Even More on Homemade Laundry Detergent

It is almost time for me to make my third batch of homemade laundry detergent, and we are still going strong with it! We are a household of two adults and each batch is lasting us about six months. You can read about my first batch here and my musings going into my second batch here.

Below are some pictures and tips from my second batch in April. See Tip Nut's Recipe 1 for the amounts.

INGREDIENTS

I use Dr. Bronner's Unscented Baby bars as my soap. Many people like Fels Naptha, but it has artificial scent and color in it and has petroleum-based ingredients, plus is contains tallow so it is a no-go for vegetarians. It is a "better" product, but not a "best" product in terms of being EF.

To shred it, I use the grater attachment in my food processor (bought used from Craigslist). I've tried the standard blade with the whole bar, but it gets violent in the food processor and make me afraid the thing will bust apart. If you want a fine shred (dissolves more quickly), use the grater attachment first to get the soap to shredded-cheese consistency, then use the normal blade to turn it into a cornmeal consistency.

A canning funnel works well for moving the soap into a (recycled) storage container.

I store my Borax in a repurposed plastic container to keep out moisture which causes clumping. Some people think Borax is not a good choice for an eco-friendly household because it should not be ingested. But remember that a big part of eco-friendly cleaning is what is produced in an eco-friendly manner and what it does (or rather, does not do) to our water supply after we're done with it. In my opinion, the benchmark should not be if a substance okay to ingest. Borax is eco-friendly in terms of production and being in the water supply, so it gets my seal of approval. After all—you shouldn't eat soap, yet it is a great, safe cleaner. Also, if you have kids, even if you are 100% green clean in your home you should treat cleaning supplies as though they are toxic because your kids will inevitably go somewhere where conventional cleaners are used and they need to have healthy respect for the dangers of those things.

I store my washing soda in the same way. Be sure to label your containers clearly both on the lids and the containers. They look similar to each other and to baking soda. Not things you would want to mix up!

MAKING THE DETERGENT

It just takes a saucepan to melt the soap. You don't need a special pot, after all you are making a detergent here—almost the exact same thing you can use to clean your dishes.

Pour in the melted soap mixture from the saucepan. Down with the milk jug storage method I used for my first batch! My dear friend gave me a 40 pound kitty litter bucket to use. Perfect!

Add in the borax and washing soda.

Add in the rest of the water and you are done! We use a ladle (from a yard sale) to move the right amount of detergent from the bucket into the washer.

“Sun-Dried” Tomatoes

I love free—not only free stuff but also free food. This summer, friends shared fresh grown herbs, blackberries, and cherry tomatoes with me. The herbs turned into wheat herb bread plus dried herbs to use later on. The berries were shared with our Bible study small group and gobbled up, and the tomatoes were dried and turned into mock "sun-dried" tomatoes—more accurately just called dehydrated tomatoes in my case. We bought the dehydrator for $5 at a church rummage sale several years ago, and have more than gotten our money out of it.

Cutting and placing the tomatoes.
I forgot to take a picture of the end product.

To dry the tomatoes, I removed the stems and washed them, and then I cut them into ¼ inch-ish slices. I decided to leave the skins on. The tomatoes were so small to begin with thta skinning them seemed like it would be a hassle and make my yield even smaller. I sprinkled half of the slices with the dried herbs (from aforementioned friend) and the other half I left plain. Then I turned on the dehydrator and let it run, and run, and run, and run. It took a long time. I didn't want the tomatoes to over-dry, so when we would be out of the house for hours we would turn off the dehydrator until we were home again to babysit them. I pulled the slices off individually as they got to the right texture—no more juiciness, but not crunchy, either. I used this recipe as my inspiration.

I packed half of the tomatoes in olive oil and put them in fridge. The other half I left without oil and popped them in the freezer to use later on. You could leave them at room temperature, but they will go rancid fairly quickly. To me, storing them at room temperature is not worth the risk of bacteria growing. The ones from the freezer (not in oil) are great for plucking out one at a time because they defrost at room temperature within minutes. So far, I have used them in stuffed chicken and as a salad topping and they are so yummy!

This is a great way to preserve tomatoes from the garden that will go bad before you can use them or to make sure you have seasonal, local tomatoes into the off-season. As for price, commercially sundried tomatoes are pricey! Homegrown dried tomatoes are infinitely cheaper than paying for them plus you eliminate the packaging and shipping environmental costs. I am so excited to grow tomatoes at the new house! I am not a raw tomato fan, but I look forward to making sauces and dried tomatoes.

Don't have a dehydrator? Here is info on literally sun-drying tomatoes plus a link to an oven-drying recipe. Obviously I disagree that only plum tomatoes should be used. I say, give it a try with whatever tomatoes you've got!

Used Items

Exciting news, in 17 days we will close on our first home! It is a small single family home (1054 sf + basement) on just under a ¼ acre. It is a foreclosure and is in need of major love. We've asked the bank to pay for the code & sanitation issues things like a major German cockroach infestation and dealing with all of the basement water going through the sump pump into the yard (this is not a thought-out grey water system, it is bad plumbing). After we take possession, we'll take care of the many cosmetic issues—incredible filth everywhere, writing on the walls, peeling paint, as well as practical things like bad gutters and broken stoves. Yes, stoves! One great thing about this house is a second kitchen in the basement, which we are calling the craft kitchen.

Our goal is to make the house totally "more green for less green". In other words, we want our house to be as sustainable as possible, but we definitely have a budget. So, we are already stalking the used-item circuit for house goodies. This weekend we loaded up on old, heinous sheets to use as drop cloths for painting (that can be composted later) and we are on the hunt for anything else that might be a fit—yard tools, fireplace tools, etc.

When buying for myself, I buy almost exclusively used items. It just is so fun, you can read about my fun finds here. So where do I shop used? Here is a breakdown:

Yard Sales

• We particularly love community yard sales so we can walk between the homes and hit up many sales at a time
  
• Anything and everything goes. Expect to find mismatched, broken, and trashed items along with super finds
  
• It is normally impossible to try on clothes, so I put a $2 cap on clothes since I don't know if they will fit
  
• Favorite find: Like-new sandals in my hard-to-find size (5) for $3, box of soap making supplies for $2
  
• Try your negotiating skills to get even lower (works especially well if you are buying multiple items)
  
  

  
  

Rummage Sales (my favorite!)

• We favor church and charity fundraising rummage sales where items have all been donated and the proceeds benefit the organization
  
• Anything and everything goes. Expect to find mismatched, broken, and trashed items along with super finds.
  
• It can be very difficult to get around the throngs of people to look at items. It is not a place for the claustrophobic.
  
• Usually items are organized at the beginning of the day and indentified by signs or in particular rooms, but the flip side is that sometimes volunteers are still sorting when the sale starts
  
• Look for "fill a bag" sales where you pay a flat fee to fill a whole brown paper bag (usually books or clothes)
  
• Clothes are usually just piled into mountains and there is no place to try them on. The good news is that they may be really cheap.
  
• The line to the register may be extremely long. Take a look before you start shopping and decide if it is worth it. Favorite finds: Antique cut green glass bowl for $1 that matches two we had at home. $0.50 like-new black heels in my size
  

Estate Sales

• Great chance to find complete sets of things (dishes, glasses, tools, bedroom sets, etc.)
  
• Good place to find high-end items: wood furniture, antiques, china
  
• It is just plain fun to check out the houses and see what people have collected over the years
  
• You might experience sticker shock—prices can be quite high. Go on the last day for discounts (but dramatically smaller selection)
  
• Favorite find: 8 hand embroidered vintage cloth napkins for $2 (we use these every day)
  

Thrift Stores

• Usually things are somewhat organized
  
• You can try on clothes, though it may be in a communal dressing room
  
• More expensive than yard sales, but still cheaper than new (generally; sometimes I think their prices are nutso)
  
• Ask for a store calendar and shop on sale days. My favorite store does 75% off clothes the first Monday of the month. I see no reason to shop for clothes there any other day!
  
• If you love it and can afford it, buy it. Stock rolls over quickly. It may not be there later that day.
  
• Favorite finds: Ski boots in my size for $3 (I bought used skis later that season), tags-on ball gown for a cruise, $4
  

Craigslist

• Easily searchable website, you can filter by location, price, pictures, etc.
  
• Peruse the free section, you never know what you will find
  
• Post your wants in the wanted section
  
• The downside can be unreliable communication from unreturned emails to no-shows at your meeting time
  
• When setting up a meeting, always ask for their cell phone number and give out your own. Call and confirm before you leave your house.
  
• Try your negotiating skills to get even lower on items that have been up for awhile (but agree on a price before you meet)
  
• Favorite finds: Cuisinart food processor for $40, end table coincidentally finished to match my coffee table $0 (free)
  

Freecycle

• Online groups to get or give only free things. Join the Yahoo group for your area and receive many emails throughout the day or a daily digest.
  
• My dear friend Jill suggests getting all of the emails, but setting up email filters to only allow keywords you want (e.g. tool, baby, boxes) and have the rest of the emails go to your spam folder. Because we are looking for so many things right now, that doesn't work for us, but if you have specific wants—give it a try!
  
• I am new to Freecycle and so far I prefer Craigslist's free section because I don't want 50 emails a day and by the time I get the digest, the item is often taken already. Plus I don't like going through the moderator to get approved, post, edit a post, etc. Currently I live on a borderline for a particular Freecycle region and the convenient group (i.e. the area that I drive through to get to work) rejected me. Do note that not all areas do the whole boundary map/moderator approval thing.
  
• Favorite find: I've only gotten on things so far: moving boxes & packing material. I posted by first thing to give away today.
  

Large Trash Day

• Large trash day is that day when garbage companies or community associations agree to take large items. The night before large trash day is a prime time to find some great stuff for free.
  
• You may want to knock on your neighbor's door and ask if you can have the item, just in case it is actually meant for charity, another person, has some really gross/dangerous feature that isn't obvious
  
• Favorite finds: coffee table in desperate need of refinishing (which my husband took on), several months later the matching end table (in good condition) was put out
  

Just Be Open

We have so many things simply because others know we are open to reusing items. I'm not saying you have to hoard or take everything offered to you, but just be open at let others in on your appreciation for used items and see what is offered

• An extended relative gave us their old washer the same month ours broke. Sadly, theirs broke as we were moving it up the stairs, but it turned out to be in the same model series as our 30 year old washer (we didn't know this beforehand). We were able to get out many useable parts and repair our machine. It is still going strong!
  
