tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62765312097304081012024-03-18T21:13:25.799-04:00Ecofrugal Livingwaste not, want notAmy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.comBlogger1514125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-84264290006254005462024-03-17T16:47:00.000-04:002024-03-17T16:47:18.651-04:00Recipe of the Month: Peanut Tofu with Cabbage Noodles<p>A few weeks ago, the It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken newsletter recommended a recipe that looked intriguing: <a href="https://itdoesnttastelikechicken.com/easy-peanut-tofu/#recipe" target="_blank">Easy Peanut Tofu</a>. Most of the ingredients were things we normally keep on hand, and the method looked pretty simple. At first, though, I didn't think this dish would work as a Recipe of the Month. It's vegan, but it's a protein-centered dish with no vegetables in it, which would defeat these recipes' <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2014/01/recipe-of-month-rhubarb-bread.html" target="_blank">stated purpose</a> of getting more fruits and veggies into my diet.</p><p>Brian, upon examining the recipe, came up with a novel solution to this problem. Rather than serving the tofu up over rice as the recipe suggests, he proposed to serve it with a mixture of rice noodles and thinly sliced cabbage. He knew this combination would work because he regularly uses it in pad Thai—a modification he made to that recipe to up its veggie content when I was on my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/11/ecofrugality-versus-carb-counting.html" target="_blank">reduced-carb diet</a>. This accompaniment sounded both healthier and more interesting than plain white rice, and it would eliminate the need for a separate vegetable side.</p><p>As usual, Brian made a few alterations to the peanut tofu recipe, but only small ones. He left out the Sriracha and cilantro, which we didn't have. He used plain peanuts instead of salted peanuts, which we also didn't have. And since the tofu we had on hand was firm rather than extra-firm, he baked it longer than the recipe specified—about 25 minutes instead of 12 to 18—to make sure it wouldn't be too moist. While it was baking, he cooked a third of a package of rice noodles (about 5.5 ounces) and sauteed 14 ounces of thinly sliced cabbage, together with a couple of sliced scallions and half a teaspoon of salt, until it was tender. Then he tossed the cabbage and noodles together and served it alongside the sauced tofu.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdX9Z8LHkTinSx3rTp_iX7ppesbBEpMJ5xub_gqE9phTfryoM62hyphenhyphenwQZ9GvoUxTkmLpFR2pbf7IS8QA3ifK7UYwQNSavKas7GGLwxaWrQ6d8TAtDo34HiZQ607P_tBdkdYRQ9V_yKLdNW_PlnfG0piRJeIX_Hg79tHhUS-O2a-9xFjpJ0ToeQDjKtKCv-/s640/peanuttofu.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdX9Z8LHkTinSx3rTp_iX7ppesbBEpMJ5xub_gqE9phTfryoM62hyphenhyphenwQZ9GvoUxTkmLpFR2pbf7IS8QA3ifK7UYwQNSavKas7GGLwxaWrQ6d8TAtDo34HiZQ607P_tBdkdYRQ9V_yKLdNW_PlnfG0piRJeIX_Hg79tHhUS-O2a-9xFjpJ0ToeQDjKtKCv-/w200-h150/peanuttofu.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>This turned out to be a splendid combination. The cabbage noodles had more flavor and texture interest than plain white rice, but not so strong a flavor as to clash with the real star of the show, the tofu. It had a sticky outer coating and a chewy texture that contrasted nicely with the soft, slippery noodle mixture, and its flavor was a dazzling blend of peanut, sesame, garlic, ginger, and salty soy sauce, with hints of tangy rice vinegar and sweet maple syrup. And the crunchiness of the chopped peanuts on top added still more texture interest. It's possible the dish would have been better still with the missing cilantro and Sriracha, but don't think it suffered at all from their absence.<br /><p></p><p>In short, this recipe is a definite keeper. It's easy, it's healthy, it's delicious, and all the ingredients are cheap and readily available. On top of that, it's both vegan and gluten-free. It's a recipe anyone who doesn't have a peanut allergy can love.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-11332403332386408212024-03-10T16:43:00.001-04:002024-03-10T16:43:40.718-04:00A cheeseless adaptation attempt<p>Before Brian and I started <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/10/plant-based-milk-experiments-phase-3.html" target="_blank">cutting back on dairy</a> at home, we used to be very fond of a recipe we called <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/01/thrift-week-2018-day-five-cheesy-rice.html" target="_blank">Cheesy Rice Casserole</a>. This was a slightly modified version of the "Hellzapoppin' Cheese Rice" from Peg Bracken's <i>I Hate to Cook Book,</i> slightly lighter on the cheese and butter. It was a staple in our kitchen repertoire because it was both easy and cheap and required only ingredients we routinely kept on hand, making it perfect for those what-should-we-have-for-dinner occasions.</p><p>But since we stopped buying cheese at the store, this trusty recipe has fallen by the wayside. Our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/08/cow-free-cheese-experiments-part-2.html" target="_blank">homemade vegan mozzarella</a> has allowed us to keep making some of our cheesy favorites, but it doesn't have the right flavor to take the place of the cheddar cheese in this dish. And the one time we tried making it with a dairy-free cheddar we found at Lidl, the result was so weird and unsatisfying that I didn't even think it was worth mentioning on the blog.</p><p>A couple of weeks ago, though, I got to wondering if we could replace the cheese in this recipe some other way. Since it already had eggs to serve as a binder, it didn't really need the melted cheese to hold it together. Maybe, I thought, we could just throw in some nutritional yeast for flavor and some tofu to up the protein content and see if that was good enough.</p><p>Brian was willing to take on this experiment, but he wasn't entirely convinced that the nutritional yeast alone would give the dish enough flavor. So he found a recipe for a vegan cheddar cheese at <a href="https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-vegan-cheddar-cheese-spread-sauce/" target="_blank">Minimalist Baker</a> and borrowed the seasoning mix from that: tapioca starch, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, garlic powder, salt, and a smidgen of mustard. He blended all those ingredients with silken tofu and soy milk to replace the cheese and milk from the original recipe, then mixed that with the eggs, rice, spinach, and seasonings. He also threw in a little lemon juice to increase the brightness a bit. He could have used some of our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-small-step-away-from-palm-oil.html" target="_blank">homemade plant butter</a> to replace the melted butter that would normally be poured over the top, but he thought there was no point in wasting it on something that didn't need to be solid, so he simply whisked together some canola oil, soy milk, and salt. