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Sangu Chakra Hotels Private Limited Vs. the State of Tamil Nadu - Court Judgment
Overruled By Kerala Hotel & Restaurant Assoc v State of Kerala
Subject Sales Tax
Decided On Jan-21-1985
Case Number Writ Petition Nos. 7, 1586, 1591, 1636, 2079, 2356, 2702, 5510, 5718, 5782, 5834, 6035, 6036, 6384,
Judge M.N. Chandurkar, C.J. and ;T. Sathiadev, J.
Reported in [1985]60STC125(Mad)
Acts Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 - Sections 3, 3(1), 3(2), 6, 17(1) and 32(1)
Appellant Sangu Chakra Hotels Private Limited
Respondent The State of Tamil Nadu
Cases Referred Krishna Iyer v. State of Madras
sales tax - constitutional validity - tamil nadu general sales tax act, 1959 - constitutional validity of levy of tax on sale of food stuff by hotels and restaurants approved by department of tourist was challenged on grounds that it discriminated hotels approved by tourist department and other hotels engaged in similar business - nothing in act to disclose how articles sought to be taxed are in any way different for purpose or object of act from sale of similar articles of foods and drinks in other hotels which are not classified or approved by tourist department - classification has no nexus with object seeked to be achieved by act - held, classification discriminatory and ultra vires . - - the supreme court observed as follows :the transaction essentially is one of service by the.....chandurkar, c.j.1. all the above-mentioned petitions have been filed by hotel owners challenging the constitutional validity of item 150 in first schedule to the tamil nadu general sales tax act, 1959, (hereinafter referred to as the act) and the demand for sales tax on the basis that they are liable to pay sales tax on articles of food and drink supplied by them to the customers in their hotels under section 3(2) read with item 150 in the first schedule to the act. 2. writ petition no. 256 of 1985 is filed by the tamil nadu hotels association represented by its president. the state government has filed its counter in all the other petitions but was not able to file the counter in w.p. no. 256 of 1985, but having regard to the fact that the questions involved in all these petitions were.....
1. All the above-mentioned petitions have been filed by hotel owners challenging the constitutional validity of item 150 in First Schedule to the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and the demand for sales tax on the basis that they are liable to pay sales tax on articles of food and drink supplied by them to the customers in their hotels under section 3(2) read with item 150 in the First Schedule to the Act.
2. Writ Petition No. 256 of 1985 is filed by the Tamil Nadu Hotels Association represented by its President. The State Government has filed its counter in all the other petitions but was not able to file the counter in W.P. No. 256 of 1985, but having regard to the fact that the questions involved in all these petitions were purely questions of law, we have heard Mr. Ramachandran who appeared on behalf of the petitioner, along with the counsel who appeared in the several petitions mentioned above. It is not now in dispute that the several petitioners in these writ petitions run either hotels and restaurants where rooms are let out to the guests and articles of food are served in the restaurants. By way of illustration, we may refer to the facts in Writ Petition No. 7038 of 1981. It is filed by M/s. Hotel Aristo, No. 2, Dindigul Road, Tiruchirapalli. The petitioner has alleged that the rooms in the hotel are let out to the guests and besides arrangement for tea, lunch and dinner parties which are organised by outsiders, there is also a restauarant which is fully furnished with sophisticated furniture to cater to the comforts of the customers who are served by uniformed servers. The restaurant is run to cater to the needs of the resident lodgers who are served with food-stuffs, edibles and beverages of their choice. It is stated that the articles of food and drink which are served to the resident lodgers are meant for consumption only inside the premises and the unconsumed portions are not carried away by them.
3. The petitioner received a notice dated 22nd July, 1981 from the Commercial Tax Officer, Tiruchirapalli informing the petitioner that it is liable to pay tax on sales of food-stuffs from 13th June, 1981. The petitioner replied stating that the petitioner's hotel was not a three, four or five star hotel and as such did not fall under item 150 of the First Schedule to the Act. Item 150 was amended with effect from 4th of October, 1980 to read as follows :
'Articles of food and drink, sold to customers in three star, four star and five star hotels, as recognised by Tourism Department, Government of India, whether such articles are meant to be consumed in the premises or outside.'
A further amendment was made in item 150 with effect from 12th June, 1981 by which, in the place of the item above-mentioned, the following item was substituted :
'Articles of food and drink other than those specified elsewhere in this schedule, sold to customers in hotels classified or approved by the Government of India, Department of Tourism.'
The validity of this entry and the power of the tax authorities to recover sales tax from the owners of hotels who, according to the tax authorities satisfy the description in item 150, that is challenged in these petitions.
4. Before going into the challenge made in all these petitions, it is necessary to refer briefly to the history relating to the levy of sales tax on sales of articles of food in the hotels and restaurants. It may be pointed out that the power to tax the sale or purchase of goods is vested in the State Government by virtue of entry 54 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India. Entry 54, after the Constitution (Sixth Amendment) Act in 1956 reads as follows :
'54. Taxes on the sale or purchase of goods other than newspapers, subject to the provisions of entry 92A of List I.'
The validity of sales tax on supply of meals by hoteliers to the resident guests levied under the Punjab General Sales Tax Act came up for consideration before the Supreme Court in State of Himachal Pradesh v. Associated Hotels of India Ltd. : [1972]2SCR937 . It is common knowledge that the Supreme Court in that decision held that supply of meals by hotelier to the resident guests is not sale of food liable to sales tax. The Supreme Court held that such a transaction is essentially one and indivisible, namely, one of receiving a customer in the hotel to stay, and that even if the transaction is to be disintegrated, there is no question of the supply of meals during such stay constituting a separate contract of sale, since no intention on the part of the parties to sell and purchase food-stuffs supplied during meal-times can be realistically spelt out. The Supreme Court observed as follows :
'The transaction essentially is one of service by the hotelier in the performance of which meals are served as part of and incidental to that service, such amenities being regarded as essential in all well conducted modern hotels. The bill prepared by the hotelier is one and indivisible, not being capable by approximation of being split up into one for residence and the other for meals. No doubt, such a bill would be prepared after consideration of the costs of meals, but that would be so for all the other amenities given to the customers. For example, when the customer uses a fan in the room allotted to him, there is surely no sale of electricity, nor a hire of the fan. Such amenities, including that of meals, are part and parcel of service which is in reality the transaction between the parties.'
The question once again came up for consideration before the Supreme Court in connection with the provision in the Bengal Finance (Sales Tax) Act of 1941 as applied to the Union Territory of Delhi in the Northern India Caterers case : [1979]1SCR557 . The Supreme Court referred with approval to the decision in State of Himachal Pradesh v. Associated Hotels of India Ltd. : [1972]2SCR937 and applied the principles enunciated in that case to the case of hotels. The Supreme Court observed as follows, after referring to the decision in the Associated Hotels case : [1972]2SCR937 :
'The Court pointed out that the supply of meals was essentially in the nature of a service provided to them and could not be identified as a transaction of sale. The Court declined to accept the proposition that the Revenue was entitled to split up the transaction into two parts, one of service and the other of sale of food-stuffs. If that be true in respect of hotels, a similar approach seems to be called for on principle in the case of restaurants. No reason has been shown to us for preferring any other. The classical legal view being that a number of services are concomitantly provided by way of hospitality, the supply of meals must be regarded as ministering to a bodily want or to the satisfaction of a human need ...........'
The Supreme Court also held in the same case that whether a charge is imposed for the meal as a whole or according to the dishes separately ordered, the service of meals to casual visitors in a restaurant located in a hotel in which lodging and meals are provided on 'inclusive terms' to residents is not taxable as a sale.
5. The Delhi Administration had sought a review of this decision. The review application, however, came to be dismissed and the judgment is reported in Northern India Caterers v. Lt. Governor, Delhi : [1980]2SCR650 . While disposing of the review application certain observations have been made by the learned Judges which were the foundation for the arguments before us by the learned Advocate-General. Two of the learned Judges who had rendered the earlier decision posed a question :
'What were the considerations on which this Court held that the transaction was not a sale ?'
Answering this question, it was observed :
'The Court said, and this was emphasised in no small degree, that the supply and service of food to a customer to be eaten in the restaurant was not a sale for the reason that he was merely entitled to eat the food served to him and not to remove and carry away the unconsumed portion of the food. Had that amounted to a sale, the unconsumed portion would have belonged to the customer to take away and dispose of as he pleased. Besides, the Court noted, there were other amenities and services of considerable materially which were also provided.'
The two learned Judges noted the apprehensions of other States who had also appeared in the review petitions : 'That the benefit of the judgment of this Court will be invoked by restaurant-owners in those cases also where there is a sale of food and title passes to the customers.' Finding such an apprehension baseless, the learned Judges observed as follows :
'It seems to us that having regard to the facts upon which our judgment rests - undisputed as they have remained throughout the different stages of the litigation - and the considerations which they attract, no such apprehension can be reasonably entertained. Indeed, we have no hesitation in saying that where food in supplied in an eating-house or restaurant, and it is established upon the facts that the substance of the transaction, evidenced by its dominant object, is a sale of food and the rendering of services is merely incidental, the transaction would undoubtedly be exigible to sales tax. In every case it will be for the taxing authority to ascertain the facts when making an assessment under the relevant sales tax law and to determine upon those facts whether a sale of the food supplied is intended.'
