JFF - What Resource Is the Most Wasted in Your Home?

electricity! I have no idea why the kids can't shut the lights off when they leave the room!! Or why it has to be on when its light outside and its just as bright in the room with or with out the light on!

I have gone as far as taking the bulbs out of thier room because they can't shut it off... it still didn't click with them.

The second would be food. Left overs never seem to get eaten. I don't know why I even waste my time putting them in the fridge because I know they are just going to get throwen a week later ( or when we find the "mystery item" in the back of the fridge)

Milk!!! I swear unless I am standing over my kids they always over portion milk!!! Drives me nuts. Everything else they seemed to have caught on to the rules.

I can't seem to come up with a good punishment. I took away the TV for electricity waste, that worked. I can't take away milk??

Food!!! It's just my son and myself and many times we don't consume things in regard to their packaging. Such as a box of cereal. I can't eat it all before it goes stale. Or leftovers. I can't eat the same meal 4 times! So I make something like a chicken pot pie, eat it, have it one more time then I can't do it anymore. So many things come in a quantity too great for us and I cringe whenever I have to throw away something spoiled or stale.

water/food probably tie. My daughter would take five baths a day is I let her. I am pretty good about leaving the lights off most of the day.

The food conversations go like this.

"Yogurt!"
"You want some yogurt?"
"Can I have some yogurt please?"
"Yes, here you go."
Takes two bites.
"Cracker!"
"You just said you wanted yogurt!"
"Cracker!"
"If you eat all of the yogurt then you can have a cracker."
"NOOO!!!" runs off.

Five minutes later.
"Where did you get the cracker?!?"
"By myself!"
face/palm

Water. The one resource we have no alternative for if we use it all!

My husband runs the dishwasher everyday, even if it's 1/4 full. He washes clothes around the clock, sometimes just one pair of jeans in a load. He leaves the tap running full blast the whole time he is cleaning the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, brushing his teeth. He turns the shower on and then walks around the house for 5 minutes before getting in. Drives me absolutely bananas.

Food--my kids are very unpredictable in their eating habits. A meal that they devoured 2 weeks ago might go completely untouched today.

Then electricity--I am constantly finding lights or electronic devices on in empty rooms.

Water--rarely wasted. They play in it, so I don't consider it to be a waste, as long as they are filling the sink & not just letting it empty out.

Food, hands down! (Drives me nuts, too.)

Yes, electricity for sure. Also, food. We always stick leftovers in the fridge and then forget about them or forget when it was made and just throw it out.

For us, it used to be electricity (when I had kids at home).

We would fast for a meal or two if the electricty bill was too high. ("I'm sorry kids, we can't eat dinner tonight because too many of you left the lights on so we have to pay for the electricity by missing/skipping dinner.)

Just a thought.

We didn't waste food. It was just too expensive. Once a week or so, we'd make soup out of the leftovers. If they didn't finish their dinner tonight, they could finish it for lunch or dinner the following day.

Good luck to you and yours.

Time! Hands down. The amount of time my hubby wastes playing video games and watching DVR'd TV appals me. And, because he wants to do those things, when I am not home, my three boys are ALSO on the computer, tv, ipad, video games, ect...

Pure laziness and a waste of time.

Next in line? Electricity from all the electronics!!!

Unused produce/leftovers. Ugh. Water is a close second, especially because of the drought.

some days....brain cells! J/K......

for my older son, educational opportunities...which will hopefully change in Jan.

for my younger son, electricity.

my DH & I are pretty frugal, even down to repurposing most of our belongings. We're good about recycling, & reuse/redesign most of our resources. Love making something new out of something old!

Food, we are very wasteful, but not intentionally.
We always have the best intentions of course but here is an example... a couple of weeks ago, DH went to the store bought meat from Sam's....asked me to package it and put it in the freezer, i say sure I should have time tomorrow, then we were both very busy for the next couple of days, next thing you know we haven't even opened the fridge for anything besides juice or milk and there sits a waste of $15.00 worth of Hamburger meat... I HATE THAT!

J.:

Electricity, water, food. We too are turning lights off...what we started doing was keeping a chart of how many times we turned lights off and took away from their allowance...they didn't like that too much...

Water? My boys are usually in and out of the shower in 5 minutes - however, there are times when they play in there....20 minutes later I'm in there saying "REALLY?"

Food - their eyes are bigger than their stomach...doesn't happen that often but it does.

Electricity. Then water.

And to those who are drinking the "water is a non-renewable resource" koolaid...please do some research. As long as we don't add poisons to it, the water we use regularly for showers, washing, etc, is absolutely renewable. We are drinking the bathwater and waste of our ancestors 100,000 years ago. The water that comes out of springs is the surface water that trickled down through the bedrock over time. Water IS renewable...and it doesn't just "go away."