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8vZCRy5sbVZNTjMp1C9QlBqF-Z7zbP4VzaNtyYPSujp34-z_A-MgWOqFS3zv5xWCJwKrYKXPGGJMZAczNM6AQEMtmQNRiNlMTA738cVhvQIGqGTG384KatqReW_1IaKGdpw-fGjflVKvcFPR19kkMBjJZNtlJyzmMdDpvFAtdzIs_Hki0sDRtGt2Ps1v/s640/cheeselessrice.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8vZCRy5sbVZNTjMp1C9QlBqF-Z7zbP4VzaNtyYPSujp34-z_A-MgWOqFS3zv5xWCJwKrYKXPGGJMZAczNM6AQEMtmQNRiNlMTA738cVhvQIGqGTG384KatqReW_1IaKGdpw-fGjflVKvcFPR19kkMBjJZNtlJyzmMdDpvFAtdzIs_Hki0sDRtGt2Ps1v/w200-h150/cheeselessrice.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>The modified casserole came out quite a bit lighter in color than the original, but texture-wise, it seemed pretty close to the original. It held together nicely when sliced, coming out of the pan in even squares. The flavor, however, was severely lacking. It didn't taste bad or weird, like the version we made with the fake cheese from Lidl; it just didn't taste like much of anything. We both had to sprinkle it pretty liberally with our homemade "spaghetti salt" (12 parts nutritional yeast ground up with 1 part salt) to get it down. I found that a dash of smoked paprika was also helpful.<br /><p></p><p>Clearly, this modified recipe isn't ready for prime time. However, we think it has potential. All it really needs is more flavor, and we should be able to give it that by bumping up the proportions of all the flavorful ingredients it already contains. The simplest way to do this would be to double the amounts of nutritional yeast, vinegar, garlic powder, mustard, and lemon that go into the dish and maybe throw in a quarter-tablespoon of the smoked paprika as well. Alternatively, we could try adding a dose of all those ingredients to the water the rice is cooked in, along with the amount that goes into the tofu sauce. With the flavor cooked right into the rice, maybe it won't need so much extra seasoning added on top.</p><p>For now, I'm going to refrain from sharing this recipe while we tinker with it some more. If and when we come up with a version that I think is as useful as the original, I'll pass it along to all of you then.<br /></p><p></p><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-28578519762766734032024-03-02T21:41:00.006-05:002024-03-03T10:04:09.573-05:0024 hours of plastic<p>About a year ago, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/style/plastic-free.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a> journalist named A.J. Jacobs tried to go for an entire day without touching or using anything made of plastic. Spoiler alert: he did not succeed. </p><p>It certainly wasn't for lack of trying, since he went to extraordinary lengths to identify and avoid plastics. He went all day without not only his smartphone but also his eyeglasses. He ordered all-new plastic-free toiletries and clothing. He made all his purchases with coins (since even paper bills contain some plastic), brought his own chair on the subway, and filtered all his drinking water to remove microplastics. And despite these heroic efforts, he still ended up making contact with plastic 164 times over the course of the day. </p><p>At the time, this experiment struck me as pretty pointless. Sure, it did a good job of showing how ubiquitous plastic is in the modern world, but it seemed to treat that fact as an unmitigated evil. The author lumped all plastics together in a single category, making no effort to distinguish "<a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2011/11/getting-rid-of-stupid-plastic.html" target="_blank">stupid plastic</a>" (unnecessary, single-use items, such as bags and takeout containers) from useful plastics that make our lives better (like a pair of glasses that enables you to see clearly). Not only was his effort to eliminate them all from his life doomed to failure, it wouldn't have accomplished anything useful if he had succeeded.<br /></p><p>But as silly as I found the whole exercise, somehow I couldn't get it out of my head. In the year since the article came out, I've frequently found myself wondering how I'd handle this same challenge. If I absolutely had to go 24 hours without touching plastic, could I do it? How hard would it be? And how much would the planet actually benefit from it?</p><p>Although these questions piqued my curiosity, I wasn't prepared to go to the same lengths as Jacobs to answer them. Instead, I decided to tackle the problem from the other direction. Rather than trying to go a day without plastic, I'd keep a record of an entire day <i>with</i> plastic, noting every time I touched or used it over a 24-hour period. At the end of the day, I'd look at the list and try to figure out what it would require to avoid each of my contacts with plastic—assuming it would even be possible—and what it would cost. Then I'd weigh the costs against the environmental benefits to figure out what steps, if any, would be worth taking to address the plastic problem beyond what I'm doing now.</p><p>I conducted this experiment last Monday, and according to my calculations, I had a total of 87 encounters with plastic over the course of the day. I'll sort these according to where and when they occurred:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>In the bedroom upon first getting up:</b> My pajamas (fleece pants and a sweatshirt), hat, slippers, and eyeglasses. (They have metal frames, but the stems are plastic-coated, and so are the nose pads.) Also, a blanket on my bed that I've had since childhood and is probably made of acrylic, though I'm not 100 percent sure. (The rest of the bedding is cotton, and I didn't count the synthetic mattress cover or pillow stuffing, since they never touched my skin.)<br /></li><li><b>In the bathroom after getting up: </b>The plastic insert on the soap dish, three bottles containing my daily medications, the bathroom cup, my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-toothbrush-dilemma-solved.html" target="_blank">Snap toothbrush</a>, the toothpaste tube, a tube of lotion that I used on my itchy back, and the old silicone spatula I used to apply it. (Unlike Jacobs, I didn't need to touch plastic to use the toilet, which has a wooden seat and a metal flush handle.)