• In college, I made over $1,000 selling textbooks a roommate left behind (I confirmed with her first that she didn't want them)
  
• Most of my fabric stash was given to me by crafters paring down
  

Quick, Easy Chocolate Fix

When I need a chocolate fix, I make this brownie in a mug snack. It gets the job done, but isn't amazing. It is usually kind of dry and not sweet enough.

Last night I was knocked out with a migraine and having chocolate cravings in my misery. I asked my husband to make a brownie in a mug for me. He delivered it to the couch, I let it sit for 5 minutes to cool (waiting is key to avoiding a burned tongue), then tasted it. It was amazing--moist, just a tad sweeter than normal, fudgey.

I complimented him and he told me that he snuck in pumpkin puree in addition to the other ingredients. As you may know, I love pumpkin puree! How Deceptively Delicious of him.

So, there you have it...an economical craving-buster with built in portion control without all of the packaging that comes with those Betty Crocker Warm Delight packs.

Personally, I halve the recipe, so we end up with this...

More Green For Less Green Brownie In A Mug
2 T. Sugar
2 T. Flour
1 T. Cocoa
1 T. water
1 T. Pumpkin puree
1 T. Olive Oil (I prefer OO over other vegetable oils)
Dash of salt

Like it fudgier? Add less water (or no water).
Want it leaner? Just do a drizzle of oil--the pumpkin will keep it moist.

Mix all ingredients in a mug and stir thoroughly. Microwave for 45 seconds. It should look wet on the top. Let cool. Eat up!

For the easiest clean up, use a single 1 T. spoon for all measuring and stirring--eating too, if you'd like. I've arranged the ingredients in the list to keep the tablespoon in use without rinsing it until you are done.

Bad News About SIGG Water Bottles

I am so very disappointed to share with you the news that SIGG was using BPA in their bottle liners produced prior to August 2008. I own three SIGGs myself and it turns out that two of them have the old, BPA-containing liner (copper colored liner is the old style, beige liner is the new style). Before this news, I was a huge SIGG advocate and really believed in the ethics of their production (here is what I've written previously on SIGG and alternatives). And just a few days ago I had a conversation with someone about why SIGG is the best choice despite a higher cost than other bottles.

I am not a BPA alarmist, but I do have healthy concern about it and thus have done my best to considerably reduce its presence in my home (cutting out most canned foods, switching to glass for food storage, never heating in plastic). The thing that just kills me about SIGG's deception is that they took about my ability to make a choice about BPA. On their website they have posted many reports showing their bottles don't leach, but I think that misses the point. I don't want it as an ingredient, period. Whether or not that ingredient is of concern is a decision that each family must make, not a decision that a company should makes for me (and be deceptive about it) so they can ride a cash cow.

Here is an article that will tell you more this SIGG revelation
Here is a letter from SIGG's CEO (look on the side bar for the report links I mentioned)

Below is the email I just sent to them. I will let you know how they respond.

SIGG,

I am SO disappointed to read that your bottle liners have contained BPA until the creation of the new liner. I very carefully weighed which kind of non-disposable water bottle to purchase and ultimately I picked SIGG over other brands because I believed that you had the most ethical production. I have sung your praises to my blog readers, assured naysayers that they shouldn't worry about the liner because of your assurances, and have turned many people on to your product because I have a job that puts me in front of an audience and I always have one of my SIGGs with me when on stage. I feel like I have misled my friends and family.

When I chose my SIGGs I expected I was buying a BPA-free product. Even your own CEO wrote in a letter on April 16, 2008, "SIGG bottles to have no presence of lead, phthalates, Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), Bysphenol A (BPA), Bysphenol B (BPB)...". Yet, now it is quite obvious that they do have BPA in them. Whether or not the BPA is leaching into the water is another question entirely. As a consumer, I expected I was getting a BPA-free product. I have carefully cut, at personal expense, BPA-containing products from our family's food supply and am shocked that SIGG, a company I trusted so much, is the one that has kept BPA in my home.

I expect that I will at the least receive this consideration of reimbursement/replacements for my two old-style bottles. But honestly, actually giving me the quality product I thought I'd had for over a year is only the beginning of the big job you will have earning back my trust, the trust of my blog readers and the public I interact with, and the trust of consumers at large.

Update: Sigg responded to my email the next day. If I pay for return shipping (with a label they provide for tracking) they will give me a voucher for a new Sigg bottle to replace each one I send it. Email liners@mysigg.com to get your return approval and shipping label. Be sure to keep your tops for future bottles--no need to return those.

Homemade “Convenience Food” Breakfast – Power Balls

My friend & coworker Amy introduced me to these amazing little things called Power Balls that have revolutionized my breakfast life. I am so picky in the morning that something has to be really enticing (read: containing chocolate) for me to not just skip breakfast, which is my inclination even though I know that isn't a wise choice. Since I gave up commercial breakfast bars I have tried all sorts of healthy muffin recipes, homemade granola, bars, etc. but none were amazing enough for me to stick with for more than a few weeks. Enter Power Balls. They are delicious, quick to make, can be prepared in bulk and stored, and are convenient to eat on-the-go. While there are many Power Ball recipe versions floating around in cyberspace, Amy's has the most flavors that I like. Here it is:

Power Balls Recipe
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup honey (I've mixed in agave nectar, too)
3 cups (non-instant) oats
½ cup flaxseed (I've had them with both ground and whole flax seed)
½ cup chocolate chips or white chocolate chips
½ cup dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, apricots, dates, etc.)
½ cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc)

Mix peanut butter and honey until smooth. Gradually add in oats and flaxseed, then fold in the other ingredients. The Kitchen Aid works great for this. Then roll into ping-pong ball sized balls. Store them in the refrigerator or freezer. You can switch up the add-ins, just keep the total amount to 1 ½ cups. If you add more, the balls won't hold together. Also, beware of cutting down the honey. The honey really keeps it all stuck together.

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I make one or two batches at a time and then freeze all that I won't eat in a week. They freeze really well—I use lidded Pyrex. They also travel well if you can keep them in a container with a structure (hard plastic or glass).

The ones Amy made for me had white chocolate chips, craisins, and walnuts and were so amazing! I've been making them with semi-sweet chocolate chips, dried cranberries, whole grain flax seed, and a mix of almonds and walnuts since both have such great, different nutritional benefits. Read about almonds here and omega-3-rich walnuts here.

Yes—these are sweet and contain chocolate chips—but they also have healthful ingredients. Hopefully my new nutritionist will agree! I meet with her next Monday to work on a well-balanced diet with a focus on local foods and to develop ways to up my fruit and veggie consumption. I am so excited!

9 Changes for 2009- #9 Composting

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
2. Cut out canned beans
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
5. Shop Used First
6. Use only environmentally friendly laundry detergent
7. Stick to green toiletries
8. Ditch plastic grocery bags
   
   
9. Compost food scraps
   

We have almost made it through a year of composting! Here are some of the ups and downs…

Summer & Fall 08
Read about it here.

Winter 08-09
Virginia winters aren't bitterly cold, but the ground certainly freezes, as does the top of the compost pile. As the cold settled in, digging in the pile became more difficult. It took some real effort to pierce the frozen surface of the pile, then the dirt within would clump together making it tough to amply cover up the food (and thus shield it from the foraging squirrels, deer, foxes, etc. that live in the adjacent woods). To keep my fingers warm I added gardening gloves to my composting kit.

Happily, the pile never completely froze, which meant we were doing something right. I was tickled one day to dig into the pile and see steam rise out! But, the pile could have been hotter. There were many days where I would come across old food. I try not to reuse dig holes so that the greens in the pile are well distributed among the browns and thus the decomposition will continue, so when I'd find food it meant I needed to cover it back up and then dig another hole in another place on the mound. Extra work and extra time in the cold—yuck!

I don't care for extreme temperatures—hot or cold—so the cold winter days and the increased difficulty with digging in the food tempted me to give up for the winter, but on days where I would see steam…that made it worth it. As a compromise, I started bringing my food scraps in less often. Instead of twice a week, I moved to once a week and sometimes even less often. That resulted in some slime in the compost crock and needing to use some supplemental plastic containers to hold the overflow scraps, but the smell was always pretty well contained.

Spring 09
As winter transitioned into spring, the pile defrosted and my work paid off. On several occasions I actually thought fleetingly to myself, "Where did my food go? Are animals taking it?" and "Who keeps putting dirt in the pile?" Silly me. This is the world of composting SUCCESS! Gross food scraps and bags of yard waste become rich, brown, crumbly, beautiful, amazing dirt. Yes, I just said that dirt was beautiful.

And that beautiful dirt came just in time. In February I sprained my ankle while…wait for the sordid, exotic, dramatic story…walking over grass. Yes, walking over grass. I only mention it because it took extra super-duper motivation to walk to pile with the pain of the sprained ankle, plush stretching it to squat down to dig, etc. And, I developed a small phobia of walking over grass since that is where the injury happened and uneven ground made the ankle hurt. But, watching the composting process actually work was great motivation to keep at it and get over my fear and pain.

With the frozen days distinctly behind me and completed compost taking over the pile, it was easy to see what was not breaking down along with everything else. Banana and apple stickers started popping out at me, which was kind of funny. Other than the stickers and the occasional banana peel, the biggest things I noticed were eggshells. While I knew that eggshells wouldn't break down quite like the other foods, I expected them to somehow crumble up and still be an enriching natural fertilizer that would blend in. But, nothing was happening. The eggshells looked like they were stuck in time, oblivious to the amazing changes happening to all of the other food waste around them. So, I decided to try a new eggshell approach. After making an egg-heavy lemon bar recipe (9 eggs!), I rinsed the shells and then pulverized them in the food processor. That left me with the question of how to store and then transport a lot of tiny, wet, eggshell shards. I decided that I would make a sachet out of newspaper, which I knew would decompose quickly, put the shells in that, and then plant the whole thing in the pile so that as the newspaper biodegraded the small bits of eggshell would scatter and blend in. The sachet method seems to be a success. Here is the sachet at one month next to an older eggshell.

With the nice warm weather and spring planting season upon us, I started to wonder what we would do with the pile since I was still adding food, yet much of the pile was clearly ready for use. I mentioned this to my composting partner, a coworker on the building/grounds team, but he didn't seem concerned. But, that is another story for another day. I'll have more on that to come, with pictures, in another entry.

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And this finally brings me to the end of the 9 Changes for 2009 series! Coming up I've got tips for shopping used, price comparison on eco-friendly toilet paper (one of my splurges), my verdict of Siggs and Kleen Kanteens after a year of use, and, of course, the dramatic conclusion to my year of composting. What will happen to the pile? How will it be used? Will it reach a noble end? Will I continue to compost?

