Good Things Come in Small Packages

Sorry I haven't blogged lately, for a time I really fought over the issue on whether I really could make any significant contribution to the "green" movement.  A lot of things I love and would blog about are material in nature (such as the remainder of this post), which seems to run against the grain of the movement.  Less stuff is better for the environment, and reduces waste, etc....but the fact remains that we need "stuff" to live so I think it is worthwhile to mention the things I have come across that ultimately reduce our footprint and can make a contribution to greener living.  =)

So, onto "good things in small packages."  For years I've used those plastic dryer balls in my dryer in lieu of dryer sheets.  For one, they save money and they are less wasteful.  They also claim to cut down on drying time. I had never really tested the theory on the drying time, it did not seem to make much of a difference.  However, my sister in law came across these adorable dryer balls from Clean Spyria: http://www.etsy.com/shop/CleanSypria?ref=seller_info  The seller claimed they were better and more environmentally friendly than the plastic ones so since the dryer balls I had were on their last leg I decided to give it a shot.  I ordered 6 in custom colors and had the "frankincense and myrrh" scent added.  I got a confirmation e-mail the next day that they had shipped and by the end of the week I was able to test them out.  I was absolutely amazed!  They were just as cute in person and had a lovely scent to them.  The remarkable thing, however, was when I used them all of a sudden my washer and dryer cycles stopped at the same time.  Previously, it would take about a half hour to wash and an hour to dry.  All of a sudden, with only the addition of these 6 dryer balls, my dryer needed only half the time!  This is significant in both energy savings as well as time in general.  As a busy mom of two, going to school 3/4 time and running a small business, every minute counts so for my normal 4 batch laundry load I saved 2 hours on my day!  I will also add that the scent from the balls added a very light fragrance to the laundry which was especially welcome on my cloth diaper batches.  Highly recommended!

Eat Your Veggies!

I asked my professor for some suggestions on improving my lifestyle and he suggested I take the following quiz: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/  I recommend taking the extra few minutes to do the "detailed" answers rather than the quick version.  Once I took the test, I was surprised to see that it would take 3.9 planets to sustain my lifestyle.  Here I thought I was not making much of an impact, being a stay at home mom (not driving many places), recycling, trying to live responsibly...  The thing that surprised me the most was that eating meat and animal products really increases your global footprint.  I have thought a lot about switching to a more vegetarian diet for health reasons, but it has been hard convincing my husband who LOVES his meat.  He grew up on a farm raising hogs, and I know that his father looked down upon vegetarians so that has rubbed off.  Apparently it's manly to love meat and lots of it!  I am going to attempt to talk to my better half and see if he'd be willing to switch to a diet with less meat products.  Moral of the story is eat more veggies and less meat!

H20 Conservation

As my husband stated this morning, he often feels blessed to shower/bathe in water that is cleaner than most people in the world have to drink. We take the clean fresh water for granted and often times are wasteful of this precious resource. Today I was challenged to look at ways we could cut out our water consumption. The first thing I looked at was bathing.

I researched and found out some interesting facts. According to the U.S. Dept of the Interior (http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/edu/sq3action.cfm), a typical bath is 50 gallons of water, and a typical shower is 2.5 gallons per minute. If you switch to a low flow shower head a shower would consume 1.5 gallons per minute. Therefore, a bath would equal 33 minutes in the shower (20 minutes with a standard shower head). For most people, the low flow shower is a lot better. Low flow shower heads only cost around $10-15 per year, and save you an average of $50 per year (plus on a typical every-other-day 20 minute shower you would save 3,560 gallons of water!) This was quite convicting as my sister-in-law gave us a low flow shower head for Christmas and it's still sitting in the box in our closet. First on the agenda is to have my hubby install that tonight!

Secondly, have you ever heard of a Navy shower? This is the extreme in water conservation! Basically you run the water for a few seconds to get wet, shut off the water while you lather up, then turn the water back on to rinse off (typically only a few minutes). I can't even begin to think of the calculations on savings for that sort of shower, but it would be immense! The only practical way I think you could do this would be to install or have a shower knob with temperature and pressure controls separate. That way you wouldn't need to "test the water" each and every time you turned it on, and it would also minimize burns. These run around $110, an example of one would be Delta's T17478-H2O model, that also features a slow flow shower head and is labeled a WaterSense product by the EPA.

Finally, there is no need to shower every day. I once read a story of a 95 year old man with jet black hair, the "secret" to his lack of grey hair lay in the fact that apparently he only bathed once every 5 years! I personally think that is gross, but there is something to be said for allowing our natural oils to remain for a time (it is also easier to style your hair the day after a shower). I think a shower every other day is enough to keep you clean and healthy!

I was going to post more on ways to save water, but think I'll save that for another day! =)

Hello!

Hello!  My name is Jasmine and I'm a recovering shopaholic.  The sad thing is that most people do not realize that shopping is not only an addiction, but a harmful one.  The first realization came after our tax refund this year. Prior to being a stay-at-home mom I worked at a local Credit Union as a loan officer.  I helped people not only obtain loans and set up accounts, but I worked hard to teach people how to make a budget and live within their means.  At that point, I did live within my means, but after getting laid off and having two children things changed.  I wanted to maintain that "American Dream" mentality, and though I knew some cuts were needed, I figured I was doing well by shopping savvy.  I was subscribed to twenty "money saving" blogs and "deal-of-the-day" sites that helped consumers find good quality products for cheap.  I was loving it, I was able to purchase a designer $100 diaper bag for just $30 new - which is cheaper than most bags at Babies R US!  I felt I was being responsible, but things were rapidly spiraling out of control.  What started off as a few deals, lead to a $1000 per month habit that was hard to break.  For the first time in my life I was charging up a credit card bill that I could not pay off each month.  I justified this by saying I would be getting a nice tax return (as we have two children, one meager income, and both go to school full time), and I'd just pay it off when the time came.  The time did come and we received almost $8,000!  However, we had just that much in credit card debt racked up and I realized that something needed to change.  I realized that I was not being a good steward of my family's finances and ultimately God's money.  At that point I rewrote our budget to make sure that we'd start living within our means.  However, old habits die hard and though I was able to realize the smallest credit card bill since our marriage almost ten years ago, I was still under constant temptation to spend money.  The final "breakthrough" came upon my second week in my Geography class at Regent University.  The professor had us watch multiple movies, among them the youtube video called "The Story of Stuff": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM this along with many other things I have been thinking about recently pushed me forward to change my life and start becoming a "sustainable" Christian.