One step forward--one step back

I'm not sure how well I am progressing at the saving money part of my experiment. This week I discovered that our vacuum cleaner would no longer pick up leaves, cheerios, or clumps of dirt that can often be found on my floor, much less dirt. So I did a little research on inexpensive vacs and bought one on sale at Target. I could have saved the tax by buying online, but would have had to wait to get it in the mail. We decided the convenience of taking it back to Target if it didn't work out was worth $8.

So with our brand spanking new vacuum, regardless of the fact that all I wanted to do was nap, I vacuumed about 70% of the carpeted floors in our home (and we have WAY too many carpeted floors!!) I must say, I am very pleased with the fact that dirt is actually being sucked into the canister, and thus is no longer on my floor (that's not to say there isn't dirt still in there, but less is better!)

That's the step back. That and the fact that the minute I try to SAVE money, all I want to do is go spend it! A new friend told me last night that she stopped buying anything new since January 1 of this year. Nothing new?!! (Except food, of course.) Not only that, she hasn't fallen down on that except a couple of times. She did say that her family hasn't agreed to this (maybe she just tells them what she wants and they get it for her! Ha! Just kiddin. But that's how it would be in my house, because it seems like a really tall order! I can think of lots of things that I bought new that I don't know that I even could have gone without--a new bike tire comes to mind. But maybe I could have bought a used one? Hmmm. But I digress--as usual.)

Speaking of bikes and saving money and saving our planet from heaps of unwanted, wasteful purchases gone awry, this week I decided that I could save a lot of gas if I would just ride my bike more for errands that are close-by, picking my son up from school, going to the park etc. So twice we have taken bikes to the park instead of the car in the past few days. Today it is raining so I won't be able to pick up my son from school on my bike, but I will start this again as soon as the weather improves. And perhaps if I consider that I have to haul everything home on my bike, I won't buy as much at the store!

I am also trying to lower our energy and water consumption at home, which isn't easy living with 3 other people who don't necessarily try as hard as I do. Last night I shooed my little one out of the shower as quickly as I could, so that his older brother could step in and save water by not having to heat it up the second time, and then shooed him out after a "relatively" short time. I am trying to take 5 minute showers myself to cut down on water usage. I read about someone who saves their shower water and uses it to flush the toilet. I'm not standing in a bucket just yet. I'll let you know if I go that far. Don't hold your breath. (I do use a water-saving shower head with a shut-off valve and set it to about half the normal flow of water while showering though.) I also am using less soap and shampoo then I used to (and I buy organic, animal by-product free, biodegradable.)

Also, and this one if kind of funny to talk about in a blog, but I read about someone who uses a compost toilet (no thanks) and doesn't use any toilet paper (again, forget it.) She uses like wash cloths or something. Ewww. Anyway, I won't go that far, but I am trying to cut down on my use of toilet paper. I already live in a house with three natural conservers of tp (called boys) so I decided this is an area that I could make a big difference for our household consumption. And I have bought and will again buy post-consumer recycled tp. Sigh, just wish they made them in double rolls.

Lastly, I tried to bleach a denim jacket to white using hydrogen peroxide and it didn't make a bit of difference. So maybe it only works on whites to make them brighter. I did put all my whites in the tub of solution leftover after taking the jacket out. Some fabrics did whiten, some did not (interestingly, it seemed to relate to whether they were natural or man-made fibers--the natural ones whitening.) I will continue exploring this and report back.

Well, thats it for this week! Quote of the day is from Joanna Macy, "The crisis that threatens our planet...is the delusion that the self is so separate and fragile that we must delineate and defend its boundaries; that it is so small and needy that we must endlessly acquire and endlessly consume; and that as individuals, corporations, nation-states, or a species, we can be immune to what we do to other beings." (I bolded and italicized the word delusion.)

Have a peace-filled week,

Debra

10 Ways to Save Money and the Environment

With Earth Day coming up this week, I have been thinking about how I can have a more positive impact on this planet, and a less negative one. And one way is to stop putting so much stuff in the garbage and down the drain that is harmful to our environment, and then to encourage others to join me! Here are 10 ways to do just that:

1. Re-cycle -- I have printed out and put a list of items that can be recycled in my community on my refrigerator and try to be as faithful at separating my garbage as possible. I often fill up my recycle bin faster than my garbage can, even though its bigger!

