How Many Shopping Bags Do We Really Need?
EPISODE 33
by Dianne Jimenez
This article takes 10 minutes to read
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How many shopping bags do we really need?
Ever head to the store, forget to bring your shopping bags in the car or at home then only to buy more bags to add to your growing collection?
This quick episode is about:
- Gaining awareness with the amount of shopping bags we actually have,
- How to strategically place them so it’s hard to forget them, and
- Provide a way to reduce the excess shopping bags that doesn’t involve tossing them in the trash
Enjoy the episode!
Want to go from 'drowning' to peace of mind?
Well, hello, hello, hello! Welcome back to another episode of Parenting Guide Organizing Habits Made Easy podcast. Thank you so much for being here, and I’m so excited to talk about today’s episode because this is something that I’ve been observing in the last couple of years, working with clients and myself, seeing it personally with friends and family.
And what I’m talking about are bags, but we’re not talking about purses today. No, not this episode because you know, I’m a purse kind of girl myself. I’m talking about the bags that all of us use since many stores are no longer giving out plastic bags. It’s been a while now, but I’m noticing since dealing with clients that it’s still something that is hard, that’s a little challenging, I should say. To wrap our heads around, and why do I say this? Oftentimes, and I’m saying this from experience too, we sometimes forget to bring bags with us to the grocery store or any store for that matter.
From convenience to creating new habits
Look back in the day, you didn’t have to think about it because the stores provided a plastic bag for you, but obviously for environmental reasons and definitely protecting our planet a lot better. Plastic bags are just a no-go. But from growing up where the stores just automatically gave you a bag every time you left the store, regardless of the size of your item, they gave you a bag. So it was so convenient.
Now we have to think about our own habits and the way we do regular daily stuff, and that is bringing bags with us to the grocery store or any store for that matter. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I keep forgetting to bring my bags. Oftentimes I end up going back to my car and getting my bags or just sucking it up and keeping everything in the cart. Then bagging all my things from the back of my car in the middle of the parking lot when it’s minus whatever outside.
Yeah, it’s not fun. So that’s kind of a lesson I learned to never forget the bags, but it does happen. And I can imagine now my kids are a lot older, but as a mom of toddlers or babies, it’s a lot to think about. You know, you gotta carry the kid, you gotta carry everything that relates to them, the diaper bag, your own purse if you have one, and now you gotta think about your shopping bags. Ugh, I do not envy the moms right now in that situation because there’s so many things to think about already. It’s really easy to forget about bringing a shopping bag when you go grocery shopping, right?
find out how families with 3+ kids tackle the beast: laundry!
Just buy more… bags?
So the normal tendency is to buy more.
And that’s what my podcast episode is about today. It’s about all the shopping bags that we have, the ones that we keep in, in the closets, in the kitchen, around the corner and the floors. Even along the stairs, there are bags lined up. So this episode is about answering that question. How many shopping bags do I actually really need?
Are you ready to dive in? Let’s go.
Why do we have so many shopping bags?
So let’s cover the first thing. Why do we have so many bags? Well, for one thing, like I said,
we forget and we forget to bring them from our car to the store, or we forget to bring them from our house into our car and then from our car to the store. Ooh, that’s a lot. Now imagine when we already have a lot going on in our minds and we’re doing multiple things at the same time. It’s easy to forget. So it’s totally normal and it happens more often than we think.
Hence buying more bags. Which brings me to the second part as to why we have so many bags. So in the last few years, I’ve been observing through family, friends, and clients that oftentimes we just don’t know what to do with the bags. There’s so much of it, and we often say to ourselves, I might need this later on.
I might need this later on.
Ah, the classic answer and probably the number one reason why we have so many things. And when it comes to bags, yes, you will need it later on, but we can be very strategic and smart about where we place them and when we need them. Another thing we often say to ourselves is, we feel bad getting rid of bags. I get it. But there are ways to do this, and I’ll talk about that too in a bit.
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What ‘a lot of shopping bags’ looks like
So what does a lot of bags look like? What do I really mean by this? Well, allow me to illustrate when there are bags upon bags stuffed inside bigger bags. And now because these big bags are overflowing and you’re shoving new bags that you just bought in different drawers and closets, even coat pockets and probably in your car or cars, if you have more than one, and you don’t wanna get rid of any just yet. Or just because you might need it one day. That’s a lot of bags. And not only that, when you actually go through these bags and collect them from all over the place, then actually lay them out to see where you’re at.
It almost looks like you have a little gift shop. No, I’m kidding. But when it’s taking you more time to organize the bags or it’s hard to contain and hard to maintain, that’s when you know you have too many bags. Look, I get it. There is an advantage of having bags. They’re there when you need one. Now the flip side of all of this is I mentioned before maintaining it and containing it,
but what’s more is that you’ve spent so much money on all these bags. Think about it. How much are these bags anyways? I have no idea. It’s been such a long time, but I think the last time they were $1.99 for a medium sized bag and the bigger ones can go up to five bucks, and I think this is way before the pandemic.
