not an option.

A lot of things that other people do bother me but the things that bother me the most are the ones that directly affect me but I can do nothing about.

I used to use cheap clay litter and had to change it often as it would smell almost from it's first use.

I broke down and bought those EXPENSIVE *crystal* cat litters. You only have to use about an inch in a litter pan and it lasts a whole month. NO SMELL! Just comb out any hard deposits every so often. Hardly any litter is used and less ends up going to landfulls.

It is also much lighter to carry home from the store and easier to store since the small bags they sell them in do not take up much space.

Make sure you buy the crystal litter that looks like rock salt and not the same stuff that comes in round pellets. If the round pellets get out of the box they will roll all over the house and end up in the oddest spots. I had one cat that used to like to play by rolling the round pellets around and they were everywhere.

I just this week added a 5wk/o kitten to my household and the crystals were too rough for its tiny delicate paws so I bought some of that clumping litter that has smaller gainuels than other litters. They are making clumping better these days. The original stuff didn't hold clumps and ended up stinking.

The new stuff they have out now works much better. With clumping litter you only throw out just what litter has been "used" everyday instead of a whole pan of litter. Less waste.

A few of the larger chain stores now charge for plastic bags (from 15c to 30c per bag), and the use of plastic bags in these shops has dropped by something like 95%. An increasing number of people are taking their own reusable bags to supermarkets. Problem is (another pet peeve) these bags are made of plastic ... in China!

Another pet peeve: that it's getting increasingly difficult to find goods made of natural products. Everything seems to be made of synthestics.

Finally, I am disgusted that here in this large brown land we rely so heavily on fossil fuels and invest almost nothing in developing renewable fuels. I'm sitting inside in my workroom with the fan heater running while the sun shines outside, where it's about 22 deg. C. (I can't do my work outside, alas!) It's the perfect climate for solar power, but I'd need about $20,000 to buy enough solar panels to generate electricity because they remain a niche market that only the wealthy can afford. Our psychotic economic system makes it cheaper to pollute the environment (e.g. via portable electric heaters) than to buy environmentally-friendly products. Or to have said products repaired rather than replaced. (Planned obsolescence coupled with inferior quality.) And now the govt wants to introduce nuclear reactors and to sell uranium to China and India, in a world that is already destabilished by terrorism ... call me strange, but I'd rather have solar panels on my roof than a nuclear reactor in my backyard!

2. HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS!!! Of all the ways to waste natural resources I’d have to say that wasting land, especially productive farmland, is near the top of the list. Unfortunately growing houses is more profitable than a lifetime of growing corn and soybeans.

3. PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS!!! Sure, this statement is broad but all I have to judge by are my experiences. So here’s my basis for the statement. The majority of the people in the development near me are Marylanders who came to PA (although still commuting to MD for work) for the lower taxes, lower cost of living, and the American Dream of a quarter acre and a cookie cutter house on a street bearing the name of the trees which were cleared to create it. Ex.: "Oak Terrace" or "Cedar Court". Once in the "country" they buy their kids dirt bikes, four wheelers, and snowmobiles then turn um loose. I can only assume that they don’t realize that "those fields" across the street are actually owned by someone. They steal the corn to decorate their porches then blow their leaves and dump their grass in the fields. Then, once more settled they start complaining. They want sidewalks, streetlights, public water and sewer. They complain that the schools are over crowded and they demand that the local roads get ridiculously low speed limits to accommodate their young unsupervised children. Then they complain about there being no local police and about the snow not being plowed the second it falls. Did they not think to ask about these things or even ask why the taxes were so low BEFORE they moved here? WHAT DID THEY EXPECT?
Well those are my "wasteful pet peeves". I’ll stop ranting now.

Here's my top ten wasteful pet peeves:

1) The Iraq War
2) The Vietnam War (I was drafted in it ! )
3) Government benefits & Hospital care to illegal aliens
4) Social Security payments to retired millionairs
5) Politcal TV Commercials
6) Divorce attorneys
7) Therapist
8) Books by Dr Phil's family members
9) Congressmens
10) TV evangelist

1. Homes that are over-furnished, over decorated, or just plain overdone. This includes people who buy huge, flashy homes, then a complete team of maidhands and cooks to keep it running. What an utter, total waste of time, money and resources.

