Blog 5- Living My Politics Weekly Spending

My Weekly Spending

Rank Item Place Price

Friday March 12
Good Groceries Food Market $21.71
Bad Beer Bar $20.50
Ugly Gas Shell $30.00
Bad Book Chapters $18.00
Ugly Drinks Boston Pizza $17.00

Saturday March 13
Bad Food Hotel $28.00

Sunday March 14
Ugly Coffee Second Cup $4.90

Monday March 15

Tuesday March 16
Good Bingo Manor $20.00

Wednesday March 17
Ugly Gas Shell $10.00
Bad Beer Bar $15.00
Ugly Coffee Robins $2.00

Thursday March 18
Ugly Gas Shell $45.00
Ugly Car Wash Wand Wash $7.00
Bad Groceries Superstore $14.00

The totals for good, bad, ugly is as follows:

Good= $69.71
Bad= $53.90
Ugly= $112.50
Total= $236.11

The ugly category is the biggest one, it accounts for half of my spending this week. One of the reasons this category is so big is because of gas. I drive to school three times a week by myself because I do not know anyone who goes to school at the same time. My gas for the week was $80.00 even though I drive a small efficient vehicle.
I also included in the ugly section any huge stores that I know is not doing any good environmentally. These are huge corporations that choose to ignore the fact that their products and choices are harming the environment. I went to Superstore this week for a few grocery items, even though I chose to not use plastic bags I know that this is not enough of an action to reduce waste. It is a start though and every small step counts towards a bigger one. The thing with eating organic and local is that it is expensive and inconvenient when it comes to time. I was in a hurry and I did not have enough money therefore I chose to go to the closes market around to where I was at the time. I encourage the pro-active approach that Superstore is taking when charging people $0.05 per plastic bag. It is a small fee and somewhat of a penalty for forgetting our reusable bags. Also it does encourge people to use less bags, encourages filling up bags and discourages people from double bagging everything. The issue I have with this is that currently Superstore is keeping the money to do who knows what with it. I would encourage Superstore to donate the money to local environmental causes, perhaps to better recycling facilities or decrease the price of reusable bags.
Another thing that struck my eye when reviewing my purchases was that I spent $52.50 on booze this week, I do not think this is alot but when you look at it as being 25% of my spending for the week it is quite a bit. I included booze in the bad categorie and not the ugly because I did try supporting my local hotel in my small bar. When coming from a small town, the bar is often the best place to socialize with members of your community.
Basically, what I learnt from this activity was that I have to watch where I spend my money more. Firstly as a student I do not have much and secondly I want to try to make more of an effort to support things I trully believe in. I am slowly making more conscientious decisions everyday.