4 ms·

Objectively, a lot of the consumption of modern Western life is unnecessary. We don't have to drive out to dinner, there's edible food at home. We could skip th

Objectively, a lot of the consumption of modern Western life is unnecessary. We don't have to drive out to dinner, there's edible food at home. We could skip those bucket-list vacation trips, purchasing new items instead of making-do with old, we could live in more modest housing for our income levels. It's kind of trippy to imagine what the large-scale effects would be. If everyone cut their consumption by 1/3, our economy would contract a lot, but long-term it'd be healthier, right? Less waste, more efficiency, less environmental degradation overall, though I'll admit we need new technology to replace old dirty technology in energy. Overall, it's a very interesting subset of Westerners, the FIRE group.

notfromhere 5y ago
Probably an argument that a forty hour workweek makes that kind of unnecessary consumption possible. People with time and groceries would probably make dinner rather than go out
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I'm not sure about that, even when my wife and I were both working full time we still cooked all our own meals. It's not that much of a burden.
  - sneak 5y ago
    In-person shopping for food (including travel to/from the place of purchase), food prep, cooking, and the associated cleanup is an enormous time sink. Perhaps you have free time or are already used to spending a lot of it on these tasks, but let's not pretend that it's "not that much". It's huge.
    - kwhitefoot 5y ago
      Shopping for the four of us in this house takes about three man hours a week. Cooking about 15. That is much less than an hour a day per person. If we felt like it we could optimise the shopping even further by only shopping when we were already passing the supermarket on the way to or from work. If we felt like it we could do the shopping online and cut it down to a few minutes a week. Cooking Sunday dinner for four today took me less than two hours. Would have been faster if I had not prepared everything from scratch.
      - sneak 5y ago
        18 hours per week, and a lot of that is spent whether you are cooking for 1 or for 4, so those that live alone are talking about 15-16 hours per week. A whole waking day.
        novok 5y ago
        I think my mother realized this implicitly when I was a kid. She wasn't so motivated to cook when it was just for herself, but was when it was for the entire family. I guess in the end, it needs to become a team effort for a team result to become efficient. I'm interested in the recommendations here to help solve that problem, there are some new ones I haven't heard before: https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ost9hc/folks_in_vhcol_urban_cities_what_meal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ost9hc/folks_in_vh...
        kwhitefoot 5y ago
        We share the work between the four of us so it is much less than an hour a day per person. I bake a large loaf every other day, it takes an elapsed time of 24 hours but only 15 minutes of that is actual work.
    - handrous 5y ago
      It depends a lot on how varied a menu you want/require (or your spouse does....) Cooking with variety (or "buy whatever's on sale") is really hard if you also want to do it cheaply (minimize waste & spoilage, especially). Cooking the same few meals, maybe with some seasonal rotation, is easy because you can get the measurements of what you need each week ver exact to keep spoilage very low, and arrange them so waste from one meal always goes into another later in the week.
    - wallacoloo 5y ago
      Like anything, it’s a skill that you develop over time. Certainly at the start, you might find that cooking respectable meals takes more out of you than just ordering them. But at some point, with enough practice, this flips for most people. Of course, there might also be some survivorship bias here. And food delivery changes things (but, so too does grocery delivery).
      - sneak 5y ago
        I'm a good cook and have been cooking my whole life. Cleaning easily takes as much time as the cooking, sometimes more.
        wallacoloo 5y ago
        Well if it is just an equation of time for you, is there any sort of multitasking you can do to get more out of it? I find that I’m able to pay full attention to audio-based media when cooking meals I’ve made before, and especially when cleaning up. So if any of your day is otherwise spent with audiobooks, news, etc, maybe you could do your cooking with the time you usually spend listening to those, and sort of get it for free?
- NavinF 5y ago
  How is that consumption "unnecessary"? I bet 99% of the people here would not save money or time by working less hours and using that time to cook more often. Time spent cooking, cleaning pans, shopping and sorting/storing groceries etc can easily be >$100/day
  - MandieD 5y ago
    As long as you’re not making elaborate new recipes all the time, but variations on the same several, shopping and cooking don’t take nearly that long. I cook three or four big meals a week, generating a lot of leftovers. Since I’m in the habit of cooking and keep a well-stocked pantry, the time from “what’s for dinner?” to “time to eat!” is faster when I cook than if I order delivery. Then again, I’ve cultivated a love of cooking and a like for grocery shopping, so neither feels like a chore. My husband appears to have cultivated a non-aversion to kitchen cleaning and a keen appreciation for lower-sodium meals, so win-win.
closeparen 5y ago
Ironically I think things like a regular cooking + cleaning regime and staying very close to home are most palatable when they’re essentially forced by a 9-5 job. With time on my hands I’d have much more pressing desire to explore, sample, and generally spend on what the world has to offer.

