Bringing your own cup a thing of the past?

I meet so often with ReclaimingSpirit at coffee shops in the area - mainly the coffee shop in Borders. I'd rather we met at local, independent coffee places, but it seems that they're in short supply these days. My favorite local coffee place is only open till 6pm now - it used to be 10pm.

I started feeling guilty about the paper cups I used at least once a week, so I decided to bring my commuter coffee mug. And the baristas didn't know what to do - both times they gave it a funny look, hemmed and hawed on how to ring up the sale. I don't mind paying full price for a cup of coffee, since it is a business and theoretically we could meet in the parking lot of the Kmart or something. But isn't bring one's own coffee cup one of the staples of green and simple living? I am perturbed.

I am additionally disturbed by the number of phone books I've received, and the fact that I can't figure out what the hell to do with them. I'm going to sneak them into the old phone book bin at work.

All bitching aside, we've done pretty well this month. With a few exceptions, we're sticking to our budget admirably. My bulbs are starting to peek up, despite the upcoming snow - March and April are the snowiest months in Colorado, allegedly. And I didn't kick in the television set after the 400th time the Quizno's girl declared that meat is "what real women need! heeeheeeheeehee!" (I take my pluses where I find them).

Mediations on simple living

In preparation for organized spiritual studies with A Big Name Teacher, I've been sitting in silence every day. In my teens, I meditated every day using a method where you count your breaths. Breathe in, breathe out - one. Breathe in, breath out - two. You'd count four breaths before starting over. As you count, focusing only on your breath and the number, your thoughts start to fall away and eventually your mind is quieted.

The method I'm using now involves sitting in silence. No counting, no trying to keep your thoughts still. I sit, and let my thoughts come up, and then let them go. Before long, mind and body settle down and your mind rests.

The difference is how I react to my thoughts. When I counted breaths, my thoughts were annoying intrusions to be shooed away like flies. Now I observe my thoughts as they come up, trying not to judge them (which is the hardest part). When I really watch what my mind comes up with to think about without me thinking about it, I surprise myself.

My mind covers a lot of ground in just a few minutes when I meditate, sort of like a headless chicken scurrying to cover ground before dropping dead. My mind is an enormous worry-wart. I worry about money, groceries, the gutters, the rotors on the car. My mind also continuously runs over how I treated people that day, and how I was treated in turn.

When I am in a situation, and I realize that this has come up during my meditations. I recognize the emotion, the thought, the worry. My mind had time earlier to work on it, free from interuptions and outside noise. And I can deal with the situation a little more effectively.

When I set aside time in the day to open a space in myself where I can watch my thoughts, I can be a more effective person. My day is so noisy, with workplace noise and phone calls, music in my car, more music or the TV when I'm home.

I feel like since I've started setting aside time to listen to myself, I'm figuring out that I'm smarter than I knew.

Doing the bookworm

Life has been on edge lately. My mother in law fell ill. While she's home and doing better, the doctors, aka The Gods of Mount Olympus, weren't entirely sure what which illness afflicted her. In the meantime, I've been working, keeping house, and trying to keep a regular meditation practice for the sake of my sanity.

My bibliophilic father would pass out if he saw this, but - I'm cutting back on my book consumption. I love to read, and do so several hours a day. I've been donating books from my personal library to Goodwill. I have two standard size bookcases overflowing with books, and I hope to have them both pared down to "comfortably full" by the end of the year. A great many of these books are wonderful, but I will never read them again. In some cases, I never read them in the first place.

I have a sneaking feeling that owning lots of books is one of the last acceptable forms of over consumption. I laugh at shows like MTV's "Cribs" when a celebrity admits that despite their huge kitchen with state of the art appliances, they don't cook. Having this kitchen makes people think they can cook. I think I have lots of books so people will think I'm smart and well read. I plan to be smart and well read, and let my wit and intelligence speak for themselves. I'll borrow from the library and buy cheap, used books and pass them on when I'm through with them. I plan to keep truly treasured and/or useful books.

