Choices: The Expensive Coffee Debate

Starbucks on Briggate

Image via Wikipedia

I read several Personal Finance blogs, one of which being Consumerist.  I have to admit, lately I haven’t been as focused on reading all the blogs in my reader feed as I normally am, but this particular post caught my eye.  Apparently, Katie Couric interviewed Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, on CBS Sunday Morning.  In her interview she asked him questions about the price of Starbucks’ coffee drinks, and implied that the CEO and the company have, acted irresponsibly by continuing to offer expensive coffee drinks, when people could no longer afford to pay $5 for a latte.

First, I am not a coffee drinker, so I don’t typically spend any money in places like Starbucks.  Also, I tend to only go to Starbucks when I have a gift card.  So, for me, Starbucks falls into my “luxury” category of spending.  This means, it is not something I NEED to spend money on, but sometimes a hot chocolate makes me feel good so it’s a treat.  Dining out, going to movies (and getting snacks at the movie theater,) shoe shopping all fall into that category for me typically.  What I’ve learned, especially in regard to money, is life is full of choices.  Ultimately, it is the consumer’s choice to pay $5 for a coffee.   If you can’t afford the coffee, don’t buy it, there are plenty of less expensive options available to people.  I do not hold Starbucks responsible for a person’s inability to pay for a coffee.  The same way that I do not hold Christian Loubiton responsible for making gorgeous shoes I can not afford.  In my mind, any coffee made not at home, or that has flavors added to it is in essence, a “designer,” coffee, and with “designer” labels comes cost.  If you can not pay the cost, you shouldn’t be purchasing the items.  I believe that attempting to scapegoat the company is simply trying to shif the level of responsibility off the individuals.  It’s your money, people! Starbucks isn’t forcing you to shop there!

In the comment section of the post at Consumerist, one person brought up a great point. This particular commenter stated that he continues to go to places like Starbucks because he enjoys the atmosphere, but also because he knows the higher cost of the coffee goes into better paying salaries and benefits for the employees of the company.  By patronizing Starbucks he is voting with his dollar for a company that treats its employees well and offeres competitive benefits.  This was interesting to me because the reasoning was similar to friends I have who WON”T shop at places like Wal-Mart.  They don’t agree with many of the corporate policies, so they choose not to shop there. Do you vote with your dollars?

The fact that this was even an argument seemed ridiculous to me.  Why should Starbucks change their pricing if their sales are still strong? 

What do you think?  Has Starbucks acted irresponsibly in the face of the recent financial crisis?

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Catherine, March 30th 2011 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in 2011, blogs, in the news, life, money, wtf

The Great School Lunch Debate

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

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I recently came across an article on CNN.com about a teacher who ate 162 days of school lunches, and blogged about it.  This to me is just another piece in the puzzle that is the great school lunch debate. Last year I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, where he attempted to take over the school lunch programs and change the health of a town in West Virginia.  It was amazing to see nutritionally what goes into school lunches, and the amount of politics involved in securing the food and drinks for those lunches.  Seeing the budget these school districts have to work with, as well as what is currently passing as “nutritious” food choices was disgusting.

One portion of the show had Jamie asking children to identify various vegetables, and most of the children couldn’t identify hardly any.  It made me so amazingly sad to see that these children were simply not being exposed to the healthy, whole foods they should be eating.

Sadder still was that according to the FDA, offering french fries as an option counted as a vegetable for most school lunches.  These children were choosing foods like pizza, french fries, flavored milk (with more sugar than a soda,) and chicken fingers each and every day.  Scarier still was the push back from parents that was seen.  Parents, upset with the changes to the school lunches began sending their kids with food that were little more than candy.

Look, I definitely had lunchables as a kid, and I’m sure it isn’t easy being a parent and getting your picky kids to eat anything healthy, but shouldn’t our schools be a place to help foster that kind of healthy behavior in children? When I moved from public to Catholic school in the third grade, we only had hot lunch available every so often, I think maybe only once a month, because it was done on a parent volunteer basis.  Even then we had meals that probably weren’t all that great for us.  I know we had pizza, hot dogs, sloppy joes, all those easy and inexpensive to make in bulk foods that kids will eat.  Luckily for me, and probably most of my peers, we were getting mostly healthy breakfasts, and dinners in between.  But, what about all the kids who aren’t getting the good foods at home to balance out the unhealthy lunches?