9 Changes for 2009- #8 Reusable Bags

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
2. Cut out canned beans
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
5. Shop Used First
6. Use only environmentally friendly laundry detergent
7. Stick to green toiletries
   
   
8. Ditch plastic grocery bags

American Beauty made the plastic bag seem ethereally beautiful, but the truth is that plastic bags are anything but beautiful.

As you probably know, reusable grocery bags are hot, hot, hot and a great alternative to disposable plastic bags. Reusable bags are everywhere! At my house, our favorite bags for the grocery store are large plasticy ones from Trader Joe's that my brother-in-law gave me for the Christmas before last (pictured). We also have a good-sized stash of those $1 ones that every grocery store has. We have gotten all of those for free at fundraisers or as gifts. In fact, we've spent a grand total of $1 out-of-pocket for our entire reusable grocery bag stash and that was on the red, white, and blue one in the picture that was Old Navy clearance that was too cute to pass up for that price (pictured).

So, barring generous family members and fundraiser freebies, how can you build your bag stash for cheap? Start with your own home. See what you have around. Our reusable bag collection started off as collection of logoed canvas totes that I'd gotten for free at various events. Haven't been to any conferences, on any sport teams, etc.? Good news, other people have. Logoed canvas bags are a dime a dozen at yard sales and thrift stores. Okay, actually they are usually a quarter to a buck a piece, but you get my point…used is cheap! True, a canvas tote or messenger bag may not be the trendy, new, typically seen reusable bag, but it is a great, cheap, uber green option. You can spend a bundle on cute, matching bags from some great sources or you can buy used, locally for almost free. Plus, buying used means you can totally avoid debates on production cost & eco-friendliness of the materials used in reusable grocery bags. Used is always the greenest option!

Though we've spent almost nothing for grocery bags, we have ponied up for reusable produce bags. I am seriously obsessed with these from AMK Designs.

We not only use them ourselves, but I have bought many sets to give as gifts. No volume discount, no "in" with the vendor, I just love the product THAT much. The carrying case for the mesh bags is brilliant. It keeps like feather-light bags together when not in use and clips to my grocery bag, so I take the produce bags with me by default. And the fabric choices are just so fun!

Yes, the reusable produce bags are smaller than the voluminous plastic ones at the store, but really—does a head of lettuce really need a bag? We use our produce bags for things that really need to be gathered like green beans, apples, and potatoes. But celery, tied herbs, bunched carrots, broccoli, an eggplant, etc. are already self-contained so there is no need to package them just for check out. It takes a little bit of a mental shift to buck overuse of the produce bag, but it can be easily done. And, you've got to wash the produce at home anyway, so it's not like a shopping cart touching the lettuce for five minutes really matters, right?

Oh, and a final warm fuzzy: reusable bags save money. I love that some grocery stores give a bag credit of $0.05 per bag when I bring my own. It is a small amount, but if I figure five bags a week for a year, that is $13 I wouldn't have otherwise had. Free money is always good in my book! Plus, at the farmer's market the vendors are often so tickled by my reusable produce bags that they cut me a discount.

A few reusable bag tips:

• Take your bags out to your car the next time you go out. They don't do you any good at home! Go and hang them on the front door handle right now.
  
• Always forget your bags in the car? Keep one bag on the front passenger seat so you see it, or if you usually drive with a passenger in the front with you, keep one in the storage area in the driver's side front door.
  
• Make yourself go back to the car and get a bag if you realize you've forgotten it, even if it means leaving your full cart for two minutes. This broke me of my forgetting habit very quickly!
  
• Don't just limit your reusable bag use to the grocery store. They work at the library, Target, clothes & retail shopping, yard sales, etc. My favorite for retail shopping is one that folds up into purse-size (white bag on left in top picture).
  
  

9 Changes for 2009- #7 Green Toiletries

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
2. Cut out canned beans
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
5. Shop Used First
6. Use only environmentally friendly laundry detergent
   


7. Stick to green toiletries

Green toiletries have an impact on the earth and on our bodies. Remember, all of this stuff goes into the water supply and the truth is that so many products we use without a second thought do have an impact. But, I've talked about that in several previous entries. I'd like to talk about the health impact today. An incredible, eye-opening resource is the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database from the Environmental Working Group. I encourage you to look up your favorite products and make sure you are okay with the ingredients in them. Do be aware of the large data gap in most products. Simply not enough research has been done yet to assess the safety level of all ingredients. Because of the data gap, I think the site is best used to look at ratings levels of the individual ingredient and not the overall "score" of the product. Let's look at one…

My summer standby for daily facial wear Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, SPF 55 receives a Hazard Score of 7, which is not good (lower is better), but there is a data gap of 82%, so not much is known about all the products ingredients. It could be worse or more harmless that they currently think. But, going on what we DO know, if I take a look at the ingredients list I can see the main culprits in this sunscreen are methylparaben, fragrance, and oxybenzone. Methylparaben: I try to avoid parabens, but I am willing to compromise for this products. Fragrance: I am not a fan of artificial fragrance, but plenty of people would not care or see this as a big drawback, this is why you must judge for yourself and not just go by product score. Oxybenzone: No clue what this is so I click on the hyperlink to learn that they can cause photoallergenic effects, something, again, I have never heard of. So, I do some searching and learn that if I had lupus (as my mom does) I would want to avoid this product. Since I don't I am okay with the ingredient until I notice adverse effects. I am now educated on this product and decide I can live with the 7 rating in this particular product, even though most of my products are rated 0-2.

I feel (mostly) okay sticking with a few "baddies" because I have switched so many other products. Here are some reviews:

More Expensive Than Mainstream Products

Aubrey B5 Design Gel- Much softer than normal gels and not as frizz-controlling, but there is definitely a difference when I use it versus using nothing.

Burt's Bees Color Keeper Shampoo- Very liquidy, but works with the same amount as a conventional shampoo. I do think my hair looks dirtier sooner than with other shampoos (I try to wash my hair only twice a week. This pushes it closer to 3 times per week.)

Tom’s of Maine Unscented Deodorant- Actually has a light, pleasant scent. This worked pretty well for me, even on my most intensely active work days. That said, I didn’t adore it and when the tube ran out, I started trying some other brands (more to come in a future entry).

Cheaper Than Mainstream Products

Dr. Bronner's Baby Unscented Liquid Soap (in the foaming dispenser) - I mix 1 part Dr. B's to 9 parts water plus a 20ish drops of essential oil and put in a old foaming soap pump. We use this as hand soap in our guest bathroom. This useage us is cheap because you use very little soap in each batch. Straight up Dr. B's is not particularly cheap (but still worth it).

Sweet Almond Oil- I use this as my overnight moisturizer. I apply a few drops to a cotton ball (cotton balls are not green, but I do tear them in half to use less) and rub it around my face. It does a great job of removing grime and makeup (though I wear almost none, so take it for what it is worth). BY the time morning has come it has absorbed or rubbed off, leaving my skin soft. You also can use straight olive oil in the same manner.

Homemade Lip Balm (tin standing up)- I've made two varieties a liquid for overnight (lemon juice, honey, castor oil) and a semi-solid for anytime (chocolate, coconut oil, vitamin E) from Natural Beauty at Home: More Than 250 Easy to Use Recipes for Body,Bath, and Hair.

Hand-Milled Milk and Honey Soap Bar- I made this soap bar with vegan, fair trade soap (Dr. Bronner's Unscented Baby Bar) as its base along with milk and honey and essential oils. It is great for bathing or washing hands. This recipe comes from the book Beautiful Handmade Natural Soaps: Practical Ways to Make Hand-Milled Soap and Bath Essentials. This one is probably normal price, not cheaper.

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I think mixing pricier products along with dirt cheap or homemade ones makes switching more doable. Green beauty products don't have to break the bank by any means! Eventually I'd like to make all of my toiletries, but finding the right recipe is tough. Failures from 2008 include a hand milled shampoo bar (left my hair looking greasy, but worked great as a shave bar) and using straight up baking soda as deodorant (worked well for awhile, then my skin started to peel as though I had a chemical burn. Yowza!).

One thing you might notice missing is hair conditioner. I gave it up just to see what would happen and so far I don't miss it one bit. That is another way to go green...consume less! Which products can you use half as often? Which products can you go without? We get into the habit of using and consuming without thinking, but giving your product usage a second thought can make a difference.

9 Changes for 2009- #6 Laundry Detergent

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
   
2. Cut out canned beans
   
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
   
4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
   
5. Shop Used First
   
   
6. Use only environmentally friendly laundry detergent
   (my preference is homemade)
   

I've already blogged about homemade eco-friendly laundry detergent here (with additional pictures here). But now, four months into using it, I can report back that it works, it really works! We haven't had any problems and that first batch I made has lasted us until now. As I get ready to whip up some more I am weighing reusing the milk jugs and hosing to siphon it in versus using a five-gallon lidded bucket from Home Depot. I've been on the search for a used bucket, but old ones seems to all have had paint or food in them previously, which I am not keen on. The thought of pickle-scented laundry soap makes me just ill.

For newcomers, here is a quick summary of why to consider eco-friendly laundry detergent:

Pretty much all conventional laundry detergents also contain phosphates and bleach, like dishwasher detergent does. (Read the issues with them here if you missed that post.) Most conventional laundry detergents also contain non bio-degradable, petroleum-based ingredients. I bet you picked up on the first problem right away: non bio-degradable. That means it doesn't disappear when it goes down your drain. Realizing that water facilities simply cannot clean out every single thing from the water, and the fact that the stuff they do clean out has to be disposed of somehow was huge wake up call to me. Previously, it had really been out of sight—down the drain—and out of mind for me. But, that simply is not reality.

Then there is the big issue that petroleum is a non-renewable resource. I think we all know what that means since petroleum is hugely politically charged. Reducing American dependence on foreign oil is something we can hear on the news every single day, as are finding new places to drill and the ethics of if we should drill in those places.

Traditional detergents in the US also tend to contain ingredients that have already been banned overseas because of their impact to the environment or personal health, bleach, and artificial fragrances which may exacerbate allergies. (Remember that you can always look up the safety sheet for your favorite detergent here.)

In addition to checking out my previous entries, fellow blogger Kath has some interesting things to say about her experience with making laundry detergent. Check it out here.

9 Changes for 2009- #5 Shop Used First

This entry is part of a series on changes I made in 2008 that I want to stick with in 2009… Our "New" Delayed Gratification Coffee Table

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
2. Cut out canned beans
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
   
   
   
5. Shop used first
   

Hands down, buying used is the most eco-friendly way to purchase items—there is no additional production or shipping energy expenditure, no packaging waste, and reuse keeps those items from amassing in landfills until they are truly unusable. It also is very economical.

