I hope you all had a great weekend!  Our was spent working on the rough wiring in our basement, with a lot of help from my parents.  I have a circuit map that I’ve been drawing onto a blank floor plan, adding x’s and o’s for all the outlets and lights.  The whole basement map is now covered in x’s and o’s, which is pretty awesome to see.  We still have to run the wires to the lights, but all of the outlets and switches are wired.  We’ll probably be able to finish our rough wiring next weekend, which means we’re getting very close to being able to call for our next inspection.  Moving right along on that basement!

We’re also making good progress on the garden.  We decided to cover some of our raised garden beds with black plastic this year in an effort to fight weeds before they start.  Last fall we were wandering around in a tomato field grown by a huge organic farm in our area.  We noticed that all of the rows were raised and covered in black plastic, with just a small hole for each tomato plant.  We figured if it’s working for the largest organic farm in the state (and they’ve been an organic farm since the 70s, so they’ve had a few years of practice), it will probably work for us.  So we went to the farm supply store a few weeks ago and bought a roll of black plastic for $15.  We’re covering five of our ten raised beds (the other five all have seeds planted in them already – we’re using the black plastic on beds where we’re going to plant seedlings that we’ve grown in the house this spring).  So far, we’ve covered three of the beds, and the other two will be getting covered today.  I cut holes in one of the beds and planted seedlings a few days ago.  It’s a lot more time consuming to plant seedlings that way, but I’m reminding myself of how awesome it will be in July when I’m spending my time doing anything else but weeding!  Have any of you tried black plastic as weed prevention in your garden?  Please let me know how it’s worked for you.

I found a few good articles recently that I wanted to share with you.  Hope you like them too!

From Mr Money Mustache, Food Rules – A Shortcut To Better Health.  I agree with the whole thing, so I’ll just let you go check it out and read what he has to say.  Eat real food!

15 Wonderful Ways To Use Coconut.  I love this.  We’re going to walk over to the grocery store today to get some Dixie cups so that we can make popsicles out of frozen berries and coconut milk.  I am a big fan of coconut.  I have a gallon bucket of coconut oil that I got when Nutiva was running a great sale.  I use coconut oil as a moisturizer and it’s also my favorite cooking oil.  I buy organic shredded coconut quite frequently and add it to all sorts of stuff.  My current favorite thing to add it to is frosty granola bars - we love these things!  I’ve been making them for the last several weeks, every time I have a few very ripe bananas.  They take five minutes, and are great to have in the freezer for a quick snack or dessert.  I’ve tweaked them a bit:  I add protein powder, use chopped nuts instead of cereal, and omit the maple syrup.  I sometimes use Justin’s chocolate almond butter instead of plain almond butter.  I always add coconut.  And lately, I’ve been adding a teaspoon of coffee extract and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Also, I’ve found that you don’t need to use muffin papers.  Just drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a plate and stick the plate in the freezer for half an hour.  Then pop the almost-frozen treats off the plate, dump them into a bag or other freezer storage container, and put them back in the freezer so that you can grab one whenever you need it.  Quick, easy, delicious!

Minimalist Mom has a great post about Pinterest, Facebook and how comparing ourselves with others isn’t a recipe for happiness.  I love the last part where she writes about how you might not be the parent who bakes three dozen fancy cupcakes for your kid’s birthday… you might instead be the parent who leads a bunch of four-year-olds in the Hokie Pokie.  We recently had a birthday party for our four-year-old.  It was at a park with a great playground.  I made several of his favorite snacks (which everyone loved – proof that birthday party food doesn’t have to mean junk food and tons of sugar) and the kids had a blast.  They played on the playground and in the sand, and everyone stayed well past lunchtime.  We didn’t do goody bags or organize any activities (put a bunch of kids in a park and they will come up with their own activities – I promise!).  I spent maybe an hour the night before, making snacks.  Easy, stress-free, and tons of fun.  The next day, our son asked me if we could have his birthday party exactly like that, every single year.

Hearth And Soul Blog Hop recipe round-up over at Penniless Parenting is a great resource.  The edition I’ve linked to has almost a hundred recipes in it – all made of simple, whole food ingredients.