Well into the writing of this post, I came across another blog posting on The Simple Dollar  which pointed out,  citing an article featured in USA Today, that the standards for meat in school lunches are LOWER than the standards for meat in fast food.  LOWER! If that doesn’t get your blood boiling, I’m not sure what else will.   After the recent Taco Bell lawsuit, which alleges that their “seasoned beef,” is well, hardly that, it makes me literally sick to my stomach to think that the standards our government holds our public school foods to is LOWER than those it holds our fast food restaurants to.  Considering the standard of meat in fast food restaurants is pretty dismal, that certainly does not bode well for what is being fed to our children, at school.  Trent, over at The Simple Dollar in his own post goes into some details about how making food at home is not only healthier, but also even more cost effective than purchasing “value menu” items at a fast food restaurant. 

Maybe it’s just because I’m a total bleeding heart, and I think that caring for and teaching our future generations to take care of themselves, and each other is important, but why is this still such an issue?  Why do we continue to allow politics to enable our schools to feed our kids crap? Again, I’m not a parent, so maybe I’m way off base here, but shouldn’t parents be able to do something about this?  Shouldn’t the food our schools, especially our government funded schools be up to some kind of higher standard?  What the hell are my tax dollars being spent on?! Strawberry milk and french fries, and meat that is of lower quality than that found in fast food restaurants?  No thank you.

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Catherine, February 1st 2011 | Tags: ,
Posted in Eating, food, in the news, life

Be Kind

(source)

I’m taking a bit of a detour as far as postings go, because this is something I felt was important.

The shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords today in Tucson, Arizona has left me feeling both sad and disappointed.  Sad for the obvious reasons, violence in general, always makes me sad.  Disappointed because, while I understand people’s passion for their beliefs and life, I can not rationalize the amount of anger, hatred and violence surrounding politics in this administration.

Look, I understand that we will all have our differences.  I understand that not everyone is pleased by the decisions made within and by our government.  I get it, I do, because I’m not always thrilled by the way things pan out.  But, when people immediately jump to conclusions, and point fingers, and blame, it makes me even more sad.

I’m not wholly versed in knowledge of the suspect in custody who allegedly shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at point blank range, but from what I have read about him, he doesn’t sound so much like “right-wing” conservative crazy, as mentally unstable.  Period.  His rambling seem more paranoid schizophrenic to me than truly political in nature.  And, no, Sarah Palin is not my favorite person, and I generally cringe when I listen to her speak, or hear news stories about her, but I’d like to believe that her ill advised Take Back 20 cross-hairs emblazoned map had more to do with a theoretical “taking back” than any actual violent agenda.  Look, she’s more than proven that she is a PR nightmare, I think it’s possible that that map was another publicity stirring stunt of hers, and I just wish that we could all take the time each day to step back.  To take a breath and look around and just be kind to one another.

Putting aside political views, religious views, skin color, race, whatever.  Just, be kind to each other.  At the end of the day, each one of us is a human being with families and friends and jobs and feelings.  Each one of us is worthy of the time and energy it takes to be kind to one another. It may not always be easy, sometimes people make it difficult for us to like them, but I truly believe, if we could all just be even a little bit nicer to each other, our lives would all be a lot better.

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Catherine, January 8th 2011 | Tags:
Posted in 2011, in the news, life

Party Girl – Moving On

I didn’t drink or smoke in high school, but I sure made up for that once I hit about 19.  I’ve had more than my fair share of embarrassing drinking related stories (some of them are kind of funny now, like the time I rolled down Mt. Davidson in San Francisco, or the time I threw up all over a guy I liked,) so when I saw this article on Health.com about Binge Drinking and Teen Brains, I wasn’t surprised.