notfromhere 5y ago

Probably an argument that a forty hour workweek makes that kind of unnecessary consumption possible. People with time and groceries would probably make dinner rather than go out

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I'm not sure about that, even when my wife and I were both working full time we still cooked all our own meals. It's not that much of a burden.
- sneak 5y ago
  In-person shopping for food (including travel to/from the place of purchase), food prep, cooking, and the associated cleanup is an enormous time sink. Perhaps you have free time or are already used to spending a lot of it on these tasks, but let's not pretend that it's "not that much". It's huge.
  - kwhitefoot 5y ago
    Shopping for the four of us in this house takes about three man hours a week. Cooking about 15. That is much less than an hour a day per person. If we felt like it we could optimise the shopping even further by only shopping when we were already passing the supermarket on the way to or from work. If we felt like it we could do the shopping online and cut it down to a few minutes a week. Cooking Sunday dinner for four today took me less than two hours. Would have been faster if I had not prepared everything from scratch.
    - sneak 5y ago
      18 hours per week, and a lot of that is spent whether you are cooking for 1 or for 4, so those that live alone are talking about 15-16 hours per week. A whole waking day.
      - novok 5y ago
        I think my mother realized this implicitly when I was a kid. She wasn't so motivated to cook when it was just for herself, but was when it was for the entire family. I guess in the end, it needs to become a team effort for a team result to become efficient. I'm interested in the recommendations here to help solve that problem, there are some new ones I haven't heard before: https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ost9hc/folks_in_vhcol_urban_cities_what_meal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/ost9hc/folks_in_vh...
        kwhitefoot 5y ago
        We share the work between the four of us so it is much less than an hour a day per person. I bake a large loaf every other day, it takes an elapsed time of 24 hours but only 15 minutes of that is actual work.
  - handrous 5y ago
    It depends a lot on how varied a menu you want/require (or your spouse does....) Cooking with variety (or "buy whatever's on sale") is really hard if you also want to do it cheaply (minimize waste & spoilage, especially). Cooking the same few meals, maybe with some seasonal rotation, is easy because you can get the measurements of what you need each week ver exact to keep spoilage very low, and arrange them so waste from one meal always goes into another later in the week.
  - wallacoloo 5y ago
    Like anything, it’s a skill that you develop over time. Certainly at the start, you might find that cooking respectable meals takes more out of you than just ordering them. But at some point, with enough practice, this flips for most people. Of course, there might also be some survivorship bias here. And food delivery changes things (but, so too does grocery delivery).
    - sneak 5y ago
      I'm a good cook and have been cooking my whole life. Cleaning easily takes as much time as the cooking, sometimes more.
      - wallacoloo 5y ago
        Well if it is just an equation of time for you, is there any sort of multitasking you can do to get more out of it? I find that I’m able to pay full attention to audio-based media when cooking meals I’ve made before, and especially when cleaning up. So if any of your day is otherwise spent with audiobooks, news, etc, maybe you could do your cooking with the time you usually spend listening to those, and sort of get it for free?
NavinF 5y ago
How is that consumption "unnecessary"? I bet 99% of the people here would not save money or time by working less hours and using that time to cook more often. Time spent cooking, cleaning pans, shopping and sorting/storing groceries etc can easily be >$100/day
- MandieD 5y ago
  As long as you’re not making elaborate new recipes all the time, but variations on the same several, shopping and cooking don’t take nearly that long. I cook three or four big meals a week, generating a lot of leftovers. Since I’m in the habit of cooking and keep a well-stocked pantry, the time from “what’s for dinner?” to “time to eat!” is faster when I cook than if I order delivery. Then again, I’ve cultivated a love of cooking and a like for grocery shopping, so neither feels like a chore. My husband appears to have cultivated a non-aversion to kitchen cleaning and a keen appreciation for lower-sodium meals, so win-win.

closeparen 5y ago

Ironically I think things like a regular cooking + cleaning regime and staying very close to home are most palatable when they’re essentially forced by a 9-5 job. With time on my hands I’d have much more pressing desire to explore, sample, and generally spend on what the world has to offer.