6. The third learned Judge Krishna Iyer, J., who concurred with the decision that the review petition should be dismissed, however, made certain observations in paragraph 17 in which he observed :
'The substance of the transaction, the dominant object, the life-style and other telling factors must determine whether the apparent vendor did sell the goods or only supply a package of services. Was there a right to take away any eatable served, whether it be bad manners to do so or not In the case we have, the decision went on the ground that such right was absent. In cases where such a negative is not made out by the dealer - and in India, by and large, the practice does not prohibit carrying home - exigibility is not repelled.'
7. After this review application, expressly with the object of overcoming the view taken by the Supreme Court, an amendment of the Constitution was made by the Constitution (Forty-sixth Amendment) Act, 1982. The substantive amendment was made by amending article 366 of the Constitution by the introduction of clause (29A). Article 366 of the Constitution is an article giving definitions of several terms which appear in the Constitution. By the addition of clause (29A), an inclusive definition was given of the phrase 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods'. In so far as is material for the purpose of these petitions, the amendment reads as follows :
'(29A) 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods' includes -
(a) ..............(b) ..............(c) ..............(d) ..............(e) .............. (f) a tax on the supply, by way of or as part of any service or in any other manner whatsoever, of goods, being food or any other article for human consumption or any drink (whether or not intoxicating), where such supply or service, is for cash, deferred payment or other valuable consideration, and such transfer, delivery or supply of any goods shall be deemed to be a sale of those goods by the person making the transfer, delivery or supply and a purchase of those goods by the person to whom such transfer, delivery or supply is made.'
This amendment came into effect on 3rd February, 1983. In the objects and reasons for the amendment, the necessity for the amendment was stated in the following terms :
'...... a new problem has arisen as a result of the decision of the Supreme Court in Northern Indian Caterers (India) Ltd. v. Lt. Governor of Delhi : [1979]1SCR557 . States have been proceeding on the basis that the Associated Hotels of India case : [1972]2SCR937 was applicable only to supply of food or drink by a hotelier to a person lodged in the hotel and that tax was leviable on the sale of food-stuffs by a restaurant. But over-ruling the decision of the Delhi High Court, the Supreme Court has held in the above case that service of meals whether in a hotel or restaurant does not constitute a sale of food for the purpose of levy of sales tax but must be regarded as the rendering of a service in the satisfaction of a human need or ministering to the bodily want of human beings. It would not make any different whether the visitor to the restaurant is charged for the meal as a whole or according to each dish separately.'
It was stated that the Constitution was sought to be suitably amended to include in article 366 a definition of 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods' by inserting a new clause (29A).
8. By the same Constitution Amendment Act, a provision for validation and exemption was made in section 6 of the Amending Act. This is by itself a substantive provision and it gave retrospective effect to the definition of 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods'. It is unnecessary to reproduce the entire provision but it is to be noted that an express provision was made thus :
'... notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order of any court, tribunal or authority, on law which was passed or made before such commencement and which imposed or authorised the imposition of, or purported to impose or authorise the imposition of, the aforesaid tax shall be deemed to be invalid or ever to have been invalid on the ground merely that the legislature or other authority passing or making such law did not have competence to pass or make such law, and accordingly :-
(i) all the aforesaid taxes levied or collected or purporting to have been levied or collected under any such law before the commencement of this Act shall be deemed always to have been validity levied or collected in accordance with law;
(ii) no suit or other proceeding shall be maintained or continued in any court or before any tribunal or authority for the refund of, and no enforcement shall be made by any court, tribunal or authority of any decree or order directing the refund of, any such aforesaid tax which has been collected;
(iii) recoveries shall be made in accordance with the provisions of such law of all amounts which would have been collected thereunder as such aforesaid tax if this section had been in force at all material times.'
While sub-section (1) of section 6 of the Constitution Amendment Act validated all the enactments which would otherwise have been invalid in view of the Supreme Court decision referred to above, a provision with regard to exemption from payment of sales tax in cases where such sales tax was not recovered by the hoteliers was made in sub-section (2) of section 6. This sub-section reads as follows :
'Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), any supply of the nature referred to therein shall be exempt from the aforesaid tax -
(a) where such supply has been made, by any restaurant or eating house (by whatever name called), at any time on or after the 7th day of September, 1978, and before the commencement of this Act and the aforesaid tax has not been collected on such supply on the ground that no such tax could have been levied or collected at that time; or
(b) where such supply, not being any such supply by any restaurant or eating house (by whatever name called), has been made at any time on or after the 4th day of January, 1972, and before the commencement of this Act and the aforesaid tax has not been collected on such supply on the ground that no such tax could have been levied or collected at that time : Provided that the burden of proving that the aforesaid tax was not collected on any supply of the nature referred to in clause (a) or, as the case may be, clause (b), shall be on the person claiming the exemption under this sub-section.'
By enacting section 6, the Parliament took care to see that if sales tax has not been recovered in view of the two decision of the Supreme Court, then the hoteliers need not be unnecessarily burdened by requiring the to pay sales tax.
9. The overall effect of the Constitution Amendment Act is that the amended definition of 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods' has been given an extended meaning with a view to validate all sales tax legislation, which purported to levy sales tax on articles of food supplied in hotels to customers and in such of the cases where such recovery was not made, those sales have been exempted from sales tax. The further effect is that all such legislation has been given retrospective validity. However, we are not in these cases concerned with the implementation of section 6 of the Amending Act.
10. Though it was stated before us by some of the counsel that it would be difficult now to canvass any question of legislative competence of a State Legislature of levy sales tax on transactions which fall within the extended definition of 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods' after 2nd of February, 1983 the question of legislative competence of the State Legislature to levy tax as provided by entry 150 was argued before us by Mr. Sivanandam who appears in Writ Petition No. 2348 of 1983. The question of legislative competence has also been argued before us by Mr. Ramachandran.
11. What has, however, been canvassed before us is primarily the invalidity of the entry 150 on the ground that it violated the guarantee of equality under article 14 of the Constitution of India. The learned Advocate-General has categories the transactions involving supply of food into two categories. One category is where food and drinks are supplied purely by way of sale and the other category is where food and drinks are supplied by way of service. According to the learned Advocate-General there cannot be any doubt that in the case of a transaction where a sale simpliciter is made of food and drink that would be exigible to tax and it is only when the transaction is such that there is an element of service that it may not be exigible to tax during the relevant period.
12. It is common knowledge that in the case of a restaurant simpliciter, a person may either go to a restaurant merely for the purpose of buying articles of food and taking them home in a parcel, or he may go to the restaurant with the avowed object of ordering out articles of food for the purpose of consumption in the restaurant itself. The question as to whether any service is involved or not, if at all it arises, it will arise only in the second class of cases. In the first category of cases where articles of food are sold across the counter it is a sale, pure and simple, like any other commodity in any other shop with no element of service involved. If at all any service is involved, it is in no way different from the service involved in an ordinary transaction of sale of any other goods which are sold across the counter. It is difficult to see how such a transaction which is purely of sale and purchase of articles of food can be outside the taxing power of the State Legislature having regard to entry 54 of List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution. The real difficulty arises only when we deal with the question of legislative competence of the State Legislature to levy sales tax on the supply of goods, which according to the Supreme Court, is a part of service. The question of legislative competence will now have to be determined with reference to the amendment in the Constitution. When the original entry 54 in List II of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution contemplated that a State Legislature could validity enact a law of levying tax on the sale or purchase of goods, a tax levied on the supply of articles of food as a part of service was found to be invalid because in such a transaction, there is no sale. The Parliament, however, has now given an inclusive definition of 'tax on the sale or purchase of goods' intended to undo the effect of the Supreme Court decisions and it will now be permissible for the State Legislature to levy sales tax where there is supply of goods, being food or any other article for human consumption or any drink, even though it is by way of or as part of any supply or in any other manner whatsoever. In view of this specific expansion of the meaning by the constitutional amendment, we do not see how any objection can be raised that the supply of foods which were a part of service and which were originally found to be not taxable under the Sales Tax Act by the Supreme Court, cannot even now be taxed by proper legislative enactment. Section 6, as already pointed out, validates all such legislations, which would otherwise have become invalid, with retrospective effect. Therefore, if item 150 in the First Schedule read with section 3(2) of the Act is now valid and had no other infirmity, tax on sale of article of food as a part or by way of service in a hotel or restaurant would be clearly taxable retrospectively.
13. The more substantial question which, however, arises in these petitions is, whether there is any infirmity in item 150. Section 3 of the Act which is the charging section provides in sub-section (2) as follows :
'Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) in the case of goods mentioned in the First Schedule, the tax under this act shall be payable by a dealer, at the rate and only at the point specified therein on the turnover in each year relating to such goods whatever be the quantum of turnover in that year.'
