I was watching one of the Green TV channels the other day (don’t remember the actual channel name because I so infrequently get to watch), but the host of the show gave me a great idea, recycled bikes.

For the Non Bike Rider

How many times have you gotten a great idea to get in shape, run out purchase a gym membership, order the Total Fitness Gym from TV or the latest get in shape video/DVD only to fizzle out and realize that you spent a ton of money for nothing? C’mon, you know you’ve done it once or twice or more in your life.

Well, the idea of a recycled bike sounded great. Currently I don’t have a bike, and my old ‘spend and waste’ personality would have gone to a bike store and allowed the salesperson to convince me that I needed the latest, best most expensive bike loaded with a ton of useless gadgets. After purchasing such a bike, with all of the intentions of riding it regularly, I would ride the bike once or twice and it would sit in the garage, or my kids would ride and ruin it.

Recycled  Bike

A much more economical approach is to find a second hand bike, and fix it up. Not only is it more cost effective, it’s recycling at its best. You just have to know what to look for in a used bike. After all, brakes can always be repaired, tires replaced and gear chains replaced and oiled. A bent or broken bike frame is another story.

For folks like me looking to get back into the swing of biking, I think a used bike is a great place to begin. However, once I get to Lance Armstrong’s level, then I’ll contemplate getting a new bike.

While searching the internet, I came across these interesting sites involving bike recycling. If any of the recyclers are located near you, it might be worth checking them out:

Local Motion in Vermont
Recycle a Bike in Providence Rhode Island
Recycle a Bicycle in New York City
Recycled Cycles in Colorado

All my adult life I’ve gone through bouts of frugality. When money got tight, I pulled in the belt. When things seemed to get a bit better, I would revert back to my wasteful ways.

The older I get, the more I realize that if I had kept up with my frugal ways during the times of plenty, I wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough during economically difficult times. One thing that most self-made financially successful people have in common is that they didn’t change their spending habits when money started coming in. A prime example of that is Warren Buffet. He still lives in the same house he purchased for $31,500 back in 1958.

Wealth is In the Fragments

“When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments which remain so that nothing be lost” John 6:12.

Many times we tend to let the small stuff go and concentrate on the large things. For example, a small leak under the sink is something to put off until a later day, when it becomes a full-fledged problem. Purchasing that Starbucks coffee is only a few dollars a day. Not sealing the small gap in the window during the winter because it’s only a small gap. These things all add up in the long run. Calculate the cost of your Starbucks habit on a yearly basis. $2 to $3 a day 2 or 3 times a week can cost between $208 and $468 a year.

One ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The good thing is that very small changes over a period of time can translate into wealth (and health).

The Proper Mindset

The current economic crisis has forced even the most wasteful consumer to consider adopting certain aspects of the frugal mindset. My hope is that when the crisis is over, we continue to be mindful of our spending and our waste. As we continue to gather up the fragments we keep making strives towards financial health. There is a reason the popular motivational book is entitled “THINK and Grow Rich.” It’s all about having the proper mindset.

Why this Blog?

I, too, like so many of my fellow citizens have made poor decisions which have lead me to where I am right now. As I work towards redirecting my spending to enjoy a debt free life, I thought I’d share some of my financial victories. Hopefully, you’ll feel inspired to share your victories too. Together we can become debt free and enjoy life.

(This post is a transplant from my soon to be defunct The Dollar Fights Back blog. Check out this post for more info on the transfer. )

After finding a great sale price on whole chickens at my local grocery store, I decided to freeze one and cook one. The only thing is that I didn’t feel like cooking. I wanted something quick easy and with very little clean up. After all, spending the morning grocery shopping could be exhausting (especially if you go to several stores).

Quick Web Search

I don’t know what I did prior to the internet, but I did a quick search and found this simple recipe. It’s called Kathy’s Delicious Whole Slow Cooker Chicken. I don’t know who Kathy is, but thanks Kathy!

I made a few modifications in the recipe. She had a 3 pound chicken (honestly, I didn’t know they came that small). I had to double all of the ingredients because my chicken was at least twice the size of hers.

Since my family likes things a bit spicy, I also added fresh ground pepper and cayenne pepper. I also substituted white vinegar for balsamic vinegar. It was one of the rare occasions when I didn’t have balsamic in the house.

Clean, Peal, Mix and Cook

I cleaned and pealed the skin from the chicken (and cut off the obvious fat deposits), mixed the liquids, placed the chicken in the crock pot and poured the liquid over it. Oh, I placed the chicken in breast side down for the first 2 to 3 hours. The final hour I turned it over. The liquids didn’t totally cover the chicken and I wanted the chicken breast to be fully seasoned.