I think we sometimes forget that drinking and using drugs of any kind are ultimately effecting our body chemistry.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy a drink, but I’ve really reigned it in.  I basically stick to a glass or two of wine per week, or a couple of beers in a week, and really, drinking like I used to isn’t fun anymore.  Waking up on a Saturday or Sunday (or hell, even a Thursday a few years ago,) feeling like I’d been run over by a truck is awful.  After several years of lots of drinking, and a handful of evenings I couldn’t remember, I decided enough was enough.  As I said before, I still drink, just certainly not to the same excess as before. The truth is, cutting back alcohol (or even cutting out like I did for Lent this year,) wasn’t as difficult as I feared it would be.  Some people gave me a hard time about it, but once I am set on something, I am hard to derail.  Much like not drinking in high school wasn’t hard, changing my life again wasn’t hard.  I simply made the decision, and that was that.

Have you reigned in your party days?

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Catherine, October 26th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in in the news, lessons, life

Day Time TV

''I Love Lucy

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While I was home sick today, I watched I Love Lucy, Oprah (where Martha Stewart attempted to teach me how to fold a fitted sheet,) Friends, Gilmore Girls, and now, I am watching Back to the Future which seems to be on TV all the damn time now.

I’m feeling better, but my ear is still bothering me a bit, and my throat is sore.  Going to have to power through and get back to work tomorrow.   I definitely needed the staying in bed all day for the past two days, which is annoying because I hate being sick.   It was nice to spend the day with my kittehs though.

Travis got some more parts for his Camero yesterday, Little Bits, of course, needed to inspect the boxes.

I haven’t been writing about food since all I’ve been eating is a loaf of french bread and some Progresso Chicken with Wild Rice soup.  The good news is that the weather here is kind of gross, so it’s great soup weather.

I was having a hard time staying focused enough to participate in the #fitblog discussion but I’ve been ruminating about the Marie Claire article in the past few days, and I really think what this whole thing comes down to is that our entire culture is “skinny at any cost” obsessed.  I think that is pretty obvious when you consider that magazines offer in the same issue, an article confronting weather food bloggers trigger ED, as well as “how to lose 10 pounds in X days.”  It isn’t just the articles that are upsetting though, the advertisments found even in health and fitness based magazines, for slim quick, and other weight loss pills send more than just a mixed message.  Until, as a society, we value health as beauty, we are always going to be having the same discussions, and there will always be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black. Several people have mentioned that bloggers have a responsibility, and I agree, but I also agree that readers do as well.  We as consumers need to make our own decisions.

Finally, and this will be the last time I talk about this article, I promise, the best way to send a message to magazines is to stop voting for them with your dollars. Stop purchasing the magazines you don’t like, or don’t believe send a good message.

Ok, stepping off my little soap box now, and going to lay down on the couch while I watch Marty McFly ensure his existence.

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Catherine, October 5th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in around the interwebs, Balance, blogs, food, in the news, life

All Roud the Interwebs 10-1-10

Cover of "The Sound of Music"

Cover of The Sound of Music

Because I have limited access to the interwebs at work (i.e. I can read my google feed, but can not check my gmail,) I try to star a lot of posts from my blog feed to share with you all.  Sometimes upon further reading I decide it’s not really as exciting as I first thought, but I want to start making this a Friday Feature, because I do like sharing :)

- When Women In Films Get Short Shrift
I definitely follow Jezebel on my google reader feed.  Spending six years at an all-girls’ Catholic high school ingrained in me a healthy respect for feminism and those who write about it.  I was never a Britney Spears or Spice Girls fan, despite their alleged “Girl Power” movement, because even as a 16 year old, I knew that sexually objectifying yourself for the purpose of selling records and appealing to men was certainly not owning your sexuality, nor was it actual feminism.  But, I digress, when I first saw this article I got excited, thinking it was going to be about the way women are mostly objectified in a lot of films, but, sadly, it was disappointing.  Basically, the author had a problem with Blake Lively‘s character in The Town.  I honestly felt she did some amazing work in this film,and played the role well.  Was her character a white trash, poor, drug and drink addled young woman? Yes.  Was this character a testament to all women and their roles in films? I didn’t think so.  Especially since the male characters were pretty equally deplorable, considering they are bank robbers by trade.  Anyway, as always, the comments feed is amusing :)   Enjoy!