This one is from last year, but in case you missed it the first time around, it’s a great post from Simple Mom about how awesome it is to be debt-free.  A little inspiration for all of us who are somewhere on the road to being debt-free.  For us, the only debt left is our mortgage, but we’re making steady progress on that.

Have a great week!

My husband recently spruced up his bike to make it easier to carry stuff, and I thought I’d share his cool DIY design.  In the past, he always used a backpack to haul stuff on his bike, or he put stuff in next to our son if he was hauling the kid-trailer.  But now he has a luggage compartment on his bike, even if he’s not hauling the trailer.

He started with one of those skinny, flat, tray-like carriers that mount behind a bike seat over the back wheel.  We got it a long time ago at a thrift store, and it was the perfect mount for his new bike trunk.  You can see it in this picture, underneath that basket at the front:

He used scraps of wood leftover from framing the basement and some screws to attach an old milk crate to the carrier:

Then he cut the sides of the crate so that he doesn’t bump against it while he’s riding.  He also made extra room at the top so that he can still wear his backpack without it hitting the crate.  He has a bungee cord to hold things in place, and the whole thing works perfectly.

Other than the mount we found at a thrift store, everything else for this project was stuff we had sitting around in the garage.  But now it’s much more useful.

This is completely off topic, but look what I found at Goodwill yesterday:

Clarks.  No wear at all – no toe indents inside, not even a scuff mark on the soles.  Six bucks.  Retail price is $120.  They’re my mom’s size, so I got them for her – couldn’t pass up that sort of bargain.  I also got a complete set of bathroom towel rails (three rails plus a TP holder) for another six bucks.  Since we’re working on our basement bathroom, that was another good score.  And I also got a beginner’s guitar for our son for five dollars.  All in all, a good trip to Goodwill.

Remember when I told you about the walker I started using as a dip station for my Bodyrock workouts?  Well, I have another inexpensive, DIY piece of workout equipment to share with you.

They use sandbags as weights on Bodyrock all the time.  The one they use sells for about $100.  Of course there was no way I was going to spend that sort of money on one.  So I’ve been using the dumbbells that we’ve had for years, and they work ok most of the time.  But heavy metal dumbbells aren’t the most comfortable thing to have stuck behind your neck while doing lunges and squats.  They’re meant to be held in one hand, so it’s a bit awkward and uncomfortable to hold them by the ends.  I use a 30 lb dumbbell for squats, and I have to wrap a sweatshirt around my shoulders to keep the weight from digging into my neck.  Not to mention the fact that it’s hard to get a good grip on a dumbbell if you’re holding it with two hands – and I don’t like the idea of possibly dropping a 30 lb weight on my head or toes.

So I thought about that sandbag some more.  And then I made one.

I went to Goodwill and found a sturdy duffle bag that has handles on the top and both sides.  It was $4.

Next, I raided my fabric stash and found an old flannel sheet.  I cut five rectangles of flannel to make into bags, and I sewed around the edges twice to make them nice and strong.  I also had a couple of fabric bags that had once contained soap nuts – perfect, since all I had to do with those two was sew them shut once they were filled.

We have a pea-gravel driveway in our side yard, and I used our postage scale to weigh some gravel.  6.25 cups of gravel weighed five pounds.  So after I had seven open-top fabric bags, I filled each one with 6.25 cups of pea gravel.  Then I sewed the tops shut.  Easiest sewing project ever.  I triple stitched the tops closed, folding over the hemmed edges before sewing over them to contain loose ends.

I put a sandbag (gravel bag?) in the zippered compartment on each end of the duffle bag to help keep them from all clumping together in the middle.  Then the other five go in the main compartment.  That gives me a 35 pound sandbag, and I can reduce the weight in five pound increments as needed.

