BYOC - Bring Your Own Container!

Yesterday afternoon, I went to a Starbucks in Bellevue and, due to some advance planning on my part, I brought my own cup. They gave me a 10 cent discount for bringing my own cup, so... savings!

A carabiner is handy to clip my coffee cup onto my computer bag. Very stylish, and I like to think the carabiner makes me look like a bad-ass.

I was curious, and asked the barista how typical it was for people to bring their own cup (in case you hadn't noticed, they have a LOT of cups and travel mugs for sale, which I have to assume are actually purchased from time to time). He told me that about 5% of customers bring their own reusable containers., but that number goes up when they run occasional "free drip refill" months with the purchase of a cup. I told him about my project, and it really got him thinking!


I also went to the grocery store, in this case my local QFC in Ballard, and perused the bulk aisle. Bulk food selection varies quite a bit from store to store, and this one had a good selection of nuts, dried legumes and fruits, and granola. I decided to buy some roasted peanuts. To avoid using the plastic baggies, I used a small brown paper bag that I had brought from home (although these are available in the mushrooms area, bakery area, and at the checkout bagging area).

I used a paper bag to weigh out the bulk peanuts. Unfortunately I overserved myself a bit.

This QFC has a scale on which you weight the item. You punch in the item number, and then print out a label. an unfortunate aspect of using a paper bag is that it is tricky to judge how much is in your bag. Of course you can feel the weight, but I usually judge it by eye. Next time! So I ended up with more in my bag than I really wanted, but that's okay. It turned out that I saved $0.83 per pound by buying in bulk, so... savings again!