Have I mentioned that I work in a startup?
Well, I do, and exactly in line with popular belief, we get some pretty fun perks.
One of them is our candy wall. Twice a week, we have an amazing assortment of snack jars refilled with everything you thought adults ate all the time when you were a kid. There are single-serving bags of chips, chocolate covered almonds, jelly beans, trail mixes, M&Ms, popcorn, you name it.
So, like any sane adult who’s enjoyed an active metabolism their whole life, twice a week I paid a not-insignificant visit to the candy wall. I won’t lie to you guys: I pretty regularly took a bag of chips. Or more than one handful of chocolate almonds.
Ok NOT eating the abundant free snacks at work is my Everest.
The chocolate almonds are RIGHT there.
Stupid "fitness."
— Desirae Odjick (@half_banked) November 16, 2015
What can I say, they’re my weakness.
It’s easy to deviate from your standard apple-and-all-natural-peanut-butter snack when there are options like that within plain view of your desk. Plus, they’re all free, so if anything, I was saving money, right?
But then I started to notice that… ahem… I might have put on a bit of weight.
Which ok, is not entirely shocking, considering I was eating multiple handfuls of chocolate almonds every week. And those chips probably didn’t help either.
So while I was saving a marginal amount of money with my free snacks, I wasn’t doing myself any favours on the fitness front. This realization, and the brutal at-home workout regime I’ve since put myself on, have made me realize a few key things about the value of “free.”
Free is only valuable when it aligns with your goals.
Being healthy is important to me. Over the years, I’ve been on-and-off with a variety of different fitness interests, including a stint doing 8 hot yoga classes every week, and another year spent training for and running two half-marathons. Surprise! I come by my candy consumption honestly. I’ve burned my fair share of calories.
Even while I was eating the delicious, delicious candy, I knew it didn’t align with my goals. I just didn’t realize how out of sync it was until I stepped on a scale after suspecting that it was taking its toll. Yikes. Talk about not aligning with my goals.
On the other hand, it was a great wakeup call to be more deliberate with my non-financial goals. Since that day, I’ve been doing a daily at-home strength workout, and haven’t taken a single sugary treat from the candy wall. Even though they’re free snacks, I’m committed to my health goals, and “free” isn’t a good enough reason to compromise on them.
Free is only valuable when it’s something you’d pay for.
I do all of the grocery shopping for The Boyfriend and I, and that means I make all of our food choices. For someone with so little restraint in the face of free candy, I do remarkably well in the grocery store. We’re always stocked up with healthy food, fruits and vegetables to snack on, and we never eat any processed foods. I even resist bringing home my favourite bag of Kettle Chips every single time.
So when I look at how much I would pay for all of the free candy and chips I was eating, the answer is “Nothing.” In fact, I look at the time I spend preparing food on the weekend as an investment in the exact opposite: I do all that work to make sure we don’t rely on processed, sugary, fatty foods to get through the week.
I pay to avoid candy and junk food, with both money and time. Just because it’s then offered to me for free is a bad reason to eat it.
Free isn’t a good excuse.
It would be so easy to know all of this, really know it, and eat the candy anyways. It’s free candy, guys!
But that’s the thing. No matter what excuse you try to make “free” fit into, it’s never going to be rock-solid.
Trying to declutter, but you found a free thingamabob that you just have to have, because it was free? Still not a good excuse to keep the thingamabob.
Trying to spend more time with family, but you just got a free new video game? Still not a good excuse to play the game.
Trying to get back into tip-top shape, but there are free chocolate almonds? Still not a good excuse to eat all the chocolate almonds.
So for the time being, the candy wall and I are in a fight. I’m not saying I’ll never eat from the free candy wall again, because I’m still human, but for the next two months, my highest priority goal is getting back into my happy shape. Not my mindless two-bags-of-chips-a-week shape.
Because sometimes, free just isn’t worth it.
Have you ever found something that was free to be more trouble than it was worth? I’d love to hear about it – I struggled to find other examples for this post! Fill me in! (Also, tales of avoiding delicious snacks are encouraged. Solidarity.)
I am in almost the same boat as you! My husband’s job puts him in the position to receive free bags of chips on occasion. And not those little single serving bags, I’m talking “family packs”, literally a kilogram of chips. He’s a very frugal person and has a hard time saying no to free stuff, so for the first six months of his new job, we were rolling in chips, and it was taking its toll on my health.