NONE, I am a freak when it comes to wasting and pinching pennies... I'm constantly turning off lights in rooms that no one is in, turning water off when the kids are brushing their teeth (no, the faucet does NOT have to run the whole time, only when you're rinsing), timing the kids showers, and food does not get wasted, you eat everything on your plate or save it for when you're hungry!!

uhhmmmm apparently brain power lately jkjkjk def water....we are very independent now and love to turn the faucets on and leave them running to wash our hands and teeth (the 2.5 yr old)

Here is the order of our most wasted resources...

Food.... I throw out a lot of food, leftovers, things we forget about in the pantry, etc.

Water..... we are not the best at conserving. Our last bill was $690 and the one in July was $650. We get charged through the nose if you go over a certain amount. We have a huge tiered yard and spent well over $5000 on loads of soil, some re-sodding, etc. to make sure everything was right this year. The water bill is very high but we dont want to lose the $5000+ investment we made earlier this year. On our water day, the water is going non-stop within the law. We also have some huge trees that suck up all the water. It takes a lot of water for our large treed lot. We especially did not want to lose any of the trees during this drought. There are a lot of trees in the woods behind me that are dying are already dead.

Electricity -- we are not the best at conserving here either. I run the washer, dryer, dishwasher when I need to. We keep the thermostat at a comfortable level and sometimes as low as 72. My highest bill this year was just under $400 for my 4000+ sq ft house. We switched to Champion a couple years ago and have not had a bill over $400 since. Before Champion, we had bills that reached $700. We spent over $20,000 to rip out all the heating/air pumps, furnaces and some ductwork and upgraded with higher quality products plus added a lot of insulation. Our neighbors can't believe how low our electric bills are.

So that is the rundown for my house.

I have to say electricity. My hubby works from home and has a tv in the bedroom and his office. It seems he needs them both on all the time along with all the lights between the two rooms.

We NEVER waste food.
We plan our meals and cook before it goes bad. We use our freezer a lot to keep food on hand instead of buying too much and having it spoil. Leftovers always get eaten. Any scraps get tossed outside. The deer eat our jalepeno tops, bell pepper insides, carrot peels, etc. The fox and racoons eat any other stuff (chicken carcass, etc).

I guess in our house it's probably a tie between electricity and water.
We have tons of windows (no need for lights), but I do leave the computer on most of the day. You live in Texas like me, so you know how much we use on the air conditioner! Water - we're on a welll. We don't have a dishwasher yet, so I hand-wash the dishes. Sometimes I will dump the rinse-water into the washing machine to save water.

What about you, J.? What do y'all waste?

Electricity AND gas. Our windows are no newer than 1940's [some earlier since they still have lead weights]. Our kids are forever leaving EVERYTHING electrical on ALL day long.

And right at this moment... Water. Until we get a new toilet... The one we have is from 1927-1940. I figured that out just because the make of it and color of it was no longer after 1940.

ETA- Our home was built in 1906.

I would definitely say food. Sorry to say, this is my fault. I feel like I am forever throwing away lettuce and other delicate produce. I am getting more diligent in that area though!

For us it's food. It's like once something's a leftover it hides in the fridge until it expires. At least it gets composted.

We are good at conserving electricity- using a programmable thermostat, LED and fluorescent bulbs, solar screens, and turning things off when they're not in use. We bought a kilowatt meter so we can test appliances to see how much electricity they use, even when off. The big surprise was the washing machine, at 17 watts all the time it's plugged in.

Because of the drought(and a water system that needs a repair) our city is under the tightest water restrictions we've ever seen. No outdoor watering. No washing the car(not even commercial car washes). We will find a way around it a little bit by refilling the bird bath with air conditioner water and dumping any melted ice on the lawn.

I would say food, electricty and then water...usually.

However, since my sister and nephew moved in two months ago electricty has been number one. Which is my pet peeve. I am always on the go, but it never fails if I come home and no one else is there the tv is on, at least one light in every room is on. Makes me go bananas.

I do not eat leftovers except for chili, and meatloaf...so if hubs doesn't eat leftovers for lunch then it ends up sitting in the fridge til I have to hunt down the container.

Its gotta be electricity.......ive been conserving water like crazy.

Food....and it makes me so sad. I try so hard to just buy what we need and use it up, but we don't really like leftovers and I always like to have lots of fruits and veggies in the house and they just go fast! I have been trying to cook just what we will eat and buy less, but it is hard sometimes. Luckily(or unlucky) My MIL lives next door and is single, and hates to cook, so I usually send her my leftovers, so that it isn't going to waste.