2. Re-use -- Instead of throwing away, or even recycling cups, bottles, cans, grocery bags, ziplock bags, copy paper , etc., I re-use them as many times as possible, THEN I recycle it if possible. Plastic drink cups from 7-11 can be re-used indefinitely, but can usually also be recycled. Copy paper and be flipped over and printed on the other side, and water bottles can be refilled using tap water (which is often as good as bottled water--and better if you use a filter on your tap.)

3. Re-purpose – When I need something—a bookshelf, a container for storage, padding for a bed—instead of running to the store to buy what I need, I first look around the house to see if I already own something that will work. For example: two clay pots can be inverted to become a base for an old piece of lumber from the garage to make a low shoe or bookshelf. If it needs to be higher, than put it on a desk or dresser and use the space under and on top of the shelf for books, etc. I recently pulled an old queen-size down comforter out of my linen closet, folded it in half, put it on my son’s twin bed and covered it with a sheet to make a very comfortable padded bed for him to sleep on.

4. Rejuvenate -- When something I love wears out or becomes broken, I try to rejuvenate it or repair it before throwing it away and getting something to replace it. Recently, I lost two rubber pad inserts in my favorite water sandals. When trying to replace them, I discovered that I couldn’t find anything that I liked as much, so I bought a package of shoe pads and a bottle of waterproof shoe glue from my local drugstore and repaired them. Cost $10 (good water sandals are upwards of $70.) Just yesterday I was wearing a skirt and wishing I had a cropped white jacket to go with it when I realized that I already own a denim one that I never wear. I am going to try bleaching it with hydrogen peroxide, which is not only economical, its not harmful to the environment!

5. Re-make -- When I was growing up, every time we expressed a desire to have something, my mom would say, “I can make that!” and often she would. I learned that I can make a lot of things easily, by using a little creativity, some things I already own and a little time. Pillow covers can be sewn from old sheets or table cloths, picture frames can be painted with leftover wall paint, coat hooks for the entry can be crafted from old wall shelves and various knobs and hooks that are no longer used elsewhere, and furniture can be painted, chairs recovered with fabric from old curtains, bedding or even woven rugs! Try looking in Second-hand stores if you don’t have any at home. The list is endless. It only requires imagination and elbow grease. If you can’t come up with your own ideas, just google the internet and you will find more ideas than you know what to do with!

6. Clean using non-toxic household items -- There are loads of internet websites and YouTube videos giving information about how to make your own cleaning products from ingredients that you have right in your kitchen. I have written about baking soda and vinegar as being cleaning staples at my house, but there are loads of other ideas and most are completely non-toxic, biodegradable and won’t damage the environment. THey also cost a LOT less than store-bought cleaners, which are mostly water plus a lot of nasty chemicals probably from petroleum. Yuck.

7. Compost organic matter – I keep a bowl next to my kitchen sink that I put all of our kitchen scraps into and dump onto our compost pile each evening. I also add these things to it: egg shells, shredded newspapers, leaves, yard waste (pulled weeds, grass clippings, small branches, etc.) along with anything else that is biodegradable that I can find. Occasionally I use a hoe or shovel to chop of the larger pieces of fruits or vegetables (its even better to do this before putting it in there!) and turn the pile so that it can breathe and compost. Then in the spring I rake off the top and use the stuff at the bottom in my flower beds. It makes a great natural fertilizer.

8. Borrow or rent instead of buy -- We try to borrow or rent everything that we don’t use often. We borrow books and movies from the library, rent movies for $1 from Redbox or Blockbuster and return them on time, rent carpet steam cleaners from the grocery store and use only water to clean the carpets (and spot clean with non-toxic, biodegradable ingredients), a neighbor’s chainsaw, another neighbor’s tall ladder, etc. We also offer to loan neighbors, friends and family things they may only need to use occasionally.

