Girl Scout Cookie Sales Start, at least in Indiana. I HATE children selling food. Not the children, but the idea that if you don't buy what they are hawking, you are somehow unpatriotic, un-Jesusy, or un-schooly. Did you ever notice that kids don't ever sell celery, or educational stuff...or...well, you get my drift.

Oh and how I loooooove thin mints. Oh and who am I kidding. Those peanut butter cookies too...

Who will join me in a pledge to avoid Girl Scout Cookies this year? And, hopefully, I will not be the one who insanely screeches at a 7 year old.


Weeb

Too funny! At least you don't have a family member working for the Girl Scouts!!!! My mom works for the Girl Scouts, so those darn cookies are a permanent staple around my parents house. It's not easy being related to a cookie pusher, lol. And those cookies are sooooooo tempting and sooooooo unhealthy. But definitely forbidden to me, I gain 2 lbs just by thinking about those cookies.

And how many lbs did you gain writing that post?

As a former Girl Scout and then a leader myself, I understand the importance of cookie sale money. But as a former morbidly obese person, I understand the dangers! My compromise is to give them the money for the cookies and then tell them to keep the cookies.

Hah!

Two years ago I promised to NOT eat a single GS cookie, and I didn't.

Last year I didn't promise and I ate many cookies.

I don't think normal people can remember their cookie intake that specifically. Oh well.

DD #2 is a girl scout and I suggested to our leader that we not sell them this year. She said that wouldn't fly.

So we'll sell them. I know we'll buy some. But I ain't eating a single one!

Well, since my boys go around selling Boy Scout popcorn, which is insanely more expensive than Girl Scout cookies, I try to be empathetic and buy a few boxes... But I still have a couple of boxes of the peanut butter cookies in my freezer from last year; I guess it's time to toss them!

You know what I try to do with my boxes? Give them away in food drives...

Midwife, I think you should buy 5 boxes, wait a month, and then leave them on your leader's doorstep.


Hmm how many calories is a box of thin mints?

My husband and I are both ministers...he a pastor in a small, poor town (where we live) and I'm a student minister in a metropolitan area. We get a lot of food thrust on us, go to a lot of dinners, and are also obliged to buy a lot of fundraising food.

I have developed this strategy:
- I do offer money to children selling junk food
- eat only the healthy food and pick at the rest at the dinners (easier at potlucks or buffets) than at plated dinners
- politely decline "the rest of the pie, casserole, pot of mashed potatoes"
- if a gift of food is given and it is not a healthy food for anyone that I know (by my standards) or it is too tempting to hold on to until I can get it to a recipient, it goes in the trash on the way home unless I pass a homeless person and it's safe to interact with them at the time.

My husband and I got into a HUGE kerfuffle about me throwing away junky food. He said, "you could take it down to [name of soup kitchen]" and I looked him square in the eye and said, "The LAST thing they need there is junky food." As far as I'm concerned, if I am getting rid of food because I am deeming it unsafe to eat (i.e. not because it has one ingredient in it that I am allergic to but rather that it has unsafe levels of fat and sugar), it is a crime to suggest that it is adequate food for the poor of my community. When I explained that this was an ethical decision and not laziness on my part, he saw my motive differently.

What is important is recognizing the gesture of the giver....they all know we have been dieting, we talk about it from the pulpit, etc. If they still choose to give us junk, there is something else going on, and we just need to thank them and move on.

newleaf, at least popcorn is a decent diet food. (it's unpopped?)

I will vow to avoid the girl scout cookies. I hope to post a pic of me in one leg of the pants I have on someday. As well as I want to be able to go out with my sister that is in her 50's and look like her younger sister.

Are they set up to take cash donations during cookie sales?

... I am not a fan of their cookies. If I want a good cookie, I'll bake one. I usually just say, "No, sorry. But good luck with your sales!" but one day I was feeling generous as I walked by them outside of a store and asked if they took donations. They seemed unequiped to deal with this and confused as to how to deal.

Any GS parents or past leaders know?

AHHHHH......Bring on the thin mints. My solution is to by a package or two and give them away. I am a former Girl Scout, you see.

Instead of offering a cash donation, which Girl Scouts aren't equipped to take, what I do is buy however many boxes of cookies ("I'll take two boxes of Thin Mints and two boxes of Samoas"), pay them the money, then hand the cookies back to them with a smile. It's always worked for me.

I have been Girl Scout cookie free for two years now, which has been hard since I only three years ago realized how much I loved the Samoa and had missed out on it all these years...

Last year I did what Meg did - I bought the cookies, they handed me the boxes, I handed them back to the girls in the parking lot and told them to give them to do what they wished with them. When I came back out they had eaten one box between about 12 girls, and had resold the others. I talked to one of the mom's and she said enough boxes got lost that it didn't matter if one box got paid for twice. As a former scout, I remember that.

FYI, as I am a little spreadsheet crazy, all of my boxes always lined up to my sales dollars, but I remember friends who weren't as careful.

I'm a sucker for Girl Scouts. We buy a few boxes each year, but I never get more than 1. My bean pole husband eats them all within 3 days. Always Thin Mints...lol...

The worst this year was my daughter's Fannie Mae fundraiser. I HAD to buy (because it was *my* kid) and now we have three boxes of Mint Meltaways in the house. Ughh...

I was never into Girl Scout cookies and honestly, I don't really understand the draw. My neighbor's girl is a girl scout so when she comes over and asks, I buy 2 'donation' boxes. I asked about giving a cash donation when they first came selling to our door but it is a bit ridiculous that they can't have some system for it.