Buying used was a hallmark of 2008 for us. My husband and I spent many spring and summer Saturday mornings perusing yard sales together, and it was a blast. We made a list of things we wanted to find over the course of the summer: a vegetable steamer, small set of patio furniture, coffee table, flannel sheets, four cup liquid measuring cup, soap making supplies, and a sun hat for me. These are all things that we could easily have bought new without a second thought, as most them are very cheap, basic things, but we decided to hold off and see what we could get used.

Maybe I am weird, but I enjoy the feeling of "just making do". This is a reality of how most of the world lives; I admit that I have substantially more than 80% of the world does even with student loan debt, not being a home owner, driving a used car, etc. All that I do have (in comparison to focusing on what I don't have) is something that I want to remember every day of my life, and I want to really treasure and appreciate how good I have it. It might sound goofy, but the things I get used for dirt cheap after a long search are more valuable to me more than if I'd just gone to Target and bought some Made in China item the very day I decided I wanted it.

Anyway, philosophical thoughts aside, here is how we made out on that wish list…

Vegetable steamer- $1, found at one of the first yard sales of the season

Patio furniture- we decided we didn't need it in our current place, instead mid-summer we got a padded folding chair for $1. When we want to sit on the patio, we bring that out along with a captain's chair.

Coffee table- mid-summer a neighbor put one out with their trash and my husband refinished it ($5 for primer)

Flannel sheets- we found some near the end of the summer, but my husband decided he only wanted new ones. Then we decided the set we already have is enough.

Four cup liquid measuring cup- Found one for $0.50 at one of the last yard sales of the year.

Soap making supplies- I stalked Craigslist for weeks with no luck, then at a yard sale I ended up finding a box of supplies for $5. Someone else grabbed it before I could, but she ended up only wanting the glycerin soap from it. So, I got the molds and a book for $2.

Sun hat- At an estate sale I paid $0.50 plus I got an adorable retro juice glass for free along with it. This was a SUPER deal for an estate sale.

Needless to say, I am giddy thinking about the weather warming up and yard sale season beginning, especially since we have an offer in* on a tiny 1950s house with a screened in porch that could sure handle some used patio furniture.

*It is a short sale, so who knows when we will know anything.

9 Changes for 2009- #4 Dish Detergent

This entry is part of a series on changes I made in 2008 that I want to stick with in 2009…

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
2. Cut out canned beans
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
   

4. Use only environmentally friendly dish detergent
   (homemade to boot)
   
   Why…
   
   So question one is why an environmentally friendly detergent even matters, right? Most conventional dishwasher detergents contain phosphates and chlorine. Phosphates seriously impact our water supply by encouraging excessive algae growth which kills fish and plant life. Chlorine bleach is an environmental pollutant and it may cause immune and reproductive system problems. Now, I am not alarmist about many things, so the possible concern about bleach doesn't faze me too much. But, the dangerous chemical reaction caused by bleach mixing with ammonia that we've all been warned about since we were kids is undoubtedly of concern. Ammonia is a more eco-friendly choice, so I'd just as soon stick with that one and keep out the bleach.
   
   Here's what we did…
   
   We made our own. We started off by using a recipe from Green Clean of 1 part borax to 1 part washing soda. We put 1 heaping teaspoon of the mix in the release cup and vinegar in the rinse aid. We started off using 2 tablespoons of the dry mix, but that made the dishes cloudy, so we cut down until we got the right amount for our water. But, we were having issues with cloudiness and chunks of food remaining. So onto blend two…
   
   Our second attempt was 3 parts baking soda to 1 part borax along with the vinegar in the rinse aid compartment. With this mix you use just as much as you would with a conventional powdered detergent. I read the instructions for the dishwasher to refresh my memory, and it turns out that we've long been putting in too much: the lowest line on the cup is ample for normal loads. We also add 2 drops of essential oil per load on top of the dry mix. Generally I use tea tree oil, which has natural anti-bacterial properties, but if I'll be in the kitchen I'll put in a smell I really love, like bergamot or sweet orange, since the scent will be released in the steam that comes out of the machine.
   
   We've stuck with this second blend for many months now. I use an old 32 oz yogurt container to mix the powder (measure and dump in, put lid on, then shake to mix). I only need to make up a new batch every other month or so.
   
   I will be perfectly honest and say that we are still dealing with cloudiness. We've taken to wiping the dishes with a slightly damp cloth as we put them in the cabinet to fix this problem, but I know that cloudiness simply is unacceptable to some people. Some days it bothers me and I consider trying out Ecover or another similar green product, but most days I love that it is so much cheaper than anything else. My price per year is about the cost of a single box of brand name commercial dishwasher detergent. Even if we go to a commercial product, I am committed to staying away from dish detergents with phosphates or chlorine bleach.

9 Changes for 2009- #3 Hummus

This entry is part of a series on changes I made in 2008 that I want to stick with in 2009…

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
   
2. Cut out canned beans
   
   
3. Ditch premade hummus (and all those containers)
   by making it at home.
   

   Okay, this one totally piggybacks on the bean post. Let me confess right now that a love of hummus is where the whole bean soaking in mass quantities idea stemmed from.
   
   There are many reasons to love hummus: it tastes great, is nutritious, and jazzes up veggies or pita to make light but filling snack or meal. But, all of those little plastic containers they come in add up. My county only recycles plastic containers with necks, so we either could keep amassing them (but there is so much space, right?) or throw them away (eek, never!). So, we decided to start making our own.
   
   We tried some actual recipes (there are tons online) and devised many of our own: basic, lemon, chipotle, roasted pine nut, roasted garlic, roasted eggplant, mixed hot pepper, and roasted sweet red pepper. I also just learned about pumpkin hummus—we'll have to try that, since we are still wading in pumpkin.
   

   
   

   As you may guess from the bean post, since dried beans are so cheap, homemade hummus is considerably cheaper than packaged hummus. Another score for reducing packaging, saving money, and increasing yumminess!

9 Changes for 2009 - #2 Beans

This entry is part of a series on changes I made in 2008 that I want to stick with in 2009…

1. Cut out commercial breakfast bars
   
   
2. Cut out canned beans
   and replaced them with dry beans
   
   Canned beans (and tomatoes, for the record) are especially susceptible to BPA leeching, so I thought it might be worth finding an alternative. We started buying dried beans and soaking and cooking them. Yes, soaking and cooking takes time, but we do it in bulk to get maximum impact for our time and freeze the extras for later. We started cooking one pound at a time, but we're now up to doing two pounds at a time (mondo stock pot required). Another plus is that one pound of dried beans is about the same price as a single can, yet the one pound of dried beans yields 3-4 times the amount of beans in a can. Plus, bonus points for less shipping and packaging energy expenditures.
   

9 Changes for 2009- #1 Commercial Breakfast Bars

This entry is part of a series on changes I made in 2008 that I want to stick with in 2009…

1. Commercial Breakfast Bars
   Replaced with homemade granola bars and whole grain muffins
   
   

   Commercial breakfast bars were one thing on our grocery tab that we had a hard time keeping cheap. Sure, we'd shop sales and coupons, but I am SUPER picky about breakfast (i.e. I don't like to eat breakfast, so I need something easy and yummy to convince me so I don't skip it an then become a hungry, moody lunatic by lunch) so if we were out of bars and no deals were to be had, we'd buy them at full price anyway. I'm super thrifty, so paying full price irritated me, being a slave to store visits when we ran out irritated me, and all of that packaging—individually wrapping and a box—irritated me. Plus, in terms of nutrition, I felt like the bars just didn't have much bank for their buck. So, I needed to come up with something comparable in terms of convenience and portability.
   
   I decided to try my hand at making my own bars and muffins. I made a recipe in bulk every few weeks and put whatever I wouldn't eat that week in the freezer for later weeks. So, I added two hours of work every three-ish weeks for cooking and clean up, but I ended up with a more delicious, nutritious alternative that yields much less packaging waste. I also started making yogurt & fruit smoothies in the blender to up the nutrition. Here is one muffin recipe that packs a big nutritional punch: Oat Bran Muffins. Here's a picture of some hearty granola bars I made, but can't find the recipe for again.
   (Update...basic recipe is here, yummy variations are here.)
   

Green Secret Santa

The Secret Santa exchange at work was green-themed and I had loads of fun with my gifts. We gave reusable produce bags from Etsy (AMK Designs http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5692686) and then a homemade green cleaning kit than I made. I made everything in it, so I hoped the person who got it would appreciate it-- and they did. Yay! My husband got a tiny pine tree that we can grow indoors until we have yard to plant it in and I got a coupon for my artsy coworker to do a sketch of any 4x6 picture I give her- awesome! Here is what I put in the kit:

Unpaper Towels
Use these handmade extra-thick cloths for cleaning or as napkins. The small size is to encourage you to do one-use-and-wash, just like you'd use a paper towel one-use-and-toss.

Kitchen Cleaner
This castile cleaner is great for dealing with greasy stains (normally found in the kitchen) but it can be used anywhere in the house. I've added some tea tree oil which has antiseptic properties. The hot water melts the shaved castile soap in the dry mix, but you only need to add it once. Give the bottle a good shake before each use to remix everything. This mix will last indefinitely. The recipe on your bottle comes from the book Green Clean. Your bottle holds 1½ batches.

Bathroom Cleaner
Because of the vinegar content this blend is great for dealing with mildew normally found in the bathroom but it can be used anywhere in the house. I've added some tea tree oil which has antiseptic properties. The hot water initially added melts the shaved castile soap in the dry mix, but you only need to add it once. Give the bottle a good shake before each use to remix everything. This mix will last indefinitely. The recipe on your bottle comes from the book Green Clean. Your bottle holds 1½ batches.

Liquid Laundry/Dishwasher Detergent
Give the container a good shake before each use to remix everything. Use 1/4 cup per load in a traditional washing machine, 1/8 cup in a high efficiency. If you are especially brave, use 1/8 cup per load in the dishwasher. Put white vinegar in the rinse aid compartment. You can add two drops of essential oil to the soap cup along with the mix, and when it opens during washing it will fill your kitchen with the smell of the essential oil.

Hand-Milled Mint Lather Soap Ball
This soap ball uses unscented, vegan, fair trade soap as its base along with super moisturizing natural oils. It can be used to cleanse over-dry skin, or instead of shaving cream during shaving, or as a shampoo. This recipe comes from the book Beautiful Handmade Natural Soaps: Practical Ways to Make Hand-Milled Soap and Bath Essentials.