I'll keep the copy of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" my dad gave me when I was 13. I'll keep my complete collection of "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark," because I still sleep with the lights on after reading them, just as I did when I was 8 and ordered them through the Scholastic Book catalogue at school. In other words, I'll keep the ones that matter, that mean something to me. But why bother keeping "Atlas Shrugged"? It's readily available from the library or even at the bookstore if I ever suffer a head injury causing complete amnesia.

But I'm counting on my utter loathing for all things Ayn Rand to survive a massive head injury.

The Front Garden

I've longed for a beautiful, bountiful garden filled with delicious vegetables. Then I bought a house with a very lovely, very shady back yard. I was further blessed with a dead and ugly front lawn thanks to the former owner's carelessness. For weeks, I fretted about re-sodding versus re-seeding, watering schedules, fertilizing. I would go on walks in the neighborhood and admire my neighbor's beautiful yards, and when I came home I'd come in through the alley gate so I wouldn't have to look at the dead, weedy mess that faced the street.

And one day, I smacked my forehead and said "duh" when I realized hey, put the veggies in the sunny front yard! I get a veggie garden and give up an eyesore.

In Colorado, lawns simply don't make sense. They're a water demand in a state where water is in short supply. When I moved into this house, my neighbors all poo-poo'd my ideas of xeriscaping, pointing out that Englewood doesn't have watering restrictions. But just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should.

Provocations has stunning pictures of his front yard vegetable garden. Looking at those photos, I have the urge to pack up and move to British Columbia!

For the perspective of a man who thinks planting a garden and having the neighbors bitch about it is revolutionary, check out Fritz Haeg's Edible Esates. The end products are stunning, but I'm shocked that planting tomatoes and peppers in the front yard could create as much controversy as it seems to have in Lakewood, California.

The Oregonian published an interesting article about several different couples who followed this route, and what they grow.

And finally, a very good piece about design and plant choice. It makes me want to grow habanero peppers, even though I'm total chilli wuss.

I'm ready for spring to come! But in the meantime, I'll settle for spending as little as I can get away with on soil, ammenders, wood, and seeds.

Coming out of the darkness

I admit I've been missing in action these last few weeks. I've been trying to stick to the path of frugality and simplicity while I've been away. Sometimes I've stuck to the straight and narrow, while other times I've strayed from the path and climbed a tree or played in the river.

What I've been doing right:

• I've religiously tracked my expenses in Quicken. Before, we've had problems overspending the balance of our checking account because we just didn't realize what we really had.
• Mr. Blue got a raise. Theoretically, this is all I should have to say on this. Personally, the problem many people have is they think "If I only made more money, we'd be fine." The truth is, no matter who you are, your expenses can outpace your income. The life lesson is to live within your means, no matter what they are.
  
• We're setting up Mr Blue with his first IRA, and funding it appropriately.
• Both of us are signing up for disability insurance policies. In my work, I meet many people who didn't have savings or insurance, or didn't have enough of each. It's horribly frightening to think one or both of us could be injured or become ill, but we can't live our lives ignoring what frightens us.

We're doing well! I'm proud of both of us and the adjustments we've made, and I don't feel like I'm slogging through quicksand these days. But it's not all peaches and cream. We've stumbled along the way:

• We threw a party this weekend. We've had our house for several months now and just got around to truly celebrating it. The problem lies in how I did it. I bought enough food to feed half the block, so for the next week we'll be eating leftover veggie platter offerings, meatballs, cheese, and bean dip. I bought plastic plates and cups, when we could have used our regular dishes and just washed them since we didn't have that many guests.
  
• We faced some unexpected expenses. My car needed (NEEDED!!) 4 new tires, his needed a new headlight and work on the O2 sensor. While this hurt, I'm calling it a wash. We had to put some of the work on credit cards, but paid most of it from our regular paychecks. And the expense would have been far greater if something had gone horribly wrong at the wrongest possible time.
  
• I was doing well eating lunch at home, but for one solid week I ate out. I was back on track the next week, so I can pat myself on the back for that.

