Pay for usage

I am a real cheapo. Guess it's the upbringing that took me here. Never waste anything, never pay more than you have to.

In Switzerland we pay for trash bags. About 1 francs for a 17-liter-bag and a little more than 2 francs for a 35-liter. This is how it's financed in Switzerland. Not through the taxes but through usage. I like the method.

Reminds me of a flat I had earlier in my life. There you paid a fixed fee for gas usage (the stove). Same fee for a one-room flat as for a three-room flat. Normally in a three-room flat there would be a family, probably using the stove daily and a lot. In my flat it was hardly ever used, since I was working all the time and hardly cooked at all. Called the responsible politician once, who of course never returned my call.

Anyway, on Thursday mornings (long, LONG before I surface from my bed) they pick up the trash, and since I now have more or less grown-up cats (gosh, do they shit a lot! If I had their metabolism I would be very, very skinny!) I like to bin whatever trash I have on Wednesday evening.

Today it's Wednesday evening, and my trash bag was only half full. But clever me went down to the basement, found some old books that nobody would read anymore, and filled the bag up. Problem solved. And I can go to bed with a good conscience, that I didn't waste half a trash bag :).