</li><li><b>In the kitchen, preparing and eating breakfast: </b>The handle of the teakettle, the knobs on the stove, the buttons on the toaster oven and microwave, the soy milk carton, the cap on the vanilla bottle, the plastic container that holds our homemade <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-small-step-away-from-palm-oil.html" target="_blank">plant butter</a>, my cell phone (which I got out to do my daily puzzles), my wallet (which contained the phone), my purse (which contained the wallet), and the pen that I used to write all these plastic encounters down. And, after breakfast, my Aeropress coffee maker, the lid of the coffee can, the salt shaker, and the cinnamon bottle. (I add a smidgen of each to my coffee when brewing it.)</li><li><b>In my office: </b>My computer keyboard and mouse and a thermal-paper receipt that I retrieved from my wallet and filed.</li><li><b>In the bathroom, during and after my shower:</b> My bathrobe, the tub mat, the shower curtain liner (not the curtain itself, which is 100 percent cotton), the plastic-coated basket that holds my toiletries, the jar of oil in which I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/07/household-hacks-more-ecofrugal-bath.html" target="_blank">store my razor</a>, the silicone scrubber pads that I use on my body and face, the bottle that holds my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/03/diy-skin-and-hair-care.html" target="_blank">homemade face wash</a>, the shower squeegee, the window shade, the microfiber towel I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/07/savings-challenge-weeks-19-20-clean-and.html" target="_blank">use on my hair</a>, my conditioner bottle, four tubes and pots containing medications and moisturizers I apply to my face and body, and my mini microcurrent device. (I can't bring myself to spend thousands of dollars on "tweakments" to fight the signs of aging, but $150 for something to give me just a little lift seemed like a reasonable price to pay.)</li><li><b>In the bedroom, getting dressed: </b>The bottle of <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2020/05/homemade-hand-sanitizer-deodorant.html" target="_blank">homemade hand sanitizer</a> I use as a deodorant and my underwear, bra, socks, long johns, jeans, and pullover sweater. (The turtleneck I wore underneath the pullover was a cotton/rayon blend, and my winter <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2021/04/money-well-spent-part-2.html" target="_blank">cardigan</a> is 100 percent wool with wooden buttons.)</li><li><b>In the kitchen, preparing and eating lunch: </b>The refrigerator (handle and produce drawers), the plastic lid on a Pyrex container of leftovers, a jar of homemade "spaghetti salt" (a Parmesan substitute made from nutritional yeast and salt), a mesh bag containing mandarin oranges, a Ziploc bag containing a homemade cookie, and the telephone because someone called while I was eating. (I also touched the microwave to heat up my leftovers, but I'd already counted that.)</li><li><b>Going out for a walk:</b> My winter coat, boots, gloves, scarf, and sunglasses.</li><li><b>In the kitchen, preparing my afternoon snack:</b> The popcorn jar, the bag of nutritional yeast, a measuring cup, the oil sprayer, and our Brita pitcher.</li><li><b>In the bathroom and kitchen, before dinner: </b>A bottle of magnesium supplements, our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-successful-tinkering-check.html" target="_blank">pill splitter,</a> and a microwaveable heating pad I used to warm myself up. </li><li><b>Board-game night at Pino's, a local bar:</b> Cash to pay for a cocktail and the dice, laminated sheets, and wet-erase markers from our <a href="https://www.nobleknight.com/P/2147554954/Qwixx?CATARGETID=520006920000023373&CADevice=c&msclkid=a95b67a1971f152a029902424b3838cc&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Bing%20Shopping%20Ads&utm_term=4584207593050481&utm_content=Games" target="_blank">Quixx game</a>. (All the other games I played contained only cardboard or wooden pieces.)</li><li><b>In the kitchen, before bed:</b> The bread box, which I opened to fix myself some toast for a bedtime snack.</li><li><b>In the bathroom, before bed: </b>A couple of medicine bottles and tubes I hadn't touched previously, a container of dental floss, and the floss itself. </li></ul><p>Going over this list, I can see several plastic contacts that I could have hacked my way around for purposes of a one-day experiment. For instance, I could have removed all my pills and supplements for the day from their plastic bottles and transferred them to a bowl. Similarly, I could have removed a small dose of every topical product I used from its container and put them in an array of little glass jars. And I could have removed all the food I planned to eat that day from its plastic packaging ahead of time so I wouldn't have to touch any plastic to eat it. But none of these hacks would have done anything to reduce the amount of plastic we actually consume. They'd allow me to avoid touching plastic on that particular day, but they wouldn't get it out of our home or our lives.</p><p>To make a real difference to the planet, I'd have to replace these plastic-packaged items with versions that were truly plastic-free. But in most cases, that wouldn't be feasible. All of the medications I get from my online pharmacy come in standardized plastic bottles; there's simply no way to get the meds without the plastic. The supplements that come from the drugstore are likewise sold in plastic bottles, and I've never seen them for sale in any other kind of packaging. And the same problem applies to most of the commercial foodstuffs I used. The Whole Earth Center sells nutritional yeast and cinnamon out of bulk bins, and we do actually buy them there if we ever happen to be in Princeton when the store is open. But to buy them that way all the time would require making a special trip to Princeton, and I suspect the emissions from our car would outweigh the ecological benefits of avoiding a couple of little plastic bags. (To be fair, I could buy coffee from our <a href="https://www.penstockcoffee.com/" target="_blank">local roastery</a>. But even in bulk, it would cost me $20 a pound.)