Though I’m by no means an economist, as a stay-at-home dad, I am often reminded of the term “opportunity cost.” This can be loosely defined as the cost/value of anything versus what might have been bought otherwise. For example, in the obsessively cheap mind of this stay-at-home dad, the opportunity cost of getting a babysitter and going out to dinner might be the cost of putting my kid in a summer soccer league. As you might assume, when such calculations go through my head, our total number of nights out have tended toward zero.
While it’s perhaps just a rationalization, I find that considering such trade-offs can be very useful to rein in excessive spending and keep us within a manageable budget. This, as I see it, is part of my job. There was a time not so long ago that I’d pay for something without even thinking about it. We were a two-income family and before the kids came along, money wasn’t really a concern. Fast forward a few years and now I’m home with the kids, incurring much higher expenses with only my wife’s income. Therefore, if my job doesn’t bring in money, then my job becomes saving it wherever I can. Call me cheap or call me frugal, but a healthy money-saving obsession can add up to real savings quickly.
A recent article has reminded me of our need to assess day-to-day operations. While it’s not necessarily surprising that Americans waste a lot of food, a recent report by the National Resource Defense Council (and reported by the LA Times here) puts this into frightening perspective. It calculates that we are “wasting up to 40% of the country’s supply each year – a mass of uneaten provisions worth $165 billion” and that “An average family of four squanders $2,275 in food each year, or 20 pounds per person per month.”
What is the opportunity cost of $2,275 of wasted food for your family? I could think of a lot of ways that money could be better spent, without even considering additional environmental benefits. I tend to think (as many of us probably do) that my family can’t possibly waste that much food, but even if it’s only a fraction of that average, there is more work to be done and money to be saved.
I’ll start by assessing my overall grocery strategy. Stay tuned.
Stuck with Dad 