9. Swap services -- We don’t take advantage of this as much as we would like to, but my husband, being a computer consultant, sometimes has the opportunity to swap services for goods or other services with others. Likewise sometimes I will do things for friends or family that involve my area of expertise, anything hands-on that needs an artistic touch. I find that when I am willing to help people, people are willing to help me! And this “swapping” isn’t always a direct swap--it may be a neighbor helping me to start my car when the battery dies, or cutting down an overgrown bush in my yard with his chain-saw, and my knitting a scarf for a friend who can’t knit. The correlation isn’t a direct one, but an indirect one. Just by giving, I am being blessed, as are all who give.

10. Declutter -- My home needs a serious overhaul. But until I can get to that, I declutter as I go and store items in the garage until I can take them to a local charity drop-off. Larger items I sell using Craig’s List (www.craigslist.com) which is free. I can only imagine how much time and money I will save when I get rid of all the clutter. My home will be easier to maintain, require less time to clean, and have fewer spills and accidents because there will be less stuff cluttering up and obstructing the otherwise abundant space we have.

Inner simplicity

This morning I woke up early, before I would have liked to wake up, thinking about something that had happened in the past.  I don't even recall what it was now, but it reminded me of a thought I had several weeks ago.

Often (and I do mean often) past unhappy experiences come to my thought and play on an endless loop in my head until I am distracted by something else, or I am able to consciously let it go for a time.  Sometimes the experiences are about something someone did or said to me. More often than not, they are something I did or said to someone else.

As I was reliving another one of those unhappy occurrences recently, I realized that it kept coming back up over and over again because I had not forgiven myself for something I did that caused another to suffer greatly.  Then it hit me--each time something from the past comes up, it is the same thing.  Either I have not forgiven myself or someone else for something.  

This was an amazing discovery for me.  It showed me just how much resentment and guilt I have been carrying around with me for years (I mean some of these things go all the way back to childhood!!)  So immediately, when something unhappy came to my thought, I began to think about who needed to be forgiven.  

Some of them are small things--someone saying something embarrassing about me in front of others, or my behaving rudely to an employee at a store.  But some seem to be so much bigger than that.  And these things really test my ability to forgive.  I have to work at it and am not always successful.  But I guess you could say that the cool thing is that I have a perfect record of what still needs work.  The perfectly preserved moment will appear on the projector in my head and begin playing the loop, until I recognize it again for what it is, and try again to forgive. 

About the act of forgiving--well, I don't know how much I have to say about that.  I know that forgiving myself is much, much harder than forgiving others.  I can always seem to see that they were dealing with a stressful situation, or unhappy about something else, or maybe just being careless or unthinking.  Who hasn't been there?  

But my faults seem to loom large--too large to accept, because I know them all, or at least most of them, and they are legion (a huge number.)  This reminds me of the Bible story where Jesus encountered an insane man in the tombs near the Gadarenes who said his name was legion because so many devils were inside of him.  Jesus wasn't impressed and demanded that the devils leave him--which they did and entered into a herd of swine that ran over a cliff into the sea and drowned.*  All at once!  

This is a new idea for me.  Perhaps I, too, can see these endless looping images for what they are--something that is keeping me from seeing myself as God made me to be, keeping me from being a living example of His image and likeness (see Genesis 1.) Instead of seeing myself as part of God's creation that He made and declared to be all good, I am reviewing tapes that put me and others in the role of devil or evil, behaving contrary to what God created us to be.

It says in Psalms (86:5) "thou, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee."

But what if the images keep playing because we are afraid that we will do the same thing if faced with it again.  Maybe there is more work to gain a better understanding of why we behaved that way in the first place.   

Sometimes (wish it were more often!) when I am faced with a sudden wave of emotion, I dig into my thinking by asking myself questions and listen to the answers that come to me until I have what I call an "a-ha!" moment.  Its that sensation when something dawns on me that hadn't occurred to me before, but explains a lot. 

