Part 1 · Ch. 1–3
The Bin
Stand next to your garbage can for a week and write down what goes in. The one exercise she insists on.
A new handbook by Sunja Park
The money leaves at the bin. Three dollars at a time.
A bag of greens gone soft. Half a loaf gone hard. The last third of a carton nobody finished. Nobody notices three dollars, and by March nobody can account for a thousand. This is a plain handbook about where it went and how to keep it in the house.
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The sentence people say in March
“I do not know where the money went.”
They say it in the parking lot of the grocery. They say it at the table after the grandchildren have gone home. The heat was not that high. Nobody bought a car. And yet.
Sunja has been listening to that sentence for forty years, and her answer is not the one people expect.
Most of the households I have watched do not have a spending problem. They have a discarding problem. The money does not leave in a lump. It leaves at the bin.
From Chapter 1, “Three Dollars at a Time”
The people she watched from behind a grocery counter were careful people. They clipped coupons. They compared the price per ounce. Then they took it home and lost part of it to a can at the curb, because nobody had ever told them that the keeping was where the money was.
Not just her kitchen. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the country’s food supply is wasted.
THE KITCHEN BIN
ONE ORDINARY WEEK · ILLUSTRATED
- SALAD MIX, TURNED TO WATER3.99
- BREAD, LAST QUARTER, HARD1.00
- COOKED RICE, 1 CUP0.30
- YOGURT CUPS ×3, PAST DATE2.97
- HERBS, BOUGHT FOR ONE RECIPE1.99
- LEFTOVER STEW, BACK OF FRIDGE4.50
- MILK, LAST THIRD1.40
- APPLES ×3 OF 8, BRUISED2.25
- CHICKEN, FORGOTTEN6.80
- SPINACH, HALF BAG2.00
THIS WEEK$27.20
× 52 WEEKS$1,414.40
NOBODY DECIDED ANY OF IT.
SEE YOU TUESDAY.
SEE YOU TUESDAY.
Do the arithmetic nobody does
What does your bin cost you?
Choose a guess. Most kitchens are somewhere in here.
A week$21
A month$91
A year$1,095
Ten years$10,950
At $3 a day, your bin spends the price of this book in 14 days. If the book helps you catch even half of it, that is $548 a year that stays in the house.
Who is telling you this
Sunja is the witness. Her mother is the source.
“It is not a book by an expert. I am not one. I have never studied food, or money, or how a house should be run. What I have is forty years of watching.”
She grew up in a third-floor walk-up in Daegu, South Korea, in a kitchen smaller than most American bathrooms, watching her mother feed six people on one salary with eleven jars on a cold balcony and a hole in the ground for the radishes. She came to Georgia in 1986, at twenty-two. For the better part of twenty years she stood behind the counter of a small grocery and watched what people bought, and what they bought again because they could not find the first one.
Her mother never explained anything. She said short things, like “that one first,” and went back to what she was doing. This book is forty years of working out why.
- 6people fed on one salary
- 11jars on the balcony, every one known
- 40kilos of salt, up three flights each autumn
- 20years behind a grocery counter
What’s inside
Around the kitchen, one shelf at a time.
Eight parts, in the order Sunja would walk you around her own house. The bin first, because that is where the money leaves.
Part 2 · Ch. 4–6
Clearing
One cupboard at a time. Three piles: Use, Finish, Out. A shelf you can read in thirty seconds.
Part 3 · Ch. 7–10
The Pantry & the Can
Rice, beans, flour, salt. Cans bought with a plan. Jars you can see through. Ten strong things that turn ends into dinner.
Part 4 · Ch. 11–14
Cold
The refrigerator slows things down; it does not keep them. The freezer is a calendar. Broth, the pot that feeds twice.
Part 5 · Ch. 15–17
Roots & the Ground
Where onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes and squash like to be kept. What hangs, and what dries.
Part 6 · Ch. 18–21
The Store
The list is written at home, never in the aisle. What the store is built to send you home with.
Part 7 · Ch. 22–23
Money & Bills
Where March went, counted with a jar on a shelf. How six people ate on one salary.
Part 8 · Ch. 24–26
The Year
One weekend in October that does the year’s work, and a month-by-month calendar for the kitchen.
See all 26 chapters and the 7 worksheets
Part One: The Bin
- Three Dollars at a Time
- The Garbage Can
- What Six People Ate
Part Two: Clearing
- Start With What You Cannot See
- Fewer Things, Used Harder
- A Shelf You Can Read
Part Three: The Pantry and the Can
- Rice, Beans, Flour, Salt
- The Can Is Not a Museum
- Jars and What Goes in Them
- Doenjang, Gochugaru and the Long Shelf
Part Four: Cold
- The Refrigerator Is Not a Cupboard
- The Freezer Is a Calendar
- What Freezes Well and What Does Not
- Broth: The Pot That Feeds Twice
Part Five: Roots and the Ground
- Radishes in a Hole in the Ground
- Potatoes, Onions, Sweet Potatoes, Squash
- What Hangs and What Dries
Part Six: The Store
- The List Is Written at the Bin
- What the Store Wants You to Carry Home
- Buying in October
- Behind the Counter
Part Seven: Money and Bills
- Where March Went
- One Salary, Six People
Part Eight: The Year
- Kimjang: Two Days in November
- A Calendar for a Georgia Kitchen
- What I Have Yet to See
The worksheets
- The Bin Watch
- Pantry Inventory
- Freezer Ledger
- Where Things Like to Be Kept
- The Year at a Glance
- The Rules, Collected
- The Korean Words in This Book
A few of the things in it
Small habits. Decisions made once.
Nothing here costs money to start. And every chapter ends with a short “This week” checklist, so you always know exactly what to do next.
