tl;dr - I had left over peanut butter when I was away from home. I had no practical way to get it home easily, so I instead stashed it in a Brisbane bush until I could return 2 months later.
1. The background
Recently, I organized for my Sydney based company Pearler to have a 3 day retreat in the Gold Coast for a few days. It was meant to be a few days of remote working all day followed by enjoying the beach and scenery in the evening. We did these kind of trips twice a year, and we afforded it through all the money we saved having our team work remotely full time (we had no office).
So on a Tuesday morning, many of us jumped on a plane to the Gold Coast!
Now the way we organized food 🍇 at these retreats was that instead of people purchasing things and getting reimbursements, we gave our employees a flat $60 a day (3 meals) for food. This money hit their bank account before the retreat, and they could do what they wanted with it. If they spent $40 on food, they pocketed $20 of savings, if they spent more, they were in a deficit.
The great part about this is that you feel incentivised, just like you would at home, to make your money go further - and thus don't make silly purchases "just because".
Stipends avoid unnecessary spending "just because I can" and reward individuals for taking control of their finances - something core to our company mission
2. The peanut butter
So what does any of this have to do with Peanut Butter? Well...
I decided that one way I could save money on this retreat (and make the most of my stipend) was that if I eat a big breakfast each morning that would mean I could skip lunch. My breakfast of choice was:
⭐⭐ Overnight apple cinnamon oats with blueberries and peanut butter ⭐⭐
Yes, I don't need to hear about how the ones I make look like a trainwreck. Substance over style (a common excuse used by people like me with no style).
I was feeling some a little bit luxurious on this particular day, so as I was scouring the shelves of Coles in Coolangatta I found the more expensive peanut butter and thought I'd treat myself with. Normally I do like sweetened Peanut Butter but when you're mixing it with sweet things already the natural stuff is lovely.
3. We have a problem...
Our retreat was 3 days long, and whilst I love peanut butter (as you might have seen from the photos... arguably no longer a healthy breakfast) I realised that I just wasn't going to use all of it.
For an $8 jar of peanut butter, I probably had about $3 left of peanut butter.
I hate wasting money 💀 I'm sure you might too.
Now, for the frugal ones reading this, your first thought might be - "that's fine, take it back home on the plane". Great thought. But there was a problem.
Instead of going back to Sydney after our retreat, I'd scored some EXTREMELY cheap flights to South Korea... (about $330 return) but one of the ways they were so cheap is because they went Brisbane -> South Korea -> Sydney.
So instead of flying back to Sydney with the team, I actually was catching a bus+train to Brisbane and hopping on a plane to Asia. This started to put pressure on my relationship with said peanut butter.
4. War planning
There were many ways we could have solved this exceptionally silly problem.
Option 1: Take the jar to South Korea with me
I didn’t want to bring a one third full jar of peanut butter with me to Brisbane, then Korea for a week, and then back to Sydney - particularly with Jetstar carry on baggage only! I was already bursting at the seams risking the notorious Jetstar scales+eftpos combo. There is only so many things I can fit inside my pants pockets to escape the scales...
Option 2: Give it to one of my employees for a month until I see them next (we work from home)
I didn’t want to burden an employee asking them to look after my third full jar of peanut butter for weeks until I see them again… they already think I’m crazy enough let alone handing them a half used peanut butter jar.
Option 3: Give it to a local that might need peanut butter
Funnily enough I've actually tried this many times in my life, though the issue I usually run into is that strangers in about 99% of cases will not take opened food from other strangers (how shocking) - no matter how much you reassure them of your hygiene practices.
So perhaps it was time to just throw it out...
5. The relevation
Just when I’d conceded it might be appropriate to throw it in the bin, I had a brain wave - I was coming back to the Sunshine Coast 2 months later to visit my sister, AND the QLD government was doing 50 cent trains...
Option 4: 🥇 Hide the peanut butter in Brisbane (somewhere), pick it up 2 months later
I liked this option. It had a sufficient level of insanity to it.
6. The hiding spot
It's now Friday afternoon, the team is departing back to Sydney, and I'm on a 760 Bus from Coolangatta up to Varsity lakes, to then catch a train into Brisbane central station.
Once I arrived at central, I started to walk around, thinking that finding a spot would be easy and straightforward.
Where is a place that is well hidden, but also isn't so heavily maintained that people will find it?
My first thought was Roma St Parklands - but that place is so lovely and well maintained I was worried it would get found and thrown out by the staff that look after it.
While I was approaching the parklands, I found a spot on the edge of the parklands near the "Jacob's Ladder" steps. There were tonnes of bushes!
After a lot of looking around, I found a very hearty bush that looked like it didn't need much maintain and was very deep.
So I took a deep breath, grabbed the peanut butter out of my bag, and put it in the bush. I made sure to push it deep inside so that it wouldn't be obvious to anyway sniffing about (why would they even be? Anyway)
Onward to the airport to head to South Korea... a story for another day.
7. 2 months later... Sunshine Coast!
Fast forward two months and I've just left Sydney on a flight landing in the Sunshine Coast to see my sister. I spent much of the flight anticipating what the fate of my peanut butter has been.
She has a new house in Landsborough so very graciously picks me up from the airport. Turns out Kangaroos regularly just hang out in her backyard - a true Aussie lifestyle.
The next morning I woke up and made my way to the Landsborough train station. I thoroughly enjoyed the $0.50 train code to ride into Brisbane (thank you QLD State Government for that vital help).
So many thoughts are going through my head - what if it's not there? What if I can't remember where it is?
I get off the train in Brisbane. It's a wet morning, it's sprinkling and all of the bushes are lightly dripping with water. This is going to be messy.
8. Time to get the goods
I headed back to the exact spot I thought I put it. I looked around. No dice. I checked deep in the bush, multiple different spots. Nothing. My arms were covered in dirt and water from the rain. Surely someone maintaining the park didn't take it? It was far too deep. Maybe an animal got? Unlikely - it's a slippery glass jar.
I took a step out of the bushes, breathing heavily. It was tiring. I dug up some old videos I took of me putting it in the bush.
I thought I might be searching in the wrong bush.
It was time for one last ditch attempt. Reaching into a bush - with leaves and dirt scraping my arm all the way up to my shoulder - I felt something with my fingers.
Got it
I was so excited. Though it was very wet and very muddy. So I walked down to the Westfield in the Brisbane CBD and quickly tried to run it under the sink to get all the dirt and dust off.
I will admit, seeing the dirt under the lid did teach me a lot about lids. I had assumed that no dirt would get under the lid because it's "sealed", but this taught me that the job of the lid is just to seal it around the rim of the glass specifically - so everything on the lid not within that rim was super dirty but everything within the rim was super clean.
9. $$ Profit
Alas, I had cleaned the peanut butter, taken it back to my sister's, and was ready to enjoy a final few meals of oats knowing that there was a few dollars I hadn't thrown in the bin. 🤑
10. What was the point?
I've asked myself a lot in the last 12 months "Is this even worth it?" when it comes to adventures like this. After all, we can't regularly spend 2 hours of our time trying to save $2 - it's just not practical. But also, we can't just keep saying the phrase "time is money" to absolve ourselves from bothering to do better.
My working summary is that I'll take the time to save money where I can as long as I feel there is opportunity for growth or learning - even if it's a tiny amount of money.
In this particular case I learned about peanut butter and it's shelf life, food safety, the landscape of Brisbane, how flora is maintained, and how jars work.
So would I do this again? Probably not. But, I at least know I can, what to expect, and I know a little more about how the world works.