I used it yesterday for my workout, and it’s so much better than the dumbbells.  I was able to hold it behind my neck without it digging in, and it was easy to keep a good grip on the handles.  I love it!  The whole thing cost me $4, since the gravel and fabric for the bags were stuff I already had.  Even if you had to purchase the fabric and gravel, it wouldn’t be expensive.  The Goodwill store near here has 99 cent jeans days when all the jeans in the store are on sale for 99 cents.  You could buy a pair of jeans and chop the legs into sections to use as sandbags – all you’d have to do is sew the top and bottom shut.  And it doesn’t have to be pretty – you don’t even have to turn over the rough hems if you don’t want to.  Pea gravel and sand are both pretty inexpensive too.

This whole project took me about an hour, although that was with two kids “helping” me.  I’m guessing it would take less than 45 minutes if you were uninterrupted.

Hooray!  I now have a dip station and a sandbag!  They aren’t as pretty as the fancy ones, but they’re functional and that’s really all that matters – especially when they cost a fraction of what the fancy ones do.

EDIT:  For any of you who are also fans of Bodyrock – Zuzana has her own YouTube channel now, and is posting new workouts: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZuzkaLight?feature=watch  You can also follow her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ZuzkaLight  I think she’s great, but I’m also happy with the new team at Bodyrock.tv.  So I’ll be mixing it up with workouts from both of them.

In addition to our awesome backyard, we also have a really big front yard.  We started getting rid of some of the grass last summer, putting down weed blocking fabric and using a wheelbarrow to spread out existing areas of gravel (happily, the former owners had ordered more than they needed when they put in gravel, and it was 18 inches deep in some areas).  This year, we planted a bunch of tiny trees out front, and we’re babying them along right now.  Hopefully one day we’ll just have a little forest out there, which will provide shade, wind protection, and minimize the amount of watering and mowing that needs to be done.

There is a vast amount of gravel in front of our house (don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have the gravel than grass, since it doesn’t need to be watered or mowed).  It doesn’t seem as vast until you start trying to pull all the weeds out of it.  Over the years, dust has blown into the gravel and made it a great spot for weeds to sprout, and the former owners were pretty much oblivious to them.  We have been pulling weeds all summer out there (our son knows that whenever we go out to get them mail, we have to pull 20 weeds first, and he says “weeds, first” whenever we go out front).  I spent two hours doing nothing but weeding a couple days ago, and I made it through about 1/10 of the gravel.

So I went searching for another solution.  I refuse to buy any sort of commercial herbicide – our property is strictly organic and staying that way.  But I found several articles about vinegar working as an herbicide.  I use vinegar to clean our whole house, so I buy it in gallon jugs at Costco and always have several on hand.  It’s inexpensive, but most importantly, I don’t have to worry about harmful effects – to us or the environment – from using it.  Our son went out with me to help me spray it, which definitely wouldn’t have been possible if we’d been using something created in a lab at Monsanto.

We started with a small patch to see how well it would work.  That was yesterday morning, and when I checked this morning, all the weeds in that area are completely dead.  The weather here has been really hot (nearly 100), sunny, and dry, which is supposed to be the best weather for using vinegar to kill weeds.  Obviously I’m very happy with the results, and will be spraying all the gravel with vinegar over the next few days.  I’ll pull out the bigger weeds that are easy to grab, and spray the small ones.  Hopefully my vinegar herbicide will continue to be successful!

My post about all of us being responsible for the oil spill generated quite a bit of discussion over the last few days.  Any time this issue comes up (on my site and every other one I’ve visited), there are always people who are quick to point out why their particular situation makes it impossible to drive less.  Cars are so much a part of the American way of life that it makes sense that people will become defensive if they have to start questioning their dependence on cars.  But rather than dwell on the situations where being car-free is impossible, I much prefer to focus on solutions.  Cortney pointed out that cities aren’t going to start creating ways to make alternative transportation safer and more convenient unless they see a genuine need.  If your area isn’t safe for biking or walking, are you going to every town meeting, writing letters to council members, canvassing the neighborhood to find like-minded people who can stand with you in asking for better bike lanes, sidewalks, etc.?  The things that we complain about are things we could be changing…  In addition, we should be focusing on what we CAN do to lessen our dependence on oil (and our overall ecological impact) rather than the things we CAN’T do.  If you can’t give up your car, you can slow down on the highway in order to improve your gas mileage.  You can commit to giving up disposable items in favor of reusable ones (diapers, napkins, food storage containers, cleaning rags, even personal hygiene products).  You can slowly start eliminating meat and dairy from your diet.  Even if you have to drive to work everyday, you can focus on making your weekends car-free and based around activities that lessen your impact on the earth (planting a little garden to reduce your need for trucked-in food, for example) rather than going to the mall to buy more stuff.  The point I’m making is that we can all make a difference.  We don’t all have to follow the same path to make a difference, but we have to be aware that we need to make a difference before we will start making changes.

