Waste is stupid

I know, it’s a little harsh. I could have said something like “Waste is unproductive” or “Avoid waste whenever possible” but, to be frank, I just didn’t think they got my point across.

Please know I’m not saying that those who waste are stupid. I am simply saying that the act of wasting is stupid. I myself am guilty of waste, along with almost every person living in a developed country.

The reason I have been so blunt is because the concept itself is ridiculous. We work hard to earn money, to build something, to grow something. We then decide we want as much of it as possible for ourselves. Of course, despite all that effort, we can’t possibly consume it all so we end up throwing some away, or even worse stock-piling it and letting it rot before someone else could use it.

The Oxford Dictionary defines stupid as “lacking intelligence or common sense” and I think that a lack of common sense is a perfect description of the way we waste so many things we take the time to build, prepare and pay for.

The irony of waste is that we can be so oblivious to where it appears in our lives. In Australia we are particularly conscious of water usage during the summer months as our dams’ water levels begin to drop. We are all forced to reconsider every drop of water we use for our gardens, to wash our cars, and even in our showers.

Yet, at the same time, we throw food out at the rate of knots. Food which, during its production, uses significant amounts of water. It’s a mystery really.

Outside the summer months, and in other areas of the world not so affected by drought, the waste that gets the most airtime is food waste. This is not a surprise as the amount we waste is massive, with daily evidence in our rubbish bins. However, there are many forms of waste in our day-to-day lives:

• Fines

• Water

• Electricity

• Food

• Paper

Once you start to think about it, we waste an incredible amount. Is this because we have fully used the item and it has come to the end of its useful life, or is it because we realise we don’t need it, it doesn’t fit our purpose or it is more than we require?

So what is the most important item to focus on? I will go through each of these in the remaining part of this chapter, however no matter what your situation, the one to focus on will come down to which one seems like the biggest waste to you right now.

Time

Before we get into these more tangible resources we waste, I wanted to highlight an item I feel is often the most significant thing we waste, despite it not normally appearing in a list of financial areas to focus on - time.

Our time on this earth.

Our time is one of the few resources we can control, and yet I frequently find myself wasting it due to a lack of intent or focus. I am not suggesting you run through life at a frantic pace, jumping from place to place and experience to experience. That isn’t valuing your time either. I’m talking about being mindful about where we are and what we are doing throughout the day.

I am a repeat offender as a waster of time. It is something I am working on, but I struggle with it every day. The main symptom for me is the sleep in. I love that time in the morning when you are half awake and half asleep and your mind wanders off to all sorts of places, having amazing adventures. How do I know I am a morning time waster? On average I reset my alarm clock twice.

I had always assumed I wasn’t a morning person; however my own childhood challenges that. It seems that as a kid and a teenager I had no trouble getting up in the morning to go to school, and the only time I slept in was when I huddled under the covers to read a book I loved.

Now out of the two scenarios – rolling over for another half hour of “sort of” sleep, or waking up and reading for half an hour – clearly the second would be the better use of my time. I could stay in bed and ease into my morning, and I would be getting two to three hours of reading time a week, something I have always loved to do but rarely have time for these days.

So I want to be the first to say it: “My morning time waste is stupid. I need to change it.” In fact, this morning I took my first steps. I set my alarm clock last night and vowed that, no matter what, I would get up at my scheduled time. No resetting, no dozing allowed. And it worked. I have been more productive this morning in that extra hour than I have felt for some time.

And what’s more, there’s no guilt. Every morning that I reset my alarm, I feel guilty, thinking about all the things I have to do, and the long list of outstanding action items at work. Instead, I have started my day off with a bang, and already feel like I have succeeded.

Now it isn’t immediately obvious how wasting something like time can have a negative effect on our finances. However, if I add up the wasted time just from sleeping in during my working week I would probably accrue at least four hours a week. If I am struggling to cook my meals at home, and so am spending money on takeaway, or feel I need to spend a huge amount of money on a holiday to get “down time” every year then clearly four hours a week, or over 200 hours a year, would be quite valuable.

So before we go onto the other areas of waste in our lives, let’s take a long hard look at our time.

It is important to note here that when I use the expression “wasting time” I don’t mean things that other people might call a “waste of time”. If spending an hour a day in the morning running is something you enjoy, then that clearly is not a waste of time. Kudos to you for getting your body moving, even if it seems crazy to me.

Time wasted is instead time that disappears without you savouring it, enjoying it and experiencing it. I imagine that, apart from the most focused amongst us, that everyone has an element of this. And I think we should TAKE THAT TIME BACK.