Entry 150 has to be read with section 3(2) and reading so, the effect is that a State Legislature has provided that notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1) in the case of articles of food and drinks other than those specified elsewhere in the First Schedule, sold to customers in hotels classified or approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, the tax under this Act shall be payable by a dealer at the rate and only at the point specified therein on the turnover in each year relating to such goods, whatever be the quantum of turnover in that year. The real effect of reading section 3(2) with item 150 is that the liability to pay sales tax arises only in respect of hotels classified or approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India. The argument of the learned counsel for the petitioners is that, when hotels classified or approved by the Department of Tourism of the Government of India have been singled out for the levy of sales tax, this amounts to a hostile treatment and therefore, the petitioners can justifiably complain of the violation of the guarantee provided in article 14 of the Constitution. The argument is that so far as the object of the Sales Tax Act is concerned, there is no rational basis for classifying only hotels classified or approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, into a class by itself, and that the basis has no relation with the object of the Act. It is pointed out that there were other hotels which are not classified or approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, and which are carrying on the same business as the petitioners and the sale of food-stuffs in those hotels is not subjected to taxation. Mr. Kannan has argued that the Legislature seems to have decided to tax sales with reference to the situs of the sale, which has nothing to do with the object of the Act. This argument is adopted by Mr. S. V. Subramaniam. Mr. Ramachandran contended that the classification made by the Legislature is solely on the basis of some facilities which are available to the hotels by virtue of being classified or approved by the Tourism Department of the Government of India and that circumstances has no relation with the object of the Act. This argument is also adopted by Mr. Sivanandam, Mrs. Nalini Chidambaram and Mr. Narayanan. The learned Advocate-General has, however, tried to justify the classification on the ground that hotels which are approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, have some special features. According to the learned Advocate-General, the hotels classified and approved by the Tourism Department have special facilities for preparing food, they employ expensive cooks, tourists are served by bearers wearing livery and that the customers who come to such hotels can afford to pay a higher price. The argument appears to be that in such hotels only, such customs prevails. In addition to these distinguishing features, our attention has been invited to what according to the State Government are additional advantages which the hotels that are approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, get by virtue of such approval. It is stated that the approved hotels become eligible to various fiscal reliefs and benefits apart from getting priority consideration from various concerned authorities. It is said that these hotels get world-wide publicity in tourists' literature published by the Department of Tourism distributed by the Government of India in India and abroad. These hotels are also eligible for foreign exchange for their import of essential equipments and provisions, and get assistance for their advertising, publicity and promotion under the Hotel Incentives Quota Scheme. These incentives consist of assistance of finance, assistance in the procurement of building materials, grant of foreign exchange for publicity and import of essential articles, etc. It is stated that certain ta reliefs are given under sections 80J and 80HH of the Indian Income-tax Act. They are also entitled to a special depreciation under section 32(1)(v) of the Income-tax Act. Therefore, according to the learned Advocate-General, such hotels are a class by themselves and they stand on a different footing and it was not necessary to treat them alike as other hotels. The classification, it is said, was a reasonable one. The learned Advocate-General further contended that the State has a wide discretion in the selection of persons or goods which may be taxed and therefore if the State has chosen only such of the hotels as have been recognised and approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, in so far as sales tax is concerned, such classification cannot be said to be violative under article 14 of the Constitution of India. We have also been shown some guidelines laid down by the Department of Tourism with regard to the classification of hotels in terms of Stars, i.e., 5-Star, 4-Star, 3-Star, etc. At this stage, we may point out that while introducing item 150 in the First Schedule to the said Act, the State Government also issued a Notification being G.O.Ms. No. 1001 dated 6th October, 1980 by which all sales other than those specified in item 150 of the First Schedule to the Act have been exempted in respect of tax payable by any dealer under the said Act on the sale of food and drinks in any hotel or restaurant. This exemption has been granted in exercise of the powers under section 17(1) of the Act. The effect of the exemption is that while hotels and restaurants which did not fall under item 150 would have become liable to pay sales tax under the substantive provision in section 3(2) have now been totally exempted from sales tax with the consequence only hotels which have been specified in item 150 have alone been singled out for payment of sales tax.
14. It is now well-settled that a taxation law is not entitled to claim immunity from the equality clause in the Constitution of India (see Khandige Sham Bhat v. Agricultural Income-tax Officer, Kasaragod AIR 1963 SC 591). It is also well established that whenever the State makes any classification and groups together certain persons or things for being dealt with differently as compared with other similar persons or things, then it is for the State to satisfy the Court that the classification is a valid classification. The tests with reference to which the validity of the classification made by a State are to be taxed are also now well-settled. The classic observations of the Constitutional Bench of seven Judge of the Supreme Court in Budhan Choudhry v. State of Bihar : 1955CriLJ374 have been oft-quoted and followed. The observations are :
'It is now well established that while article 14 forbids class legislation, it does not forbid reasonable classification for the purposes of legislation. In order, however, to pass the test of permissible classification two conditions must be fulfilled, namely, (i) that the classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from other left out of the group and (ii) that this differentia must have a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by the statute in question. The classification may be founded on different bases; namely, geographical, or according to objects or occupations or the like. What is necessary is that there must be a nexus between the basis of classification and the object of the Act under consideration. It is also well established by the decisions of this Court that article 14 condemns discrimination not only by a substantive law but also by a law of procedure.'
The approach to be adopted while dealing with the problem of discrimination is stated in the following words by Hidayatullah, J. (as he then was), in S. C. Prashar v. Vasantsen : [1963]49ITR1(SC) :
'Before dealing with contentions raised we find it necessary to say a few words about the manner in which the problem of discrimination should be approached. One must first find out the object of the impugned provision and compare it with the topic of legislation and them try to discover if there is a connection between the two and a reasonable basis of making a difference between different classes of persons affected by the law, in keeping with the topic of legislation and the object of the enactment. A difference which is aimless, arbitrary or unreasonable and which is unconnected with the object in view must remain a discrimination and incapable of being upheld. In all cases in which laws were struck down under article 14 this was the approach. It is hardly necessary to refer to the previous cases because each provision to be tested, must be tested in its own setting and no two cases can be alike.'
There is no dispute that hotels have now been classified by the State Legislature into (1) hotels which are approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, and (2) hotels which are not approved by the Department of Tourism. At this stage it has to be noted that it is not obligatory for the owner of a hotel to get the approval of the Department of Tourism for the purpose of its business. It is entirely a matter of choice of the hotel owner to seek the approval of the Department of Tourism. Nothing prevents the owner of the most posh hotel from running it without getting an approval of the Department of Tourism, but at the same time it is true that if the hotel is approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, certain benefits follow from such approval. These benefits have been referred to earlier and we have no reason to doubt the statement made on behalf of the Government that hotels which are approved by the Department of Tourism may have such approval as one of the causes of having a larger number of customers. The question which therefore arises is, whether there is any nexus between the basis of the classification into hotels approved by the Department of Tourism and those not so approved and the object of the Act. The object of the Act is to levy sales tax on the sale or purchase of goods in the State of Tamil Nadu. There is nothing in the counter-affidavit which discloses as to how the sale of articles of food and drink in a hotel classified and approved by the Department of Tourism is in any way different for the purposes and object of the Act from the sale of similar articles of food and drink in other hotels which are not so classified or approved. There is also nothing to show as to how the basis of classification has any nexus with the purposes of the Act, namely, levy of sales tax. It has to be remembered that the Department of Tourism referred to is of the Government of India and it is not the case of the State Government that any additional facilities or advantages are given to these hotels by the State Government as a result of approval by the Department of Tourism. The recognition by the Department of Tourism of the Government of India has nothing to do with the purpose or the object of the Sales Tax Act of the State Legislature. An argument was advanced that these are hotels to which customers who can afford to pay higher price for articles of food, go. That, in our opinion, is hardly relevant for the purposes of the Sales Tax Act. Similarly the circumstance that food is prepared under special conditions by expensive cooks and the service of food is efficient has not even the remotest connection with liability to pay sales tax. As a matter of fact, we were at pains to find out whether there is any trace of any nexus between the basis of the classification and the object of the Act. In fact there could be none, because the classification is based on something done by the Government of India in its Tourism Department and we are not able to find as to how merely because some hotels have been approved by the Department of Tourism they could be made liable to sales tax. We are, therefore, unable to find any valid basis for classification having a nexus with the object of the sales tax enabling the State to levy sales tax as contemplated by the entry in item 150.