<br /></p><p>There are some plastic items on my list that I could, at a cost, replace with plastic-free ones. A quick search of the <a href="https://zerowastestore.com/collections/zws-bestsellers-collection" target="_blank">Zero Waste Store</a> turns up several. But in most cases, it's not clear that these plastic-free items are any greener than what I'm using now. For instance:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>A plastic-free, corn-based soap dish insert costs $5.99. But is that really superior to our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/07/household-hacks-more-ecofrugal-bath.html" target="_blank">homemade soap dish insert</a>, made from plastic waste that would otherwise have gone into the trash? </li><li>A bamboo toothbrush with bristles made from castor bean oil costs $3.99. With the "subscribe & save" option, it's only $3.19, which isn't that much more than the <a href="https://brushsnap.com/products/bristlerefills?variant=48146175503&selling_plan=991264943" target="_blank">replacement heads</a> for our Snap toothbrush. But according to the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344225187_Incorporating_sustainability_into_assessment_of_oral_health_interventions" target="_blank">most comprehensive study</a> I've seen, it's not actually greener.</li><li>A jar of 62 toothpaste tablets costs $10.89. Not only is that far more expensive than our Trader Joe's toothpaste, studies show it's <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-were-not-zero-waste-household.html" target="_blank">not as green</a> because of the ingredients used and the size of each tablet. (And since when is "fluoride-free" a selling point?)</li><li>Conditioner bars cost $15.99 each for "75+ washes." That sounds good, but it's <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-were-not-zero-waste-household.html" target="_blank">way more costly than my Suave conditioner</a>, and all the bars contain glycerin, which my hair hates. (I've made several attempts at making my own conditioner, but even the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/02/diy-hair-care-take-2.html" target="_blank">most successful recipe</a> I tried didn't work for very long.)</li><li>A 30-meter roll of bamboo-based dental floss in a little glass jar costs $9.99, with two refills available for $13.99. Even the refills are more than five times the cost of drugstore floss. And while it has a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpe.13727" target="_blank">carbon footprint somewhat smaller</a> than plastic floss, it does worse on other environmental measures, like ozone depletion and metal/mineral use.<br /></li></ul><p>Then there are the non-disposable items on my list, like clothing and kitchen tools. It would certainly be possible to replace most of my clothes with garments made from 100 percent natural fibers. However, I'd probably be unable to find them at thrift stores and would have to buy them new. Moreover, some of them, like socks and undies, probably wouldn't be available in stores and would have to be ordered from a specialty brand like <a href="https://www.cottonique.com/" target="_blank">Cottonique</a>.<br /></p><p>I could likewise get new <a href="https://packagefreeshop.com/products/glass-and-bamboo-food-container" target="_blank">glass containers with bamboo lids</a>, instead of plastic ones, for our leftovers and replace the zip-top plastic bags we use (and reuse) for cookies with <a href="https://zerowastestore.com/collections/zero-waste-home/products/reusable-silicone-sandwich-bag-8-colors" target="_blank">silicone bags</a>. I could replace my plastic oil sprayer with a metal Misto sprayer (which doesn't work as well), the Aeropress with a plastic-free French press (which uses <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/thrift-week-2023-in-one-day-stuff-green.html" target="_blank">more ground coffee per cup</a> and is harder to clean), and the Brita pitcher with a glass pitcher and <a href="https://kishucharcoal.com/shop/kishu-to-go-pack-101-1/" target="_blank">Kishu filters</a>. I could get a glass salt shaker and a wooden-handled teakettle. I could replace the polyester shower curtain liner with a $50 <a href="https://www.quince.com/home/european-linen-shower-curtain?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=impact&ircid=21926&irpid=10078&iradid=1835359&clickid=V79zw13-gxyLTfbwUx0Mo372UkH3qG09o2QLxY0&irgroupname=content_tier_1&mp_value2=&sharedid=greenmatters.com&irgwc=1" target="_blank">linen one</a> and get myself an <a href="https://www.grove.co/catalog/product/organic-cotton-hair-towel/#" target="_blank">organic cotton hair towel</a> (a relative bargain at only $14.99). And I could replace my plastic <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/05/small-victory-truly-refillable-roller.html" target="_blank">refillable pen</a> with a metal fountain pen (though I appear to be physically incapable of writing neatly with one).<br /></p><p>But here's the rub: the plastic-containing versions of these items are already in our possession. To make them plastic-free, we'd have to purchase new items and discard (or at least give away) the ones we currently have. That does not strike me as an eco-friendly choice. </p><p>And finally, there are the big-ticket items on the list: the computer, the phone, the kitchen appliances, and my eyeglasses. These, I feel confident in saying, simply do not come in plastic-free versions. The only way to avoid plastic with these would be not to use them at all, and that would be utterly impractical.<br /></p><p>The upshot appears to be that for me, a plastic-free life wouldn't really be a greener one. Sure, maybe we could make more of an effort to fit in trips to the Whole Earth Center or other stores with bulk bins. And maybe when some of our plastic-containing items wear out, it might be worth looking into plastic-free alternatives to replace them (though we might still end up deciding that the products we use now are the most ecofrugal choice). But for the most part, the plastic in our life is not stupid plastic. We've already harvested all the low-hanging fruit in this area, such as single-use bags, straws, and takeout containers, and the plastics that remain are the ones we've decided are worth the trade-offs.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-80362523267302488522024-02-25T18:33:00.004-05:002024-02-25T19:04:02.603-05:00My first (sort of) foray into visible mending<p>When Brian's jeans wear out, it's generally the knees that go first. Years ago, I discovered I could deal with that problem by sewing a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-pocket-patch-simplest-way-to-fix.html" target="_blank">pocket from an old pair of jeans</a> over the ripped area. At this point, most of Brian's jeans have such a patch over at least one knee.