2. Companies that somehow get permission to tear down forrests to build more stores we dont need.

3. These same companies that secretly dump thier trash in poor third world countries as if we dont all live on the same planet.

4. Anyone who throws away good food. Leaving it in the fridge until it spoils is the same as throwing it away.

5. Junk mail and Junk circulars. Why dont they advertise on TV, Radio or online? its probably cheaper in the long run and it wont fill the trash.

Another pet peeve of mine is disposable things. I have a toddler, and you wouldn't believe how many things she uses are considered disposable. I use the products, like sippy cups and utensils, but I reuse them. Eventually, once they have served their intended purpose and get cracks or whatever, I reuse them again for my garden. When I can't possibly reuse them any more, then I recycle them. When these products are marketed, though, they are supposed to be thrown out soon after their first use. What is it called? Take and toss, or something like that? Food storage containers are marketed the same way now. Whatever happened to Tupperware?

You can sometimes find it in antique malls.

Cat litter: you might try Stall Dry or Xix (Zix?), sold at the feed store for use in horse stalls & such.

It's made from fine-grained kaolin clay, & you can put the used litter in the compost heap.

I've read more than once that untreated wood stove pellets are cheaper than pine cat litter and just as usable. I keep bugging DH to try them (as he is the Cat Litter Chief around here), but so far he's not buying in. At least I compost what's in the rabbit's box.

Of course, you can also train them to use the toilet ... yes, seriously. I dream of doing this and someday I will.

Kristin

1) There are hungry children and out taxes are going to buy every fat American 2 TVs?!!! I guess that's "hold the bread--give me a circus!"

2) Everyone's old TV will end up in the landfill!!

Vicky's blog!

Do you have the LitterMaid? Best appliance I ever did buy.
Probably paid for itself the first year of use in saved cat liter. Even tho you have to buy the premium liter. OK, so it took two years, I don't know but I like the idea.
So do the cats we have.

Hypocritical celebrities who spend their time telling us to care more about these poor kids in third world countries while they buy all this diamond jewelry. Diamonds mined by enslaved and beaten children in third world countries. All for the sake of their own vanity.

My pet peeve is the way grocery stores manage their produce departments. In my area red/orange/yellow bell peppers are priced at $1.99 - $2.99 each 10 months out of the year (and of course when they're only .60 a piece I've got dozens of my own in the garden). In the winter elderly, shriveled-up cucumbers are often over a buck each; tiny, long-in-the-tooth broccoli & cauliflower over $3.00 a head!

No one buys these over-the-hill, over-priced veggies & fruits, so they sit there and rot. Worse yet, the stores won't even give them away for composting!

You are spot on. We lived in Germany for five years and we had to pay something like fifty cents a bag. I learned the hard way to remember to carry my cloth bags because the stores there did charge for platic and paper bags - if you were lucky enough to find a store that had them. I purchased an IKEA bag so that I could haul all my junk home and in France we paid twice as much for the bags. Just thought you would like to know.

As for pet peeves, I really only have two that I've not seen listed. People that are too lazy to return their grocery carts to the corral provided (in Europe we had to deposit fifty cents to get a cart out of the corral and we got the money back when we returned the cart.) The other peeve is people that don't use their turn signal. The way I see it a turn signal is a simple and common courtesy that you use to let other drivers know what your intentions are. I mean we are going 75 down a freeway and people are changing lanes left and right with no turn signals. Drives me nutters.

Christina

My biggest pet peeve in terms of wastefulness is paper towels. In the bathroom of businesses they're so damn thin you have to use four or five of them each to dry your hands ... **AND** if that wasn't enough, the cleaning crews love to show how diligent they are at their jobs by stuffing the containers so full that when you pull one, ten come out, all torn and fall straight into the trash anyways.

I cured my wife of the paper towel habit at home however. When we first lived together she would use them to wipe up every spill, dry her hands, clean up water, didn't matter, if it was wet, a stack of paper towels were going on it. KILLS ME.