15. The learned Advocate-General while justifying the different treatment meted out to hotels which are approved by the Tourism Department has referred us to certain decisions of the Supreme Court which, in our view, are wholly inapplicable to the facts of these cases. In East India Tabacco Co. v. State of Andhra Pradesh : [1963]1SCR404 , the question was whether virginia tobacco could be treated differently from country tabacco so that virginia tobacco could be treated as a class by itself and a tax could be imposed on the sale of virginia tobacco while exempting country tobacco. The Supreme Court held that taxation law must also pass the test of article 14 but in deciding whether a taxation law is discriminatory or not it is necessary to bear in mind that the State has a wide discretion in selecting the persons or objects it will tax, and that a statute is not open to attack on the ground that it taxes some persons or objects and not others and that it is only when within the range of its selection the law operates unequally and that cannot be justified on the basis of any valid classification that it would be violative of article 14 of the Constitution of India. It is important to point out that, on the facts in that case, it was found that virginia tobacco has features which distiuguish it from country tobacco and the obvious result of this must be that virginia tobacco was a separate category of tobacco as distinguished from country tobacco. This distinction followed not from the fact that there was only one kind of tobacco but because there were intrinsically certain qualities in virginia tobacco which distinguish it from other kinds of tobacco. Reference was also made to a decision of Supreme Court in Orient Weaving Mills v. Union of India : 1978(2)ELT311(SC) in which the question was whether textiles brought out by power-looms could be exempted from payment of excise duty. The Supreme Court while reiterating the principle that it is always open to the State to tax certain classes of goods and not to tax others, and the Legislature was the best Judge to decide as to the incidence of taxation as also to the amount of tax to be levied in respect of different classes of goods, and that the classification was made by the State between goods produced in big establishments and similar goods produced by small power-loom weavers in the mofussil who are usually ignorant, illiterate and poor and suffer from handicaps to which big establishments are not subject. The argument of the learned Advocate-General is that cotton fabrics produced by the mills and cotton fabrics produced by power-loom owners were both cotton fabrics and yet cotton fabrics produced by power-loom owners were exempted from excise duty which is found to be permissible. By an analogy it was contended that there are two categories of hotels, one approved by the Department of Tourism and the other which did not either get or take the approval of the Department of Tourism and hence it will be open to the State Legislature to choose any one of those two categories for the purpose of sales tax. In our view the analogy is hardly applicable in the instant case. The tax in question in the Orient Weaving Mills case : 1978(2)ELT311(SC) was excise duty which is a tax on the manufacture of goods and if different manufactures are grouped together by virtue of certain differences which are inherent both in the kind of the produce as well as in their character, in such a case, the exemption in respect of one kind of production of cotton fabrics was justified and especially in respect of whom the State had a duty to promote their industry which is a cottage industry, having regard to the directive principles of the State Policy in article 43 of the Constitution. We fail to see how that decision can be of any assistant to the State Government. In the instant case, as we have already pointed out, there is hardly any basis on which a valid classification can be made. There is also no nexus between the basis of the classification and the object of the Act. Reference was also made by the learned Advocate-General to a decision in Murty Match Works v. Assistant Collector of Central Excise : 1978(2)ELT429(SC) . That was once again a case of excise duty. The match industry in Shivakashi was of two categories, the mechanised sector and the non-mechanised sector. Later, however, there was a fourfold categorisation A, B, C and D on basis of quantity, turn-off and other germane for the purpose of excise tariff. B class comprised factories whose annual output exceeded 500 million match sticks but not 4,000 million match sticks. C class comprised factories whose annual output exceeded 50 million match strics, but did not exceed 500 million match stricks. D class comprised factories whose annual output did not exceed 50 million match stricks. By notification issued by the Central Government under rule 6(1) of the Central Excise Rules, 1955 B and C categories were treated equally and the grievance of the petitioners before the Supreme Court who were C category manufacturers, was that clubbing together with the far stronger B type manufacturers was virtually condemning them to gradual extinction. The Supreme Court found that though the financial resources, the capacity to command a market on their own without depending on intermediaries, etc., marked off the B category from the C category, experience gathered subsequently disclosed certain evils which the State took note of and endeavoured to set right. The Supreme Court, therefore, held that the pertinent principle of differentiation which was visibly linked to productive process, had been adopted in the board classification of power-users and manual manufacturers, and this basis could not be said to be unreal. It was held that the failure to mini-classify between the large and small sections of manual match manufacturers could not be challenged in a Court of law, that being a policy decision of the Government, depending on pragmatic wisdom playing on imponderable forces at work. This decision will, therefore, show that the clubbing together of the original B and C groups was found to be justified because the basis on which differentiation was made was found to have a nexus to the purpose of the Taxation Act.
16. Two other decisions which were relied on by the learned Advocate-General were in the context of upholding the validity of the additional sales tax imposed by the State Legislature. These decisions do not seem to be of much assistance because the nature of the challenge in those cases was that the additional tax was not a tax on the sale of goods but was a tax on the income of the dealer. The first decision is in S. Kodar v. State of Kerala : [1975]1SCR121 in which it was held that the additional ta levied under the Tamil Nadu Additional Sales Tax Act (14 of 1970) was really a tax on the sale of goods and not on the income of a dealer. The other decision is in K. M. Mohamed Abdul Khader Firm v. State of Tamil Nadu [1985] 58 STC (12) where a similar Act which amended the Additional Sales Tax Act, 1970 by providing for a different method of computation of the additional sales tax leviable under that Act by linking the rate of levy to the taxable turnover instead of to the amount of basic tax assessed under the Tamil Nadu General Sales Tax Act, 1959 was held to have not introduced a new tax. It was held that the adoption of a slab system whereby different rates of additional sales tax depending upon the quantum of turnover of different dealers is not alien to the concept of sales tax and such adoption was not discriminatory and did not violate article 14 of the Constitution of India. Both these decisions do not become relevant for the purpose of the controversy in these cases.
17. We may refer to a decision of this Court in Krishna Iyer v. State of Madras : (1956)2MLJ179 where the question was whether higher tax on dealers in food and drink in certain cases was violative of article 14 of the Constitution of India. The relevant provision in that case was section 3(1)(b) of the Madras General Sales Tax Act (Act 9 of 1939). That section reads as follows :
'Section 3. (1) Subject to the provisions of this Act, -
(a) Every dealer shall pay for each year a tax on his total turover for such year; and
(b) the tax shall be calculated at the rate of three pies for every rupee in such turnover : Provided that if and to the extent to which such turnover relates to articles of food and drink sold in a hotel, boarding house or restaurant, the tax shall be calculated at the rate of four and a half pies for every rupee, if the turnover relating to those articles is not less than twenty-five thousand rupees.'
The Division Bench found that the proviso to section 3(1)(b) contains a classification consisting of (i) a group of dealers in articles of food and drink who are marked off from the general group of dealers; (ii) among the dealers in articles of food and drink a further division is made and dealers in such articles sold in a hotel, boarding house or restaurant are marked off from the other dealers in such articles of food and drink; (iii) there is a further division among the dealers in articles of food and drink sold in hotel, boarding house or restaurant (a) those with a total turnover of Rs. 25,000 and more, (b) those with a turnover of less than Rs. 25,000. They also found that the effect of the proviso was that while under the proviso the dealers were taxed at the higher rate of 4 1/2 pies in the rupee, the dealers who were covered expressly by section 3(1) were taxed only at the rate of 3 pies. The Division Bench took the view that the distinction between the two classes of dealers in articles of food and drink with an annual turnover Rs. 25,000 and more : i.e., (i) dealers in such articles of food and drink sold in hotels, boarding house and restaurants; (ii) dealers in such articles of food and drink sold eleswhere, has no reasonable or just relation to the object of the Act which was to tax the turnover of the sales of a dealer. Accordingly the Division Bench found that the proviso to section 3(1)(b) of the Act offended article 14 of the Constitution and was therefore void and unenforceable against the petitioner.
18. Just as the classification made under the proviso in question in Krishna Iyer's case : (1956)2MLJ179 was not found to have had any reasonable basis, having a just and reasonable relation to the object of the Act; in the cases before us also was have not been able to find any reasonable basis for the classification based on the place where the articles of food and drink are sold, having any reasonable nexus with the object of the Sales Tax Act. Substantively the tax under item 150 of the First Schedule to the Act turns out ultimately to be a tax not on the sale of articles of food, but a tax with reference to the persons who are the hotel owners who sell those goods by virtue of their having obtained an approval from the Department of Tourism of the Government of India. We are, therefore, satisfied in the instant cases that the hotels which have been classified or approved by the Department of Tourism, Government of India have been given a hostile treatment in so far as they have been subjected to payment of sales tax in respect of articles of food and drink sold to customers in such hotels, while similar hoteliers selling similar articles of food and drink have been exempted from the provisions of the Sales Tax Act. Accordingly we must hold that any step to recover sales tax on the basis that the hotels who were approved by the Tourism Department of the Government of India are liable to sales tax on the footing that they have been approved by the Tourism Department will be violative of the constitutional protection under article 14 of the Constitution of India and will therefore be wholly illegal. We may however make it clear that all that we have said earlier relates to levy of sales tax for the period prior to 2nd of February, 1983. What is the position after the amendment of the Constitution by the Constitution (Forty-sixth Amendment) Act is not a matter which is relevant for our purpose having regard to the notices which have been challenged in these petitions.
19. In W.P. No. 7038 of 1981, the demand notice is dated 25th August, 1981 and calls upon the petitioner to file a return for the period beginning from 13th June, 1981. In view of he fact we have held that the entry in item 150 of the Act which the taxing authorities were invoking was not a valid entry, the notice is liable to be quashed. Mr. Kannan who appeared in this writ petition has also contended that as required by an order of stay passed by this Court, the petitioner has been recovering sales tax, but according to him, this was not recovered expressly as sales tax but by way of making a provision for contingent liability in case the petition fails. The learned counsel wanted to argue that having regard to the provisions of section 6 of the Constitution (Forty-sixth Amendment) Act, the petitioner not having recovered this amount by way of tax was not bound to pass it on to the State Government. This matter, however, does not fall within the scope of the petition before us. If and when the authorities take steps for the recovery of the amount which the petitioner has recovered from his customers, that controversy will have to be decided at that time.
20. In Writ Petition No. 2356 of 1981, it is stated that the hotel has not been approved by the Department of Tourism during the relevant period 6th October, 1980 to 31st March, 1981. The notice of demand dated 15th April, 1981 required the petitioner to file a return for the period 6th October, 1980 to 31st March, 1981. The fact that the hotel has not secured the Star qualification by the Department of Tourism, Government of India, has not been controverted before us. Apart from the ground that item 150 does not enable the tax authorities to recover sales tax from the hotels mentioned therein, even otherwise, since the petitioner's hotel has not been even classified as a Star hotel by the Department of Tourism, the notice was wholly uncalled for and illegal. That notice is liable to be quashed.
21. W.P. Nos. 5834, 6035, 6036 and 7038 of 1981 : These are petitions filed for the issue of mandamus against the enforcement of item 150.
W.P. Nos. 7, 1636 and 2079 of 1981 and 256 of 1985 : These are petitions filed for a writ of declaration questioning the validity of item 150.