Let’s get real: How much have we spent?
So let’s do the math on that. How many bags do you have? And multiply that by say $2 or let’s say even a dollar and then add tax. How much is that now, going back to the space and energy it takes to maintain all of this, that’s a lot. And is it worth it? On top of that, it’s all coming from you to deal with.
So my advice here is to keep it simple.
3 things to establish now before losing your s#!t later on (during the school year)
When we have too many shopping bags and what to do instead
Alright, so now that we know what a lot of bags look like, what do we do now, when there’s just too much? My answer, repurpose. And there’s so many ways to do this. So for example, I had a client who had so many bags, and on top of that, she had a lot of things that were going out to donate.
So we used her extra bags to hold all the donation items and bring to the donation centers. My daughter also uses a dollar store bag to hold her snow pants, extra gloves and indoor shoes to school because she’s now in grade five and apparently wearing snow pants to school is just not cool.
So she’d rather put everything in one bag and carry that every single day back and forth to school. A final example that I’ve been doing for so many years is I take the paper bags and use them as recycling bags, and then once that recycling bag is full, I’ll recycle the whole thing. So now that we know all of this, how do we answer the question to ‘how many shopping bags do I really need?’
It’s not about the ‘what’ but WHEN and WHERE
Well, instead of asking that, how about asking yourself when do I need them and where do they need to be when I need them? Remember earlier before, when I mentioned (about) being strategic when it comes to having too many bags and what to do about it? Well, this is where developing better habits and being strategic comes in.
Put it this way, if you’re in the kitchen and you’re preparing a salad, let’s say, or you’re making a sandwich, would it make sense to have the cutting board or your plates in a completely different room or all over the place except for the kitchen? No, it doesn’t. So you gotta think about ‘when do you need these shopping bags?’. For us? We normally need them when we go shopping.
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Best places to keep shopping bags
So the best place is to keep them in the car. So for instance, we have two cars, and in my husband’s case, because he’s been doing it every single week since the beginning of the pandemic, he’s created his own system. In the back of his car, he has a shallow, pretty big Costco box and a pretty sturdy shopping basket if you wanna call that.
But it’s got handles and it carries quite a lot of items where in my car it makes sense for me to have several medium bags neatly folded and tucked away in this square compartment in the back of my car. They’re easy to grab and they don’t fly around as I’m driving all over the place. Also, the reason why I have more bags is oftentimes, I’m with the kids and sometimes my mom.
So you never know what’s going on or whatever it is that we need that’s extra and we need bags for that. Oftentimes my mom too needs to get some groceries. So having those few extra bags helps. Another good place to keep them is at the entrance because you never know what things, things you need to take out and send to donation centers. Or if a kid needs to bring something to someone’s house,
you have a bag ready there. I also like to keep bags under the sink because whenever we have friends or family over and there’s a lot of food, it’s so convenient because the bags are right there to help them carry their leftovers. So I hope this quick and short episode is helping you right now or giving you some ideas or perspectives about where you keep your bags and how many you really need.
Stay on track with laundry & tips to getting the kids involved
Let’s recap
Now let’s do a quick recap, shall we?
First off, do an evaluation of all the bags that you have, collect them all from all over the place, checking the closets in the cars, in the drawers, everywhere. If everything is overflowing, overstuffed, or you just have multiple bags, we gotta cut it down. And the way to do this is cut it at the source, meaning stop buying more bags.
Next. I know we sometimes forget, but try your hardest and your very best to make it a habit to bring the bags with you on your way to the store. If you forget and have to turn around and walk back to your car, then count this as a positive towards your step goal for today. There’s always a silver lining here.
Now, in order to set yourself up for success here is to strategically place the bags where you need the most. Keep them nice and neat in your car or at the front entrance, ready to grab when you’re ready to go.
Finally, what to do with the excess bags you have at home? Repurpose them. Use the paper bags for recycling and anytime you need to transport items out of the house.
My action steps for you
Alright, so before I sign off here, my action for you is to collect all the bags that you have all around the house and lay them out and see what you got. If you’ve got too much and it’s getting outta hand, you know exactly what to do. Place them where you need them and only use what you really need and what can fit in this space that you’re keeping them in.
What you can also do…
So there you have it. I hope this episode was helpful for you. And if you know someone who is in this bag situation, send them the link to this episode via text or even just posting this on social media. I appreciate it so much. All right, my friends, thank you so much for listening. I will see you back here next time. Have a wonderful week. Talk soon. Bye-bye.
