Since its been a few months of concentrating my efforts on being thinner, richer, greener, I thought it would be a good idea to sort of evaluate how I've been doing, what I've learned, what was easy and what is harder than expected...
Running: My initial goal was to exercise 5 times a week, on top of running in the evening with my husband. This has changed a bit, because (1) My husband stopped running for awhile due to a myriad of health factors, mainly a herniated disk and (2) Its now dark at 5pm so our days of post-work running have come to a close, at least until March or so. I'm still continuing to aim for 5 workouts a week and its constantly an uphill battle. I generally get 3-4 workouts a week, 5 is an excellent effort and does happen sometimes. Unfortunately, slacking also occurs, mostly due to extenuating circumstances like going away for a weekend--and I feel it when I do not exercise.
"Thinner" Goals in General: You may have noticed I don't have a whole lot of these. Other than diet and exercise, there isn't much short of liposuction I can do about my shitty metabolism and my post baby flab. Perhaps I need some more specific goals in the future...such as "never eat french fries or cookies ever!" Yeah.
Now onto the greener goals...since these seem to be the most plentiful...
Dryer Usage: By far, cutting out the dryer usage has been the easiest and reaped the most tangible benefits. Surprisingly, I found that I enjoyed the process of hanging clothes out to dry and using the dryer only for necessary items. Our electric bill is significantly lower. I do need to get a drying rack for indoors for the winter, but then again, I think as long as there's no precipitation there's no reason not to hang clothes out in the winter and just touch them up with 10 minutes in the dryer...we shall see...
Going Wipe less: Found a few glitches in my plan to go wipe less. 1. I started doing some minor potty training with my son. Cleaning out the potty (human waste) and then throwing the rag in the laundry? Not going to happen, at least not with the extra gross clean-up jobs. Also, during a party or gathering of people, its really hard to limit your usage. About a half roll of paper towels was used in ONE night. (The other half had been sporadically used over a few months.) The dishwasher was run multiple times, and although I had visions of not using paper plates, I did anyhow b/c I didn't feel like loading and unloading the dishwasher yet again. But really, I'm not going to ask my guests to watch how many paper towels they use or count the squares of toilet paper.
Conserving Energy: My husband and I are getting better about this. We used to be horrible ones for having every light in the house on, unnecessary things plugged in, and taking ridiculously long showers (well, that was more my husband than me!) I think seeing it reflected in our electric bill--we can view it online at any time and see how much energy we've used) has helped a lot. But we could be doing better.
Recycling: Remember, when I started this, we didn't even recycle? Its amazing how many alcohol bottles, I mean recyclables, we go through in a month. Amazing.
Future endeavors: Solar panels. We might have to work on the "richer" part of this blog before that happens. Compost pile. Haven't gotten there yet, and must research to see if things like wild animals and unruly dogs will prevent a compost pile from happening. We shall see!
And finally, the richer goals. I know people laugh but the CVSing has made a difference, and I've changed my mentality about shopping a bit--stocking up when I can and comparison shopping a bit. I have put a lot more energy into writing for helium.com, and it has paid off a bit. And hopefully will continue to do so. Right now it doesn't behoove our family for me to go outside of the home to get a job--we both feel its important for our son to have a parent home with him for now, after all, in a short year and a half he'll be in preschool (sob!) And, my "trade" of being a veterinary technician would probably just cover childcare--unfortunately we aren't lucky enough to have a family caregiver (read: free babysitter) locally. So, although my income from eBay and writing and what I save through shopping conservatively is slim, I do feel it has made a difference.
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2 comments:
Thank you:)
I've recently been drying clothes by hanging them indoors, and it's working fairly well. I couldn't easily obtain a drying rack, but found that the set of wire utility shelves we already owned made a suitable structure to drape clothes on. If you own a dog crate, playpen, babygates, or anything along those lines that's made of a non-porous material, you may be able to save money by using that instead of buying a drying rack. Some clothes can also be dried by being put on hangers and hung over the shower rod. We have so many hangers that there are enough even for socks and underwear to hang on them to dry. I'm sure Martha Stewart would have a fit if she saw my home on laundry day, but drying clothes on hangers and utility shelves has saved us oodles of electricity so I don't care if it looks odd.
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