W.P. Nos. 2702, 5510, 5782, 6384, 6497 and 7067 of 1981 : These are petitions filed against issue of notice calling for submission of returns.
W.P. Nos. 1586 and 1591 of 1981 are against provisional assessments, W.P. No. 6479 of 1982 is against the order of assessment and W.P. No. 8196 of 1983 is against the order of the Tribunal.
W.P. Nos. 2356 and 7079 of 1981 and 2348 of 1983 : These are petitions filed against the issue of pre-assessment notice based on item 150.
W.P. No. 5718 of 1981 : This petition is filed to quash G.O.Ms. No. 660, Commercial Taxes and Religious Endowments, dated 12th June, 1981 in and by which the present item 150 was incorporated in the First Schedule to the Act.
22. Hence in the light of what had been held above, all these writ petitions are allowed. The effect of our decision is that the State Government and the tax authorities will not be entitled to take any steps for the recovery of sales tax on the footing that the hotels who have been approved by the Tourism Department of the Government of India are liable to pay sales tax under item 150 of the First Schedule to the Act. We make no order as to costs in these petitions.
23. Mr. K. S. Bakthavatsalam, the learned Additional Government Pleader asks for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court against our judgment. He also brought to our notice that the validity of item 150 in the First Schedule to the Act is already the subject-matter of a writ petition which is pending in the Supreme Court in W.P. No. 1299 of 1981. In view of the fact that an identical matter is pending in the Supreme Court, it will not be proper forus to reject the leave asked for. Accordingly we grant a certificate under article 134A that the case involves a substantial question of law of genera importance as required by article 133(1) of the Constitution of India.


On June 5th, Liu Jun, executive vice president of Lenovo Group and president of China, announced that Lenovo's mobile phone brand was officially reborn and Lenovo's mobile phone team will join Lenovo China.
Earlier, there was a time when Lenovo Group had abandoned Lenovo brand mobile phones and only focused on the MOTO brand.
Liu Jun said that the new Lenovo mobile phone has come up with the brand concept of "Conscience Excellent Products, National Mobile Phone".
Liu Jun said that in the past few years, Lenovo's mobile phone has never stopped, in 2012, Lenovo's mobile phone has achieved good results in the second place in the Chinese market. In 2014, Lenovo's mobile phone hit a third-highest volume in the global market. . It is hoped that Lenovo's mobile brand will return this time to create more miracles.


Busy Bee or Hectic Bee?
I agree with these clever guys having the conversation, and I If you think of any creature that defines "Busy", the word Bee comes in your mind, right? Busy as a Bee – you have probably heard someone say it many times.
But, hey, the bees are not stupid – compared to us they might be simple, but definitely not stupid. Otherwise, there would be no honey in the world, and no fruits on the trees. Bees are busy, but not stupid. They are not losing their time on flying around doing silly bee stuff – whatever that might be.
For instance, they don't lose their time fighting about whose ideas should they follow, or why on earth do they have to do that what they do. If they'd do that they would turn into hectic bees, and that wouldn't be a nice sight.
When you refer to someone as "busy bee" you usually think that the person is working their heels off, running around all the time and doing ten different things at the same time, right? If you say yes, maybe you may consider calling them "hectic bee" from now on.
Because there is a difference between being busy, systematic and organized – as a busy bee – or working the heels off, being inefficient and all over the place – actually there is a huge spectrum of hectic bee work behaviour that can be practised in a human work environment.
Being busy is good if you understand it as you being focused, organized, calm and setting the right boundaries. Busy bee values her time and serves her purpose, however humble it might seem.
Being hectic bee, ok – that actually is a new stupid. Especially if you are a human.


Allow SWISSGEAR to elevate your travel experience. The Wenger Zurich 24" spinner in pewter is made from a very durable polyester fabric and features an aviation-grade aluminum locking push/pull handle and deluxe and eight-wheel, 360-degree multi-directional spinner wheels for the ultimate in smooth, care-free maneuverability that you can trust. The main compartment expands for additional packing space, and features a lid pocket, a zippered packing pocket, a removable zippered wet bag, and adjustable clothing tie-down straps to help keep everything in its place. Three exterior front zipper pockets offer extra storage for last minute add-ons while top, side and bottom handles make for easy lifting and carrying.
Product dimensions include wheels and handles.


I resent being indirectly accused of …spewing lies, libel and invective. by some random idiot journalist. I too have read the weblogs of people whose only reason to write is out of spite againt whatever seems to piss them off. Why people take those bloggers seriously is beyond me, they're always boring, the tabloids of blogging with the same lack of credibility, depth and interesting content as their paper siblings. Obviously Daniel Lyons—the author of "Attack of the Blogs "—can't distinguish, probably because he's just a tabloid journalist himself.


Celebrate world-class wine – as well as gourmet food and lifestyle – in the heart of South Africa's famous wine region. The Cape Winelands' flagship event counts wine promotions, vineyard tours, a charity gala, sporting events, art exhibitions and live entertainment among its attractions.
There's no question too small. Start planning your dream trip by talking to our Stellenbosch Destination Specialists.


A commission for Higgins Homes to shoot London landmarks. This was shot in 2006 and I've seen many variations since.
Part of an ongoing commission from Colchester Tourism.
This bridge has got to be one of the most photographed on the Island but I wanted to add my own spin to it.
Shot as part of a stock shoot in Scotland.
A commission for Telford Homes showing London commercial centres.
View from the Staten Island ferry.
While driving back from the Isle of Mull, I spotted this view from the road. I had my camera on the seat so I took a quick snap out of the window. When I took this picture, the outside temperature had dropped to -13.
I was testing the new Nikon D4s in Wales and we came across this waterfall. The light was perfect so I couldn't resist.
Old Man of Storr - Another well photographed landscape. We walked to the summit in a hail and snow storm, the forecast said there would be breaks in the weather but I was slightly nervous on the climb up that it wouldn't break for us to take photographs. Miraculously the weathermen were right and it did break and we had 30 minutes of sun and perfect clouds. This was shot minutes before we were engulfed in black cloud again.
While flying from Romford in Essex to Gillingham in Kent on an early morning, we passed over this wonderful landscape and I just had to take a few pictures.
Shot by the shores of Loch Lomond one very cold day. I could only stay outside for an hour as the temperature had dropped to -10.
A commission for Telford Homes via the agency Think BDW.
One of four shoots we did for Fred. Olsen.
This was a river cruise up the Seine to Rouen in France, a dawn which every photographer hopes for.
Heading into another storm, I saw this as I was walking back to the car, hoping to get there before the heavens opened. Probably would have if I hadn't stopped to take this photo!


The Kearsarge district is on the east flank of the Sierra Nevada about eight miles west of Independence in Inyo County. The district was named in 1864 for the U S.S. Kearsarge, a famous Union warship. The Rex Montis mine, the principal gold source, was worked on a substantial scale from 1875 to 1883, reportedly yielding 12,333 ounces of gold and silver in 1877. The Kearsarge mine also has yielded some values. The deposits consist of narrow quartz veins in quartz monzonite that contain native gold, sulfides, and reportedly native silver.
Moore, J.G., 1963, Geology of the Mount Pinenot quadrangle: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1130, 152 pp.
Tucker, W. 8., 1938, Inyo County, Rex Montis mine: California Div. Mines Rept. 34, pp. 415-416.


text:
Mt. Lebanon United Methodist Church — July 16, 2017
Romans 8:1–11 (CEB)
8 So now there isn't any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. 4 He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness. 5 People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. 6 The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. 7 So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn't submit to God's Law, because it can't. 8 People who are self-centered aren't able to please God.
9 But you aren't self-centered. Instead you are in the Spirit, if in fact God's Spirit lives in you. If anyone doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, they don't belong to him. 10 If Christ is in you, the Spirit is your life because of God's righteousness, but the body is dead because of sin. 11 If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your human bodies also, through his Spirit that lives in you.
Of all the things John Wesley wrote and said, perhaps the most misunderstood is his teaching about "Christian perfection."
But then again, the balance between works and grace has always been a source of debate and misunderstanding.
In the middle ages, the church put emphasis on works — but not necessarily the kind of works that Jesus emphasized. The church at that time was more concerned with arcane rules, and with money. By the time of Martin Luther, the church was selling what were called "indulgences" — basically, forgiving sins in return for money. Luther was horrified by this and it became one of his chief complaints about the church, which led to the Protestant Reformation.
Too many of us fall prey to this legalism. We think of people as good or bad based on whether they say the right things, or whether they're in church every time the doors open, or how many Bible verses they've memorized. This kind of legalism is what the Pharisees followed, and it's why Jesus, in his earthly ministry, was so critical of them. They claimed to be righteous based on how well they followed the rules.
Because he was responding to the legalism of his age, and the arcane requirements of the church in which he'd been raised, Luther — and those who followed him — put a great deal of emphasis on grace. We cannot earn our salvation; it is a gift that is given to us. It was paid for by Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross.
Luther was so dedicated to the idea of grace that he really didn't care for the letter of James in the New Testament. James talks a lot about works, and about faith. Luther actually said that if it had been up to him, James' letter would not have been canonized, would not have been made a part of the Bible.
Luther's followers included a German sect called the Moravians who had an early influence on John Wesley. Some Moravians were concerned that any emphasis on the believer's piety was the first step on the slippery slope towards legalism. At one point, those Moravians practiced something called "stillness," which meant giving up every effort to outwardly please God and simply waiting for God to reveal himself.