Yummy

The chicken was so tasty and tender that the meat just fell away from the bones. If you’re not in the mood for a lot of preparation and cleaning this is a tasty frugal meal recipe.

(Yet another post transferred from my old defunct blog)

Your carbon footprint is measured by the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) your lifestyle produces. Things like driving a car, heating your home, use of electricity all produce carbon dioxide. The amount of carbon dioxide you produce over a certain amount of time is your carbon footprint.

Keep in mind that your footprint includes your own CO2 production, and a portion of the CO2 emitted in the manufacture of products you use. It’s tough to allocate one person’s individual portion of the emissions created in the production of a disposable bottle of water, but there are websites and CO2 footprint calculators available on the internet to help you figure it out.

Below are a few websites to help you do just that, calculate your carbon footprint:
The Nature Conservancy Carbon Footprint Calculator

Household Emissions Calculator

Terrapass

Visit all three of the sites. Check your carbon footprint thrice. Sometimes it takes multiple times for it to sink in. If you’re anything like me, after seeing your carbon footprint, you’ll be a lot more receptive to the tips for reducing your CO2 emissions.

If you have not done so already, I strongly suggest that you take a look at the Consumer World website.  In addition to looking through the website, you should sign up for their newsletter.

Consumer World has a fountain of information that everyone who buys anything should be aware of.  As a result of a link from their site, I recently read an article on how Purina Dog Food reduced the size of their dog food bag from 20 pounds to 18 pounds.  The price?  Well of course the price remained the same.

The folks at Mouse Print attempted on more than one occasion to get an explanation from Purina as to the reason for the downsized portions.  Rather than re-word their findings, check it out for yourself.

Lots of Info

No need for me to say anymore.  Check them out and check out the sites they link to.  If you’re like me, you’ll bookmark the Consumer World as a valuable resource.

The other day I was watching the Oprah show and there was a woman who saved over $200 a month on her electric bill just by unplugging her electronic devices when they weren’t in use.

Shortly after watching that show, I received an electric bill. Hmmm, time to do some trimming. Immediately I went around the house to unplug and deactivated all unused electronic gadgets. I unplugged the few devices that weren’t in power strips, and I deactivated (or turned off) the power strips.

This is going to take some getting used to because my family believes that the dust particles in each empty room enjoys watching TV so they travel from room to room watching 15 minutes of a show never turning off the TV in the room they just left.

Nightly Savings

I think I’ll start them off painlessly. We’ll start by unplugging all unused electric devices every night. They won’t even know we’re saving money. Once I can show them the financial savings, maybe that will be enough motivation to get them to turn off and unplug devices as they leave the room.

They’re going to complain about things like the cable box taking time to reboot and TV’s having to warm up, but I’m hoping the savings will win them over.

I’ll report an update in a few months. Anyone with a few encouraging words?

BTW, check out the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy website. It’s a neat site that helps to explain the amount of energy some devices used even when they’re off.

The momentary dip in gas and fuel prices is no reason to return to your old ways of over consumption.  Keep conserving.

I’ve got to say, I do enjoy looking at the new and improved lower gas prices when I pass a gas station, but I can’t help but shake my head in disgust to see how the prices can drop and soar and drop again within the space of a few weeks.  Unfortunately, it’s out of my control.

I have to continue to concentrate on the things that I can control.  Like keeping the thermostat low, consolidating car trips, carpooling and the other money and gas saving tactics I employed when gas prices started to climb.

Don’t let the price at the pump cause you to relax your energy saving practices. Stand strong and conserve.

I recently moved across the country from Chicago down south to Texas. After living in Chicago for 8 years, I had built myself a nice set of furniture, books, and other “stuff”. Some of it could be cheaply and easily replaced, others were just unfeasible. So I had a dilemma: how do you move an apartment full of stuff, quickly, cheaply, and more importantly, safely for the environment?

Can I PLEASE have your junk mail?

I started by shooting a quick e-mail to my friends and neighbors. I asked them to save newspapers, grocery bags, and any boxes they received from their internet orders. You can shred the junk mail and newspapers, fill up the grocery bags with the paper, and you have a reused alternative to packing peanuts. Just don’t forget to recycle the bags and paper when you’re done unpacking!