Hand-Milled Milk and Honey Soap Bar
This soap ball uses vegan, fair trade soap as its base along with milk and honey and essential oils. It is great for bathing or washing hands. This recipe comes from the book Beautiful Handmade Natural Soaps: Practical Ways to Make Hand-Milled Soap and Bath Essentials.

Bath Bombs
Drop one of these into your bath and watch it fizz! The fizzing ingredients clean you (and do good things for your hair cuticles if you're laying back in the water) while releasing a light scent. Yellow is sweet orange; green is eucalyptus, tea tree, citron; blue is bergamot. This recipe comes from the book Beautiful Handmade Natural Soaps: Practical Ways to Make Hand-Milled Soap and Bath Essentials.

Reusable Shopping Bag
Okay, okay I didn't make this one. Keep a stash of reusable bags in the car with you so they are always on hand. Use them for groceries as well as retail shopping. If possible, keep them in the front seat of your car so you can always see them. It takes some time to get in the habit, but is worth it! As a fun added bonus, several grocery stores give a 5 cent credit per bag you bring.

Laundry Soap Close Up

Close up picture of the soap separation. This will begin even as you move it from the pan to storage. A good stir (or shake, in my case) will remix it.

Homemade Laundry Soap

Left Image: Left jug is recently shaken and mixed.
Right jug is unshaken and has settled into soapy layer and watery layer

Right Image: When mixed right before use, the laundry soap is creamy and slightly bubbly

After trying several batches of dry laundry soap, my husband asked me to make a liquid one. The liquid/gel I made is #1 from this great website, Tip Nut. We are very happy with the way the soap works. We now use it for all of our laundry and have successfully used it at all wash temperatures. The three dry recipes we tried were Tip Nut #4, Tip Nut #9, and a mix of half borax and half washing soda. While the dry ones all seemed to work equally well, my husband prefers liquids laundry soap/detergent. Since he does the laundry, I am happy to whip up whatever works best for him!

In my pictures you can see that I have the laundry soap in milk jugs. I do not recommend this unless you have hosing available to siphon the cooked soap from the pot through the slim necks of the jugs. Since my husband homebrews, we did have a suitable plastic tube, but this ended up being messy, frustrating, and time consuming as the liquid congealed into a gel. Stick with a bucket! The soap will separate and requires stirring or shaking before use to remix the water (which will settle) and the soap gel (which will float). In the picture on the left, the left jug is recently shaken and mixed, the right jug shows the settling and separation.

n.b., Homebrewing husbands may not be thrilled with such use of said tubing since soap makes beer go flat. Eeek!


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Why in the world I would make my only laundry soap? For us, there are four answers to this:

Environment – Environmentally, making my own laundry soap is a good choice because it doesn’t require an endless cycle of new packaging production, shipping, and disposal/recycling. Also, most commercial liquid detergents have petrochemicals in them. Not only are petrochemicals bad for the water supply, but they use petroleum which is a non-renewable resource and is so very politically charged right now. Here is a link on Dr. Bronner’s Soap (eco-friendly, organic, and fair trade) which is the soap I use in my cleansers and laundry soap: here.
This site lists many names for petrochemicals that you might see in the ingredients list of your soap/detergent (should the manufacturer actually disclose what is in their product).

Health – My husband has contact dermatitis so artificial fragrances are bad for his skin. The artificial colors, scents, and additives in most commercial detergents are of concerns to many people. Personally, this is an area that I approach with caution, but am not alarmist over. Look up your favorite detergent here so you can make a decision about what is best for your home.

Cost – Making laundry soap is dirt cheap. Though I personally have not calculated the cost, others who use similar recipes cite $0.03 per load. For me, the low cost is just an added bonus to the more important reasons above.

Fun – For me, stuff like this is an enjoyable hobby that yields a usable result just like cooking, homebrewing beer, etc. I find it fun and I like the whole “science in action” aspect.

Homemade Pumpkin Puree & Toasted Seeds

I imagine this sounds like a wacky undertaking to some. There is no doubt that canned pumpkin is easier and probably more consistent in quality, but hubby and I are working to cut down using canned products. One concern is BPA, but moreover, cans are heavy and require more energy in shipping, plus the production of the can and then recycling of it also use energy. In contrast, our local pumpkin had a quick ride from farm to farmer's market to our home and everything that we won't eat (pumpkin skin, stem, and guts) was composted.

Also, we love to do things on the cheap. And this was cheap, for sure. Our $5 pumpkin gave us the 13 cups of puree, plus lots of pumpkin seeds that I toasted for snacks.

Here are the instructions that I used for roasting the pumpkin:
http://www.ehow.com/how_8305_make-pumpkin-puree.html

Modifications: I did not use a pie pumpkin; I used a large jack-o-lantern one. Some people swear by not using those because they are less sweet and more stringy, but that is what they had at the farmers' market and several friends told me they had had success with them. Happily, my pumpkin wasn't stringy at all.

I cut the pumpkin in half with an electric knife. To scrape the inside, we have this little, cheapy pumpkin scraper from an old carving kit that works wonderfully. That part was less trouble than I anticpated. The longest part was getting the cooked pumpkin into the food processor. It wasn't hard as much as time-consuming. I felt like I was wasting too much by spooning it, so I used a filet knife to take off the skin.

While the pumpkin was roasting on the lower rack, I baked the pumpkin seeds on the top rack according to this recipe (which calls for the same temperature as the roasting pumpkin):
http://www.ehow.com/how_2091075_bake-pumpkin-seeds.html

But, if you'd like a little more variety with your seeds, I like all of the alternatives in this recipe:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2247741_season-pumpkin-seeds.html

If you haven't had pumpkin seeds before, they taste similar to a sunflower seed but have a very light pumpkin flavor to them. You can shell them and just eat the flat seed inside or eat them with the shell. Personally, I prefer to eat them in the shell because it is easier.

So what to do with 13 cups of pumpkin puree? I've been taking suggestions and here's what I've got: pancakes from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, my stepmom's family recipe pumpkin bread, pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, pumpkin soufflé, Rachel Ray's gingerbread waffles, slow cooker pumpkin custard, pumpkin soup, and of course, pumpkin pie

Cost: $5 for the pumpkin
Time spent: 3 hours: 90 minutes of roasting, 90 minutes of labor: gutting the pumpkin, removing seeds for toasting, then shelling the cooked pumpkin, pureeing, and portioning*

*I portioned the pumpkin into a variety of sizes: ½ cup, 1 cup, 2 cups, and 3 cups and popped it into the freezer.

Composting (From a Condo!)

The compost pile (hmmm...doesn't look like much!)

Our compost crock

Since we live in a third floor condo, my husband wasn’t keen on composting at home. Then I found out they were starting a compost pile at work. Our building has a strip of forest on three sides of it, so we’ve got plenty of leaves and grass. Since the grounds team only has “browns” (leaves, grass clippings, etc.), I offered to add my food waste from home. We are going on our second month with this, and it is going great! To get started I needed a few things:
-Info on what to do
-Compost Crock
-Hand shovel (trowel)

I went to the library and check out several books on composting. My favorite was Composting by Liz Ball. My compost pile will be somewhere in between a simple pile (stack up yard waste and let it be) and a managed pile (yard waste, food waste, turned regularly).

The one thing we needed to buy was some type of container to hold the waste in the kitchen. We figured I would visit the compost pile only twice a week so the container needed to be smell-proof for the kitchen, but also leak-proof as I transport it by car.

As always, I looked for something around the house or from yard sales to repurpose first. With no luck there, I decided to check out the household section at Ross. Ross, Home Goods, TJ Maxx, etc. usually have a great selection of random containers. I ended up with a canister with a very tight fitting lid. (Bonus points for it being citron green which I am obsessed with.) A cookie jar would work to. Of course, you can always go commercial and buy a real compost crock with a smell-containing charcoal filter in the lid (Google compost crock for a variety of options), but I am too cheap for that!

So, armed with my $6.99 crock, the adventure started! Our rules are no dairy (save for egg shells) and no meat. These smell in a way that attracts animals we don’t want. We do have to think about the ingredients in leftovers. For example, buttered carrots can’t go in.

My job is bringing in the food, and my coworker’s job on the maintenance team is keeping me stocked with browns. He had the idea to cover the whole pile with pine branches. I have no idea if that is technically right, but to me I think that the prickliness of the branches and the pine smell both are beneficial for protecting the pile for animals looking for a snack. (Update- this actually is a HUGE hassle because now the pile has built up higher than the branches and when I dig down to dump the food waste I hit them and can’t get in very deep.)

Twice a week, I load my filled crock and trowel into the car and go to work (literally and figuratively). I like to rotate around the pile with my digging. I use the trowel to dig a hole in the pile, dump the food in, smash the food down a bit with the shovel, then load the dirt I scooped away on top again. Because I rotate around the pile, as of yet I have never found food added from a previous day. My biggest animal protection tip is to completely bury the food in the pile. Also bury flowers. If the flowers sit on top, it will attract bees.

This process takes all of five minutes twice a week and really doesn’t involve getting messy or even unpleasant smells. Two-ish months in and the verdict is that composting is really easy, we have much less household trash, and we have tons of warm fuzzies for being even more eco-friendly. I actually get giddy when I see worms in the pile and feel the warmth when I dig (both are signs of a healthy pile). Warm fuzzies, indeed!

Reusable Water Bottles Part 2- BPA

We can't really talk about water bottles without talking about BPA. In addition to the huge downside of endless production, transport, and disposal of one-use water bottles, BPA in the plastic bottles is the other big concern. Personally, I think that BPA concern has gone a little alarmist, but Canada’s concern about it really has me thinking. And really, it is so easy to dramatically lessen my exposure to it (by not heating in plastic and reducing amount of food and drink consume from cans and plastic packages) that I see no reason not to.

If you are looking for some good reads about BPA, here are my favorite articles:

http://www.cspinet.org/new/200804021.html
http://www.ewg.org/reports/bisphenola
http://children.webmd.com/news/20080130/hot-liquid-ups-bpa-from-plastic-bottles
http://www.healthobservatory.org/library.cfm?refID=77083 (this is a PDF)

BPA concerns or no, a reusable bottle is better for the environment. Okay, actually a few dissenters say that the manufacture of a reusable bottle is better than a disposable, but I haven’t actually seen anything tangible on that. Plus, when you add in endless transport energy expenditure and endless trash or recycling expenditure of disposables, that is a hug, nasty cycle. So, I’m sticking with consuming less that is disposable; reducing trumps recycling any day!

Reusable Water Bottles Part 1- Bottles

I see the two main contenders for reusable water bottles as Sigg and Kleen Kanteen (KK).