The Bible is clear that grace is something given to us, and not anything we can earn. And yet, there are also passages in the New Testament that emphasize the importance of the lives we live in response to that gift. Jesus' parable about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 has the clear message that how we treat other people is a determining factor in whether someone is righteous and whether or not they will receive eternal life.
John Wesley clearly believed in grace, and he clearly did not believe that we could earn our way into God's favor. But he also believed that true Christian faith could not help but have an impact on how we conduct our daily lives.
Wesley, in the early part of his ministry, had his own struggles with whether or not he could be convinced of his own salvation. He struggled with whether his own heart was fully attuned to God — and since he'd been an ordained minister in the Church of England for years at this point, his self-doubt was kind of puzzling to those around him, including his brother Charles.
Eventually, though, Wesley reached an understanding that if someone is truly in a relationship with God, that person will have a different set of priorities. That person will live their life in a way consistent with Jesus' teachings, and consistent with the way in which Jesus has commanded us to love others.
This passage in Romans lays out beautifully the relationship between the old legalism, the new grace, and the idea of a Christian life.
"So now there isn't any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," Paul begins. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death."
The laws of Moses were a legalistic expression of the relationship between God and man. If you wanted God's favor, you had to be circumcised, and you had to offer up sacrifices, and you had to avoid eating certain foods, and so on. But what the law taught people was that no one is capable of completely following the law. That's where grace has to step in. Picking up the passage:
"God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us."
On our own, we are incapable of entering into a relationship with a holy and just God. We can't earn that relationship. But Jesus sacrificed himself so that we could have that access.
That relationship brings change. If you and I become friends, true friends, I'm going to want to do things that will please you. I'm going to want to take your wishes and interests into account. It's the same thing with God. If we are really and truly in relationship with God, that relationship is going to have an impact on the way we live our lives. It's going to pull us out of ourselves, out of our sinful nature.
"Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness," writes Paul. "People whose lives are based on selfishness think about selfish things, but people whose lives are based on the Spirit think about things that are related to the Spirit. The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace. So the attitude that comes from selfishness is hostile to God. It doesn't submit to God's Law, because it can't. People who are self-centered aren't able to please God."
The author Stephen Kendrick, in his book "The Love Dare," writes this: "Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves."
I'm sure many of you have seen the movie "Hoosiers," about a very small-town high school basketball team in Indiana, in the days before size classifications, which ends up winning the state championship. The movie begins with a new coach, played by Gene Hackman, taking over the team, and he realizes they aren't playing very much like a team. So he sets a rule going into one particular game — no one is allowed to shoot a basket until they've passed the ball three times. The parents watching the game think the coach and the players have lost their minds, but the players are learning a very important lesson — they can't win a game focused only on themselves.
At the end of what is probably my all-time favorite movie, "Casablanca," the two main characters, Rick and Ilsa, played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, realize that they can't pursue their love affair because it would hurt a third character, a great freedom fighter named Victor Lazlo, played by Paul Henreid, whom Ilsa married before she met Rick.
Rick breaks it to her this way: "Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that."
There are a million other examples from a million other stories. Greatness comes from being able to look beyond yourself and see the needs of others — not because you're trying to prove anything to God, but because you are responding in gratitude and love to what God has done for you.
"But you aren't self-centered," writes Paul. "Instead, you are in the Spirit, if in fact God's Spirit lives in you."
This is what John Wesley meant by "Christian perfection" — a change in attitude, a change in priorities, in which people are looking outward, at God, and at what God wants them to do for their fellow human beings.
The term "perfection" was, perhaps, an unfortunate one. "Perfection" implies that we never sin, and John Wesley did not believe that he, or any other Christian, was without sin. We continue, on a daily basis, to fall short. We do things we should not do. We leave undone things that we should do. We cannot, and must not, look down our noses at anyone — whether that's another Christian, or someone who is unsaved. We have to always be aware of our own flawed humanity and our own capacity for sin.
But in the big picture, a Christian's life should be transformed. If the Christian's life is not transformed, if there's not a difference between life with God and life without God, you have to question whether or not that Christian is in a true relationship with God. A true Christian doesn't do good works out of a sense of guilt, or in order to impress people. A true Christian does good works because God loves them, because God loves other people, and because the love of God compels each Christian to love other people.
God is not impressed by your perfect attendance pin, but God wants you to have a heart filled with worship, a heart that takes joy in Christian community, a heart that comes for worship not because you have to but because you want to.
Most importantly, God wants us to have hearts that are concerned with bringing people into the circle. If you truly believe in God, if you truly believe that the gospel is true, than you must truly believe that there are people out there who need to hear the message. You must truly believe in sharing your faith with those around you — not by lecturing them, not by standing on the streetcorner with a bullhorn (unless God has called you to do that), but in real, loving conversation. In order to share, you have to be able to listen. If the way you share your faith is to throw it at people, that's just another form of self-centeredness. But it is important that people around us know what we believe and how it's affected our lives.
One of the other Bible passages in the lectionary this week is the parable of the sower out of Matthew 13. The point of that parable has to do with bearing fruit. Some of the seeds in that parable represent people who bear fruit, and some of the seeds in that parable represent people who wither away.
For us, bearing fruit means showing people God's love, treating them with God's compassion, and bringing them into God's kingdom.
Andy Stanley is a megachurch pastor and the son of Charles Stanley, perhaps the second-most-famous Baptist preacher after Billy Graham. Andy Stanley angered some of his fellow Christians a couple of years ago when he said that if the church were to take a break from the "culture wars" for a year and concentrate on how we, as individual Christians, live our own lives, it would have a much bigger impact on society.
There used to be a car dealer in Nashville who did his own commercials and who made a big deal around the holidays of telling people to go to church. I don't guess there's anything wrong with that, although sometimes when religious messages are used as part of advertising I get a little queasy, and I wonder if it's really sincere or if it's just a marketing tool.
Well, I know of at least one person who was very nearly cheated by one of that man's dealerships. And then, at some point, he was arrested for domestic assault in a dispute with his wife. He stopped appearing in the TV commercials after that.
Things like that don't spread the gospel. They don't produce fruit. It's important for us to make sure that we're living the Christian life if we want to be able to share the Christian gospel. Because if we're treating people badly one day, and then getting up on our soap box the next, we're not going to get very far when it comes to winning people to the Lord.
I think that's what Andy Stanley was trying to tell people; we have to get our own houses in order. We need to make sure our priorities, and the way in which we treat others, are reflective of true faith in Christ. If we live Christ-like lives, we may find people coming to us to ask about it. It may take a while for them to notice, of course; a truly Christian life is a life of humility, a life that does good things behind the scenes rather than calling attention to them. But eventually, people do notice a truly Christ-like life.
At the very least, if we have a Christ-like attitude and actions we'll find people a lot more receptive when we try to talk to them.
John Wesley, with the word "perfection," set a high bar for us to reach. But what he's really describing is not a life without error, but a life transformed, a life focused on God and on others. And if we don't see that in the mirror, it's time to turn back to God and ask for his grace. Because it's only through God's grace, the spirit of Christ living in us, that we can possibly live that life.
Emily Jane Iswarm
Christianity is Bad Religion
Dziafa Innocent
All is One and One Is All. Gen 1: 27 ; 2: 24, Eph 5: 31-33, Matt 19:5-6
Does God Provide? Part 3
Aermes
21st century update to Hermes Trismegistus' Emerald Tablet.
Kathryn Eriksen
Change Your Mind Change Your Life
How to Play the Game of Life as a Powerful Creator
Raimi Omaya Yin
Working With Deities: Archangel Chamuel
Linda Russell AKA: Grannymachine!
Mary's Trepid "Yes" — Our "NO THANKS!"
Laurie Rubel
The Hebrew calendar is a few days away from its year end.

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text:
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Silbabel
(KENYA 17)
Former preacher and religious teacher
detailed breakdown
The main interest in this testimony is the fact that the narrator is a Teso who came and settled in Mount Elgon in his youth, and he has a perspective on certain issues such as circumcision and the clashes in the early 90s, which differs from to the dominant Sabaot view. Silbabel Okadapau Chacha moved to Mount Elgon in the 40s, and decided to stay because "it was easy to get land". He believes that, until recently, there were no problems between the settlers and the Sabaot of Mount Elgon, and that therefore the clashes of the early 90s took the Teso community by surprise: "We Teso were completely unaware of what was happening. These Sabaot planned the clashes secretively. They were really prepared for war". Though the conflict has obviously left the narrator with a bad feeling for the Sabaot, he also recounts shared experiences between the two communities. He describes how Teso men who moved to Mount Elgon underwent circumcision so as to be able to marry Sabaot women (who would otherwise reject them), and how the Teso taught the Sabaot how to farm.
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Section 1 How narrator came to live in Mount Elgon, and how Teso like him began the practise of circumcision in order to marry Sabaot.
Section 2-3 Transport and travel in Mount Elgon when the narrator first arrived. Discusses the arrival of the whites and how people were afraid of them at first: "The white man ruled by force. He used the cane". But after Independence "they realised that the white man was not superior".
Section 3 The narrator "used to preach and…was a religious teacher". Says that the people "loved" his teachings, and that he "never told the people here to throw away their culture. Nobody is meant to judge anybody's culture or traditions".