So finally I said “no more chips!” and we’ve been chip free for about a month. It just doesn’t make sense to have them, even if they are free.
Oh my gosh Jordann free full sized bags of chips would be my absolute downfall. As it is, if I’m going to indulge in *something* on an occasional basis, it’ll be chips. (Have you ever had Kettle Chips? Their salt and vinegar flavour will change your life.) Good for you for putting your foot down and resisting!
Also, I have to say, I absolutely love your blog – I’m incredibly flattered you read this! It’s awesome to connect with you!
We didn’t have free stuff but when I worked in a secure location, we had really cheap stuff, like a quarter for a soda. There were vending machines outside but you had to key in and key out, which was a pain… especially if you were the last person there. It was run by someone in the group and the “profits” were put towards the holiday happy hour, so it was basically free.
I realized that it wasn’t so much the soda or the food, but the trip. Just taking a little break with a friend, to walk down there, pick out something, walk back… so eventually we changed it to walking around the building. That replaced the automatic “eat a bag of chips and a soda.”
It’s hard to cut out something, easier to replace it. (at least for me)
Oh I have totally had that realization!
I worked downtown in my first job and the street we were on had probably 17 coffee shops within walking distance – and really good, local ones, too. My entire team would go out for coffee and a snack every afternoon, especially in the summer when it was nice to get outside. Not only was it bad for my health (the snacks sometimes skewed towards jelly beans, haha) but it wasn’t great for my wallet either, so I had to shift towards looking forward to the walk and the break, and less towards the coffee and sugary snack. Basically, I couldn’t agree more on the replacing, not eliminating strategy – it’s a great one!
Working for a start-up sounds fun! haha. I don’t have the problem of free snacks at work, but I agree with the sentiment whole-heartedly! For me, the free stuff isn’t worth it if the trade off is a lot of my time. Things like “free events” at stores, or free frozen yogurt at Yogurtland one day out of the year aren’t worth it because it costs me SO much in time (the lines are typically entire blocks long). Instead, I tell myself that I can buy the item tomorrow if I still really want it. 9 times out of 10, I forget about it all together, haha. I think that anytime you sacrifice your health, mental well-being or excessive amounts of time, free isn’t worth it, no matter how tempting it may be. Great post, as usual 🙂
Oh that is such a killer example, thanks Taylor! I hadn’t even thought about the time angle for the “free” days at different stores, but it’s so true. When you stop to think about how much you could make if you spent an hour freelancing vs. an hour waiting in line for a yogurt, it really puts things in perspective! I had to do this with volunteering for free yoga classes at my local studio – when I looked at the relative value of 4 hours/week of my time, versus the cost of the classes, my at-home yoga DVDs started to look even better, haha.
OMGOSH, I can relate entirely to the problem of free workplace snacks. The women I work with are always baking, bringing in their leftover Halloween candy, or simply handing out (same) chocolate almonds. I am pretty good at avoiding, but sometimes I cave because, well, Mondays.
Another thing you mentioned that’s “free” and doesn’t align with my goals is anything you can get from tradeshows, job fairs, or any other organization event that hands out what they call “swag” and I call…JUNK. I am trying to eliminate clutter from my life and only keep things that are essential. I wouldn’t go as far as saying I am a minimalist by any means, but these trinkets are only holding me back from keeping a clean and sane home.
I totally understand what you mean. YOU CAN AVOID THE CANDIES. Stay strong.
Ugh yes the trade show swag is brutal. SO MANY PENS. And weirdly configured off-brand Post-It notes. In a hilarious twist, the best trade show booth giveaways I’ve seen have been free snacks, because you enjoy them and then they’re gone. The irony, eh?
And baked goods are even *harder* to avoid! There’s the element of “Oh, these are just here today, and it’s not like I can just buy it at the store…” I went through a baking phase last year and my proudest moment was baking a requested batch of cookies for my boyfriend and not eating any because I was on a strict diet. I’m basically Supergirl.
Free candy is a terrible perk! You should seriously consider asking them to provide free fruit as well. If there was delicious fresh pineapple, I would be less tempted. (But good choice on those chocolate almonds. That’s where I would go as well.)