Whenever a bad memory comes up, I try to do this.   I try to remember why I behaved the way I did.  What were the circumstances? Was I angry?  Emotional?  Tired?  I ask what I might have been afraid of.  Loss of something good?  Loss of something I felt I needed?  Often, these fears only need to be uncovered for us to realize that they are either unfounded, or something we can do something about.  This work is essential to real forgiveness, because it gets into the only place that forgiveness can take place--our own thinking! 

It says in the Bible (1 John 4:18), "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear."  I think that we find this perfect love as we express love unconditionally--loving ourselves and loving others regardless of what we have done or what they have done. This can lead us to a whole new view of ourselves and others,-- and it can lead to forgiveness.   

*(See story in Matthew chapter 8, Mark ch. 5, or Luke ch. 8)

Clean and green

Week two of my simplifying experiment.  This week I attempted a full house cleaning on a single day and only managed to clean the kitchen and the master bathroom.  I did have my 3 year old son at home with me at the time, so I'm not going to worry about it.  Clearly, I need to plan cleaning around life and not the other way around.  

So today I am going to give everyone in my family a list of chores that need to be done daily and weekly.  They will have to put their name down next to a certain number of chores each week.  For example: if they have to choose ten items, they might choose to do the dishes three days during the week, sweep the floor once, do their own laundry, and feed the animals five days.  Some things will have to be done only once during the week, others every day.  And I KNOW that the hard part is going to be establishing these routines for everyone and getting them done in a timely manner.  

So more on this after we have tried it out for a week or two.  Let me know if you decide to do this (or already do it) and how it works out for you.

I took time last week to go to the bookstore to relax and read for a while.  I found a book by the two guys who started the company Method which makes cleaning products that are not harmful to our health or the environment.  The book they wrote is called "Squeaky Clean" and went through the house room by room explaining that basically we live in a chemical haze and store what amounts to a toxic waste dump under our sinks.  

I have long been concerned about the amount of chemicals we are exposed to today compared with when our parents and grandparents were growing up, and a few years ago, I began using baking soda and vinegar to clean with, but I also used other products like window cleaner with ammonia, bleach, all-purpose cleaners like 409, the list goes on.  

This week I realized that by cleaning my own home, I can really go much more green than any cleaning company ever would.  So I did all my cleaning with two mixtures that I made myself from ingredients in the kitchen that are not harmful if inhaled or ingested!  The first is an all-purpose cleaner made with 3 ingredients plus water.

All-purpose Cleaner

1/4 cup baking soda

1/2 cup vinegar

squirt of biodegradable dishwashing liquid 

4 cups warm water

Mix this up in a large stainless steel or glass bowl because the baking soda and vinegar will foam up a lot.  Then you can transfer it to a glass jar to carry it around more easily.  I just used a sponge to wipe everything down with the solution, then wiped it down with a clean wet cloth and wiped it dry with another clean dry cloth (I used microfiber.)

The second recipe is even easier.  I used it on all glass and mirrored surfaces.

Glass Cleaner

1 cup vinegar

3 cups water

This can be used in a clean spray bottle.  You must use newspaper or a microfiber cloth with this solution, otherwise you will get streaks, smudges and foggy glass.  I used newspaper on the outside and microfiber on the inside.  Two tips--make sure the newspaper and microfiber cloth is clean or you will just smear around the dirt, and don't spray too much on the glass, because it doesn't evaporate like window cleaner. If you spray too much, you will have to wipe a lot longer to get it dry.

Other good uses that I have found for baking soda and vinegar are scrubbing my pots and pans, the floor of the shower stall and bathtub, sinks, toilets, etcs.  Also, they are good used together for clearing drains when running slow.  When the sink gets too clogged for this to work, then I take apart the pipe section directly under the sink and start probing it with a stretched out wire hanger.  Its gross (wear rubber gloves and put as large a plastic tub as will fit underneath) but its effective for clearing clogs completely....and much, much better for our waterways and fishes.  I also probe shower and bathtub drains with a wire coat-hanger when they are clogged.  This used in conjunction with baking soda and vinegar and a plunger has taken care of every clog we have had.

I have also read that baking soda and vinegar mixed into a paste can get up carpet spots and then vacuumed once dry.  I will try that out this week.  And Hydrogen Peroxide makes a fabulous bleach.