Free Cardboard Boxes

Buying a new cardboard box is an unneeded waste of money and natural resources. There many places that you can get boxes from for free after they have already used them. Liquor stores, grocery stores, and retail shops all receive tons of boxes every day, and most are more than willing to give them away. I got mine from the local college fraternities. If the fraternity has a kitchen, they probably get a large shipment of food every week, and all those boxes just end up in the dumpster. Stop by the fraternities and sororities and ask any one of the members, and I’m sure you can get as many boxes as you need.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

An interesting idea for packaging books was suggested by a friend. Rather than fill up boxes and boxes with them, he suggested that I simply tie them with some twine (hemp, of course). While this might not be your preferred method for collector’s items, it is a low-resource way of keeping your books organized and ready for the move. Hemp twine can also be used as an alternative to packing tape for your boxes, and it is much more environmentally friendly than standard packing tape.

Finding the missing green spots

One of the most interesting parts of a move is that it allows you to see a time capsule of your life. You can see the old skins you have shed, and you get a unique opportunity to find new ways to go green. While moving I found two dozen plastic pens, most of which still had ink, none of which worked. For $6 I was able to buy a refillable pen, which I have had for a few months now, with very little waste. I also realized that all of my spices were in plastic containers, and I could replace these with reusable glass jars. Like many people, I grew up storing all the plastic bags that I get from groceries, but I never realized how quickly they add up, until I got ready to throw them in the recycle bin, and I decided to get reusable grocery bags.

These are just simple ways I found of “greenifying” my last big move. I don’t have plans to move again anytime soon, but I welcome any suggestions for other ways to make my next move a bit greener.

Guest Post by Ricardo Gonzalez

To anyone who thinks that the recycling efforts are a bit overwhelming and is contemplating quitting the living green lifestyle, my suggestion is to take a walk around your neighborhood on trash day. Take a look at the contents in your neighborhood’s recycle bin (Just a look. Don’t go poking around in your neighborhood’s trash).

If I don’t walk the other 6 days of the week, I make sure to take a walk around the neighborhood on trash day to reinforce the need to think and live green.

If your neighborhood is anything like mine (and I’m guessing it is), the two major items you’ll find in your neighborhood recycle bins are:

1. Water bottles. Lots and lots of disposable water bottles. The good thing is that we are getting healthier by drinking our share of water, but the bad thing is we’re throwing away countless numbers of plastic water bottles.
2. Liquid laundry detergent containers and liquid laundry softener containers. Our clothes are cleaner, whiter, brighter, softer and smell great, but our landfills are getting fuller and fuller with the plastic from the detergent and softener bottles. I read that only 9.5% of the plastic we used is recycled. Here’s some info that bursts a few of the plastic recycling myths.

When I finish my walk I always wonder if my neighborhood is any different from all of the other neighborhoods around the country…probably not.

If we set our minds on buying reusable water bottles and making our own laundry detergent, we can make an impact on our non-reusable waste.

Buying reusable water containers is pretty easy to do. If you don’t have a water treatment filter on your home, or in your apartment, there are portable ones like the Brita filter where you can use tap water rather than store bought water.

As far as the laundry detergent goes, it’s really easy and economical to make your own (see my earlier posts on homemade laundry detergent) and I’ve found that adding about 2/3 cups of baking soda to my wash helps my clothes to come out softer.

I haven’t quite given up totally on softener, but I do dilute it 2/3 part water to 1/3 part softener. I admit, I’m hooked on the way softener makes my clothes smell.

Take a walk around your neighborhood on trash day to motivate yourself to continue your greening efforts.

Neither, thank you. I brought my own bag.

For the heck of it I finally got around to buying one of the cloth grocery shopping bags at my local Hannaford grocery store. I was only buying a few items and I thought, why not?

Well, I think its one of the best investments I’ve made in a while. Not only did Hannaford give me the 69-cent cloth grocery bag for free with my purchase (apparently, it was free if you bought a tray of fresh fruit), I realize a 5 cents savings each and every time I use my cloth bag instead of their plastic bags. That’s 5 cents per bag used.

My local Shop Rite offers a 2-cent per bag savings. Shop Rite’s prices are usually cheaper than Hannaford’s, so I’m not complaining about the 3-cent differential. The cloth bags eventually pay for themselves.

In addition to saving money by using the cloth grocery bags, the cloth bags are larger and sturdier. You can fill them up without worrying about them breaking. No more double bagging heavy items.

To top it all off, since they fit more groceries, that means fewer trips back and forth to the car when I get home from shopping. What a win-win-win situation!

The only challenge that I have with this new-found lifestyle is remembering to bring the bags into the store (I’ve actually had a cashier wait until I ran to the car to retrieve my cloth bags).