Section 3-4 How the Teso used to "perform their rituals of raising up the dead", which was linked with healing the living.
Section 4-5 Changes that the colonisers brought with them – commerce, cotton, cultivation, roads (built by forced labour), and they "brought their religion to heal people's souls".
Section 5 Chief gatherings in the past. The significance of polygamy for the community: "Many wives could help in the digging of vast land."
Section 6 Development of individual land ownership by the colonial government. More on circumcision: only the Teso in Mount Elgon are circumcised, because otherwise Sabaot women would reject them as husbands. "[The Sabaot] never used to farm their land so much. It is the Teso who came to teach them on how to farm their land."
Section 7 The beginnings of education in the area. Traditional healing methods and the positive reaction to the arrival of modern medicine: "They brought drugs that were very cheap and they would even treat us free of charge. It is not like the drugs of these days, those drugs were strong....People loved these drugs."
Section 7-8 Teso traditional marriage rituals: "Our way was that my son would take his age-mates and go and ambush the girl and carry her shoulder high to my homestead just like an eagle carrying a chick." Narrator mourns the old ways.
Section 9 Narrator's belief that if a woman only bears female children, "you feel hurt in your heart, so you marry another woman".
Section 9-10 Teso traditional gender roles. Says women are protesting against tilling the land with hoes now (as they had to in the past), because they feel the men should do this, using ploughs.
Section 10-11 Discussion of the 1991-1992 clashes. Says the Sabaot told all the Teso and Bukusu to leave the area, and claims the Teso "never burnt down anybody's house". The narrator "lost a lot of property" and says that the Teso "felt very bitter, because these people just woke up one day and decided to do atrocities on us. We did not have any problem with them…the ancient wars were all forgotten". How the government persuaded those who fled during the clashes, including the narrator, to come back but not all have done, because of fear. The narrator and others are still scared because of rumours that some Sabaot are still planning to kill them all, though the "government has beefed up security....[and] the security personnel have been instructed to shoot and kill any troublemaker".


text:
Duchess Kate & Prince William didn't go to Camp Google after their Mustique holiday
Kate Middleton, Prince William, Royals
Sometimes, I think back to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's wedding, and their wedding guest list. Like, they were already building their couple-brand as "normal, middle class," and as such, there were very few celebrities or A-listers invited. At the time, I thought that was a choice, a conscious choice made by Will & Kate to avoid looking too glitzy. But in the years that followed, it's become clear that they are interested in sparkly things and celebrities and glamour. But they're careful about where and when they'll do the celebrity thing. So no surprise, they didn't attend the big, A-list Camp Google thing this week.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did not fly out to Camp Google to attend an A-list bash with some of the world's biggest names, the MailOnline can confirm. Local media in Italy claimed that Prince William and Kate rubbed shoulders with guests such as Tom Cruise and Katy Perry at Monday night's event inside ancient ruins of the Greek Temple of Hera on the island of Sicily.
However the royals in fact flew directly home to the UK following a two-week villa holiday on the idyllic Caribbean island of Mustique, where they rented the exclusive £27,000-a-week Villa Antilles with their three children. The pair's attendance was reported by two local outlets, Diretta Sicilia and Giornale di Sicilia. Prince Harry attended the event back in 2017, and may have brought Meghan Markle along with him on that trip. Markle was later spotted in London the following week with her mother as she celebrated her birthday.
Present this year but managing to avoid detection according to those reports was Tom Cruise. The Mission Impossible star were among a select group of billionaire businessman, world famous pop stars, doyennes of design and Hollywood A-listers who descended upon the ancient Greek city of Selinunte. Private planes and megayachts shuttled guests Harry Styles, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Stella McCartney, Barry Diller and Diane Von Furstenberg, Gayle King, Leonardo DiCaprio and Bradley Cooper to the Verdura Resort in Sicily.
[From The Daily Mail]
Camp Google sounds like Peak One Percent, like "Nero fiddling while Rome burned" sh-t. So I understand why Will and Kate would avoid it – the optics would have been terrible, especially coming on the heels of their luxury vacation to a private, no-peasants-allowed island (in which their house rental was probably comped, let's be honest). But my question is: were they even invited to the Camp Google thing?
As for their likely-comped Mustique rental, The Sun had an exclusive look inside the house now that Kate and William are back home. This was the tit-for-tat – this is how the Cambridges either got a steep discount or a free rental. The Sun got to run this ad for the rental. Also: just imagine what the headlines would be if *someone else* had taken a two-week vacation at a £27,000-a-week luxury rental in Mustique.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid and Avalon Red.
43 Responses to "Duchess Kate & Prince William didn't go to Camp Google after their Mustique holiday"
Gingerbread says:
That Google Camp is so ridiculous pretentious, under the guise of 'how can we save the world'. Every celebrity that attended this will always be side eyed by me.
This boggles my mind but why would they be allowed to party in ancient ruins? Really? Is no place sacred any more? Why not party in the Colosseum?
Jenns says:
I just read about Camp Google, and for the life of me, I cannot understand how anyone can praise or look up to billionaires.
OriginalLala says:
Ugh that Google Camp thing, just ugh. The 1% who likely use up huge amounts of the world's resources for their lavish and extravagant lifestyles shouldn't try to "save the world" unless that means taking a long, hard look at themselves first.
also, I thought the royals couldn't accept freebies? and if not, was this trip also funded by taxpayers? and more importantly, will the Daily Fail even mention it? Will Piers Morgan write numerous articles telling Kate what a hypocrite she is?
Dark and Stormy says:
DId LDC and BCoop go as a couple?
Valiantly Varnished says:
£27k a WEEK. So…where's the outrage about taxpayer dollars and loving the glamorous life?? All those people who bitched about Meghan's 100K baby shower – that she didn't even pay for- WHERE ARE YOU?!?! Crickets.
RIGHT. I want to hear about the bad optics, how this is too much of a "celebrity" island, taxpayer dollars, Brexit, etc.
I know, I know, its not happening.
Nahema says:
Yeah I think the thing here is that William & Kate didn't pay for the holiday & it didn't come out of taxpayers pockets. If they did, I'm totally with you on the outrage but it seems very likely that this was a free as long as the sun then got to advertise the place.
duchess of hazard says:
Man, this only hardens my resolve against the monarchy, for real.
Digital Unicorn says:
So very true, however I kinda think the Google Camp story in the fail was a passive aggressive snark at them and you can bet that they would have loved to have gone to Google Camp for the freebie holiday mingling with big name celebs. It was probably also due to the fail being pissy that the Sun got the photo exclusive of the villa they 'rented'.
chunkyla says:
LOL, did you also say that Harry went "for the freebie holiday mingling with big name celebs" when he *actually* attended this ridiculous event back in 2017?. Because that is exactly what he did.
I have my doubts.
They paid for it privately, it's not funded by taxpayers. It would be listed on annual report if taxpayers funded it. So, either Middletons or PW paid for it out of private funds (he has money from his mother, Diana). It won't have been a "freebie" because PW doesn't do that. He has used the Duke of Westminster's jet before as they are friends, and that was disclosed to the public. PW doesn't make commercial trades. Period. Ralph Lauren is still mad. PW isn't …. look, the BRF are proper snobs. They won't be used. It's not like America over there. To rise in British society celebrities have to pay through the nose, from the Astors to Amal Clooney, David Beckham, to Ralph Lauren- who finally got his title, bless him. It takes decades of work and charitable donations. The BRF keeps access limited, to keep their worth high. So "goggle camp" was never going to happen, it's laughable. PW isn't trying to get to A-listers. A-Listers are trying to get to him, TQ, PC, etc. Why? To get a title, to get their children into the right schools, clubs, events. Eton, White's, Cambridge, Oxford, etc.
Tourmaline says:
Prince William doesn't do freebies? hahaha
You are going to be so disappointed in the poor ethical dear prince
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-385384/William-Id-like-to-Mustique-Im-poor.html
It's adorable how the Cambridge stans love to act like Kate and William are the best thing since sliced bread.
And it's also adorable that you think that Diana money is enough to last W&K for their entire lifetimes (spoiler alert: it's not)
Paid for privately? Like Meghan's baby shower for which she was dragged for weeks due to "bad optics"?
Also, William loves celebrities. So does Kate. I'm not sure where it is coming from that the celebrities are desperate to meet THEM. Remember the LA trip? That was because Kate wanted to go to Hollywood.
Who wants to meet with this incredibly boring couple? Feh!
Oh, no. If your child is male, has half a brain and you're prepared to pay the fees, you can get him into Eton. Oxford, less likely, they have to care about public opinion so if you want your child to get in you're much better off sending him or her to the local comp. Cambridge who knows, put them in for classics. Or give them a building.
But White's – no, dear. There are certain circles that are closed to foreigners, and that is one of them. I don't like it, and I think clubs like White's (and, more particularly to my interests, the Garrick) ought to be abolished. But money won't get you in there.
notasugarhere says:
All costs of security, including the pre-trip security recon, is paid by taxpayers.
The optics of spending over $50,000 for a two week vacation are horrible. If the tabs could pull themselves away from harassing Meghan for one second, they would have a juicy little story.
And while I already see the excuses that it was a freebie, the cost of the RPOs weren't free and with the entire family there, there were certainly plenty of them on staff. The cost of RPOs were certainly levelled against Meghan when she went to NYC even though Serena Williams flew her there and her friends paid for the shower.
Where is the energy from the people who were criticizing Meghan about this?