Fines

One thing I have noticed can become a major accidental money drain is fines. Parking fines, late payment fees, anything that we get charged due to a lack of organisation or thought. And they can really add up. In Sydney a parking fine starts at $89 a pop, so you only need to do that once in a while and there will be a fair chunk of change getting blown every year. Add to that the fines you will get charged by paying a bill late, or by going over the limit on your credit card, and there would be people who could simply stop this behaviour and generate an extra couple of thousands of dollars a year in free cash.

I will admit I have been as guilty as the next person for this, but ultimately you are paying for nothing. You are not even spending the money on something frivolous-you are being penalised for being disorganised.

How do you fix it? Take just a moment to plan your day, and just one more moment to set yourself reminders for important things that are coming up like bill due dates. In fact, while you’re there, note down your mother’s birthday, as while this is unlikely to save you much money it will certainly save you some future pain!

In this day and age of smart phones and even smarter applications, there is simply no excuse for not having this level of organisation in your life. Do yourself a favour and stop wasting money on being penalised for a lack of organisation.

Water

I’ll tackle this one next, only because here in Australia we are encouraged to focus on water. In fact, I never realised how different this was until my sister-in-law from the US asked me about the flush on our toilets.

For those who don’t know, we have two choices when we flush – a light flush and a more exuberant version. Sounds crazy, right? Well, this can save over 15,000 litres of water per household a year.

There are loads of other ways to save water, with the fantastic benefit of not only saving you money, but also doing all sorts of wonderful things for the planet.

• Fill your own bottle, rather than buying bottled water – many of us spend hundreds, even thousands, of dollars a year on bottled water. Add that to the amount of crude oil that’s used to produce the bottles, and you need to ask yourself – is it really worth it? To save money, and the environment, get a reusable bottle you can fill with tap water. Don’t want to drink tap water? Then buy filters for your taps at home, so you can have an endless supply of fresh, filtered water.

• Make your own mineral water – for those of us who are trying to break our reliance on sugary (or chemical-filled) soft drinks, mineral water is a sugar-free, chemical-free way to have a drink with bubbles. However, even when buying in bulk, it does cost a fair bit of money, and drinking mineral water means we throw away loads of bottles in the process. However, a delightfully retro solution exists – SodaStream! These guys were one of the cool household gadgets for kids raised during the late 70s and 80s and meant you could add bubbles to loads of different drinks, creating your own soft drink flavours at will. They can also be used to make your own sparkling water. You can reuse the bottles they supply and you’ll spend a fraction of the amount you spend on bottles from the store.

Electricity

This seems like such an obvious one; however, in a world where each of us owns more electrical gadgets than an entire family used to, we can get used to thinking everything should be ON all the time. Some people focus their energy (excuse the pun) on finding alternative energy sources like solar power for their homes. This is a noble pursuit that should absolutely be encouraged, but it is like a junkie trying to find a drug that won’t kill them rather, than focusing on reducing overall consumption.

What many people don’t know is the electricity consumption of the average household pollutes more than the average car. So what are the biggest electricity suckers in your home? The most likely culprits are:

• Heating

• Air Conditioning

• Lighting

• Clothes Washer

• Clothes Dryer

• Water Heater

Deep down we probably all know this, but what may surprise you is how much electricity you waste by not managing these appliances well. In the case of these appliances, the waste generally occurs because we could get a similar outcome by using it slightly differently or being more mindful about when we use it.

Now you may notice that the television isn’t on this list. Of course, we could all save on electricity (and potentially a few IQ points) by turning our TV off more often and playing a board game with our families or reading a book, but it isn’t the top of the pops in terms of usage in an average household. If, however, your household isn’t average and you have multiple TVs that are on most of the day, clearly that would be an area worth considering in your efforts to reduce your electricity waste.

To knock down your electricity waste, the following items are a great place to start:

• Stop using central heating to heat up the whole house – most of us spend most of our time in certain rooms of the house. Just because you have central heating doesn’t mean you need to use it, and a localised gas heater in your living room used only when you are in there will save you a significant number of kilowatts.

• Use ceiling fans instead of the air conditioner – I realise this is a tough one, particularly in Australia, where temperatures in summer can top 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). I can completely understand turning on the air conditioning when that sort of heat hits. However, for many of us, we cool the whole house down to Antarctic level at the slightest hint of warm weather. This automatic and often unnecessary cooling is what really adds up, and will be hurting both your hip pocket and the environment.

