The Things I Can Do

First, hello world.  I'm pretty notorious for starting these things and losing interest after awhile.  I promise to do my best not to completely neglect my project this time.  I can say for certain I will not post every day.  I'm the mother of a six month old boy, hitherto known as yeled.  There's just not enough room in the day to blog all the time.  

I do have good reason to show up here every few days:  My husband, hereafter described as Ba'al, and I recently had a long discussion about the current state of the economy.  He's a federal police officer and has been for long enough that his job is reasonably secure.  But we both realize that his salary will almost certainly not keep up with the costs of basic living.  So we developed a plan.  We're now on a hard-core, no frills budget that will allow us to bank around $800 to $1000 a month.  Over the next three years, we will use this banked income to pay off our past credit obligations and establish a down payment fund.  By the end of that time, we'll have saved up enough for a hefty down payment on a piece of land.  We're hoping to get twenty to thirty acres.  A year to two years later, we should be able to put a temporary house up on that land.  After that, well, we'll see what happens then.  Right now, we just need to get to a point where we can grow much of our own food and build equity.  This blog is all about how we're going to accomplish our goals.

I have a second, more personal challenge.  As I noted in my profile, I grew up with a sense of conservation that many people are just now discovering.  What annoys me about green=trendy is that it costs so much to be green if you do it the trendy way.  I can't afford to buy brand new $20 organic cotton onesies for Yeled.  He grows too fast.  I can go to one of the many thrift stores in town and buy nearly new organic cotton onesies for $2.  I cannot justify $5/lb organic strawberries shipped in from G*D knows where.  I can afford to go to one of my many farmer's markets and buy strawberries picked that very day from a farm just a few miles outside of town.  Yes, I understand what makes "organic" theoretically better for my body.  I also understand that if that organic produce is not from the same area I live in, the costs and pollution of transportation outweigh any benefit to my body.

Since we're on this hard core budget, I need to cut costs wherever I possibly can.  And cutting costs, incidentally, can also be very very green.  If you make your own pasta, you don't pay $3 a box.  You also don't add the packaging into a landfill so you save money, eat a better product, AND do something good for the environment.  My personal challenge is to find as many of these green cost-cutters as I can.  

Besides the fact that these short cuts save me money, and the fact that they're environmentally better for all of us, there's the fun in it all.  Yes, fun.  I take a great deal of pleasure from figuring out new short cuts, finding new uses for things I already have, and getting really good deals in unexpected places.  Example:  We just got a solid oak dinning room table.  It is the sort of table that grows with a family.  It seats four in it's present configuration but has three extra leaves and can expand to eight and a half feet long.  Like I said, it's solid oak and in beautiful condition.  We paid $80 for this table, leaves, and chairs in the local D.A.V thrift shop.  Do the happy dance with me!  My family will never have to buy another table.  When we first saw the set, it was marked at $148.  When we went in a week later to buy it, there was a tag sale going on and the table had the right color tag on it to get 50% off.  How much fun is that?!

To get to the title of the post, I've begun a list of things I can do to save money and help the environment.

• Ruthlessly turn off all lights when not in use.
• Unplug appliances when not in use.
• Limit use of the A/C by utilizing fans and open windows as much as possible.
• Figure out a cloth diaper system practical for our small apartment and shared washing machines.
• Make fabric wipes for Yeled's butt.
• Line dry clothes instead of paying for dryer time.
• Recycle everything that can be recycled.
• Get and use a self-contained compost bucket.
• Buy used clothes, furniture, and household items.  As a sign in a local antique shop reads, "buy green, buy antique."
• Instead of buying pre-made kitchen things (like pancake mix, pasta, and so on) make these things at home.  Why buy them if I can make them myself?