Monday, May 4, 2009

Fifty Actual Dollars, or, Keeping My Earth Day Resolutions

Instead of splurging on one or two unnecessary purchases, I decided to buy these:


New reusable shopping bags from Flip & Tumble! Aren't they, for lack of a more sophisticated descriptor, CUTE?

Now, I am not affiliated in any way with Flip & Tumble, but I spent a good deal of time procrastinating doing my homework by searching for the Right Bags online, so I'm feeling good about this purchase. I tend to be a rather indecisive and picky so I had a variety of criteria and these bags met them all. They:
  1. are big enough for groceries, but also versatile enough for other purchases.
  2. are, according to the web site, washable, strong, and durable (made of "ripstop nylon").
  3. have a long enough strap to be slung over my shoulder.
  4. are compact. I opened up the "aqua" one to show how big they become, and it smooshed very easily back into a wee ball-- perfect for stashing in my purse, my backpack, my car, etc.
  5. are affordable. If you buy 7 or more they are just $7 each (plus shipping).
  6. are cute! Aren't they cute!?
And, as a bonus, the web site was fun to use. Click! Little pink bag icon appears next to my shopping cart icon! Click! Little blue bag icon appears next to my shopping cart icon! You can see how I ended up with seven.

And then, just yesterday, I was at my favorite little Japanese Variety Store and I saw these:


And I had been thinking about buying little cloth or mesh produce bags for grocery shopping but I couldn't seem to pull the trigger on buying them online for the $3ish each plus shipping. But these were only $1.50 each and I think I will legitimately use them for produce or maybe even as lunch bags. And I am planning to use the smaller ones for my morning bagel instead of wrapping the bagel in a plastic bag and then throwing it away after I eat the bagel because it's all smeared with cream cheese and I don't want to deal with it. I mean, uh, I don't do that.