• Turn off lights you’re not using – often if you walk through the average household, lights are on in four or five rooms when the entire family is in one. This is even worse when lights are left on in daylight. Get in the habit of seeing your central room - perhaps the living room or kitchen area, as the place where you only turn lights off when everyone heads off to bed, with the lights in peripheral rooms (like bedrooms and bathrooms) being turned on and off when you enter and leave the room. If you have kids, make it a game and reward them with points for this behaviour and I guarantee there will be a massive impact on your electricity usage.

• Use a clothesline instead of a dryer – it is interesting the response this gets from different cultures. In Australia a clothesline is part of the culture, with the ‘Hills Hoist’ from the 1940s considered an Australian icon. To this day, lines of washing can be seen in backyards across the country, no matter what the wealth or status of the residents. This has only recently changed as more apartments have been built without the space for an outdoor clothesline. In this case, a dryer becomes the only viable option. However, I understand that in other cultures the clothesline is a symbol of poverty, or at least not considered something appropriate for those with a comfortable lifestyle. While I understand how this can prejudice you against this tip, remember that waste is stupid, so if you have a yard with room for a clothesline, no matter how small, then get one. Not only will you save on electricity, your clothes last a lot longer, and I guarantee you will start to enjoy the smell of air dried sheets and towels – there is nothing like it!

• Put your computer to bed – when you aren’t using it, either turn off your computer (which is good for clearing its short term memory) or ensure it is in ‘sleep mode’.

• Wash in cold water instead of warm or hot – this can depend on how potentially germ-ridden your washing is, and therefore whether you need the water to be hot to kill those germs. This tip can therefore be more controversial for some than others; however, in our house we only wash with cold water and, if matched with a washing detergent designed for the job, everything comes up squeaky clean.

• Learn when your electricity supplier lowers its rates – this differs from location to location, however, many electricity suppliers drop their rates significantly during off-peak times (usually between 10pm and 7am). What’s the big deal? Frequently the off-peak rate is almost HALF the peak rate, so anything you can move to that time of the day makes a difference. One suggestion would be to take advantage of a timer on your newer washing machine to turn it on during the night, and then hang the clothes out in the morning before you leave for work.

• Buy energy-smart appliances – in Australia, and I imagine elsewhere in the world, new appliances are sold with an energy rating supplied by an external assessment group. This is often some sort of star rating, and it identifies the estimated energy consumption per year. When you go to buy a new appliance, make sure you note down your energy cost per kilowatt from your electricity bill. Then, when you compare each appliance option, take into account their electricity usage per year. That cheap fridge may seem like a great idea now, but if you take into consideration the extra electricity it is going to use year after year, you may be better off paying a bit more now to get one that won’t guzzle that electricity.

Without individually tallying these up for you, implementing most of the above tips would probably save you at least $500 a year. That’s real money in anybody’s world, right?

Food Waste

Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year – approximately 1.3 billion tonnes – gets lost or wasted.

Let’s focus on that for a minute. The number is 1.3 BILLION with a capital B.

Food waste also amounts to a major squandering of resources, including water, land, energy, labour and capital, and needlessly produces greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming and climate change.

In fact, the carbon footprint of food produced and not eaten is so large that food waste is ranked as the third largest emitter of greenhouse gasses after USA and China. More than anything else, this figure is the one that brought this issue into laser focus for me. Something we cast away as unwanted has gotten so large it has established itself amongst the largest economies in the world. Seriously?

And it gets worse – produced, but uneaten, food occupies almost 1.4 billion hectares of land, which represents close to 30% of the world’s agricultural land area.

The problem with these figures is that they are so big they become meaningless. So let’s take a look from a single household’s perspective.

A survey done in New South Wales, Australia, in 2009 asked survey participants to estimate the cost of the food their households throw away each week. By estimating weekly wastage for the amount of food they felt they wasted in each of the categories, along with what that food cost them, the survey resulted in an average estimated cost of food wastage of $1,036 per year.

I would argue that in reality the true cost of food wastage would be much higher than this, particularly when we become more aware of the actual level of wastage of things like takeaway food, packaged and long-life foods and leftovers.

What was fantastic about this survey is that they dug deeper into the core problems that caused the wastage, and attempted to come up with techniques to bring about behavioural change that would have a long-term positive effect on the level of food waste in New South Wales.