What I've turned her on to is the 48 pack of cheapo white "shop" towels from Costco/Sams Club and we use those until they're too stained to be considered "kitchen" towels and then they're dyed and used in my shop or gardening projects instead. A single 48 pack of those towels will last me at least three or four years before they become completely unusable - and even then I save them to make cloth paper with. ;-p

And, in regards to the weight loss mentioned above, congratulations. I lost over 75lbs. over the last two years and I'll tell you a good deal of it came from processed foods and high fructose corn syrup. Doc still wants me on high blood pressure meds but I'm fighting her tooth and nail on that one. They're too expensive and I'd much rather explore more homeopathic options.

I also agree with the tea bag covers, and disposable plastic food storage containers. I think that they were designed to allow a person to give food away with out expecting their dish back. I was taught that if you gave someone a treat in a tupperware dish, you were supposed to refill their tupperware when you returned it! Same for borrowing someones truck/car ~ return it with a full tank. The world would be a nicer place.

Dont get me onto how wasteful schools are.

As for grocery bags and shopping carts, Aldi's charges 25c for you to rent their cart, which is returned when you park the cart in the corral. Then charges 10c for heavy duty large plastic grocery bags that can be reused. The products in the store are also still in thieir boxes on the shelf so that empty boxes can also be used to package your groceries. The stores and lots are very tidy.
Why not do that with all grocery stores?

Jackie

Second pet peeve - I worked at a grocery store for a few years and was always disgusted at the moms that came in with food stamps and bought expensive frozen pizzas and tv dinners, sugary cereal, hostess cupcakes, chips, cookies, etc. Meanwhile their overweight children were blubbering about the candy bar their mom wasn't buying them. My mom was so poor she was only able to afford to buy potatoes, on sale chicken and beef, the 'plain' cereals, and her and my dad toiled in the garden for veggies. Im grateful for it now too!

My parents came to visit me and stayed in a decent if not luxurious hotel. For dinner, they wanted to go to the Boston Market across the street from the hotel. Okay, if we wanted to jaywalk it would have taken us two minutes to get there. Doing the right thing and crossing at the corner light would have taken us maybe six minutes to get there.

But no, my parents insisted that we had to take the car and drive ACROSS THE STREET! We had to go into the parking lot, find the car, start it up, drive to the street, wait for traffic, turn right, wait at the light, turn right again, get into the left lane, wait for traffic to clear, then turn left into the parking lot and pull into a space.

It took us 20 minutes to drive a 2 minute walk.

Me, I don't even own a car.

It also makes me clench my teeth to see people drive six blocks to the gym to spend 20 minutes on the treadmill. Take a walk to the grocery store, for pete's sake.

Another pet peeve: antibacterial disposable kitchen wipes. If you're worried about germs, wash your hands frequently. Keep the kitchen clean with a compostable paper towel. Use a sponge and microwave it. I've been using Bon-Ami for 30 years. Works fine.

I was one of those fat poor people. Now I'm a fat middle-class person. LOL! But bad food, that's full of sugar and carbs, is cheap. Good food, like whole grains, organic produce, etc. is expensive. If you only have X amount to spend on food a month, you do what you can to quiet the growling in your belly and those of your kids. Nutrition often goes by the wayside.

I also had to be on welfare for a brief time after my husband ran off. They were going to put me on workfare so I'd do the right thing and earn my welfare check. I got $65 in welfare each month and $35 in foodstamps. For that, I was supposed to work a 40 hour week doing whatever they told me and wherever they told me. If they wanted me to work in the worst part of town in the middle of the night cleaning out toxic waste, I had to do it or lose my $65. And I wasn't allowed ANY time off. If I was sick, I lost my welfare. If I had an interview for a real job, I wasn't allowed to take off time for it. I'd lose my welfare.

Luckily I got some temp work before that happened, so I went off welfare on my own. But it was a nightmare.

Another pet peeve: smokers who deeply resent the asthmatics whose lungs close up from their cigarette smoke. I have COPD and asthma, and I've had that happen more than once. No, I've never smoked.

customer goes to store,
buys cardboard box of trash bags.
cashier puts box into plastic grocery bag.
customer goes home,
removes box from grocery bag,
removes trash bags from box,
puts all trash bags except one under sink,
opens one trash bag,
puts grocery bag & cardboard box in trash bag.

my biggest pet peeve is plastic grocery bags (the kind they give you) well even the paper ones. I have reusable bags.

not recycling. How can anyone in this day and age NOT do it.

wasting food.

I have to agree with most the all the PP posted.

Kristen