- Sound of Music Reunion (now with more Edelweiss!)
Actually, the article (also from Jezebel) wasn’t all that exciting, but it did have this fun video, and The Sound of Music, along with a Reba McIntyre album were the first CDs I ever owned. Seriously.

- Oh She Glows’ vegan dinner rolls.  I have not tried these, but everything on her website looks amazing, and makes me want to try being vegan (and if you know how much I love red meat, you know what an amazing statement this is.)

- Attacks on Homeless to Be Hate Crimes
Way to go Florida. Attacks on people, period are not ok. Just because someone doesn’t have a permanent home does not make them fair game.

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Catherine, October 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in around the interwebs, blogs, Friday Feature, in the news, lists, the internet

Worried

Another TV pic from huge fire / possible plane crash in San B... on Twitpic

I have friends in both Boulder, Colorado and San Bruno, California, so right now I am sitting here, watching the news and am so worried.

The news footage of this gas fueled explosion in San Bruno is so devastating, over 169 homes just completely destroyed in a matter of hours, I mean, not just oh there’s a house on fire, I’m talking, all that’s left of these people’s lives is a smoldering patch of land.  The people in San Bruno and those in Boulder have lost EVERYTHING, and just the idea of that is making me so incredibly depressed.

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Catherine, September 9th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in friendship, in the news, life, the internet, TV

Swapping

Happy Tuesday Morning!  This is a short week for me! That’s another perk of having a holiday weekend =D

This morning I started off with a bowl of Kix.  After my children’s cereal rant the other day, while I was in the grocery store the box just jumped into my cart.  Seriously, jumped halfway across the store! ;)

Caitlin posted something on The Healthy Tipping Point about Swaps and Additions to make your diet healthier.  She made a great point about most women’s magazines featuring “healthy” eating tips that are all about restricting your diet.  One of the things I dislike most about women’s magazines are the terrible body image perpetuating, un-healthy eat promoting “tips” that pass as health tips.  Diets that severely restrict your caloric intake, and the foods you can eat do not work. However, making healthy choices, portion control, and balanced meals along with exercise do work. Sure it’s not always easy to change habits, but it is possible, and while I wish there was some magical short cut to getting healthy and losing weight, there isn’t. Even people like Jasmine who have had weight loss surgeries have to work hard to lose the weight and keep it off.  It is an ongoing effort!

Anyway, Caitlin’s post talked about some great healthy swaps and additions you can make.  I took her advice last night and added raw spinach to my pasta for dinner.  The heat from the cooked pasta made the greens wilt and it was a very tasty way to get in some veggies.

I also had a small glass of this:

It was a lovely dinner, and I watched Sunday’s episode of My Boys while I ate.  Then, it was off to bed to continue reading Gone With the Wind (I swear, it will never end! There’s about 300 pages still left!) and to sleep early.

Well, I hope you all have a great day!

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Catherine, September 7th 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Balance, blogs, breakfast, Eating, food, in the news, lessons, life, operation beautiful, reading, the internet

The Heat!

Thankfully, it is cooling down here in Los Angeles, but man, last night was brutal. We do not have central air, we only have a portable unit in our bedroom.  The kittehs like to sit at the vent where the hot air comes out in the office.

Travis McGyvere’d our exhaust hose:

It’s not a perfect system, to say the least.  Last night, the kittehs managed to knock the hose out of the wall so it was spewing hot air into the room.  I woke up at midnight sweating, feeling like the heat had been turned on.  After I fixed the hose I went downstairs and filled a ziplock bag with ice and brought it to bed like a  reverse hot water bottle.  It was gross.

At least the apartment is clean.

Living room :)

Dining room

Kitchen

Look how clean the stove is!!!

This is why we can’t have nice things.

our adorable full bathroom

Office/second bedroom

Last night’s dinner of chicken, sweet potato fries and peas.

This morning I had to be at work at 7:30am for a Board Meeting.  The upside of being at work so early is twofold.  First:

BAGELS!  I had an egg bagel with low fat cream cheese and a slice of tomato.

For lunch I had my first Yogurtland.  I was going to take a picture, but I left my phone at the office thinking we were just walking down and back.  I got strawberry and Madagascar vanilla bean yogurt with strawberries, mango, almonds and chocolate chips.