They identified the following key areas where food is wasted:

• Buying more than we need – this often happens because we think we need more than we actually do, or we are drawn to the special deals that encourage bulk purchases of items we simply don’t need. We also buy too much food when we don’t have a clear picture in our head of the meals for the week, and which ingredients we need for those meals.

• Cooking too much – this can result from not considering the appropriate serving size or measuring the amount of food we need. For some reason we also like to have extra food “just in case”. (This would seem natural in an environment where food was rationed, where you might have more now in case your next meal was some way off. However, I don’t know about you, but the concerns of rationing definitely don’t apply to me.)

• Storing food incorrectly – many of us don’t know how to store certain foods, and therefore quickly throw them out, as we are concerned about whether they are still okay. In addition, many people don’t know the difference between a “use by” and “best before” date and so err on the side of caution. We have also been brainwashed to think that fruit and vegetables are meant to come in symmetrical, perfectly coloured shapes, and that any variation is a sign of a sub- standard or “off” product.

• Throwing away leftovers – the most likely culprit here is simply forgetting the leftovers are there. However, for some people, the bigger challenge is not liking leftovers and worrying about whether they could make them sick.

My husband and I are particularly guilty of the second one. We are enthusiastic cooks and so leap in to the act of preparing a meal with little or no consideration for how the preparation volumes will come together into the final meal. We frequently end up with enough food for four or more people, not two.

What is great about the simplicity of the problem is that the solution is equally simple.

By attempting to change the way we relate to food, we can re- engineer our habits into ones that will immediately reduce waste, save money and have an incredible impact on the environment.

Here are some things to get you started:

• Before doing a food shop, plan your meals for the next week – write down your meals and stick them on the fridge. It may even help to allocate them to a day to ensure you don’t purchase food for an evening you may not be in. For example, ‘Mon - Grilled Chicken with Morrocan Carrot Salad’. If you have a particular meal item on the list where you know you’ll end up cooking too much, then note that in the planner by putting the leftovers in for dinner the next night. This way you won’t buy extra produce for the second night.

• Using this plan, come up with a shopping list – make sure you check your current stocks before adding items to the shopping list. There was a period there where every time I went and did our food shop I came back with a packet of hazelnuts. At its worst we had five packets! Clearly I had a desire to make some sort of hazelnut dessert; however I never put it on our meal planner, or checked the cupboard.

• Keep a “live” shopping list – as you use items, be sure to note them on a list, probably on your fridge. A new wave version is to scan the barcode into an app on your phone or tablet. Here in Australia at least one of the supermarket chains will then collate a list for you from those items, and I am sure these exist elsewhere in the world. This ensures the list you have collated is exactly what you need, not what you think you might need.

• When you go shopping, stick to the list – it is easy to get WAY off track at the shops. I find this is less of a problem for me at the supermarket; however get me to a decent Mediterranean deli and the gloves are off! Suddenly I have plans to make gnocchi from scratch or try out a specialty rice for the first time. Inevitably I get back home, things get busy and these items get pushed to the back of the cupboard and are never used. Learn from my mistakes, people – stick to your list. If you are a particularly bad impulse purchaser, then take away the temptation. We get our supermarket items and our fruit and vegetables delivered to our door. The fruit and vegetable delivery is fantastic as it comes direct from the markets and focuses on what is currently in season, which is another way to save money with food. Not only does this prevent us from going off our list, but it has also given us back two to three hours of our weekend.

• Buy only what you need – is it possible that the special price you get by purchasing three kilograms of sausages is not really adding value to a family of just two? Hmmm, probably. Don’t get distracted by bulk buys of fresh food unless you are ready to channel your Great Aunt Maude and create jams and pickles en masse. I think we all know that, no matter how good our intentions, we are unlikely to use our leftover food that way.

• Measure and prepare the correct serving size – read your recipes well and get a good understanding of how much the recipe serves. If you find you can get distracted part way through cooking something, write down the revised volumes on the side of the ingredients list so you don’t accidentally end up with a meal for eight instead of four (and yes, I have managed to achieve that, and I was only cooking for two).

• Know your dates – foods that should not be consumed after a certain date for health and safety reasons, like ready- to-eat chilled meals, must have a “use by” date. Products with “best before” dates remain fresh and of a good quality right up to that date, and are often fine beyond that date as long as they are stored properly. No matter which way the product is labelled, keep on top of the dates of the food you purchase. If you need to finish an older item first, bring it forward in your fridge. If you need to finish something off in the next week, be sure it is one of the ingredients in your meal planner.