Olenna says:
Yes, I'd like to know where those phony advocates for the UK taxpayers and the fake environmentalists are as well. It's 9:00 pm and there are only 40 comments. Are the Keen fans and Meghan stalkers hiding in shame or embarrassment for the FK and FQC's blatant display of wealth?
There is always crazy gossip about the BRF, but this truly bizarre. Why report W+K were there when it is so easy to disprove? It's not like the event needs royals to raise its profile.
It was first reported by the Italian media. It just goes to show you that these tabloids make up stories and don't fact-check sources.
I wonder if anyone else on that guest list was reported to be there incorrectly.
Redgrl says:
I am trying to be positive today (and distract myself from the *crickets* from the UK press about their expensive holiday – who we know would've been frothing had it been H & M) so I will just say that olive blazer & black pants combo is one of the best things she's ever worn.
JennyJenny says:
@Redgrl, I was just thinking the same thing about that outfit.
It really gives her a completely different look, which is good !
Camp Google. Wow. That's insane. And I like how the article got in a dig about Harry possibly having gone in the past with maybe Meghan too.
The villa is incredible. I cant even imagine that kind of lifestyle.
Kk2 says:
Oh I'm imagining my family in that Villa right now! How dreamy.
@Becks1
"a dig about Harry possibly having gone in the past"
Harry DEFINITELY went to this ridiculously pretentious event back in 2017. Someone took a sneaky picture of him while he was there.
Okay, but it didn't have to be brought up in the article, and there is no proof Meghan was there. That was just a reminder that Harry and Meghan are the celebrity-obsessed members of the BRF, and Will and Kate are just normal people who want to get home after their 2 week vacation!!!
Not a fan of William but the camp google story doesn't seem to fit with his agenda. However he wants to keep up with the Sussex's so I can't completely rule this out. Maybe smoke and mirrors to hide the $27,000/night vacation!
KittenHeels says:
They really wouldn't have had an enormous say with the wedding invites.
broodytrudy says:
27k a week? Are you kidding me?? I know it's owned by Andrew Dunn so they probably didn't pay (except for security, flight, expenses etc all on the taxpayer's dime) but my god, what a waste. An embarrassment of riches. Jfc.
Their flights are supposedly privately funded. Like their vacations' accommodations. If we believe this for other members of the family,who certainly have their holidays and private trips,we should believe it for the Cambridges.
It's amazing how the same handles who were attacking Meghan on the bad optics of going to NYC are now the one saying that "they all do it so its ok" when many of us were pointing out the annual Mustique holiday. The hypocrisy is enormous.
Eh.. did I say the optics are especially "good"? The closest comparison would be M&H's "babymoon",when you had Emily Andrews (if she was the one reporting about it) emphasizing the luxury of it,but it ended there in terms of reporting and outraged tweets and comment sections. It's not like nobody has called the Cambridges out either..
In both cases we have not seen pap strolls outside super expensive hotels and restaurants for three days,a constant feed of new stories even coming from royal reporters that were intentionally briefed about it,Gayle King talking about the event on GMA,etc..
I think we all know they go on vacation in luxury locations,they travel privately with their RPOs, etc… Including Meghan and Harry. Unless we pretend the Cambridges are the only ones who have ever gone on a skiing holiday (Sophie and Edward went some months ago),on some luxury beach resort (we know Meghan and Harry did it for a couple of days during their tour).
The point is that most of the time they manage to keep everything out of the news,or with minimal "leaks",hence the "optics" talk. We talk about "optics" because in the end we accept that,security aside,they pay for the vacations,the flights. Personally speaking,I've never said they lied about the baby shower being funded privately.
Another argument I also saw a lot here was that the security costs don't change,whether they're in London or in New York,so British taxpayers paying for her security wasn't a big deal. K&W should have the same RPOs they already have in London.
And if we accepted that version and that their private trips are privately funded,we shouldn't say now that taxpayers are paying for the villa,the flights,their staff like the nanny who is not paid via the Sovereign Grant.. or spending extra money for the security. I was responding to that point.
Neither of these stories are going to gain much traction because the British press is obsessed with hounding Harry and Meghan.
"Camp Google sounds like Peak One Percent, like "Nero fiddling while Rome burned" sh-t."
like, seriously. them one percenters better continue keeping these shindigs on the down low, because i don't think us peasants are going to take too kindly to it if they rub our faces in it.
Syr says:
Why link them to something they're not at? What's the point of this snark?
M.A.F. says:
That Camp Google thing sounds boring. I rather explore the island& the ruins than be stuck having to talk to those people.
Sicily is stunning, esp the area the event was in – its called the Valley of the Temples. If you love ancient Greece then you will love that part of the world.
I've stayed in Sorrento, Positano, Naples and Capri but missed out on visiting Ischia (maybe next time) – that part of Italy is one of my favourite places.
celialarson12 says:
Digital unicorn, have also done those towns plus others in the area. The place is stunning. That being said – Positano- never wanted to see another stair or step in my life by the time I finished my stay. Capri – stunning but the sheer drops as one drives ( though one would argue that it is the same in the whole of the Amalfi coast ). Have been to Sicily, mostly based in Taormina , but have visited Palermo, Cefalu, Messina, mt Etna, Catania .
As soon as I read about this Camp Google, my first thought was that the Cambridges were not there, they are just too provincial for it. IMO a Cambridge vacation is Kate with the kids and the Middletons in some villa in Mustique, William the dark horse partying elsewhere with some buddies and some sophisticated girls. For some reason the press planted this story, maybe to do what they have done, slum Harry and Meghan for mingling with the 1%, with fake outrage of " Oh no William and Kate are not like that ". I think the BM is already imagining how Meghan and Harry will spend their holidays and are getting ready with the fake outrage.
As someone who likes travelling and experiencing the world, I would never begrudge the Royals their holidays and travels, maybe because in my small part of the world travelling both in summer and winter is the norm for almost everybody, and this has nothing to do with wealth. If anything I would be dying of boredom if I had to visit the same place again and again, do not care how beautiful the views are. So in my opinion the Cambridges can holiday however they want. Their budget is just higher than others.
EbonyS says:
According to the Mail, Harry attended and gave a speech!


If you haven't heard of chia seeds by now, then you are either A. A man or B. Living in a cave (or both). Chia seeds are this great nutrient packed little wonder seed. They also have this great trait of puffing up and swelling when you soak them, which makes them great for puddings and jams. I like to prep a few of these a the beginning of my week and keep them in glass jars in the fridge-that way, when I'm in a rush to get out the door, I can just grab one on my way out!
So why are Chia seeds so great?
2. They are high in dietary fiber, which makes them useful for getting great digestions.
3. They contain 20% protein, however-you would have to eat buckets of it to get your full day's amount of protein.
4. They contain 63% of our daily recommendation of calcium-if you eat 100 g that is. However, they would be a great way for vegans to increase their calcium intake!
Iv'e used coconut and cherry for this one, but you can just as easily add you own variations: Cacao and raspberry, Vanilla and almond, cinnamon and sultana, apple crumble-honestly just get creative with flavours!


When I was younger, I didn't pay much attention at all to how much I spent at the supermarket. I would only purchase mainstream brands; bought whatever I liked and never worried about what was on sale. Fast-forward 10 years; 2 kids and a mortgage and now more than ever before I am exceptionally mindful about how much I am spending; I intentionally shop looking for the cheapest options and am finding I am spending less than I ever have at the supermarket. So how do I do it and still keep my nutrition on track? It is so easy.
Each and every time you 'duck' into the supermarket you are guaranteed to spend at least $50 if not $100. It is the same as keeping food at home – if it is there, you will eat it and if you go to the supermarket you will see appealing options and buy more than you need. For this reason I go to Aldi once a fortnight and stock up on all the crucial supplies – toilet paper, nappies, wipes, cleaning products, frozen vegetables (a frozen vegetable is a frozen vegetable), baking products and long life milk. This shop rarely costs me more than $100. I then try and go to your local supermarket just once or twice each week to purchase anything else we need like the products Aldi do not stock, a couple of serves of fish, meat or chicken depending on what we are cooking and fresh fruit for the twins.
Each week my Dad goes to the markets for the family. Now he is retired BUT you save so much money on fresh vegetables that I would now make time to go even if he couldn't. For $20 a week I pick up a whole pumpkin, several zucchinis, sweet potato, spinach and tomatoes and that is more than enough fresh veges for the entire week! $20 I am serious. Get out there or form a coop and take turns going. You will save a fortune.
In busy lives who has time to cook every night. Generally speaking I cook 2-3 times each week but make a big serve of lean mince or various pies that work as leftovers and lunches a couple of times each week. The other nights I simply make a quick fish or cutlets with vegetables. Quick and easy and mince and pie dishes are extremely cost effective.
When I do find myself at the supermarket I generally spend 5-10 minutes in there, quickly racing for the products I am looking for. Perusing means buying more, and generally more foods we do not need. In stating that I do buy treats, a packet of chips here and there, sometimes biscuits but these are one off purchases, never routine buys that push the bill up and when I do buy them, they are always on sale eg ½ price biscuits or chocolate.
As a dietitian I am fussy with certain brands – I prefer the best types of bread, cereal, condiments but when it comes to foods like cheese, or milk or oats or flour, I never waste money on the name brands because I know the actual product is the same just in different packaging. Why spend $3.00 on peas when you can spend $1 or $5 on oats when you can $1? There is a coffee paid for right there in savings!