I mentioned driving slower as a way to conserve gasoline, and I want to expand on that just a bit in case you’re curious.  Basically, gas mileage drops off significantly once you go faster than about 55 mph.  I drive about 60 mph on the interstate, and I try to avoid rapid speed changes in town (coasting slowly to a stop at traffic lights, and accelerating slowly from a stop).  I also do some mental math every time I fill up my gas tank, and my average mpg is always in the 32 – 35 range (for the entire tank, including both city and highway).  That’s not bad for a 19 year old station wagon.  It helps that my car is a 4 cylinder stick shift, but if I were to go 80 mph on the interstate and not be as conscious of avoiding rapid speed changes in town, I’m sure my mileage would drop into the mid 20s.  I recognize that there are valid reasons for needing to drive sometimes, but there’s no valid reason why we can’t all slow down a bit and focus on getting as many miles as we can from a tank of gas.  Don’t leave your car running when you’re parked (that’s zero mpg), don’t keep your foot on the gas right up until you have to hit the brakes at a red light, don’t try to get everywhere as fast as you can.  And start calculating your actual gas mileage every time you fill up your tank (zero out the trip meter when you fill up, and then see what it’s at the next time you fill up.  Divide that number by the number of gallons it takes to fill your tank and you’ll have the average mpg you got from the last tank).  Make it a game to see if you can beat your last average – trust me, it becomes fun, and it will help you to remember to drive with maximum gas mileage in mind.

About 1000 people are reading this blog everyday.  And if I can inspire ten or twenty or a hundred of you to start making some small changes to conserve resources, I’ll feel successful.  An added bonus is that most of the things you can can do to conserve resources will also help you to save money, which is probably the reason you’re interested in my blog in the first place.  So I challenge you to think of something you can do today to reduce your use of oil, water, paper products, disposable items, etc.  If you come up with an idea that you think other people could do too, share it here or in whatever forum you choose to get the message out.  Most importantly, have fun with it!  And thank you for taking the time to think about it.

I subscribe by email to my favorite blogs, and this morning, right beside each other in my inbox, were articles from two of my favorite bloggers, Everett Bogue and Tammy Strobel, both writing about essentially the same thing: we all have a moral obligation to drive less.  Both articles are excellent, and well worth reading.  The disaster in the Gulf happened shortly after I completely stopped reading the news, so I actually have very little knowledge of exactly what has gone on so far.  But I do hear bits and pieces from friends and family, and it makes me glad that I’m not reading about it on a daily basis… just thinking about it makes me feel sick.  And makes me even more committed to biking, walking, or just staying home.

One of my favorite free-time activities is hiking.  We’re lucky to live in a very beautiful area with lots of wilderness relatively nearby, and since I was a teenager I’ve loved heading into the hills for a day of wandering.  There was a time when we would either hike or mountain bike at least twice a week throughout the summer and fall.  But in 2008 we went twice, last summer we went once, and this year we haven’t been at all yet.  One of the primary reasons is my strong desire to drive less.  Although the wilderness areas are nearby, it’s still about a 45 minute drive to get to our favorite trails.  Getting there by bike isn’t really an option – riding there and back would be a full day all by itself, and the road to get there is a winding mountain highway with about a foot of shoulder and then a 50 foot drop into a river.  The only realistic way to go hiking is to drive to the trail head, and I’m just not comfortable with doing that on a regular basis anymore.  Don’t get me wrong – I still thoroughly enjoy the one or two times per year that we head out to the mountains for some wandering, but these days I am actively trying to structure most of my free time around things that don’t involve driving (or shopping, for that matter).

