Penny Pincher
September 27th, 2006 by Mollie
Today for the first time in a couple of years I made the very hard decision to NOT buy cage-free organic eggs. The cage-free organic eggs were $3.29 and the other eggs were $.99. After much mental dilberation I felt that I needed to make the finacially wise choice for our situation. At this moment, Kendall and I are both unemployed. Although we are both actively looking for jobs, until we begin to have a regular income funds are very limited.
I am bringing this up because finacial factors play a big role in people’s abilities to make some envirionmentally and socially friendly changes to their lifestyle. For the past couple of years we have been really blessed by having room in the budget to support our ideology.
There are a couple of things this leads me to think about:
- While I don’t necessarily agree with the mass production of organic food, I can definitely see the financial appeal of it.
- There are still positive changes you can make to your lifestyle that don’t rely soley on your financial situation.
I am going to look more into exlporing these two points in later posts. I would love to get some feedback and hear your thoughts.
September 28th, 2006 at 7:33 am
I agree that it is a tough decision! There are so many people who really legitimately cannot afford to support organic or higher-cost/lower human rights abuses type causes. I think that it is important to remember that there are many people who really CAN support these things but don’t…I don’t think it’s the responsibility of people who are truley not able to afford it to support these causes until they are cost-effective enough to break through our market economy.
You are brilliant and I can’t wait to hear more of your thoughts!!!
September 28th, 2006 at 7:36 am
I’m with Mindy, I really look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this topic because I think it’s crucial.
September 28th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Right, not everyone can buy organic, which is why the environmental issues are also often social justice issues–shouldn’t it be a fundamental human right for every person to have ready access to good, healthy, toxin-free food?
This is why those of us who _can_ must vote with our dollars and move the market in the right direction.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
After recently watching the video “The Future of Food” I was compelled to go 100% organic. Can you imagine a world where just a few companies (i.e., Monsanto) control the seeds and therefore supply of our entire food supply? Monsanto can!
I’d been fighting with my wife for years about the cost of organic, however I can see that it’s really the only solution.
I’m assuming that the cost of organic products will go down as more people adopt it. I don’t have the exact figures, but organic food consumpting is increasing at a very rapid rate.
October 4th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Chad, tell your wife it’d be cheaper than getting chemo later.
October 6th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
good thoughts, mollie. the link between global poverty and the environment are huge. those of us who have the luxury to purchase goods we can support as well as the luxury of political participation have a great responsibility… to advocate for human rights and the elimination of poverty with our dollars and with our votes.
October 9th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I agree that many people cannot always afford to be socially conscious in their economic decisions. I lived in South Dakota for a couple years and saw economic depression I could never imagine. It just killed me to watch people shop for groceries at Wal-Mart - but they do it because they can’t afford not to or are not willing to make more sacrifices. Although, I have to point out that my husband and I swore off shopping at Wal-Mart years ago and were able to do it without too much hassle. I think it’s easy to forget though that a lot of people in our country don’t have many choices for where to shop. Many Americans live in areas where there are not organic markets or even grocers other than big box companies.