• Keep things front of mind–unless my meal planner is front and centre on the fridge, we stray from the plan and make something that probably doesn’t use a single one of the perishable items we bought. I’m okay with shaking things up, but waste for no good reason is crazy. If you find you are struggling to use up certain items, then why not add a “Things in this fridge” list to the front of the fridge? You will then see it before you open the fridge so that, even if you don’t dig through the crisper and into the back of the shelves, you might notice the fresh asparagus you bought that will undoubtedly end up shrivelled up if not used quick smart.

• Make friends with your freezer – fewer and fewer people use their freezer as a core part of their food preparation and storage. Even those who might consider it would say that the freezer is really designed for big families who buy bulk items and freeze them. I am confident big families can get value out of a freezer; however, I would argue that small families can get even more value.

If you aren’t convinced, then let me give you just a few ideas to get you started:

• Does your bread frequently go stale before you can use the whole loaf? - I purchase a loaf of sliced bread which instantly goes in the freezer. You can pull out a slice at a time to toast and it often proves to be the last item standing when we haven’t done a food shop and need a bite to eat.

• I find it frustrating how many veggies my husband and I end up throwing out - we have probably over-purchased and then not managed to use them during the week, and we get to “bin night”, and are throwing things away before taking the bins out when we find a whole lot of veggies that have made a new friend ... mould. So we recently made a pact to visit the fridge a day or two before bin night and turn any vegetables that are nearing the end of their life into a fabulous veggie soup, a super nutritious tomato paste, or use them in a paella or a similar “leftovers” style dish.

• Freeze taste sensations individually - we love chorizo sausages, however when we buy them, even if they are the smoked variety, we rarely use them quickly enough. Now we buy them and immediately bag and freeze them individually. They are then ready to be pulled out of the freezer in the morning and defrosted in the fridge before their use that night. This can be done for all sorts of goodies – we separate rashers of bacon this way, mince, and most of the protein we buy. We therefore only use what we need and don’t waste the rest. By doing this we can make a beautiful seafood paella at a moment’s notice as there will probably be a handful of green prawns and single squid tubes in little bags in the freezer. (By the way, this is also the way we keep individual chills ready for our beck and call for those of you that like a bit of spice in your stir fries.)

Simple awareness is where all change starts. It’s how unfit people start eating better and it’s how you can start wasting less food. Pay attention to how much you chuck out each “bin night” – are there some regulars that frequently get turfed out?

The magic of this is that once you begin to change your behaviour you will find you adjust your shopping next time. You might notice that you always end up throwing out half the sour cream container. Simply buying a smaller container next time is a simple solution that, across multiple items, will add up to real money.

And if you don’t think you waste much at all, put aside a notepad and write down every single food item you throw out, whether half used or not, over the course of two weeks. The sheer volume will blow your mind.

None of this is rocket science. In fact, most of it is just plain common sense. Yet most of us, myself included, are not doing nearly enough to reduce our food waste for the benefit of both our hip pockets and the planet.

Paper

We have a running joke in my extended family around Christmas time about wrapping paper and my late Grandma. While she was alive, every year at Christmas all of the cousins would sit back with glee, waiting to see who would be the first to get violently attacked by their Christmas present from Grandma.

I’m perfectly serious.

Grandma loved wrapping paper. She thought it was beautiful and precious and when she unwrapped her gifts she would carefully fold the paper for later use. Being the resourceful person that she was, she soon realised that sticky tape reduced the amount of useful wrapping paper available after the first use, so she secured her presents with sewing pins. Yes, you read correctly – those very fine and very sharp pins dressmakers use to take up your hemline.

So each year one of us would undoubtedly end up with a pin rammed into our skin as we impatiently ripped open our present from Grandma. Everyone else would laugh, secretly knowing that it could just as easily be them next time.

What I find interesting about this is that Grandma saw the pretty, shiny paper as precious. She wasn’t brought up in a world of climate change and recycling, where we are taught to recycle for the good of the planet. While certainly a noble cause, this can often feel a bit distant from our day-to-day lives, which makes it easy to find excuses of why we don’t play our part. Instead, Grandma was brought up in a world where things weren’t disposable, but were valued. You didn’t buy something to then throw it away without a second thought. In fact, in her generation everything was made to last. At worst you might need to get something repaired, but even then the repairs were also made to last. It’s amazing how far this is from the disposal, replaceable, new-but-already-obsolete world we live in today.

