The Pope in his Easter message had one very interesting line:
Help us to overcome the scourge of hunger, aggravated by conflicts and by the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible.
The phrase that really caught my eye was “.. the immense wastefulness for which we are often responsible…”, and specifically in terms of what this does to our finances. Overcoming hunger is very important but I will leave that to the religious blogs to discuss, but monetarily there are countless examples of waste financially, do any of these ring a bell?
- How much clothing have you donated to whatever “charity” called you that still had the price tag on them?
- How much food do you throw out, that is still in the package?
- How many “fees” are you paying for being late paying for things, or because you can’t be bothered to go an extra mile to use a non-fee ATM?
The word convenience seems to have become synonymous these days with waste. It’s inconvenient to go that extra mile, so I’ll just pay the $1.50 fee from the ATM (and then the $1.50 fee from my bank) to take only $20 out of the bank, because I need some cash. I know people who have said that to me, I believe my eye twitched a bit when I heard it (nervous tic), it takes a lot not to ask what is wrong with them.
What other wasteful lifestyle things have I missed?
I absolutely hate when I have to pay fees for no reason. I once had to pay my monthly bank fee cuz the balance in my account went below the minimum and I swear I was in mourning for a week.