nerd-vantage

I posted an article a while back called raw code in which I detailed the notion that having skills in technology (though the lesson is transferable to virtually every refined skill, trade, or art) means that one can get a leg up on others without that skill for simple things.

In my example, I talked about how I have solved many little problems or puzzles by writing a bit of code to support the effort. I hinted at this, but one of the biggest and most cost-savings of those has been in the realm of meal planning.

It’s no secret that groceries are expensive.

And eating isn’t exactly an optional activity.

We’re all kinda stuck between a quac and hot spice.

At least a dozen years ago I wrote the first version of a little piece of personal software we called MealPlannit. It’s simultaneously stupidly simple but also fairly complex. In essense it is a database of all our recipes, everything from elaborate and complex meals to favorite freezer meals whose sole cooking instruction is remove from box and heat.

The end result of this after a dozen years and a hundred code tweaks is that we have a database of about four hundred recipes that can be added with the click of a button to a rolling weekly plan and from which we can generate a shopping list. That’s all it does.

As simple as that sounds, we have used it faithfully for over a decade to plan meals and grocery shop. And all that simplified planning means that our nerd-vantage in the grocery store has probably saved us a few dollars each week in food wastage and impulse shopping. In fact, by my wife’s estimates we probably save about twenty bucks a week in both planning our weekly meals but in the savings that come from knowing what our core, regular recurring favorite meals are and buying ingredients when they are on sale. And that number is probably a low-ball estimate.

But if you add up twenty bucks per week over even just ten years that means this little bit of code I put together in my spare time has personally saved us about ten thousand dollars—which is a pretty nice vacation and a pretty nice advantage from just being a nerd.