Recently I purchased biodegradable dishwasher detergent.  And we only run our dishwasher when it is full -- about every other day.  My dishwashing liquid is also biodegradable.  Next I will be switching to biodegradable laundry detergent too.

OK--so enough about cleaning already!!  It seems to have taken over my life at the moment.  That and writing really boring blogs about cleaning (this is my 3rd and final try--it will be posted so I don't have to endure another one.)  

Til next time....

Simplify to Save Money

Recently, my husband's business dropped off considerably.  Only for a couple of weeks, but it was long enough for us to rethink our spending habits.  So I made the decision to start a blog about our efforts to spend less money, to simplify our lives, and to go green in the process.  And to top it all off, I decided to write a book about it hoping to add to our income while we work at subtracting from our outgo.  

The first thing that I did was to let go of our cleaning service that came twice a month.  This meant that I had to step up on cleaning my home from top to bottom, and not just the many accidents and spills created by my dog and two children (and me!)  Believe me when I say that cleaning up after the kids is almost a full-time job in and of itself.  

This week I cleaned the downstairs bathroom (the half-bath for guests) and wondered why we need a 3rd bathroom that takes me 45 minutes to clean?  Is it really necessary?  Note to self: next house--fewer bathrooms!  Could we get away with just one?  Hmmm.

I also cleaned my sons' bathroom, which reminded me why I do rather like the idea of having a separate bathroom from them--so I can sit down on the toilet seat when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and not have to worry about sitting in a puddle.  Let that imagery soak in.   (No pun intended.)

I swept and mopped the floor in the kitchen one afternoon, only to have it look exactly the same as it did before I mopped 1 hour after finishing.  That's depressing.  

Even though I haven't tackled the whole house and done the major cleaning yet, I did notice one thing.  When I actually DO clean, I do a better job than the cleaning service.  And I use more environmentally-friendly cleaning products--mainly baking soda and vinegar (try this for all bathroom surfaces!  Just be sure to rinse with clean water or the baking soda will leave a residue.)

The problem has always been doing it consistently.  So if you are like me and haven't been able to keep up with the Flylady system or any other system (while having pets and children in the home at the same time--because face it, we are all better at keeping house when we are just cleaning up after one!) then stay tuned as I explore new ideas.  Better yet, you work on it too, and let me know what you come up with that works for you!! 

The only other things I have done to save money this week have been eating at home more and making my own "frappuccinos" at home instead of going out for an afternoon Starbucks run.  Here's my recipe for a completely de-lish mocha frappuccino (this requires a good blender that will blend up ice.) If you aren't a coffee drinker, then just omit the coffee!

Mocha Frappuccino

1- 1/2 cups ice

1/2 to 1 cup half and half (Land o Lakes fat free works!)

scoop chocolate powder mix (hot chocolate mix or nestles or sugar free, whatever)

1 level tablespoon of instant coffee (I use decaf)

squirt of honey

dash of vanilla

Add fat free milk as you are blending to get it to right consistency.  You can also use powdered milk and a bit of water. 

I have always packed lunches for my kids instead of their buying lunches at school.  This week I will be packing lunches for my husband as well.  I have purchased insulated soft-side lunch boxes for the boys, but also generally buy applesauce and yogurt in serving size containers which they then throw away instead of recycle as we do at home.  So I am going to try to buy larger sizes of foods like applesauce (no sugar added, of course), goldfish crackers, yogurt, and drinks, etc. and pack them in re-usable containers. Then my family won't be throwing away so much trash!  Green and money-saving at the same time.  

Earth Day is coming up this month and I am thinking about what I might do to celebrate.  Last year my older son and I volunteered at a local nature preserve to clean up trash and remove invasive weeds that had accumulated at the site.  We spent 5 hours in the great outdoors getting exercise and enjoying our blessed natural world.  (And I got a great REI volunteer shirt that says "Get Dirty" on the front! Ha ha!)  I'm going to be checking out events in our area to take part in this year, as well as making a commitment to be a better steward of our planet, our home.  Won't you join me?  (And let us know what you find to do!)