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPiCpsEvJo3AzbfiTTLmQntCPzrEynSh99C1e4XLJKioatSiSJtnEIeA-jwADmCgSYDud74WEEaRk08jzDsGD9pJAeo9_NbOIEVwAGq6reEt5vbDaoXkmp3gTw_KxOr50pVMGpgBix_kUJEHQdgZClWtRX57L_ZYbfAJfPv9xKOQ6YHofe5Lx5_QBaFQQi/s640/pocket%20holes.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPiCpsEvJo3AzbfiTTLmQntCPzrEynSh99C1e4XLJKioatSiSJtnEIeA-jwADmCgSYDud74WEEaRk08jzDsGD9pJAeo9_NbOIEVwAGq6reEt5vbDaoXkmp3gTw_KxOr50pVMGpgBix_kUJEHQdgZClWtRX57L_ZYbfAJfPv9xKOQ6YHofe5Lx5_QBaFQQi/w200-h150/pocket%20holes.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>With this technique, I'm able to keep the jeans in service long enough for them to start wearing out in a different area: the back pockets themselves. Specifically, the left back pocket, where he keeps his wallet. Apparently the friction of the wallet against the fabric, particularly as it's inserted and removed, is sufficient to wear little holes into the material. They're not usually big enough for things to slip through, but they're unsightly.<br /><p></p><p>This week, it occurred to me that maybe these smallish holes would be good candidates for <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/22/1177552573/extend-the-life-of-your-clothes-with-visible-mending" target="_blank">visible mending</a>. While conventional mending aims to keep the patched or darned area as inconspicuous as possible, visible mending takes just the opposite approach, turning it into a decorative feature. There are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFhsftQzugo" target="_blank">several methods</a> for doing this, including:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Patching with one or more contrasting fabrics.</li><li>Darning with one or more contrasting colors of thread or yarn.</li><li>Applying a plain patch and then covering it with decorative top-stitching.</li><li>Embroidering directly over a small hole.</li></ul><p>Technically, my pocket patch technique is itself a form of visible mending, since it turns the patch into a feature rather than attempting to disguise it. But for these holes in the pockets, I thought I could attempt something a little more visible. Any repair in such a prominent area was bound to be noticeable anyway, so I thought I might as well make it look intentional. </p><p>The hole I planned to tackle was on the larger side—large enough to poke a finger through, anyway—so I thought it would require a patch rather than a darn. But what to use for a patch? I habitually save worn-out jeans and trousers, but the material from those is pretty plain, not vivid enough to make an interesting contrast. I was also concerned about my ability to make a neat-looking patch. To keep it from fraying, I'd probably have to hem it, and anything hemmed by hand (the only way I can do it) is liable to come out looking a bit lumpy. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifrqGCbELR7e4Hxd_m5MNhGGNdhdWRav1J3YqKsMpVtECOvSIv0kOr-AnFm7bhc6RacHQs4nhE7CvvI4B5_oUvMzC1fVK97JOKvJC-mMxvBSAwcus9BCa-7Krpu5Mw0qVhBRheOPZRb4f2o_76n4SqDDiLR_rBcD4nIPR4EqzxyyjbAspuR6g-J6J7EMGN/s640/stocking.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifrqGCbELR7e4Hxd_m5MNhGGNdhdWRav1J3YqKsMpVtECOvSIv0kOr-AnFm7bhc6RacHQs4nhE7CvvI4B5_oUvMzC1fVK97JOKvJC-mMxvBSAwcus9BCa-7Krpu5Mw0qVhBRheOPZRb4f2o_76n4SqDDiLR_rBcD4nIPR4EqzxyyjbAspuR6g-J6J7EMGN/w200-h150/stocking.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>I thought maybe a piece of wide ribbon would work, so I started going through our collection of gift wrappings, and there I happened upon a little Christmas stocking ornament that Brian had received years ago as a gift. It was made of red felt, with a burlap section at the top embroidered with Brian's name. Since we never have a full-size Christmas tree ourselves (they're not really compatible with adventurous cats), we didn't have a place to hang it, so it had just been sitting in amongst our wrapping materials. Could this make a reasonable decorative patch?<br /><p></p><p>I decided there was only one way to find out, so I snipped off the top section, trimmed its edges, and started whip-stitching it onto the damaged pocket. Since the idea was for the repair to be visible, I used a cheery red thread that matched the flannel. The loose ends of the burlap poked out a bit, but I was able to tack them into place with some extra stitches. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji94ezNLgISfsmN9r_Y2wlEdqBCu3USg32-q3C8Zl8-yC-JgsUr3H2m15B0kZMY52uGUnvVAZZ5WoNG6dIW1ENwIeXiC_A6FCzhoGNzePPVZb01Jmnr4bW6VuQvINVya5y3oOhCoBXOm741BMie5f1qZB2vHosoNRHo6Grx2zO_HyPq6AdCsydX-VQ4c3g/s640/patched%20pocket.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji94ezNLgISfsmN9r_Y2wlEdqBCu3USg32-q3C8Zl8-yC-JgsUr3H2m15B0kZMY52uGUnvVAZZ5WoNG6dIW1ENwIeXiC_A6FCzhoGNzePPVZb01Jmnr4bW6VuQvINVya5y3oOhCoBXOm741BMie5f1qZB2vHosoNRHo6Grx2zO_HyPq6AdCsydX-VQ4c3g/w200-h150/patched%20pocket.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>So now, Brian owns a pair of jeans that are (a tad ironically) monogrammed on the butt. It remains to be seen how well this patch will hold up in the wash; since I didn't follow the standard advice to use a type of fabric similar to the original garment, it's possible the material will end up fraying or puckering. But if it does, it shouldn't be too hard to pick out the stitching and replace the patch with something more suitable.<br /><p></p><p>Of course, no sooner had I finished making this repair to the pocket than Brian discovered the other knee of the jeans—the one that wasn't already sporting a pocket patch—was starting to fray, so I had to patch that as well. On top of that, there was another worn area, higher up on the thigh, which I couldn't easily repair. So it's possible the jeans themselves won't last long enough for the patch to wear out. On the other hand, it's also possible that if this repair does work out, I could expand my visible mending techniques to other areas of the jeans as well.</p><p>I'd like to attempt a darning-style repair next, possibly on the other pair of Brian's jeans that currently has a damaged pocket. However, it appears that to make this look good, I'd need either embroidery floss or tapestry thread, as regular sewing thread is too thin to show up well. So this experiment may need to wait until I can get myself to a fabric store and pick up some additional supplies to play with.