Odds, Ends, and Adult Beverages

I ran across this graphic on Facebook today and thought it appropriate to share on the blog. How very very true this is!

In other news, today, after sorting through our tax paperwork and sending it to our tax preparer (1), we ran some errands.

We dropped off our collection of natural corks at BevMo for recycling. I asked the cashier for help and he took my corks over to this box:

Cork recycling box at BevMo.

Next time I go, I can just empty them into the container myself. They do NOT recycle plastic/synthetic corks, so I am planning to look into TerraCycle to see if I can send the plastic corks to them. I'll also look into what else I can send to them - basically, anything I can't find a local recycler for.

While at BevMo, we noticed they were having their 5¢ wine sale, so we stocked up. This got me thinking about bottles. Bottles are recyclable, so they're ok, right? Well.... Recycling is good - certainly better than sending stuff to the landfill! - but it's better to Reuse than to Recycle. One can reuse wine bottles in a number of ways (filling with bulk olive oil or other liquids, for example), but how many bottles does one household need to keep around?

Let's back up another R in the cycle and think about Reducing the number of wine bottles that come into the house. I don't think either of us is interested in stopping drinking wine, so how the heck do we do this? It took me a few tries with Google, but I managed to finally come up with a search string that led me to a San Diego winery that sells "Litros" - refillable wine "growlers"! Brian & I have enough wine in the house to last us a couple of months, but we are looking forward to taking the time to go check out Vinavanti Urban Winery and Tasting Room! If their house red is good, we may make it a regular part of our lives. I wish they would refill bottles we bring in rather than forcing us to buy a new bottle for that, but... baby steps. For now I'm just happy to find a local source for this!

Brian & me with our new growlers!

Speaking of growlers, we also took a trip over to Stone Brewery and bought 2 one-liter growler bottles. Brian filled his with Stone IPA, and I filled mine with Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale. It actually works out to be a wee bit more expensive to buy via growler than via individual bottle (and the bottles keep longer in storage), but I reminded Brian that using refillable bottles is about cutting back on waste, not necessarily about saving every penny.

Hmmm, I just had a thought: I should find out if Stone would give us a discount for returning their bottles to them??  That would be the best of both worlds!! I will find out and report back here.

Finally, we went over to CostCo to transfer my prescriptions from CVS. I have three prescriptions and, under our (previous) insurance plan, they cost a $10 co-pay each. At CostCo, WITHOUT going through insurance, two of my medications went down to $4.99 each, while the third is $8. Since prescription co-pays do not count toward an insurance's deductible, there is absolutely no benefit for me to pay $10 each when I can get them for less! I feel like kicking myself for not doing this sooner. How much money did I "waste" on prescription co-pays?!?

We'll transfer Brian's four prescriptions over in a couple of weeks when he needs them to be refilled. A couple of his are name brand, not generic, so they will probably cost more than the co-pay used to be, but I don't believe COBRA covers prescription drugs, and even if they do, the premiums plus the co-pay would probably be more than the cost of buying it via CostCo. Will report back when I know more.

That's it for now. We did have plans to go out with a friend tonight, but our plans fell through. It looks like now we're going to snuggle together and watch hockey on the tube. Oh! and I need to pack for a Sonos weekend. My plane leaves at 7:00am tomorrow! Ugh!


(1) Yes I know it costs less to prepare and file ourselves, but between Brian's foreign holdings (he's Canadian, remember) and my self-employment income, it is too hard for a non-expert to prepare them and too easy to make serious mistakes. The IRS does not like mistakes....

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