So I’ve started “hiking” around our town instead.  Our son rides in his little red wagon (it’s got awesome big knobby tires and will go over all sorts of terrain.  My parents found it at a thrift store for $8 and fixed it up for him; it’s his favorite form of transportation) and the dog walks along with us.  We usually go out for about an hour, and just go wherever we please.  Sometimes we run errands while we’re out, sometimes we just look at flowers and birds, sometimes we follow the trail that leads through the huge organic farm by our house.  No matter where we go, we have fun.  It’s relaxing to be out walking, away from phones and computers, enjoying the sunshine.  I’m not saying that the views around our town are quite as breath-taking as the ones in the wilderness areas, but the trade-off is completely worth it to me.  The great thing about hiking from your own back door is that it can be completely spontaneous.  All we have to do is put on shoes and sun hat, and we’re out the door.  No need to prepare for bad weather or bring back-up food or drive for an hour before and after the hike.  Also, since there’s no prep time or driving time, we can fit in a “hike” pretty much every day.  Another great bonus:  our “hiking” is completely free.  No gas money or special gear needed… going for a walk is about as frugal as it gets for entertainment.

The reason I’m sharing this is because I agree with Tammy and Everett that we have a moral obligation to drive less.   And sometimes that might mean giving up or cutting back on things we enjoy.  But it’s always possible to find alternatives, and you might just find that you start to enjoy the alternatives just as much after a while.  Whether your goal is to go completely car-free, car-minimalist, or just cut back your driving by 20%, I encourage you to check out the articles Tammy and Everett wrote today for a little inspiration.

People are often amazed that my husband and I have cars that are 20 years old and still going strong. Yes we’ve been lucky to have reliable vehicles, and we’ve also stayed on top of basic maintenance. But the real key is that we don’t drive much. We bought my car from its original owner in 2003. In the last seven years, I’ve driven it 38,000 miles, with most of those miles in the first three years I owned the car (before we had our business set up to be completely from home). These days, I put about 3000 miles on my car each year – so of course it’s lasting longer than it would if I were driving it 10,000 miles a year.  Our cars are old, so the registration fee is very low, as is our liability-only insurance.  And of course we don’t have car payments.

When we chose to move last year, we knew that there were some things we were giving up by moving to a small town.  The most notable of these (and the only one we even notice) is the lack of public transportation and the distance we have to travel to get to a good grocery store.  We don’t really care about other shopping – we don’t do much of it anyway.  But groceries are a must, and the small-town grocery store near our house just doesn’t carry most of the food we want to buy.  I support them whenever I can, and buy small packets of organic frozen veggies there, along with a few other things.  But they don’t have a single organic item in the fresh produce department, which is where I spend most of my grocery dollars.  Our garden is starting to produce stuff now, so my grocery needs are steadily declining, but I do still need to buy a lot of our food.

So about once a week, I load up my reusable grocery bags and head into the big town ten miles down the road to shop at the co-op or the health food store.  Lately I’ve been taking advantage of the trip to also drop off stuff at one of the big thrift stores in town.  If there are any other errands that I need to run, I make sure that I coordinate them so that I do them all in the same trip.

Other than my weekly trip to town, I’m able to do everything I need right here in our little town.  And my rule is that I never drive my car unless I’m leaving our town.  Nothing is more than about three miles away, and I can easily get to everything in town either walking (pulling our son in his wagon) or by bike.  The library, post office, credit union, hardware store, liquor store, even a grocery store that will do in a pinch… all are within easy walking or biking distance.  I told myself when we moved here that I wouldn’t drive if I needed to go somewhere within our town, so getting around by bike or on foot has just become second nature.

Working from home also makes a huge difference, as neither of us has to go anywhere for work.  We’re working hard to create a life that we love, and to be honest, we’re both happiest when we’re at home, working, working in our garden, hanging out with our son… just doing the things we do on a daily basis.  And that means that most of the time, our cars are just hanging out in the garage.

