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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We got it as soon as my husband left graduate school.  What a luxury to wash diapers in my own apartment (and later, house) instead of hauling the stinky things to the grad apts. laundry room!  (we couldn’t afford disposables.)  We’ve had the thing for 18 years and have moved it five times.  Recently it started to leak.  Fortunately it sits on a cement floor that slopes away from the rest of the house, so the only damage has been peeling paint.  Last week I took the photo above to prove that there were cheap and ingenious solutions to  leaking washing machines (3 large sponges strategically placed — Ta Da!) which were  a lot cheaper than buying a new washing machine.

Particularly when it’s a lot more fun to buy new rugs for all the rooms you’re rearranging.  Even if you’re *not* shopping local.  Even if you spend *all* of your recent freelancing income on them and then some.  But look at this one! 

Just $15 on Ebay, and it’s a vintage hand-made wool braided rug, a REAL one made of fabric, not yarn, and did I mention it was just $15? (plus $20 for shipping)??  Others like it cost $100 and up.

But I digress.

The sponges did little to stem the growing river of water that flowed from my washer during every wash.  Nor did the $172 spent on a plumber who reamed out the drain lines.  Yesterday the machine gushed its last, filling the house with the smell of electronic death before going kaput.  Its final words to me were these:

You shouldn’t have bought QUITE so many rugs.

You need a bigger emergency fund.

You probably should have cleaned and otherwise maintained me better.

You will never, ever, EVER get away from the unending toil and irritation of the Laundry in your life.

You know what?  That washing machine always was a bitch.