I was feeling down about my absence, and felt that I'd fallen off the simplicity wagon. But in writing this post, I feel better about what I've acomplished. That's the beauty of any kind of journaling - you find yourself in ways you never expected.

Where do you draw the line on vet bills?

My cat fell ill over Memorial Day weekend. To be frank, he couldn't pee. Turns out he had a bladder stone that was blocking him, and could have killed him.

He spent 4 days at the vets (remember it was a holiday weekend), before being spirited away to the animal hospital for surgery. We ended up spending a LOT of money on vet bills and surgery. My husband and I briefly talked about the possibility of having him put down, which was painful. Ultimately, we decided since these surgeries would make him better, we wouldn't take that road.

My mom owns a horse, and while she vacationed a few weeks ago, he seemed to have colicked. My mom's friend who was caring for the horse at the time called both my mother and me to keep us up to date. It turns out it wasn't colic, he was just being an old fart kind of horse. I asked my mom "Why did she keep updating me? What was I going to do?" My mother told me that she planned to tell me that if the vet said it would take a $10,000 surgery, I was to tell them to put the horse down.

This is an uncomfortable subject, but one I think every animal caretaker has to consider. What would you do if your pet's care was going to run in the thousands? Where would you draw the line between paying for the care and making the decision to put your pet down because you couldn't afford it?

I don't have children right now, I have cats. I love them to death. My young one, Loki, likes to sit between my arms while I type on the computer. Candy, who recently brushed death, buries his face in my arm and purrs to drown out the devil. But they're not children. I would certainly pay $20,000, or as much as it took, to save my child's life, but I wouldn't for either of the cats. Would I feel terrible and guilty if my cat died because I wouldn't pony up the money? Oh god, yes.

We spent several thousand on Candy's vet bills. In my mind, he was still young a young cat. The surgeries were 90% likely to fix the problem so it wouldn't come back, so it wouldn't be like I would have to subject him to numerous vet trips and procedures. If he were older, if it were more expensive, or if it would have seriously diminished his quality of life? It hurts to admit it, but I probably would have had him put down.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this. It's hard to even consider, much less talk about, but I think it's an important aspect of pet ownership to consider.

The money fast - how it went

Our week long money fast went well. I packed lunches, we ate at home, and we went to the library for entertainment. The fast proved a success.

Then we went off the money fast and everything went to pieces.

We each bought lunch out twice. I ordered clothes online. He ordered CDs. When I got my paycheck, I paid the bills and realized we had nothing, $0 leftover until he gets paid later in the month. I'll have to transfer money from savings to pay for things like gas and groceries. I don't know how we slipped so badly this time. It's demoralizing - part of me wants to throw my hands in the air and say "screw it!"

But instead, we'll trudge through another week and a half of pinching every penny and doing a less voluntary money fast. It hurts, but at the same time you have to take your blows to learn your lessons. Our transformation to one of those people who posts their half-million dollar net worth on the internet won't happen overnight. It hasn't even been a month since I started this!

So wish me luck. It's a long steep road to the hilltop fortress of financial security.

Cheap Yeast for the Least Back East

In my last post, 25 ways to save money, I mentioned buying baking yeast in bulk for 60 cents a pound at the health food store versus paying $3 for 6 teaspoons of those little packets. 3 Things About Money appreciated the tip, and I realized I forgot one thing - put the yeast in the freezer to keep it fresh. Unless you're baking several loaves of bread a day, you're not going to be able use it up before it putters out.

25 different ways to save money

Dawn at Frugal For Life asks "What are 25 different ways you save money?"

Here's mine:

1. I don't wear makeup.
2. I use shampoo and conditioner, and it's Suave on sale. No hairspray, gels, shelacs, etc.
3. I use my library for books and movies.
4. Cooking meals at home instead of eating out.
5. As often as possible I use compact fluorescent light bulbs.
6. I stay out of thrift stores. I found that I was coming home with tons of crap because it was "cheap", but each "cheap" item adds up monetarily and in clutter.
7. I shop at thrift stores, but usually take at least 5 things out of my cart before I pay.
8. I don't buy from the vending machine at work. Even ignoring the issues with sugar and fats, you could buy 5 times as much of the same product at the grocery store.
9. I use the internet to review an item's quality and price before I make a purchase.
   