Tammy Strobel has written an e-book called Simply Car-Free for people who are looking to minimize their dependence on cars.  Check it out if you’re looking for ideas and inspiration.  We aren’t car-free (yet… maybe once our town grows a bit we could be someday), but I suppose you could call us car-minimal.  The disaster in the Gulf should be a big motivator for all of us to look for ways we can consume less oil, and driving less is a good start.  Do you have a self-imposed rule about not driving your car to go short distances, or on certain days?  Do you make an effort to combine trips to limit your total driving?  Do you prefer public transportation, bikes, or walking?

If you haven’t given much thought to the idea of being car-minimal or car-free, maybe today’s a good day to start.  A good first step is to tell yourself that you won’t drive if you’re going less than two miles (or whatever distance works for you) and then gradually increase that distance as you get more comfortable walking, running, or biking.  And enjoy the added benefit that comes with getting a workout while you do your errands!

I believe that for most people, cutting expenses is the most important key to reaching financial goals as quickly as possible.  Basically, the idea is to make the difference between what you earn and what you spend as large as possible in order to put the difference towards your goals (paying off debt, buying a house, saving for retirement, whatever floats your boat…)  There are two ways to do that:  you can either increase the amount you earn, or you can decrease the amount you spend.  Both will have the same effect in terms of increasing the amount you have to put towards your goals.  But I believe that decreasing expenses is easier and can be done faster (immediate gratification is always nice).

If you’re looking to cut expenses, here are my favorite ideas – things that have worked for us:

• Drive an old car. (or take this a step further and ride a bike instead of having a car)  My car is 19 years old, my husband’s is 20.  They are both going strong.  We bought my car from the original owner in 2003, and paid $2300.  We have only had to do a couple of minor repairs on it over the years.  BONUS:  driving an old car means that you can just purchase liability auto insurance.  The savings we get from not having comp/collision on our cars allows us to purchase far more than the state minimums in terms of liability insurance.  I’d rather be well covered in that regard.
• Find the least expensive housing that meets your needs, rather than the best/most expensive house that will fit into your budget.  If your house payment is 40 or 50% of your income, it doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for other things.
• Don’t shop as a form of entertainment.  Anytime that spending money is involved, make sure it’s with a clear purpose.
• Cook from scratch.  There are millions of recipes out there in cyberspace.  Anyone can cook, it just takes a little faith in yourself and a few google searches.
• Challenge yourself to find everything you need secondhand.  The list of things that we buy new is extremely short (underwear, socks, consumables… that’s pretty much it)  Thrift stores, yard sales, and Craigs List are great resources.  Use them!  But only if you actually need something.  The rule about shopping as a form of entertainment applies here too.
• If you have kids, don’t believe all the hype about everything that you “must have” for them.  They really don’t need much.  Provide food, health insurance, shelter, discipline, exercise, and love, and things will work out just fine.

I’ve been reading several websites lately that are devoted to the idea of living with as little “stuff” as possible, and focusing on experiences rather than things.  Obviously I have no desire to live with only what will fit in a backpack, since we’re focused right now on our goal of growing most of our own food (shovels don’t fit in backpacks).  But I have found myself very inspired to get rid of stuff, not purchase anything else (which helps to keep expenses down), and generally lead a clutter-free, simple life.  Check out these sites and see if you find any inspiration:

Far Beyond The Stars (and I love the name of his site!)

Becoming Minimalist

The Simpler Life

I have always been a pretty frugal person.  But I’m finding myself drawn towards the ideal of having only what we need and the things that truly bring us joy.  I find that the tenets of minimalism go along nicely with my own efforts at keeping our expenses as low as possible in order to reach our financial goals as quickly as possible.  Hopefully you’ll find some inspiration here too.

Hi everyone!  Sorry about the lack of posts recently.  We’ve been on vacation, and I took a break from the computer while we were away.  We spent several days with my husband’s parents at their sunny winter home.  They live in an RV park in the southwest during the cold months, and it was great to see palm trees and wear shorts!  But it’s great to be home again too.