Haha we have “fruit day” on Wednesday, which is a welcome break! On that day I definitely do partake in the free food, and it’s amazing. The HR team has also been great about adding in healthier jars among the candy – I found some plain almonds last week that were great! There’s also a weird seed trail mix that is disgusting but healthy in a pinch. Seeds are apparently not my jam.
Fruit Wednesday sounds incredible! Change the mentality at work. Request better options. I bet you’re not the only one struggling!
Hahaha I’m for sure not – it’s a constant source of conversation! It’s basically a round-robin of “who’s avoiding the snack wall this week.” They’ve been really great at adding additional healthy options – like fruit Wednesday! – and raw almonds and stuff, especially since someone was hired to coordinate all of our office stuff. She’s pretty healthy, so I think she’s been a great influence on the free-candy program 🙂
Wait…you’ve run two half-marathons, too?! Right on – so have I (I’m giving you a virtual internet high-five)! Maybe we should join in solidarity and commit to running a third – I’m getting the itch to train & run again! 🙂 Okay…so I take back what I tweeted yesterday about dark chocolate benefits & I fully support your decision to be in a fight with the candy wall lol! One of my free pitfalls that caught up to me really fast was T-SHIRTS. Yes, T-shirts from any & all events I have ever participated in (runs, dance competitions/workshops, college happenings, promotions, volunteer events, etc.). Suddenly, I had probably close to 100 stowed away in my closet….the problem was, I liked to keep them because it was a tangible memory from that event that I held as a keepsake (& they serve as excellent sleep & gym shirts). It was just last year that I laid them all out and my fiancé just gave me the crazy eye look & told me I had to find a way to give away over half. That was challenging…I had to unfold each one, recount the memories, then decide which ones could go. It was one of my first kick-start activities to de-cluttering! After all was said & done, I felt incredibly happy to donate over half those shirts to people who really could use them. Great post, Des! I love this.
Haha, I love that you wrote a post about that Twitter conversation. I do stand by my statement that almonds can be considered a health food, but your point is very, very well taken. 🙂 I’m really just jealous because the free food at my workplace is sporadic at best, and widely varying in quality.
I think there’s also an interesting relationship between junk food and finances. It’s amazing how much it costs to eat healthy food, which is sort of a non-intuitive phenomenon to me. This obviously comes into play with highly processed, sugary foods being much cheaper than organic vegetables (at least, calorie to calorie). But I think it also comes into play here in the situation you’re talking about: free food is very, very often junk food. I’m not sure why, but it is. Good for you for sticking to your goals and making a different choice! 🙂
I know people who drive for miles and miles to buy reduced mobile phones or – wait for it – petrol. Same thing. The cost of getting there cancels out the savings, plus, you`re wasting valuable time.
With regards to free sweets at work, I see it like that: I cannot eat just a few sweets. A little bit of cake often causes a craving for more, which I then have to go out and buy. So I do pay. Never mind the guilt trip after having eaten all that. I accept things if they are really nice (homebaking!) but if they are not (shop bought cakes or ordinary chocolate) I either decline or take some for later. I put them in my desk and if I crave chocolate a week later, I don`t need to go out and buy it, so it will be a free treat after all.
I like the taking for later approach! One of my biggest issues is that I have to remind myself that even if I don’t eat it now, it doesn’t mean I can never eat it. In fact, when I had this realization, I froze a box of cookies that I would have been sad not to finish, haha. I can eat them as a January treat if I want them then! But yeah, I struggle with the snacking FOMO, so I love that you save the ordinary treats for later. Such a smart idea, thanks for sharing it Bianca!
This is very true. I have to admit I’m a sucker for anything “free”, but my wife often complains that it’s something we don’t need or want and it ends up getting “decluttered” at some point. When you’re spending, you need to spend your goals, and that includes spending time, space, and calories!
Yes, yes, yes! Your wife is a wise woman, haha. I couldn’t agree more that the approaches we talk about so often in terms of money need to be equally applied to all of our other resources.
