When we bite off more than we can chew — and eat — we’re wasting money. (Photo: Fickr @ 욕망 시리즈)

When we waste money, we waste other things. Consider the food that is, most likely, going bad in your fridge. You had the best intentions for that new pistachio milk, or those zucchinis, or the cajun fish sticks, but eventually, everything returned to its primordial slime state.

So when you throw all that out, you’re not only wasting the food itself and the money you spent on it ($640 a year for the average American), but also the energy it took to grow it, to make it, to transport it, to package it, to put it on the shelf at the store and to get it home. There’s nothing we do, ever, anywhere, that isn’t part of some big or little butterfly effect.

Here’s my story in Forbes about other things we waste.