The one question to ask at the shelf, before anything goes in the cart.
Ch. 19Why the shopping list is written at the bin, not at the store.
Ch. 18The thirty-second look she gives her shelves every morning, coffee in hand.
Ch. 6The Sunday-night habit that ends the mystery layer at the bottom of the freezer.
Ch. 12Why onions and potatoes should never share a basket.
Ch. 16The jar in her refrigerator that has not been empty in fifteen years.
Ch. 9The bag in her freezer door that becomes broth every two weeks.
Ch. 14Why a can a year old is “dinner you have already paid for.”
Ch. 8What the store is built to send you home with, from twenty years behind the counter.
Ch. 19A plain glass jar that shows you, to the dollar, where March went.
Ch. 22Where to keep radishes, carrots and beets when you have no hole in the ground.
Ch. 15The one weekend in October that does the whole year’s work.
Ch. 20
Look inside
Set like a book, because it is one.
Six by nine inches, a real contents page, room in the worksheets for a pen. These are pages from the actual file. Tap any page to see it large.
For the refrigerator door
Every chapter ends with a rule.
“My mother had perhaps a dozen and she never wrote one down. I have written them down for you because you did not grow up watching her and I did.”
All twenty-six are collected at the back of the book, ready to copy onto a card. Here are three.
Chapter 1
The money does not leave at the store. It leaves at the bin. Look there first.
Chapter 6
The front row is the truth. Date everything in your own hand. One kind of thing per shelf. Look at all of it, every day, for thirty seconds.
Chapter 12
Everything in gets written down and dated. Freeze in the portion you will use. Oldest comes out first, every week.
Included at no extra cost
Seven worksheets. Please write in them.
“A book that stays clean has not done anything.” They are in the back of the handbook, and they also come as their own printable PDF for letter or A4 paper.
- A
The Bin Watch
Seven days. What went in the bin, and roughly what it cost.
- B
Pantry Inventory
The front row, written down. Dry shelf, cans, and this week’s list.
- C
Freezer Ledger
Everything in, dated. Everything out, crossed off. Oldest first.
- D
Where Things Like to Be Kept
Roots, onions, potatoes, squash and the freezer, with a column for your house.
- E
The Year at a Glance
Month by month: what to buy, what to eat now, what to do.
- F
The Rules, Collected
All twenty-six, in order, to copy onto a card.
- G
The Korean Words
Seven of them in the whole book, each explained.
All seven, ready to print
A separate PDF for letter or A4 paper. Print a fresh Bin Watch whenever you like.
Plainly
Who this is for, and who it is not for.
Tick the ones that sound like your kitchen.
This is for you if…
Tick any that fit.
It is not for you if…
- You want recipes. There are none. It is about keeping, not cooking.
- You want a Korean cookbook. Seven Korean words in the whole book, each explained.
- You want a gadget. “I have never seen a gadget that outworked a woman with a jar and a rule.”
From the channel
Hear it from Sunja.
From readers
What people found in their bins.
Get the handbook
One payment. Then go and look at your bin.
You get the whole book the minute you pay, by email link, to read on a phone, a tablet, a computer, a Kindle, or on paper. There is nothing to subscribe to.
Your bin, at $3 a day$1,095every year
vs.
The handbook$42once
It was the year’s salt, and it was bought at the October price, and from then until the next October she never bought salt again, and never paid the February price.
From Chapter 20, “Buying in October”
The Nothing Wasted Handbook
by Sunja Park · digital edition
- The full handbook (PDF)
203 pages, bookmarked, a checklist in every chapter. - The same book (EPUB)
For Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo and reading apps. - The worksheet pack (PDF)
Seven printable sheets, included at no extra cost.
yours to keep
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The thirty-day promise
If it is not for you, write within thirty days and you will get your money back. No questions. Keep the worksheets.
Questions
Things people ask.
What exactly do I get?
Three files, the minute you pay: the handbook as a PDF, the handbook as an EPUB, and the worksheet pack as its own PDF. Gumroad emails you a link, and the same link works later if you want to download again on another device.
I am not very good with computers. Is it hard to open?
No. After you pay, you get an email with a button. Press it, and the book opens. The PDF opens on any phone, tablet or computer, the same way a photo or a letter would. If you get stuck, write to us and a person will help you.
How do I read it on a Kindle or iPad?
On a Kindle, use Amazon’s Send to Kindle email or app with the EPUB file, and it arrives like any other book. On an iPad or iPhone, open the EPUB in Apple Books. Kobo and Google Play Books take it as it is.
Is it a cookbook?
No. There are no recipes in it. It is about what happens to food between the store and the plate, and how to keep it from going in the bin. The book is about how Sunja’s mother kept a kitchen, not what she cooked.
Is it about Korean food?
No. The stories come from a kitchen in Daegu, but the methods are for an American kitchen with an American refrigerator, and Sunja has lived in Georgia for forty years. There are seven Korean words in the whole book, each explained the first time it comes up.
I live alone. I have a big family. Does it still apply?
Both. Her mother fed six. Sunja now feeds a quiet house most days and a loud one when the grandchildren come. The habits are the same at either size.
Can I print it?
Yes. The PDF prints cleanly on letter or A4 paper. The worksheets are meant to be printed and written in, which is why they also come as a separate file.
What if it is not for me?
Write within thirty days and you will get your money back, no questions asked. Keep the worksheets.
Is this a subscription?
No. One payment. The book is yours.
The whole idea, in three words
Finish the cup.
Whatever is in front of you, that you have paid for, that you meant to eat: finish it. Every rule in the book is a longer way of saying that.
Every week you wait, about $21 goes to the curb.
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