Sigg bottles are made of aluminum with a resin liner. Some people are concerned with aluminum and a link to Alzheimer’s but this link is very dubious. It is so dubious, that I even dislike mentioning it, but it gets me to my second point which is that Siggs have a liner. So, aluminum really isn’t even a concern to begin with. But, some people are concerned about the liner leeching. Sigg claims is it 100% leech-free in testing. Although there is nothing proven bad about the aluminum or the liner, some people see this as a drawback. If you’d like some additional peace of mind, here is a letter from the CEO of Sigg on the liner issue: http://tinyurl.com/5na9r4 (a PDF) from the TreeHugger.com Blog.

Sigg bottles are made in Switzerland which has good environmental policies. Yay for eco-conscious manufacturing! The bottle is recyclable. Siggs come in a great variety of colors, sizes, and designs. They may be difficult to find, though, since online sales have been almost entirely suspended (only existing stock may be sold). They offer several different lid options.

Kleen Kanteen bottles are made of stainless steel which is not known to leech. The biggest downside to the KK is that it is manufactured in China. The good news is that KK claims that their bottles are manufactured eco-consciously, even in China. It is up to you to decide if you believe their claim or not. KKs come in a variety of sizes that are all the same width but vary in height. They have a wide mouth so that ice-cubes can be inserted. They also come in a few different solid colors. They are available both online and in stores. They offer several different lid options.

Both Sigg and Kleen Kanteen have excellent FAQ sections on their respective websites:

Sigg: http://www.mysigg.com/index.asp?ID=5&PageAction=Custom

Kleen Kanteen: http://www.kleankanteen.com/7faqs/faqs.html

Personally, in my house we have two Siggs and one Kleen Kanteen (see picture). I use the fun, patterned Siggs (one for work and one for the car) and D. uses the solid-colored Kleen Kanteen.

Camelbak (now) and Nalgene (soon) offer BPA-free plastic alternatives, but I see those as lesser options since neither (to my knowledge) make eco-conscious manufacturing claims, nor are their bottles recyclable at the end of their life. I also try to minimize purchasing new plastic products because of petroleum use concerns. So, Camelbak and Nalegne are out for me personally.

You might be wondering what this has to do with being green and cheap since these bottles aren't cheap. Well, normally I could care less about brand name, but this is one area where I have compromised and actually wanted the “real deal” even if it cost extra. Think about it this way: if you use your reusable bottle 5 days a week instead of disposable and a disposable costs $1 a day (out of a machine) your pricey bottle is paid for in one month.

But, be extra thrifty and ask for your bottle(s) as a gift. I got the two Siggs for my birthday and my husband got the KK for his birthday. Or, you could drink out of an emptied and washed glass jar. Really, you could!

Paper Towel Alternative

Eight months ago we decided to phase out paper towels in our house and switch to one-use-and-wash cloth towels. To maximize the eco-friendliness of this move, we wanted to repurpose something that we already had rather than go and buy a new cloths from the store. Enter my husband's old, holey T-shirts.

I started by cutting down each side seam, then cutting out the sleeves. With the shirt in more manageable chunks I was able to start cutting it into useable pieces. I decided that I wanted each cloth to be the size of 1/2 paper towel. This size is big enough for most clean-up jobs, but small enough that we aren't tempted to reuse them (and thus spread harbored bacteria).

Storing the cloths in discreet way was important to me. I didn't think a big wad of rags, even clean ones with a noble purpose, would encourage my husband to stick with it. So, I decided to use a small canister. While it is easy enough to just lob the cloths in there, I like a more streamlined approach. I stack all of the cloths, then invert the pile and push it in the canister so that just one cloth is visible (like how a box of tissues is packaged). That way I can grab one cloth without taking seven others out.

Once a cloth is used, it goes in an open plastic basket in the laundry room. Note that the holding area must be an open container (and be sure your wet cloth isn't balled up when it goes in) otherwise you will end up with a seriously stagnant stench. Blech!

In our house, white cloths are for kitchen jobs and they can get washed with any towel load. Any cloth made of colored or patterned cloth is for outside or bathroom cleaning. They have their own separate basket in the laundry room and get washed by themselves. (If you use cloth diapers or pads you could add these to that load). Honestly, I don't know if laundry cross-contamination is a legitimate concern or not, but I'd rather not risk it.

Cheap Meals On The Web

One of the best ways to stretch your grocery dollar is by letting nothing go to waste and really eating through your pantry. Finding a way to get rid of that container of plain yogurt you bought by mistake and all of those garden tomatoes is only a click away…

http://supercook.com/
Enter the ingredients you have on hand and it will list what you can make.

http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/
This United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) site not only lets you search by ingredient but also by cost per serving, cost per dish, nutritional content, audience, and cooking equipment.

http://allrecipes.com/Search/Ingredients.aspx
Another site where you can enter the ingredients you have on hand and it will list what you can make.

All Recipes also offers searching a section on budget cooking:
http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Cooking-on-a-Budget/Detail.aspx

Reusable Produce Bag- Cost $0

I finished one produce bag tonight (this one is 12x16 inches) and have two others pinned to finish later. The best thing is that I spent no money making them! The fabric was leftover from a 1970s dress that I bought used and shortened; the drawstring is made of hand-me-down ribbon; and I inherited the thread and sewing machine from family members.

The fabric is sheer enough to see what is inside, so I won't have to open it for checkout. This bag weighs 0.65 oz. and a standard plastic produce bag weighs 0.05 oz. So, mine is heavier, but well worth it, in my opinion!

Saving With Green Cleaning and Beauty

For beauty and cleaning supplies, if you simply replace traditional commercial products with commercial eco-friendly products it really will hit you hard. You have to go into the green with a mentality of consuming and buying less.

One-for-one product replacement misses the point of going green since even the eco-friendly commercial products still come in plastic bottles, require shipping, and generate waste (or need to be recycled which uses energy).

Here are some ideas that might be worth trying: Can you use olive oil instead of lotion? Can you shampoo half as much as you do now? Can you make your own cleaning supplies for cheaper (with the added bonus of less packaging)? Can you buy castile soap in bulk and then use it for many things (from cleaning your home to cleaning your face)? Can you use baking soda instead of deodorant (just rub a generous pinch into each pit)?

Now, let’s move onto green cleaning specifically. I suggest reading the books Green Clean and Organic Housekeeping if you are serious about this kind of cleaning. OH talks about the science of cleaning and how it works (which makes you feel that you really can clean organically, if you are doing the right things) and gives some recipes. GC gives lots of recipes and is more anecdotal in tone.

Here are some common ingredients and where I found them (in Northern Virginia).

Washing Soda
If your grocery store doesn't have washing soda then request it! Barring that, you can get washing soda at Amazon or look for "PH Up" at a pool supply store. Get it for hot tubs and not pools as the pool kind tends to have other things added. Another place to look is an aquarium store since fish tanks need to have their PH changed. You want it to say 100% sodium carbonate on the label. It is also known as soda ash. It will be quite pricey at a pool store, though. I paid $8 for 1 pound at a pool store before I found it at a grocery store where it was $3 for 4 pounds.

Borax
I found borax at Wal-Mart in the laundry aisle. The brand I've seen at several places is called 20 Mule Team. It is also available on Amazon.

Fels Naphtha Soap
I haven't been able to find Fels Naptha Soap locally. Amazon sells it by the bar or in a package of thirty bars.

Instead, I decided to go with Dr. Bronner’s which they sell at Whole Foods. This will make a much milder product than the Fels Naphtha would. I currently am using the unscented/baby variety.

Most dry recipes call for grated soap, so I used our food processor to grate it into a chunky powder which I store in a jar.

Baking Soda
Baking soda in normal quantities can be found at any grocery store. I think I got my 4 lb box of baking soda at Wal-Mart in the laundry aisle. At work they have a twelve pound resalable bag of baking soda (probably from Costco), which I covet.

Vinegar
White vinegar can be found at any grocery store. The longer your jug lasts you, the longer between consuming plastic bottles, so the bigger the better!

Storage Jars & Spray Bottles
All of our dry cleaning mixes are stored reused jars. Containers that cannot be recycled are particularly good for this since otherwise they would just go in the trash. (We have a few #7 plastic ones.) Our spray bottles are from Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree. Some people save the spray bottles from commercial cleaning products to refill with their new homemade cleaners. Personally, I am hesitant to do this.

Organic and Local Eating

My thoughts on organic food from an environmental standpoint (and not a health standpoint, which may be the bigger concern for you): many chain grocery stores* have responded to demand for organic by transporting organic from the cheapest bidder, likely across the county. The resources to transport the organic food add back in pollution that the organic growing saved. Buying locally is perhaps a better choice and buying locally and organic is the best choice. Here's one article to get you thinking:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13737389/

BUT, if your family has decided that eating organic is important to you, your grocery budget is going to reflect that value and will probably be higher than others' budgets.

1. Is there anywhere else in your budget that doesn't reflect your values as much, and you could cut back there to sustain your food budget?
   
2. Do you eat out a lot? If so, keep in mind that most of that is probably not organic. Cutting out one meal out each week or each month might help you feel better about your grocery budget.
   
3. If you shop at farmer's markets, make sure you are actually getting local produce. I went to one FM recently and afterwards I read their regulations online. At this particular one, there are no regulations about where the vendors come from, so things might not truly be local. Also, resale is allowed so these might not actually be farm employees who could tell you about how the food was grown. Heck, people could be buying from the grocery store and reselling it. We are happy to pay more for local produce, but we want to make sure it really is local. From now on we will stick with the other nearby FM that sets a radius for participants.
   

*I am not including Whole Food in this assumption. I am no big fan of Whole Foods, but in their defense over the past few years they have made a huge effort to buy locally and promote that they buy locally. If you read articles to the contrary, be sure to check out the publishing date. I got stuck on several negative articles that were several years old and thus before their shift.

Food Shopping– Part 2

1. Learning to cut down a grocery budget is a gradual thing. Cut your budget by reasonable amount each month (say $20) and get used to your buying power at that amount before lowering it more. You have to grow into eating smaller and/or cheaper for it to stick.
   
   
2. Pick an expensive thing you buy and try to half your consumption for the month. For me it was breakfast bars. I used to eat a Zone Bar every day at $1 a day and that added up. So, I switched to breakfast bars at $3ish per box and stayed with that for several years before I recently rethought that. Sure, $3 a box isn't expensive in the scheme of life, but I knew I could do better. My new tactic is to make a big batch of oatmeal-wheat muffins every few weeks. I freeze all that I won't eat in a week. I can add make them nutritious than a commercial product and they have no preservatives.
   
