November 15, 2020

by drplasticpicker

One of my favorite posts from Mr. Money Mustache is his “Pizza Delivery is for Millionaires.” https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2019/11/18/pizza-delivery-is-for-millionaires/ If you don’t know Mr. Money Mustache, he is one of the most popular FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) bloggers out there. He has a cult-like following and I used to read him semi-religiously. But life moves on and we reached our FI (Financial Indepedence) Number and decided not to retire. I will always appreciate the years of entertainment and inspiration his blog gave me. I sometimes check in on his blog, but he doesn’t actively blog much anymore. His blog is still generating probably hundreds of thousdands of dollars of revenue, but he lives a ridiculously simple life so doesn’t really need the money. What I do admire about him, is his closet environmentalism of his blog. The cult following I could do without. It’s a very masculine testosterone drive part of the internet, so I had to find somewhere else to go. But definitely check his blog out because the way he thinks about sustainable living and money is really interesting.

Although I don’t espouse FIRE, I do espouse FISE (Financial Independence Save the Earth). I had read his blog post what I thought was decades ago, but it was only last year! Essentially he said make your own pizza, and you will save money. Money was not our motivation to start our home-made pizza dough. Our motivation was the fun of cooking it, and also saving on plastic. I find those little plastic tables that go into the center of the delivered pizza all the time on the beach. It’s ridiculous. The pizza boxes I would try to recycle the non-greasy parts and now I can even compost the the cardboard that has greese stains. But the truth is, if I really have to deal with the waste that comes with pizza delivery – it’s a lot of work. Even refusing the single-use pepper flakes and parmesan packets takes effort. Not to mention that we usually over-order and over-eat, and in our quest “to be healthier” usually order an overpriced salad that always comes in plastic containers.

The credit for our home-made pizza dough is entirely my tween daughters. I had wanted to try my second batch yesterday but my daughter really wanted to relax and cook. She’s one of THOSE PEOPLE. She was working her pizza dough and kneading it. Her grandparents and I were alternatively coming in and out of the kitchen and watching her cook. The way she worked the dough was really impressive. This is her third or fourth batch of pizza dough, and for some reason it was partcularly fluffy and stellar. She had it rise for an hour and it was enough. The rectangular pizza she made was prefect portion size for three people. We had a healthy appetizer and a bagged salad. The pizza toppings were simple, just pasta sauce from a jar, colby jack cheese and we did eat pepperoni (remember we are eating more vegan meals but we are not really vegan).

I wasn’t intended to blog today, but the memories of the pizza last night were so wonderful. We have three left-over doughs and I just talked to my mom and will give her one of them. I can save them from some plastic as well!

But more importantly, it’s perfect portion control and healthier for us. Dinner was just more fun. She did the pizza. I did the salad. And her brother had picked out the Iced Tea from our walk to the organic grocers that afternoon. In retrospect we can just make iced tea since we have so many tea bags now. Since we have the home-made dough as our base, we can be creatively healthy with the toppings.

Who I am today is also the history of who I was. And in the past, I used to religiously read Mr. Money Mustache and I remembered that blogpost. I do have to say memories of that blogpost made me appreciate more the life change that happened yesterday. Eventhough it was the fourth batch of pizza dough, it was the easiest one that came naturally to her and our family. Now I know home-made pizza will just be part of the rhythm of our lives. See, you can have pizza and be healthy. It’s just that one has to learn to make the dough.

And like Mr. Money Mustache, we saved money although it was not our intent. Usually we order pizza from Bronx pizza in Mission Hills or Bar from Downtown. It’s a whole ordeal of who is going to pick it up and the wait. A pie at Bronx is $24 and usually it costs us at least $40 after tip and adding a salad or something (Bronx doesn’t have salad but other places do).

Home-Made Pizza
Pepperoni	$2.50
Colby Jack Cheese	$3.00
Bagged Salad	$3.99
Pasta Sauce	$2
Total	$11.49

I can’t even calculate out how much the home-made dough is because its just flour, salt, sugar and the yeast which we already have. I think some people have bought the premade doughs, but I’ve never really liked them.

Reviewing Mr. Money Mustache’s blogpost, I’m not sure how his pizza only cost $4??? Well. I’m no longer uber-competitive and for us it’s about reducing our plastic use. So I’m happy with our cost of our dinner at $11.49. His delivery cost was about $20 for a pie, whereas ours is easily $40 at least. In the end, home-made pizza is best. The one thing I do have over Mr. Money Mustache is that my daughter made our pizza. I didn’t have to lift a finger.

Plus I’m going to clean my fridge out with the diluted beer vinegar.