And, while it might feel different from our lives now, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Those two different psyches about our use of “things” – recycling versus care and maintenance – actually get us to the same outcome, which is less waste. Valuing the time someone took to make or prepare something for you is at the core of getting back on track. Not only would we appreciate the effort and the expertise, we would also look after and value that item. Wouldn’t that be an interesting world to live in, particularly as, if we take the time to notice the value, we are probably more likely to notice the rubbish, the flimsy and the production-line items that are often sold as quality merchandise?

Back to the original topic of discussion, being paper waste, I think we can all learn a lot from Grandma in the way that we relate to paper, particularly those of us working in offices. While technology has replaced some of the uses for paper in our day-to-day lives – emails rather than faxes and letters – it is still a major part of our office consumption.

So how can we save paper in the office?

• Get a recycling bin – given how easy it is, it surprises me how few offices have paper recycling bins. If you are concerned about confidential information, I completely understand. This is why there are inexpensive shredding facilities that take away and drop off the bin while guaranteeing the security of the documents.

• Re-use old stationery – the average office wastes so much paper in the form of printed stationery. Many of us have changed numbers, or office locations only to have to reprint letterheads, envelopes and “with compliments” slips to reflect the new information. I am not suggesting you continue to use old documents for your clients, but how about using them as notepads? In our office, old “with compliments” slips are clipped together with a bull clip for each team member to take messages or reminders down during the day. This puts to good use paper that would have otherwise been recycled before it had a chance to be useful.

• Reduce your printing – many of us still print documents to read them (I am guilty of this). Aside from reading them on screen, which is a great idea, we can also get in to the habit of printing on both sides of the paper. Or, if you first use only one side, then use the back to take notes. In addition, for large reports it is possible to print 2 to a page, as well as double sided. Often this doesn’t hinder the ability to read the report and you have just printed 1/4 of the paper you could have.

• Go electronic - This is the way the world is moving, however in case you haven’t got on board yet, consider going electronic for most of your file storage. Much of the paper we print out and then store away simply doesn’t need to be kept in paper form. Not only is this a reduction in the amount of paper you will print over time, it also often makes it easier to find things in the future as many online document storage systems now allow searching within the documents. That also sounds like a time saver to me! If we all could view the paper we use as a finite resource, as something precious just like Grandma did, then we could make a massive difference to the level of paper waste in our homes and offices.

Gifts and toys

“You want me to stop buying people gifts now?”

So that I don’t give you the impression I’m a complete Grinch, I should share with you that I love taking the time to buy the right gift for someone, having the wrapping paper match the card and generally going to a whole lot of trouble to make it as special as possible.

That said, I believe if we were to look at the most excessive parts of our lives, many of us would say that, after food, the greatest amount of wanton waste happens in the area of giving and receiving gifts.

My husband and I are lucky enough to be aunt and uncle to two super fabulous nieces, along with being “adopted” aunty and uncle to many of our friends’ kids, and so we have also been privileged enough to participate in the crazy and chaotic events that are kids’ birthday parties.

One in particular stands out as the most ridiculous combination of love and wanton waste that I have ever witnessed. The excited and somewhat bemused child in question was turning one and was the first child to a pair of our awesome friends. As we turned up to celebrate this first of many birthdays, it became clear that their decent-sized house was not nearly big enough to hold all of his gifts.

Their extended family and all of their friends had gone nuts with enthusiasm and generosity.

As he sat down to open them, the mound of toys was so tall and so wide that you actually couldn’t see him. While we wanted to encourage him to enjoy his first birthday, his mother and I were horrified by all the toys.

In fact, we worked out that if she rationed his gifts and gave him a new toy from the selection every week, the mound would take him well past his next birthday. To their credit, his folks didn’t do that, they instead put most of the gifts under the house and he happily plays with a selection of them, none the wiser and certainly not less happy than he would have been with a crazy pile to choose from.

The point is that, of that pile, he probably ended up playing with less than a fifth of the toys. What a waste! Factor in that many toys were made of plastic, the production of which uses a lot of natural resources, and that they frequently don’t last very long, and the waste becomes pretty horrifying.

And, to take your horror into zombie invasion level, in the pile of gifts I saw at least three plastic toys that had been purchased for him twice. Clearly they were top of the pops at the toy store, and the purchasers weren’t to know someone else would have the same great idea. But consider the fact that not only can he not possibly play with all his toys, but he has so many that there are duplicates!

Even as adults, if we look at our own lives during the holiday season and other special occasions, how many times do you end up with a pile of thoughtful things that you neither wanted nor needed?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be generous with our family and friends. I am simply suggesting that perhaps we can be a little smarter with the way we give gifts. This will reduce the waste in others’ lives and will definitely reduce the extent to which we hoard things we know we will never use because somebody super-duper lovely bought them for us.

