Every bit of advice on saving money on food says, "DON'T EAT OUT." Some of them throw "EVER" in there, but most of them stop at the first three words. I would like to follow that advice. And they make it sound so easy - throw together some leftovers, and viola, lunch.
But right now my only leftovers in the fridge are the pizza that someone else got for dinner last night (after I basically said, "Sorry, I'm not cooking after a ten-hour shift, can you deal with dinner please?" Not that I was reasonably expecting this particular person to make a home-cooked meal after saying something like that, but honestly, it would've been nice and I should've specified that,) some home-made mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving (but not the rest of the meal - thanks to said shift we had to leave before leftovers could be portioned out) and some spaghetti and meat sauce that's maybe a week old, because despite my best efforts and the efforts of both of the people I live with, we just can't seem to finish eating stuff like that. Maybe I cook too much at once. I don't know how else to do it; if I don't cook it, we won't end up cooking it and we won't eat it anyway! Either way I end up wasting food. I really just can't seem to win.
[I am NOT going to say that the math and science courses I took in school were a waste of time, because they weren't. But I will say that given my current job and my current fortunes, a course on how to effectively keep a household budget, how to keep a pantry, how to store food properly, and so forth would have given me skills that are a lot more relevant to how I must live this life today. And in all honesty, why isn't that course required for everyone? Even scientists and mathematicians need to eat! And given the number of science majors I've known in my life who basically and literally lived off of ramen and the occasionally takeout, these are obviously not ingrained skills.)
I suppose I'll take the spaghetti and mashed potatoes to work, and take my chances (and hell, after this week having an excuse to leave early would be a relief, in a way.) I'd take the pizza instead, but the pizza is a lot more likely to get eaten if I don't take it with me, and the chances of the spaghetti getting eaten by anyone but me at this point is practically nil. I hate wasting food.
(I'm mostly joking. The spaghetti is probably fine if I heat it properly. I've done this before.)
But right now my only leftovers in the fridge are the pizza that someone else got for dinner last night (after I basically said, "Sorry, I'm not cooking after a ten-hour shift, can you deal with dinner please?" Not that I was reasonably expecting this particular person to make a home-cooked meal after saying something like that, but honestly, it would've been nice and I should've specified that,) some home-made mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving (but not the rest of the meal - thanks to said shift we had to leave before leftovers could be portioned out) and some spaghetti and meat sauce that's maybe a week old, because despite my best efforts and the efforts of both of the people I live with, we just can't seem to finish eating stuff like that. Maybe I cook too much at once. I don't know how else to do it; if I don't cook it, we won't end up cooking it and we won't eat it anyway! Either way I end up wasting food. I really just can't seem to win.
[I am NOT going to say that the math and science courses I took in school were a waste of time, because they weren't. But I will say that given my current job and my current fortunes, a course on how to effectively keep a household budget, how to keep a pantry, how to store food properly, and so forth would have given me skills that are a lot more relevant to how I must live this life today. And in all honesty, why isn't that course required for everyone? Even scientists and mathematicians need to eat! And given the number of science majors I've known in my life who basically and literally lived off of ramen and the occasionally takeout, these are obviously not ingrained skills.)
I suppose I'll take the spaghetti and mashed potatoes to work, and take my chances (and hell, after this week having an excuse to leave early would be a relief, in a way.) I'd take the pizza instead, but the pizza is a lot more likely to get eaten if I don't take it with me, and the chances of the spaghetti getting eaten by anyone but me at this point is practically nil. I hate wasting food.
(I'm mostly joking. The spaghetti is probably fine if I heat it properly. I've done this before.)