   
3. We don't have a separate freezer or pantry, but we try to really use the space we have. Remove things from their packaging as much as possible to fit more in. Also, as yard sale season comes up, look for some organizer that you could fit on top of your fridge or in a coat closet. Those two areas have expanded our storing ability.
   
   
4. Eat seasonally. Produce goes on super sale at certain times of the year. Stock up then! We eat tons of asparagus in the spring (best price ever, $1 a pound in spring of 07). We eat lots of cranberry items in the fall. Anyone can freeze their surplus, with the proper equipment you could can or dehydrate your surplus if you are into that. (We dehydrate with a $5 rummage sale dehydrator. I have canning supplies that I received as a gift, but have never gotten around to using those.)
   
   
5. Love your slow-cooker. Tough cuts of meat are cheaper and after a day in the crock pot they are tender and flavorful. That would be one way to get cheaper organic meat (though you may have to call the grocery store and talk to their butcher to get stuff set aside if they don't normally put it out). If you have a Betty Crocker cookbook (the red plaid), or can get one at the library, it will explain the different cuts of meat and how to cook them to the appropriate tenderness.
   
   
6. Milk and cooking: Use powdered milk when cooking instead of liquid milk. It is much cheaper. Unless the dish is milk-heavy (like pudding) the taste won't be impacted. You can also buy powdered buttermilk. If you can't find dry buttermilk, you can use your liquid milk to make buttermilk. Wikipedia gives these recipes: For recipes, a substitute for buttermilk can be made by adding 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar or 1 3/4 teaspoons cream of tartar to each cup of regular milk. The soured milk should be allowed to sit for ten minutes before being used. A low-fat substitute can be made by mixing equal parts of skim milk and low-fat yogurt or sour cream.
   
   
7. Know what you have. I got sick of buying duplicate spices (man, those little bottles are expensive), so I made a list of what we have. It is so great when I want to make a recipe to just look on the list (hung inside the cabinet) and be able to see instantly if we have the right ingredients.
   
   
8. If we know that we have something (like right now we have tons of flavored orzo from the discontinued product shelf) then we build a meal around that. Anything that calls for normal pasta gets served with orzo instead.

Non-Food Products Grocery Savings

Cleaning Supplies

Moving to the dirt cheap organic homemade cleaners is cutting our costs, for sure (see green clean tagged posts). There just are a few basic, cheap ingredients required. Baking soda and vinegar are readily available and cheap. Borax is also readily available once I started looking for it (also cheap). Soda Ash/Washing Soda/Sodium Carbonate (three names for the same thing) was hard to find at first. From a pool supply store I bought Hot Tub PH Up which is the same thing with a fancier name (not to be confused with Pool PH Up which contains other things). It was rather pricey $8 for 1 pound. After awhile, though, I was able to find it in the local grocery store at 3 pounds for $2.49. A much better price!

I suggest the books Green Clean, and Organic Housekeeping: In Which the Nontoxic Avenger... to get started on green cleaning. They will tell you how to do it and why conventional products aren't all they are cracked up to be. (Be extra cheap and check your library for them instead of buying them.)

Laundry & Dish Soaps & Detergents

Take a look at your soaps and detergents. Are they concentrated or say use one third less or similar? If so, the good news is that your product probably uses less packing than traditional ones. Yay! The downside is that in reality it is hard to use one third less. How exactly one can use one-third of a squirt of dish soap is a mystery to me. In this case, just be aware that your soap is super-concentrated and overusing it is literally putting money down the drain. So, stick to just one light squirt or add water into the bottle and shake to thin the soap out.

Soap & Shampoo & Razors

As for soap and shampoo, I always put them on my birthday and Christmas wish lists. Yes, that sounds strange, but hang with me...while my family thinks giving normal soap, etc. is lame, they are just fine with getting me fancy ones from Lush or the like. I am loaded up on fancy soap for probably two years after this past Christmas! Same thing with shampoo. While I am fine with cheap shampoo, my mom thinks it is girly-fun to buy me special shampoos. I go with it ;) I haven't bought razors in years. I either get them as stocking stuffers or I also take advantage of "free after rebate" razor offers in the weekend coupons.

Ladies Only

If menstrual products seem expensive to you, consider a Diva Cup (about $25 for 10 years worth of no tampons is a beautiful thing to some people). Want to go even more hardcore cheap? If you are crafty and have scrap fabric, make cloth pads or liners (you can also buy cloth pads from Etsy). If this stuff is not your style, that is A-OK with me. I'm just the idea lady!

Portion Size- The Stealth Saver

1. Portion size matters. Keep your meat portions to the "right" size (3 oz/size of a deck of cards) and fill the rest of your plate with cheaper things like big salads, other veggies, fruit, and starchy things like pasta, rice, potatoes, beans, bread.
   
2. Since we cut back on meat, sides are fair game for eating all of. Hey, they're cheap, fill up!
   
3. Serve your food on small plates. You'll take less when there isn't all of that empty space to fill.
   
4. Protect your leftovers. My husband used to eat into the entrees we'd meant for leftovers, so we now either portion that out right away (before serving) or decide together how much of the main course needs to be left untouched.
   

Saving on Cleaning, Paper Products, and Disposables

1. In the past we've bought our cleaning supplies from the dollar store, but now we are moving to natural cleaners instead (baking soda, washing soda, vinegar, borax, etc.) which will be on par with dollar store prices, if not cheaper.
   
   
2. We rarely use paper towels; instead we use small rags (cut up old t-shirts) as one-use and wash cloths (we keep them in a canister so they're not unsightly). Fewer things to buy over and over, fewer things to throw away!
   
   
3. We also are moving towards cloth napkins instead of paper. It makes every meal feel a little fancier, too.
   
   
   
4. For parties, we bust out real dishes, glasses, and flatware instead of buying disposables. The only cost is running the dishwasher an extra load and the only waste is dirty water. Plus, it is fun to get use out of wedding presents we rarely use - like special green plates just for desserts or a whole set of glasses just for cordials [what were we thinking :)].
   

Food Shopping- Part 1

Our grocery budget is $250 per month*, but we are under enough that we can afford to do Let's Dish 2-3 times per year. Since we live in a high cost of living area (DC 'burbs), it amazes me that we keep things at this price, but I track our spending every month so I know that I'm not deluding myself :)

Here are some of our strategies:

1. We cut coupons and pair them with sales found in print ads and on couponmom.com.
   
   
2. I shop with a calculator and calculate the cheapest per unit price. Calculating the unit price is the only formula for knowing if generic or brand name on sale plus a coupon is cheaper.
   
   
   
3. When calculating unit price watch out for packages that look to be the same size but actually contain different amount of product (e.g. the meager but delicious Yoplait Whips v. normal Yoplait)
   
   
4. We mostly drink water, so no soda or coffee costs. (Okay, okay, when soda is on super sale we do stock up for parties.) We do get one thing of juice and milk per week.
   
   
   
5. We almost never buy prepared foods and try to buy to minimize the packaging in what we buy (environmental concern as well). If the price comes out about even we try to go with the less packaging choice. For example, purchased pudding cups versus making my own is about the same, price wise. But, if I make my own then there is almost no waste. Plus, though pudding isn't the most amazingly fun thing to make, it is free entertainment (at some level right?). :)
   
   
   
6. We cook in large quantities and freeze the leftovers in lunch and dinner-size portions. Once you get a good stock going variety isn't an issue. Fewer recipes means fewer ingredients bought. It also means fewer dishes to wash – saving water, soap, time etc.
   
   
7. We repurpose food so that nothing goes to waste. Leftover salad becomes sandwich lettuce the next day, an extra chicken breast goes on top of a chef salad for lunch, etc.
   
   
   
8. We don't buy things if they aren't at the best price. For example, that means we only buy chicken when it is <$2 a pound. When it is that price we stock up. If it is over that, we just don't buy it. We use our freezer and pantry to load up on good deals.
   
   
9. Knowing the best price is worth your time. We kept a price book for six months. I compared the prices for the same, cheapest per unit item at several different grocery stores. That way I would know if a sale was really a deal with stocking up on. We also learned which sales were worthwhile. For example, in our area $0.50 yogurt is a normal sale price, so that is our "best price". We won't buy yogurt for more than that unless we need a yogurt splurge for some crazy reason; $0.33 yogurt is truly a sale; and $0.25 yogurt is worth some serious fridge space.
   
   
   
10. When stocking up on dairy deals buy low or no fat items. They have a really long shelf life. Fat = spoilage
    
    
    
11. What can you buy in a large quantity for cheap and then make into you own convenience food? For example, we buy 2lb of blocks cheese and shred it with our food processor or Kitchen Aid with shredder attachment. We then put the shredded cheese straight into the freezer and pull out handfuls as we need it (it defrosts almost instantly). When we buy those huge family packs of chicken breasts, we separate them into our own cooking-size packages before freezing. While the chicken is out for repackaging, we trim them. No expensive pre-trimmed Perdue for us! When I cut off the white stuff, little bits of extra, good, pink chicken tend to come off, too. I put all of those good bits in a separate freezer container for a quick stir-fry or chicken nuggets meal.
    
    
    
12. What can you grow instead of buy? If space permits, consider gardening for cheap food and a cheap hobby.
    

*No, we don't eat out a ton to keep our grocery budget low :) Our dinging out budget is $80 per month for eating out together. Any lunches out come from our fun money (a set amount we each get to spend or save each month without being accountable to the other for it), but we each only eat out about once lunch per week.

Federal Student Loan Consolidation

This entry was last updated 6-25-2008

I grew up thinking that I was bad at math, but really I just hadn't ever gotten to the fun part yet (well, the part that saves or makes me money and that is fun). In college I discovered that I love graphs, spreadsheets, and researching financial things. I spent a lot of time researching federal student loan consolidation after I graduated (in 2006) and am happy to share what I learned.

Things to consider when consolidating federal student loans...

·Federal rates won’t change until July of each year. Rates might go lower. Rates will probably be announced in June, leaving you a few weeks to make a decision. * See important note below

·Your consolidated rate will be a weighted average of all federal loans you chose to consolidate. That means with today's rates you can't get the 2.5% rates that people who consolidated around 2002 did. Rates just aren't that low anymore.

·There is hope for your rate, though. Every lender will offer you two interest rate breaks and comparing these breaks is how shopping around pays off! When comparing lenders look for:

1. The greatest % drop with auto-payment. This is an immediate benefit.
   (My lender offered .5% while most offered .025%)
   
2. The shortest amount of time before they drop you 1% for x on time payments.
   (My lender dropped my rate 1% after 12 months of on time payments; most do 18-24 months before you get the 1% drop. Some may do something tempting like a 2% drop after 48 months, but if you are on a 5-year payoff plan mathematically that probably is not be the best choice.)