To get you started:

• Try Kris Kringle or Secret Santa – we now do this for my side of the family. A couple of months before the silly season, Mum puts all our names in a hat and draws out who will be giving who their gift that year. In addition, an agreed dollar limit is set on the gift. I will admit that, at this stage, we have left off the nieces as none of us can resist the desire to shower them with gifts; however, this has meant that not only do we spend less overall, we also get one specific gift which, if the purchaser is clever, is probably based on a specific suggestion. And while the agreed dollar value is higher than we used to spend on each gift, we are now only buying only one gift rather than the five we used to buy. Money saved AND hoarding reduced.

• Buy kids books – I frequently buy the kids in our lives loads of books. Aside from the research being awesome fun, the reason is that I view a book as simply unable to be wasted. They are timeless and can give the reader so much joy, before then being passed on to someone else and giving them just as much happiness and joy. Books also generally take up less space and, when it comes down to it, if a child’s room has to be stuffed to the brim with something, wouldn’t it be better to be books?

• Buy adults experiences – I am a great believer in the power of a well-thought-out experience. A night at a comedy show, a gardening class, a visit to the observatory; many of us happily go to such things if someone else suggests it, but very few of us manage to organise them ourselves. So let’s instead make these our gifts to each other. Send a friend off to a pasta class, or a silver screen movie night, or anything that you know they would love but have never done before. As your backup, there is always the facial/ beauty therapy option, which lots of people love doing but don’t make time for, and this includes the guys. My husband and I were recently lucky enough to win a trip to an amazing resort where we were spoilt with a facial, body massage and treatment. Needless to say I loved it, and my husband was so impressed he hasn’t stopped talking about it since. These gifts live on in people’s minds much longer than physical gifts and, in most cases, involve little or no waste at all.

• Meet a want with your gift – my husband is particularly good at this. As I comment on things that interest me, he takes a mental note and, without fail, they will be included in my birthday or Christmas present. This is the ultimate gift giving – knowing someone well enough to give them something they actually want. This is, of course, much easier if we aren’t all willy nilly buying the things we want as soon as we see them, so the more you understand the difference between wants and needs, the more that those around you will be able to give this kind of gift. (As double snaps to my hubbie, he even managed to do this with my engagement ring. He had clearly been noticing the types of rings that caught my eye and managed to not only surprise me with the proposal, but also with a ring that is exactly what I love wearing.)

• Small but thoughtful gifts – this is something my Mum and I came up with for my Kitchen Tea. A Kitchen Tea is a somewhat old-fashioned ritual where a bride-to-be has a morning or afternoon tea event, inviting all the women in her life (of all ages generally) who bring gifts to help “set up her kitchen”. For many of us who have been living out of home for years, the concept is pretty crazy as we often have all the gadgets and implements we could possibly want. So instead we asked that they bring a favourite recipe typed up along with one of the spices or herbs it uses. I ended up with my very own recipe book designed by my friends and family, along with a fabulous starter pack of herbs and spices. This wouldn’t have cost people a great deal of money, however it was very personal and they all got to be creative and adventurous in their choices.

If all else fails . . .

Some of you could start monitoring your waste right now and become far more focused on the types of gifts you and your family give each other. However, the elephant in the room is the pile of things you have built up from previous accidental hoarding behaviour.

These could be from mindless spending, well-intentioned gifts or the fact that you simply can’t bring yourself to throw things out.

Either way, this is stopping right now.

It is hard to live mindfully when our homes are awash with clutter. In this state, you can start with good intentions, however you will still be surrounded with piles of useless things and will remain so desensitised to them that you won’t notice if you go back to your old ways and start adding new items to the piles.

So, let’s take a good look at all the things you have in your cupboards, in boxes under the bed, on shelves and under the house.

Pick a spare spot and start three piles:

1. For charity

2. For others

3. For sale

My view is that many of the things we stockpile on a day-to-day basis are not things you could take to your local charity store. However, you could choose to sell them and then donate the money to your charity of choice. You are not only donating your money, but also your time in taking the trouble to sell the item, so I imagine most charity stores would see that as the much better option.

This is the reason that, aside from clothes that go to one of the deserving charities in our area, I have only two piles when I do my clean out – items for people I know could use them, and the rest to be sold.