While we were away, we used disposable diapers for our son.  Before we left, we bought a package of 7th Generation diapers at the co-op where we now do all of our shopping.  They were definitely more expensive there ($20 for a pack of 35 diapers) than they would have been at a baby store, but we were in a hurry that day, and wanted to make just one stop.  We considered taking our cloth diapers along and washing them while we were there, but decided to just take the easy route this once.  It’s the first time we’ve ever bought disposable diapers for our son, and he’s 22 months old, so we gave ourselves a pass.

The first thing I noticed about the disposables is that they hold a lot more liquid than the cloth diapers.  I typically change our son about once every two hours, but I found that even after three or four hours a disposable diaper would still feel completely dry on the inside.  So the package we bought lasted for the whole trip, and we even have a few leftovers that we’ll give to a friend.

It was nice to have the convenience of disposables on our trip.  But I must say, I’m thrilled to be home and have our little guy back in his regular mama-made diapers.  For starters, the 7th Generation diapers still use the same crystalline absorbency technology that other disposable diapers use.  I like the fact that they don’t use bleach to whiten the diapers (they’re a light brown color), but I do feel better with plain old cloth on my baby’s behind… even if it isn’t as absorbent.  And no matter how convenient the disposables were, they didn’t come close to dispelling the guilt I felt about the bag full of diapers that we sent to the landfill this morning before we left.  There is no way I would be able to do that for two straight years.

I’ve always liked our homemade cloth diapers.  We’ve spent barely any money on them, they’re a cinch to use and keep clean, and I have no concerns about what’s in them.  And each week we just dump a tiny amount of trash into our outdoor bin (still using that same garbage bag we were using in January!)  Now that I’ve tried disposables too, I’m still just as sold on my cloth diapers.

I’ve written before about how I’m trying to buy less plastic.  I just read a really inspiring interview with Beth Terry from Fake Plastic Fish, and I’m ashamed to admit that on the rare occasions when we eat out, I’ve never thought to ask the waiter to bring my water without a straw.  Around the house, I’m doing pretty well, but we still have a long way to go.  Just about all of my food storage containers are glass now – I have a bunch of glass bowls and casserole dishes with lids that I use in the fridge, and I’ve been recycling jars into food storage for a while now.  Jars that once held olives, artichoke hearts, and almond butter now hold dried lentils, sesame seeds and walnuts.  I soak them in hot water until their labels peel off, and then glue on new labels for whatever I’m putting in them.  Jars like that used to end up in my recycling bin, but I figure this is an even more effective way of recycling them.

Once we get our garden going this summer, I’m hoping to dry a lot of food and my repurposed jars will be perfect for storing it all.  I can picture a whole shelf full of mis-matched jars filled with various garden goodies, and it makes me smile.

I try to avoid plastic quite a bit, and when I do buy it, it tends to be secondhand.  For the most part, I’d rather have things made of wood or glass or metal, and that’s pretty much what I see when I look around our house.  But the bulk food at the health food store where I shop comes pre-packaged in little plastic bags with twist ties at the top (there are no bins).  And when I look in our recycling bin each week, there are always several plastic containers that somehow made their way in there.

A month or so ago, I started dumping the contents of our indoor trash can into our outdoor trash can, without removing the bag from the indoor can.  We compost all of our food scraps and use cloth diapers, so there is never anything wet or disgusting in our trash can, and there’s usually not much in it at all.  I had noticed that each week we were removing the big plastic bag from the trash can and taking it out to be picked up with only a little bit of stuff in the bottom.  It started to seem like a huge waste of a big plastic bag.  I think it’s been about five or six weeks now that we’ve been using the same trash bag, and it’s working great.  I imagine that eventually it will get holes in it and I’ll have to start with a fresh one, but at this rate our huge box of garbage bags should last until we retire!

Beth’s Fake Plastic Fish site is a good read for anyone looking for inspiration to reduce consumption in general and consumption of plastic in particular.  Reducing consumption is the ultimate in frugal living, since it translates to not spending money.  And if there’s a greater purpose to it, that’s even better.