10. I cut my dryer sheets into quarters. The box lasts four times as long and a quarter works just fine.
11. I try not to wash dishes under running water. Filling the sink saves water and soap. (Although I do get lazy and cheat).
    
12. I don't go to movies unless it's something really worth watching on the big screen. The last one I saw in a theater was King Kong, and yes, it was worth it. Before that, it was the Incredible Hulk, and no, it wasn't.
    
13. I pay myself first every month. 10% of my income goes straight into savings, and it stays there except for emergencies.
14. I cancelled my vision insurance through work. I can get an eye exam for the co-pay at Kaiser, and take my 'script to a one hour lens place and still come out ahead. When I added up my premium, coverage limits, and co-pays, it just wasn't worth keeping it.
    
15. My husband gets all of his work shirts for free from vendors. Considering how quickly they get ripped or dirty, it's worth it.
16. I'm not a fashionista. Worrying too much about what your clothes look like is expensive. I'm clean and appropriate, and that's all that matters.
17. Eat leftovers for lunch.
18. I buy yeast for breads at Vitamin Cottage where it's 60 cents a pound versus those small packets at the regular store, where it runs $3 for 6 teaspoons.
    
19. I take light rail to school. It's an unlimited pass, mandatory with my student fees, and parking on campus is $3.50 and up.
20. I mostly use vinegar and water for cleaning. I mix in eucalyptis oil, but the vinegar smell only lasts a minute and there's no chemicals to give me a headache. I use an old product spray bottle that was completely cleaned out.
21. If something breaks, I get opinions from friends and family before shelling out cash for repairs. Sometimes someone else knows how to fix it. (usually my dad)
22. I track every expense on Quicken. If I don't, I lose track and end of overdrafting, which comes off our credit card. The interest rate is horrible, and every time it costs $10, regardless of how much or little we were short.
23. I ignore cosmetic damage to my car as long as possible.
    
24. I compost. It cuts down on trash and in a few months, I'll have good rich material for my garden beds.
25. We bought a swamp cooler this summer instead of air conditioning. Installation for a regular whole house unit installed on the roof would have been in excess of $3,000. Instead we bought a $400 portable unit like people use in workshops. It cools up to 1,000 square feet, and our house is less than 800 square feet. In the winter we'll store it in the basement. I know you people back east can't imagine actually wanting humidity, but out here it's a blessing!
    

What I've done right - Part 1

• Buying a small house.

Our house squeeks in at just under 800 square feet. It listed as 750 on one of our documents. This is a basic, 1950s built home - a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. Since there are only two of us, anything bigger would seem wastefull. If one of us wants to be alone, we go in another room - very simple. It therefore follows that it's cheap to heat - we've only been here half a winter, but it was approximately $65 a month to heat when we first moved in and couldn't figure out how to work the thermostat. The heater ran constantly. Now that we have it figured out, I hope this winter will be lower.

We also pay less in homeowner's insurance because there's fewer bells and whistles. For example, not having a fireplace saved us quite a bit of money. Taxes are also relatively low, but that's also partly due to the county we live in.

We have a different attitude towards "stuff" now. The Mister, for example, has a massive CD collection, and looked into getting a special cabinet to hold them. It would have cost about $200, and we couldn't figure out where it would go. So we put it off. I might research it for Christmas or his birthday, but it's not a priority. He's been stashing his CDs in odd places for years now, and it's worked fine. We looked at townhouses over double the size of our current home. The other day I mentioned one we looked at, and we both said "What would we have done with all that space?" We would have bought more stuff, that's what.

If we lived in a rural area, we might have bought a larger place because the necessities of living are different in the country. But suburban living doesn't have a lot of demands for wood shops and barns and spare bedrooms.

Whatever mistakes we made or will make, I won't regret purchasing our house. Some might feel cramped, but we don't want them to stay anyway.