·If you have a smaller loan at a higher rate consider keeping it out of the consolidation so it doesn’t pull up the rate on the rest of the (cheaper rate) loan (for example if you have a Perkins and a Stafford). No one will advertise that you can leave one loan out, so be savvy.

·Have the money to pay all outstanding interest. You don’t want that outstanding interest rolled into you new principal. (Paying interest on interest is bad!)

·With some lenders, but not all, consolidating eliminates your grace period.

·Consolidating a loan with a forgiveness option (like a Perkins) does eliminate the ability to ever get forgiveness for teaching in a low-income district, etc. You can elect to leave that loan out of consolidation if you are considering taking the forgiveness route.

·Do the hard work of the math when comparing the % breaks. They can be trickier than they look. MrsZubterfuge has a great spreadsheet in the middle of her bio that is helpful for doing long-term calculations. Use the mortgage pages from the spreadsheet in the middle of her bio here to play around with your SL repayment options:
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/user/page.aspx?username=MrsZubterfuge

*Important note:

Stafford loans taken out before July 1, 2006 have variable rates that, unconsolidated, will adjust as the rate changes each year. Waiting to see what the new rate effective July 1 will be can be very beneficial in your consolidation timing.

Stafford loans disbursed after July 1, 2006 have a fixed rate of 6.8% in repayment, so waiting to see what the new rate effective July 1 won't benefit you.

Here is a great article that talks about how to approach consolidation going into the 2008-2009 loan year:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/CutCollegeCosts/3Point6PercentStudentLoansConsolidateNow.aspx

Sites for comparing student loan consolidators:
http://www.simpletuition.com/consolidation/quick_form
http://www.finaid.org/loans/staffordloandiscounts.phtml

USAA Financial Planning – Part 2

This entry is only about finance and not environment.
Review is based on services received from January-July 2007.
If you are new to the blog, start with Part 1, below.

Teleconference 2:
I will admit that though we were supposed to have our second meeting a month after the first one, we waited until our six month contract was almost up to have the second meeting. I had decided to change jobs in that time period and I wanted to get my entire new 403b and pension details from the new employer and incorporate that in as well.

In between our first and second meetings our FP suffered from a back injury and had to go on disability. We were assigned a new FP who called and introduced himself, explained the change, and apologized for the inconvenience.

In the second meeting we went over our revised document and the progress we had made on our six action items from our first meeting. We had a little more difficulty with this meeting. D. and I were considering overfunding our retirement funds in order to purchase a house (it was some crazy scheme that worked out on paper) and the FP had conflicting data on if this would work for us. He spent a lot of time looking up tax details. While it was good he looked up the details, it would have been better for him to have confidently known the answers.

We really hit an impasse with FP over life and disability insurance. I actually felt like he was angry at us for not having the amount he saw fit. He got very stern-fatherly in a way that didn't really work with my personality. I think this was exacerbated by the fact that we had had a similar disagreement with the first FP and got him to reduce it on our plan (and his approach was gentler). Finally, I had to tell the new FP to drop it and move on.
This call lasted about one hour.

With this call (and the end of our six-month contract), our service was complete. We were given an option to continue on at an hourly rate, but declined for now.

We look forward to a "tune-up" probably in two years or when we get ready for a major life change (buying a house or having a baby). In the meanwhile, I will use the information we learned through this process to monitor ourselves.

------------------------
The Overall Good:
The best part is that I feel so much better about being on track for retirement and buying a house. I needed that expert opinion to tell me that my novice research and planning was (mostly) on target. Retirement was a bigger concern than the house, because I just could not, on my own, calculate with inflation, interest, etc. and figure out where we needed to be. The next best thing is that I didn't feel like I was being sold anything. I am wary of being sold a fund or product that benefits the FP more than me, and USAA is extremely clear on how their employees are funded.

The Overall Bad:
I thought the worst parts would be the lack of face-to-face interaction or value-incompatibility, but the FP's personality translated through the phone and the document kept us on the same page (literally and figuratively). So, the new worst is the time it took to get an evening appointment. (Also, if I have a question, I have to call the advice line rather than FP himself, but since their service is excellent, this isn't really a big deal.) The personality conflict was the second FP was trying, but I guess this is why we hire professionals: to tell us what is best even when we don't want to hear it.

USAA Financial Planning – Part 1

This entry is only about finance and not environment.

Review is based on services received from January-July 2007.

History:
I have a good relationship with USAA through insurances and investments, and had used their free-for-members financial advising service for general stuff, but we wanted more specific advice. The glaring downside is that we don't meet in person: just phone and e-mail. The good side is that it is $200 for the planning we need at our stage of life. (They have more expensive plans for people nearing retirement and in retirement.) While we were considering paying more for someone locally (who would be available more) it was just too overwhelming to know whom to trust, and we wanted to get advice on re-routing some of our money ASAP with the new year here.

All advice we received, of course, was tailored to our situation and goals, so I don't mean to suggest that what we were told applies to anyone else in any way. Rather, I wanted to share how the procedure works (and personal examples help show that).

Getting Started:
We signed up and filled out their detailed form online where you explain your goals, concerns, a bit about yourself, as well as a very detailed form. They said would take several hours, so I felt really good when it took us less than an hour, because we already track the information they wanted to know (budget, goals, value of cars and possessions, amount in all accounts, etc.). If you have read Smart Couples Finish Rich, the info is very similar to Bach's net worth and budget forms. While I was quick to fill out the form, there were some things in our budget that didn't fit crisply in their form, so I did have to call the advice line two times.

Moving Forward:
After completing the form, we set up a phone appointment with (who we thought was) our advisor for the next week. We found out through a confirmation phone call that we were actually talking with a financial consultant, not the financial planner (FP) himself. I was pretty perturbed by this misunderstanding, because I was anxious to get started with the FP, ASAP.

In the conversation with the consultant, we cleaned up the form we had submitted and asked questions to further solve those "not-crisp" areas. We were asked to send info on all available retirement funds from our respective companies so they could match our risk preference with the options and make recommendations.

During the consultant call we also set up a "meet-and-greet" phone call time with the FP and the "big meeting". Personally, I am not big on meet-and-greets, but some people really like that extra personal touch. My husband did that one on his own and chatted with our FP for about 5 minutes when the call happened.

For the big meeting, I was disappointed that there was a month-ish wait to get an evening appointment for the big meeting (plenty of day times, though), but at least we were moving in the right direction.

Within a few days of the clean-up call, the FP and consultant prepared a preliminary 30+ page document for us based on the info we had previously provided. It addressed current finances/net worth, e-fund, SL repayment plan (our only debt), asset allocation, retirement, goals, and disability and life insurances. (We declined advising on future education, but that is included in the service.)

We were asked to review the entire document before the big meeting. I thought that the document seemed generic/formulaic mainly because the life insurance section was really outrageous considering that we don't have kids or a mortgage, and I feared that the big meeting would just be line-by-line talking about the document, which I didn't really get. (Note: at this point, this document was s only provided online, so we had to print it ourselves if for a hard copy.)

Teleconference 1:
Because of traffic and a power outage, hubby (D.) and I were both stuck on the road, in our respective cars, when the meeting time came about. I called USAA in a panic since we weren't at home to take the call and they got us set up with 3-way calling. (Actually FP asked if we wanted to reschedule, but after that month wait there was no way!)

Instead of going straight to the document, D. and I got to bring up our issues first (yay!). Our big things questions were about over-paying SL vs. investing, doing enough for retirement, saving for a house, and keeping kids on the horizon (passively). FP talked through those issues with us thoroughly before getting back to the more standard stuff in the document (by which time both D. and I had arrived at home).

Since many people sing praises about the value of maxing out their 401Ks, I was concerned about not saving enough for retirement. After a little bit of budget shifting—mostly from no longer overpaying the SL—we were able to get to 15%, pre-match. (15% is the Smart Couples % of success. FP though we were fine with 10%). Though we are still nowhere near the 401K maximum, he encouraged us to focus on our short-term goal of saving for a house rather than adding more to retirement since we are ahead for reaching the target amount he helped us come to.

(Personal Note: His point was that for our goals, we will be able to retire 18 years earlier than we are currently planning at the standard of living (SOL) we determined with him, or we can retire at age 60 with a much higher SOL we are planning for. We in no way take being on track as a license to blow money or to stop living beneath our means. Rather, we can improve our SOL now, by owning a house sooner rather than later, so that the mortgage can be paid by retirement, and thus we can be in our optimal situation in retirement.)

Knowing our estimated "target number" for retirement has been vexing me, and the FP helped me comprehend this better. Trying to figure it out on my own was frustrating and hopeless. Now, it feels great to know that we are on track for our "standard of life" goals in retirement. When we have kids we will have to readjust our monthly contributions for costs and education planning, so I am glad we are ahead for retirement at this stage in our lives.

FP prefaced many things by asking what our goals, values, and current methods are and worked the discussion around our answers. In looking for an advisor, I was concerned about being values-compatible. The FP did a great job with this; he didn't project values other than our own. He did not overly push USAA products at all. He mentioned USAA's Money Market account since we don't have one, but he encouraged us with our current banks (like ING).

Going through the document, he gave an overview of our strengths and weaknesses, and gave us some steps to take before our next meeting (sign wills, find our SS statements, etc.). He also recommended the best retirement funds for our risk profile both within USAA and elsewhere (like my 401k). At the end, the FP did a review of the action items we had come up with (we had six) and allowed more time for questions.

One of these questions was if we are on track for buying a house. I though we might get blown off, since D. was asking very specific questions, but FP had some information on the local real-estate climate here and was able to give us projections on costs, mortgage rates and the best kind for us, timeline, etc.

Next in the process, we will do our next steps, review the revised document, and set up another appointment for a month down the road.

The conversation took a little over an hour.

Within a few minutes of the call's end we received a link to a summary of the next steps. Within a few days of the call, our revised document was posted on the website. It had been updated based on our conversation. (I was happy to see that even the life insurance amount had been changed to aptly meet our lifestyle.)

Credit Score Articles and Resources

This entry is only about finance and not environment.

Tips and a Tool:
Tips From Fair Isaacs (the FICO co.) here
Credit Score Estimator - A Great "What If" Tool here

Articles:
9 Ways to Build a Killer Credit Score (mentions 30% rule) here
Weird Stuff that Hurts Your Credit (mentions balance transfers) here
4 Credit Scoring Myths here
Credit Myths here*
Anatomy of a Credit Score here
Fico Facts here*
Demand Your FICO Score Now here

* Washington Post articles may require free login when articles become archived