I have to say that I really did enjoy Yogurtland.  The flavors were good, it was definitely creamier than Pinkberry, and I liked that you could add your own toppings, but I may prefer Pinkberry slightly.  I will probably have to try Yogurtland again just to be sure.  One thing I do prefer about Pinkberry is simply that the portion control is a little better in that I know when I get a specific size, I’m getting pretty close to a set amount of yogurt.  With Yogurtland, I ended up putting more yogurt than I probably needed to, especially since the cups they give you are so large!  As I said, there will have to be more research done before I make a final decision.

The second good thing about being at work early meant that I was done at 4pm! After work I did a treadmill workout.  I totaled a little over 3 miles in about 45 minutes.  I decided to start with the rolling hills program in the treadmill to up the ante a bit, and ended up nearly sprinting during the flat sections and power walking up the hills.  I know I probably should have done the opposite, but it worked for me ;)   After completing that workout which was a little over 2 miles in 30 minutes, I pushed myself to run almost a full mile at 5.7 on the treadmill which is really fast for me.  I made it to .70 of a mile before I had to slow it down.  Overall I’m happy with the workout. I have a ten miler planned for Saturday morning and then the Disneyland Half Marathon is the following Sunday!  I can’t believe it’s already here!  This week, I’m trying to log in some miles but not overexert myself.

I’m trying to figure out what I should make for dinner, but it’s so hot the idea of turning on the stove is just gross.  Plus we’re really low on food options.  I could make pasta, or a garden burger?  I guess I could eat the egg salad sandwich I brought for lunch today and didn’t eat =X  What really sounds good is some Chinese food though.  mmmmm

Question: How do you spend the last two weeks before a big race?

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Catherine, August 26th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in breakfast, Calypso, Eating, food, in the news, life, Los Angeles, lunch, Peanut, training, work

Microwave Meals

The traffic gods are clearly against me, and getting to work on time this week.  Between Obama’s visit, and all the construction that is taking place at literally every single route I can take to work, I’ve been late every day except Monday.  This is infuriating to me, because I really, really hate being late.  It makes me anxious, and annoyed.

This morning, as I was attempting yet another route to work, I nearly ran over Rod Stewart and his wife.  Seriously.  I was on South Santa Monica going through Beverly Hills and this blonde woman and short man with spikey hair almost stepped right into traffic, right in front of my car!  It was Rod Stewart and his wife, who, apparently is pregnant.  Watch out aging rock star! Luckily today I was only like 3 minutes late, so it almost doesn’t qualify as late, but still.

Lunch was leftover enchiladas, they were good re-heated, but I think I’m enchilada’d out for a while.

Today was another hot one, and with all the dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink, the idea of dirtying up more pots and pans and plates kind of wrecked me. I really hate doing dishes, and it’s been years since I’ve lived anywhere with an actual dishwasher.  So, I used the microwave to make dinner tonight.

Three Trader Joe’s Italian style meatballs, leftover pasta and Trader Joe’s Bolognese sauce.  It was yummy, and just enough food so I am full but not uncomfortable :)

I have to admit, I am in a bit of a funk.  My birthday is on Monday, you see, and for some reason, I just can’t get excited about it this year.  I’ll be 28, and I’m not upset, or freaked out about the age, I just am… meh about the whole thing.  My friends are planning some kind of surprise thing on Monday, which I’m sure will be fun.  Maybe I’ll go to sushi on Sunday night, I haven’t decided.  Right now I’m also in a tight spot money-wise since I JUST missed the pay period on the 10th at my new job.  So, I’ve been making one week’s pay stretch to cover four weeks.  It hasn’t been all that easy, and when I get paid next week, the timing will be perfect, since rent is due in a few weeks.

Guess what I saw featured on FitSugar?  This at-home boot camp workout from Fitnessista! Yay! I had already starred the entry in my google reader to come back to, and then I saw it featured. Angela at Oh She Glows is also featured in the same post.  How exciting!

Question:  How do you make your money stretch as far as possible?

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Catherine, August 19th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in blogs, Eating, food, friendship, in the news, life, Los Angeles, lunch, the internet
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