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-78989346464361007192024-02-17T16:05:00.005-05:002024-02-17T16:05:59.508-05:00Recipe of the Month: Roasted Leek and Cauliflower Pasta<p>February's Recipe of the Month came about because of a fortuitous find: sale-priced cauliflower at <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2021/06/lidl-is-new-aldi.html" target="_blank">Lidl</a>. Brian didn't have any particular need for cauliflower, but he couldn't pass it up. As a result, he ended up cruising the Internet searching for vegan recipes that used both cauliflower and leeks, which we also had on hand. And when he came across the <a href="https://www.lazycatkitchen.com/roasted-leek-cauliflower-pasta/" target="_blank">Roasted Leek and Cauliflower Pasta</a> recipe at Lazy Cat Kitchen, he decided it looked like a winner.</p><p>As per usual, Brian made a few minor modifications to this recipe. He increased the volume of veggies slightly to use up our entire medium-to-large cauliflower and two medium leeks (as opposed to the half a large cauliflower and two "smallish" leeks called for in the original). He also increased the volume of pasta from 7 ounces to 8 in order to use up a half-box of whole wheat penne we had sitting around. He left out the capers, which we didn't have, and cut the amount of black pepper down from a quarter-teaspoon to just a couple of grinds. And since we didn't have either dairy-free cream or cashews to make a homemade cashew cream, he mocked up his own substitute by blending soft tofu with soy milk.</p><p>But his most significant change was deciding to frizzle the leeks—that is, sauté them briefly in oil before browning them in the oven, à la Molly Katzen—rather than soaking them in boiling water before roasting them. He put them on a separate baking sheet so he could remove them from the oven when they were done, rather than spreading them alongside the cauliflower and having to remove them once cooked. Besides being less work, this was a technique we were already familiar with and knew would give us good results.</p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdEbM0eGELmxNOtzkmLUBSlGOf_5_YNrvWXNMkmG_NopC1FnyQRjMpU3LQFgBYCiC5bQXj-1XLAPaH67sXJxmE7cY4vRkg4BUYRL2k46sKa5BRHgtz26vsX5xI63yTA3yve3j0boAGDkeqH44-_aFJSPMMzaFv2ko19_e2z3N-T_7DJ7kY0nB7BMIK_DbG/s640/Cauliflower%20pasta.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdEbM0eGELmxNOtzkmLUBSlGOf_5_YNrvWXNMkmG_NopC1FnyQRjMpU3LQFgBYCiC5bQXj-1XLAPaH67sXJxmE7cY4vRkg4BUYRL2k46sKa5BRHgtz26vsX5xI63yTA3yve3j0boAGDkeqH44-_aFJSPMMzaFv2ko19_e2z3N-T_7DJ7kY0nB7BMIK_DbG/w200-h150/Cauliflower%20pasta.JPG" width="200" /></a>And good indeed were those results. The dish was packed with flavor: tart lemon juice, cheesy nutritional yeast, and fragrant frizzled leeks and garlic. The contrast between the tender veggies, chewy pasta, crunchy toasted walnuts, and silky, creamy sauce added plenty of texture interest. And between the nutritional yeast, the walnuts, and the tofu in the sauce, it provided enough protein to fill us up despite the lack of any meat or meat-alternative component.</p><p>Good as it was, I don't know if this dish will become a regular addition to our repertoire. We can't count on finding cauliflower on sale all the time, so we'll probably save this recipe for cauliflower season, which around here is from <a href="https://www.whenistheseason.com/when-is-cauliflower-season/" target="_blank">September through December</a>. Fortunately, leeks are also in season at that time, and this warm and savory meal will be just right for crisp autumn evenings.</p><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-87250504318177833042024-02-10T20:48:00.000-05:002024-02-10T20:48:05.291-05:00The Dress Retro challenge: results<p>Last April, I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-dress-retro-challenge.html" target="_blank">announced my plan</a> to take the Dress Retro challenge: purchasing no more than three new garments for myself over the course of 2023. I noted at the time that in the preceding year, I'd bought only four new garments—three if you counted my "sleep shorts" as underwear—without even trying, so I thought I would have no problems limiting myself to three if I worked at it. And I can now officially announce that the number of brand-new garments I bought myself in 2023 was...zero.</p><p>That doesn't mean I purchased no clothing at all. I bought a couple of secondhand pieces from thrift shops and ThredUP, but the challenge doesn't place any limits on those. I also bought one new bra, one <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/09/ingenuity-spending.html" target="_blank">pair of sandals</a>, and several <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/12/return-of-shoe-conundrum.html" target="_blank">pairs of boots</a>, most of which I ended up returning because they didn't fit. (I'm currently using a $40 pair from Walmart that doesn't <i>really</i> fit; they're far too long, but at least I can get my feet into them and they don't leak.) But shoes and undies don't count as clothing under the rules, so technically, I passed the challenge with flying colors.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9Ff1b-6yVIKR1eoiKrbocRaqUfZQcBy8MrzdIhFf3UQ98D-bJjNmoTPULFOma6B-SNh0o7stUTfFzMFPEy04lscJ4wEaYzpS_R_YgXamLiL8W-QUuNaNVwgfzgs66f_2S9fI8UNqkjp6c-WiiD0zOQ6Fky5VsRNsGoB1NuBDGNAIYx6eutRHAJjf18VX/s640/Brian%20clothes.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv9Ff1b-6yVIKR1eoiKrbocRaqUfZQcBy8MrzdIhFf3UQ98D-bJjNmoTPULFOma6B-SNh0o7stUTfFzMFPEy04lscJ4wEaYzpS_R_YgXamLiL8W-QUuNaNVwgfzgs66f_2S9fI8UNqkjp6c-WiiD0zOQ6Fky5VsRNsGoB1NuBDGNAIYx6eutRHAJjf18VX/w200-h150/Brian%20clothes.