YES. Fortunately, I have worked around remarkably little free food over time, BUT when I travel for work (which is, like, all the time), I don’t have strict spending restrictions, and when I’m at a restaurant, I could go ahead and throw on a dessert and no one would bat an eyelash. Those are the rare moments when I’m glad to have celiac, meaning no restaurant desserts will pass muster anyway. But on the free and values point, our big thing is not letting clutter in, and also not increasing demand for manufactured products, so saying no to freebie stuff is a priority. I have to go to a fair number of conferences for work, and there it’s a real challenge. But I can usually find a colleague who wants that free water bottle for a kid, since we have plenty. (Though — confession time — I did recently take home a free selfie stick from a conference, since I actually think I’ll use it. Not for selfies, but for better landscape photos, since I can raise the camera up high and get a better view!) 😉
I’m already thinking ahead to how I’m going to manage my upcoming week-long work trip in January to CES. Food that can be easily expensed is a whole different ball game, *especially* when some of us only get to eat Chipotle on work trips. (Yes, I’m easy to please. All my boss can talk about is an $800 sushi meal he had last time he was in Vegas, and I’m over here looking up where the nearest Chipotle is to our hotel.)
Also, if I leave CES without a selfie stick I’m going to be so sad. Is that the secret to some of your stunning landscape photography? If so, I definitely need one. And I’m sure there might be a few more selfies once you guys don’t have to be quite so anonymous!
My former employer had “free” fruit and oat type bars in our socially engineered kitchen.
Sugar, Sugar and more Sugar.
As an insulin-resistant person, I had no sugar-not even veggies- for a year and a half and lost 30lbs.
The only people who really needed this were 12 year old soccer players, not desk workers.
Hahahahaha oh my god Suze I died laughing at this – “socially engineered kitchen.” I know exactly what you mean, which makes it even funnier.
Also, wow on the sugar-free year! I know it’s medically-driven, but even with such a valid driver behind it, that’s amazing. I’ve done two weeks with no processed sugar a few times, and I definitely notice a difference. That said, I still eat fruit during that time, so it’s definitely not “sugar free”.
Yes, great point! I had a recent purge of belongings when we shifted house, and thinking back on it, it was mainly stuff that I’d picked up for free or gotten as a hand-me-down from someone else that got passed along.
Yes! I’m not going to lie, free and almost-free things that I can take on as “projects” are my one true weakness. I’ve been known to rescue furniture from the side of the road, with grand ambitions about refinishing it and making it amazing… And then I realize three months later it’s still in the garage. My boyfriend has been an excellent influence in getting me to jettison my well-intentioned future projects if I haven’t touched them in a few months!
PS. Oh my goodness I love your blog! I’ve never been to New Zealand but it’s on my bucket list – I’m sure living there it loses its “omg you LIVE HERE?!” vibe a little, but that’s SO cool.
It’s a bit hard to explain, but the short version is that I have an office job and am in charge of purchasing French fries and appetizers such as onion rings and mozzarella sticks by the truckload. Literally. So. I also have access to a deep fryer, and all of these treats I choose to make. Plus, others are always asking me to cook things.
It feels impossible to resist delicious, free food! I too have gained weight, and progress is slow. The only things that (sometimes) work for me are always having healthy snacks and forcing myself to eat those before I eat something unhealthy, and just not having even one bite. One bite leads to 39 bites!
Oh my god I am RIGHT THERE WITH YOU on the one-bite-leads-to-a-zillion-bites thing. I find it’s (relatively speaking) much easier to not even have one bite, than to “just have one bite.”
Also, I am the most intrigued about what kind of office you work in that has a deep fryer! My bets are either a) startup of some kind or b) the office of a manufacturer of food or food equipment. Deep fryer factory? Shopify? SO INTRIGUED.
My spouse is a chef, need I say more…lol. Early in our relationship I had to lay the ground rule of not bringing food home. Like you, I do all the grocery shopping in our home (chefs are not allowed to go grocery shopping…spending $60 on a bag of groceries is not okay!). The cart stays pretty healthy as my snack rule is it needs to be $2 or less; so, needless to say we’re only snacking when I have a coupon.
Hahahaha oh my goodness, I can’t even imagine sending a chef to the grocery store! As it is, my wonderful boyfriend will come home with like, $6 gourmet beef jerky when I send him. It’s only ever one thing, and it’s a fantastic running joke, but there’s a reason I do the groceries 😉