When you first go through this process you will be a little horrified at how many things you have. You may also feel guilty at the previous gifts you will be putting on the piles. That is only natural and shows how much we care about the people who gave them to us. However, if you have never used them, will never use them, and even forgot you had them, then you will be finding them a better home by going through this process. I think of the movie Toy Story and imagine that these things feel unloved and unappreciated and would therefore be excited to find a new owner who thoroughly enjoys them.

All sorts of things can go into these piles:

• Clothes

• Unopened makeup and body products

• Fashion jewellery

• DVDs and other entertainment items

• Novels

• Recipe books

• Crockery

• Board games, jigsaw puzzles

• Unopened power tools

Sometimes it will seem like there is no way you could ever let a particular set of things go. DVDs fell into this category for me, but once I took a good look there were a number of TV series boxed sets that I had watched only once and would never watch again. I also had doubles of a few movies, in particular extra special favourites that I had later purchased in Bluray to get that awesome cinematic experience!

So don’t second-guess yourself, work your way around your home and carefully review things. You will be amazed at what you discover.

If you have kids, getting them to give up the toys piled in their cupboards is going to be tough, I know. However, I have heard of families who let their kids know that they don’t get gifts for their birthday or holidays unless they give up something they currently aren’t using. Making them aware of really savouring the things they own can only be a good thing, and perhaps you could use the proceeds of your sale to go on a family adventure? This keeps them from thinking they can just sell gifts for cash, but also forces them to think about whether they have more than they need.

As you get really good at this, it’s possible you will pare the clutter in your life back to a stage where you may not even need a house of the same size, or the extra storage you were going to build, or the shed you were thinking of buying.

I have a good friend who has managed to de-clutter her life to the point where she has some precious pieces of furniture made by her father kept in storage, with the rest of her life fitting in a one- bedroom apartment. If, like us, you are a female over forty then you will understand what an amazing feat that is.

Once you have your piles, then you need to do something with them.

• Give items to someone you think will use them – keep in mind that you may simply be adding to their clutter, so make it clear that you are more than happy to add it to the “for sale” pile, however you wanted to check whether they would like it first. (Be careful of the hoarders in your circle, as they may just take it off your hands because they can, not because they want it. DO NOT enable them! Watch for signs of hoarding and stop offering them things.)

• Convert your goods into cash–one way this works is eBay. You can take some great photos and upload them and see who bids for what. In my experience this can be great for one-off items; however, if you collect (as I suspect you will) a pretty big pile of things then this can feel like death by paper cut, and it certainly won’t feel like you have de- cluttered anything.

• Try your local markets – with the popularity of farmers’ markets these days, trinket stalls have started appearing again. Many of these markets have a section specifically for people who don’t run a business in trading goods, but instead want to do a one-off “yard sale”. In my area these happen the first Sunday of the month, and for approximately $100 you get a table and insurance to cover you for the day. Then it all just comes down to your sales skills.

This last option is something that people used to do a lot of. Yard sales or (garage sales in Australia), were a simple way to get rid of some clutter. What I love about this concept is that by going to a market, people don’t have to find your home, as they will already be wandering around the markets. Some tips and tricks passed on by my expert decluttering friend for the local markets are:

• Do you have reasonable prices on your goods? Remember, you are not trying to make back the cost of the item, you are simply hoping to get someone to pay you and then take it away. People generally wander around markets with only a certain amount of money and, as most of these markets are cash only, you are unlikely to sell an item priced at $50 even if it is worth that, as most people simply won’t have the cash on them.

• Are your items well laid out? One technique for selling off your clutter is to put a nice tablecloth or sheet over the table and to lay out your items well.

• Do you still have the boxes they came in? People love to be able to take items away in their box, so be sure to take them with you. If people are looking for a great gift, the easier you make it for them, the more likely they are to buy.

• Know where things are – find out where the toilets are, where they can get food and where they can get money out of the “wall”. The more helpful you are, the more likely you will be to make a sale.

• Half time, change price – about halfway through the day, reprice your items. The things to watch out for are items that people frequently picked up but then put down again. The most likely reason is it wasn’t the right price to tempt them. Remember – we are not doing this to make a massive profit, the key is to walk away with as few items left as possible. The cash is merely the upside.

• There will be other markets – just because there was no one that wanted an item this time, doesn’t mean someone won’t next time. So pop it in the “sale” box back at home and bring it out the next time you collect enough to have another table.

I believe things like this are best done as a team sport, so get a couple of friends together and share the price of a table. You can chat away and enjoy the day and turn some of your clutter into cash at the same time.