Almostgotit.com

Good news!  The utility company has given us a couple months off its billing cycle.  The poor thing still can’t decide how to bill the Almostgotits, as our low meter readings always make it suspicious (we heat with wood).   

The only thing is, we got our woodstove a couple years too early to qualify for Obama’s 30% tax credit for energy efficiency.    Ah well, we ALMOST got it!!

Saving money and saving the planet make wonderful bedfellows, so here’s six ways you can do both, just for today:

1. Hang your laundry out to dry.  If you don’t have a clothes line, buy one or just tie a rope between a couple of trees.  Clothes dryers are one of the biggest consumers of a home’s total energy use.  And yes, you can even hang your clothes up indoors!
2. Skip Starbucks for a day and find an Earth Day event to do instead  (or)
3. Do a fun Earth Day project with your kids at home.
4. Plant a vegetable garden!  Tomatoes and beans are the easiest of all, grow practically anywhere, and your own, home-grown vegetable plants are so gorgeous and satisfying.  Plus also, you’ll have great tasting food for much less than what you’d pay at the store!
5. Stock your freezer.  You’ll save money and energy by reducing your trips to the grocery store.  You’ll also reduce the temptation to eat out (more car trips, more money spent) because you’ll have things to eat at home.  And finally, freezers use less energy when they’re full, too. 
6. Plug your TV into a power bar.  Many appliances draw electricity even when they are turned off, so using a power bar can make a real difference in energy savings.

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Related posts:

5 Ways to work greener & cheaper 

11 Ways to be cheap in honor of Earth Day

Laundry and spring break and blogging: oh my!

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So I got my check from Blogher yesterday — $29.28 for three months worth of ads, which makes it all worthwhile when those pop-up ones come up and bug the heck out of you, doesn’t it? 

(I’m so sorry.  I forgot to sign in and go do the thing that nixes those kinds of ads…)

Anyway, with all that money to spend, I felt a trip to the nursery was finally justified, so I went to Stanley’s Greenhouses and spent $149.47.

Welcome to my sick little world.

I bet Heather Armstrong never feels bad when *she* goes and spends $150 at one of her Salt Lake City nurseries.  She reportedly makes $40,000 a month on advertising for Dooce.com.   Yeah sure, go ahead and click through…  buy her another sagebrush or whatever she can actually grow in Salt Lake City. 

$40K vs. a chance to grow dahlias?  Oh yeah, I’m sure glad *I* didn’t move to Utah. 

Since it was the middle of a weekday when I went to Stanley’s, there weren’t many other people there except retirees and SAHM’s with kids in tow. 

And mostly-unemployed me.  

Most of the time, I’m glad I no longer have kids in tow everywhere I go, as I now can spend all the time I want agonizing over which color of astilbe I want.  But there was one very cute little girl trailing behind as her mother asked around and  hunted in vain for the part of the store that stocked wysteria vines. 

“Mommy,” the little girl called out, growing impatient.  “MOMMY!  So, WHERE’S THAT POSSTERIA?!?”

Right next to the asters, is my bet.

We spent Easter with dear friends, and we were put in charge of the ham.

It’s not difficult to find ham in Tennessee, but there’s plain old ham and there’s delicious, yummy, breathtakingly *good* ham.

So once a year or so, we have been in the habit of visiting a certain store which I shall not name here for legal reasons.

At Christmas and Easter, the lines are so long that the store moves its cash registers to a booth outside, and hires a police officer to manage the traffic going in and out of the small parking lot. I went a little earlier this year to get my ham, and had to stand in line anyway.

I shuffled past the displays of side dishes and flavored mustards, declined the free sample of smoked turkey breast, and finally arrived at the counter where I ordered a smallish half-ham. My mouth watered as the clerk presented me with the fragrant, foil-wrapped prize, which he opened for my inspection.

Ah.

“Yes, that will be fine,” I said, politely swallowing my drool. I only peeked at the price as I was walking to the teller. I had just selected a *FIFTY DOLLAR* ham.

$51.27, to be perfectly exact.

That’s 25 meals at a local homeless shelter. A week of groceries for some American families. Half a month’s wage in rural Russia. Two and a half flocks of ducks for Heifer project. A year’s worth of learning materials for 11.4 school children in Zimbabwe (or 5 school children in either Mozambique and Rwanda). Four complete sets of immunizations for children in Haiti.

And part of one wonderful, celebratory meal a year for eight good friends in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Do you struggle with things like this, too?

[Guest post by My Brilliant Brother]

Here’s a brief topic: I went to Target the other day to pick up a waffle iron. I went in thinking a waffle iron costs somewhere in the $30-$50 range.

So, I saw the $70 stainless version and I saw the $20 version and a few in between. I picked up the $20 version feeling very happy with my purchase.

On the way out, I saw at the end of the isle a bunch of rejects and there I saw a similar waffle iron for $5.98. The box was crushed but the iron itself appeared to be in good condition. So, I returned the $20 iron to the shelf, selected the reject and made my way to the cashier. To my surprise they had discounted it further to $2.98.

I got out of there keeping $30-$2.98=$27.02 in my pocket. This is the additional portion of the price that I was willing to pay but ended up keeping for myself rather than adding to Target’s coffers.

What did Target do wrong, if anything? And, what do I do with the money I saved?

Good News:  
Almostgotit bought a new washing machine!!

Bad News: 
Only Almostgotit would buy a new washing machine that is currently the object of a class-action suit.

Good News:
Almostgotit’s new washing machine was not available for delivery or even in stock at the warehouse, so she can go back to the store tomorrow and cancel the whole thing and…

More Good News:
… buy a much cheaper one that Consumer Reports recommends. 

Which Almostgotit should have done in the first place.

Image  Paul Denton Cocker

Creative Commons Image: Wally G

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

- John Donne

Many of us are now learning, the hard way, that we need to save more and spend less.

Many businesses are closing because we no longer bring them enough patronage.

This is the enormous dilemma at the heart of the current recession: the more careful consumers become, the deeper the recession grows.

If I stop buying books or groceries from my favorite shops, my favorite shops may go out of business, which diminishes me too. If I stop going to restaurants, they may not be able to offer entry-level jobs to my children.

If I stop supporting my local charities, they may not be there when someone I love – or even I myself – may need them, too.

No man is an island. When working out your own recession budget, don’t forget those businesses, services, and even charities that you hold most dear.

Many thanks to Emily Anderson for the suggestion.