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>However, zero is only the number of new garments I purchased <i>for myself. </i>After Brian embarked on his <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/09/an-ecofrugal-fashion-makeover.html" target="_blank">wardrobe makeover</a> in September, I splurged on a few new items for him. Although I didn't want to buy everything from fast-fashion sites, I did succumb to the charms of one pair of color-blocked shorts from LightInTheBox because they fit so well with the new style he was aiming for. Unfortunately, summer was almost over by the time they arrived, so he still hasn't worn them. I later ordered him a couple of medieval-style lace-up shirts, neither of which has been worn either. The first one looked cool online but turned out to look, in Brian's words, like "wizard pajamas" in person, and the second was in a linen-like fabric that looks much nicer but is too lightweight for winter. So if you count all the clothing I bought for both of us, not just for me, I only just managed to stay within the three-garment limit. Moreover, I blew the entire budget on items that haven't even been worn yet, including one that will most likely never be worn at all. <p></p><p>And this, I guess, emphasizes the point that the authors of the challenge were trying to make: fast fashion kind of sucks. With their low prices and vast selections, these websites make it far too easy to buy clothes that you don't really need and may not like at all once you see them in person. And since they're usually shipped from China, it's often too costly to return them—so they either sit around taking up space in your drawers or get discarded and sit around taking up space in a landfill.</p><p>So, based on this experience, I think I've learned my lesson about shopping on these sites—for me and Brian both. Hunting through thrift-store racks may be more hit-and-miss, but at least it's possible to tell the hits from the misses. I won't have to pay money up front just to try something on and pay again to return it—or maybe just be stuck with it—if I don't like it.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-14255915516942323732024-02-04T18:00:00.000-05:002024-02-04T18:00:18.346-05:00Gardeners' Holidays 2024: Pruning Day<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1rsF2tI3WVIk2ZopoMo67p2l0CSGtjaPEe4NIkEEX-VrraUbCKGJn3532GLaBF7N8wwqumuR7A9pTF0m2s_EX7sQ77NhCywj8mvZsoj6UYIR5qxYXPXDnvrGPpiVDFEOD2QKbJeb3mq08X-CNdVmekbD0FeT3xPePwwdZPjFU2WIXUbKHOc4Dy34_Qbs/s640/Black%20knot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1rsF2tI3WVIk2ZopoMo67p2l0CSGtjaPEe4NIkEEX-VrraUbCKGJn3532GLaBF7N8wwqumuR7A9pTF0m2s_EX7sQ77NhCywj8mvZsoj6UYIR5qxYXPXDnvrGPpiVDFEOD2QKbJeb3mq08X-CNdVmekbD0FeT3xPePwwdZPjFU2WIXUbKHOc4Dy34_Qbs/w200-h150/Black%20knot.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Every year, one of the first jobs on our garden to-do list is <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/02/gardeners-holidays-2018-pruning-day.html" target="_blank">pruning our plum trees</a>. I've been dreading this task somewhat, as over the past couple of years our trees had become badly infected with what I assumed was canker, causing knobbly black growths like giant warts around their branches. All three trees had it to some extent, but the Mount Royal in particular hardly seemed to have a single branch that wasn't affected. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT9eKNGN_rtVg9_ZmlMG13sweBP2NACflK9MgJuJwOBfIer2dZBQ-qEPyyOAgB5mQlwI7EewH9msBzgD18YAuaU0oTgf1zkn05hWxR4mbHLBMrLQImEQh0fqVDYLs77U-5a-1ophL7Jd-znP_7L-9mbrJ6DFgQZQvhoVfUt_IRKKgQaQ8JZkMtY6tzlMNR/s640/black%20knot%20close.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT9eKNGN_rtVg9_ZmlMG13sweBP2NACflK9MgJuJwOBfIer2dZBQ-qEPyyOAgB5mQlwI7EewH9msBzgD18YAuaU0oTgf1zkn05hWxR4mbHLBMrLQImEQh0fqVDYLs77U-5a-1ophL7Jd-znP_7L-9mbrJ6DFgQZQvhoVfUt_IRKKgQaQ8JZkMtY6tzlMNR/w200-h150/black%20knot%20close.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>However, when I tried researching tree canker to figure out the best way to tackle this, I began to realize that the growths on our trees didn't look much like the cankers in the pictures. I started searching for info on other problems affecting plum trees and eventually figured out that what ours actually had was a fungal disease aptly named "black knot." Sources on the Web disagree on how serious a problem this is. The <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/black-knot" target="_blank">province of Alberta</a> warns, "The fungus continues to grow internally and externally, with the branch eventually becoming girdled and dying," while the <a href="https://extension.umn.edu/plant-diseases/black-knot" target="_blank">University of Minnesota Extension</a> says, "Many <em>Prunus</em> trees tolerate black knot. Tolerant trees have many
galls throughout the tree with few negative effects on the health of
the tree." <a href="https://minnetonkaorchards.com/plum-tree-diseases/" target="_blank">Minnetonka Orchards</a> takes a middle ground, saying "The tree may suffer from decreased fruit production, structural damage,
and ultimately death if the infection is severe," but adding that "Mature trees are more
resilient and may survive without any noticeable ill effects."<br /><p></p><p>Based on the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/07/gardeners-holidays-2023-plumfest.html" target="_blank">extraordinarily productive season</a> we had for plums last year, my guess was that the disease wasn't affecting our trees too badly. I decided we wouldn't try to remove every single branch that was infected (which would probably be impossible anyway), but we'd take off the worst offenders. And, at the same time, we'd also prune out out any branches that were problematic in other ways: overlapping, inward-pointing, or in danger of impinging on the house, driveway, and sidewalk.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZPHl2VfKy9w6C0rcWSd-1KU4FXg8WkkK7aeKWPJvsXB2_QAqXRBgdaYtpRAPUQhTcsgDDfPBr7OcG7UHZPooPgD_WnRGjqvZdBMRHp3O1C5v0Ties4lJBgP_vqWuM0SGXzIJV9YAgb3kKMcQJNtGLCGwfk6pNwZjPN7_4P3KT595IXao47A0sE9W4KGi/s640/pruned%20trees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZPHl2VfKy9w6C0rcWSd-1KU4FXg8WkkK7aeKWPJvsXB2_QAqXRBgdaYtpRAPUQhTcsgDDfPBr7OcG7UHZPooPgD_WnRGjqvZdBMRHp3O1C5v0Ties4lJBgP_vqWuM0SGXzIJV9YAgb3kKMcQJNtGLCGwfk6pNwZjPN7_4P3KT595IXao47A0sE9W4KGi/w200-h150/pruned%20trees.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Unfortunately, this measured approach proved hard to stick to. We kept finding more and more branches that seemed to fall into the "worst offender" category, especially on the Mount Royal. We definitely violated the rule against cutting off more than one-quarter of the tree's crown, and eventually we just had to force ourselves to stop before we stripped it completely bare. Even now, in its largely denuded state, it still isn't entirely free of galls, but it looks a lot cleaner than it did before. And since our trees seem to operate on a two-year cycle—incredible productivity one year followed by nothing at all the next—it should have over a year to catch up and produce new, healthy growth before our next plum harvest.