What she bought: bags and chocolate

A friend of mine asked me, ". . . but . . .  you must go shopping sometimes; you must buy some stuff, right?"  And so I figured it might be fun to start documenting actual purchases I make.

So, here goes:  Saturday I went to the grocery store and I bought bags and chocolate.   Or, the way I think of it, I bought "bags wrapped in trash, and chocolate without trash".  Total expense:  $9.08.

Cloth bag to canning jar for some trash-less chocolate;
paper bags in a (sigh) plastic bag.

The chocolate ($6.65 for a bit more than a pound), I bought for baking purposes because SOMEONE ate all of the rest of the baking chocolate in the house! It wasn't my kids, and it wasn't my husband, which means it was . . . well, let's just say I felt it was my responsibility to refill the baking chocolate jar. I bought my chocolate pieces in chunks from the "bulk" section of our local grocery. Although I chose the bulk section to avoid garbage, I've found that many candies there (like M&Ms) are cheaper than buying them in commercial bags. I use a technique I learned from the Zero Waste Home: I use my own cloth bags (made from cutting down a pillowcase), and write the code number on the bag in a washable crayon. (Crayola makes those). When I got home, I transfered the chocolate to a glass canning jar.

Well, I transfered most of the chocolate to the canning jar.  But there it is.

I also bought a pile of 100 paper lunch bags ($2.43).  Some of these immediately came in handy when J-son packed his lunch for work later that day.  And yes, I know he could use a reusable lunch box, but he tends to leave things behind -- the amusement park is already richer two canning jars that he's left there, so I don't mind him taking paper lunch bags.


But the real reason I bought the bags is for wrapping presents.  We've done our usual "x-Mass Production" lines, and since then, the boys need to wrap their many gifts for family and friends.  The boys decorate the bags and plop the presents inside.  I get a kick out of the pictures N-son does on his bags (J-son is a little more stoic in his style).

Here's an N-son original for our next-door neighbor, the one with the beautiful garden.   Sweet drawing, right?