<br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x7787NggTAlICwcm0LUwGZ4eON2xeKvDi9akthHOimJdASQecuJHhvPHuk5wyQAYVirJGvhWCasZv_gCuvEKvzrOlEf4jch4B8IgQVxAMLd7lGxtmSDSTxRnec6BsHMInYsZOiqSfVGlemtXJU8iiq-X2jqnopOJnRoxwGhb3IaoBOmNOSobZo7CZvly/s640/cut%20branches%202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x7787NggTAlICwcm0LUwGZ4eON2xeKvDi9akthHOimJdASQecuJHhvPHuk5wyQAYVirJGvhWCasZv_gCuvEKvzrOlEf4jch4B8IgQVxAMLd7lGxtmSDSTxRnec6BsHMInYsZOiqSfVGlemtXJU8iiq-X2jqnopOJnRoxwGhb3IaoBOmNOSobZo7CZvly/w200-h150/cut%20branches%202.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Meanwhile, we had to dispose of the huge pile of pruned-off branches. All the sources I consulted emphasize that it's important to destroy branches infected with black knot as soon as possible, as they can otherwise continue to shed spores and spread the fungus. We planned to burn them in our little <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2021/03/gardeners-holidays-2021-spring-cleanup.html" target="_blank">backyard fire pit</a>, but the wood was too moist to light. Brian ended up having to supplement the fire with sticks from our stock of seasoned wood to get the plum branches dry enough to burn. Eventually he managed to destroy most of the diseased wood this way, leaving a small pile of healthy wood for later use.<p></p><p>There's still more to be done to prepare for the upcoming gardening season—pruning the rosebush, for one, and laying out the beds for the vegetable garden—but with all the cutting, hauling, and burning of branches, I think we've had enough of a yard-workout for one day.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-28001783706006857072024-01-28T16:08:00.000-05:002024-01-28T16:08:09.601-05:00Recipe of the Month: Aloo gobi<div><p>January's Recipe of the Month is a new version of a familiar dish. Aloo gobi is an Indian classic made from potatoes and cauliflower, and we've eaten it many times before, both at restaurants and at home. But none of the recipes Brian had used for it before had particularly impressed him, so this time, he decided to whip up his own. He'd made it enough times to have a good idea what sort of ingredients to use, but he decided more or less on impulse to change his recipe in one key way: rather than boiling or steaming the veggies, he chopped them up and roasted them. He knew from experience that roasting any type of veggie is usually the best way to bring out its flavor, and he wanted to see how much difference it would make in this dish.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAi_iPVYdaZZ6-JEZQnvcOYMcA6E51OeUET4qmMcpC4kmdWRFEUCjsIsYt6brKXYMgOj-7fS6oCzcEbWsGqa2mFtZRj0AjlmopQHiv_Nw4dQu4jiHeG_H0SeAw0aq3m_0dpomi7GZNwOP-cVYxnTz3NrarrgHvTiJCk9c5pWJopt3hJZgUKAwTS4V7TtkX/s640/aloogobi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAi_iPVYdaZZ6-JEZQnvcOYMcA6E51OeUET4qmMcpC4kmdWRFEUCjsIsYt6brKXYMgOj-7fS6oCzcEbWsGqa2mFtZRj0AjlmopQHiv_Nw4dQu4jiHeG_H0SeAw0aq3m_0dpomi7GZNwOP-cVYxnTz3NrarrgHvTiJCk9c5pWJopt3hJZgUKAwTS4V7TtkX/w200-h150/aloogobi.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>As it turned out, the answer was "all the difference." Well, maybe not <i>quite</i> all, because his selection of spices—particularly the omission of ginger, which I tend to find overpowering in all but the smallest doses—also gave it a good flavor, bright and savory and well-balanced. (Some might find the salt a little heavy, but for me that was part of the dish's charm.) But I strongly suspect it was the roasting that really took it over the top from a decent aloo gobi to a fabulous one that we'll make over and over. <p></p><p>In fact, he's already made it a second time this month—partly because I didn't remember to get a photo of it for the blog the first time, but mostly because we both liked it so much. And I think it's sure to become a regular in our dinner rotation, because it ticks all the boxes: tasty, healthy, vegan, and, if you can find a reasonably cheap cauliflower, inexpensive.<br /></p><p>So, without further ado, here is<br /></p></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">BRIAN'S ROASTED ALOO GOBI<br /><br />1 medium head (c. 1 lb florets) cauliflower<br />c. 1 lb potatoes<br />1 ½ tsp salt<br />4 Tbsp canola oil<br />1 ½ tsp cumin seeds<br />8 fenugreek seeds<br />pinch asafoetida<br />1 small red onion, chopped<br />3 cloves garlic, minced<br />½ jalapeno pepper, minced<br />½ cup crushed tomatoes<br />1 tsp ground coriander<br />½ tsp ground turmeric<br />1 tsp lemon juice<br />½ cup water<br />¼ tsp garam masala<br /></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Cut cauliflower into small florets. Dice potatoes into small (c. ½ inch) cubes. Add 1 tsp of the salt and 3 Tbsp of the oil and mix to coat. Spread on a pan (with <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/01/thrift-week-2019-day-4-silicone-baking.html" target="_blank">silicone mat</a> if possible) and roast at 450 degrees F for 40-45 minutes, stirring once after c. 20 minutes. </li><li>In 1 Tbsp oil, saute the cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, asafoetida, onion, garlic, and jalapeno over medium to low heat until onion is tender (c. 5 minutes). Add the crushed tomato, coriander, turmeric, and lemon juice, stir to combine, and saute for an additional 2 minutes.</li><li>Add the roasted potato and cauliflower to the onion mixture along with the water and the garam masala. Stir until the roasted vegetables are completely coated. Remove from heat.</li></ol></div><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">Serve with parathas, if possible.</div><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-44397235503298433662024-01-23T20:25:00.004-05:002024-01-25T09:25:54.188-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 7: My sewing kit<p>The last item in this Thrift Week series is probably the one that's given me the biggest bang for my buck. But it's also the hardest to calculate the exact impact of, so I'm going to have to guesstimate.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGxYqf1LCiOTEu-1heSNVU5C6b_2WYpbHtQxn2Aa9iKPmn4vWP0o9-D8HvNse4VcGEeqOxckkaCUTqYzNXioOms2oUah7_s1CvQ-3XLcKzygcB7rk5TiNaISNT6kjkb7FVo7X7JSZcga3atjX6NYyqI8GeFp1gRp8R_8GU_Fhyphenhyphenf6Ic4E5hGtutbP3veLg/s640/sewingbox.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGxYqf1LCiOTEu-1heSNVU5C6b_2WYpbHtQxn2Aa9iKPmn4vWP0o9-D8HvNse4VcGEeqOxckkaCUTqYzNXioOms2oUah7_s1CvQ-3XLcKzygcB7rk5TiNaISNT6kjkb7FVo7X7JSZcga3atjX6NYyqI8GeFp1gRp8R_8GU_Fhyphenhyphenf6Ic4E5hGtutbP3veLg/w200-h150/sewingbox.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>The item in question is my trusty sewing kit. I don't remember exactly when I bought this, but it was somewhere between ten and twenty years ago at a local estate sale. It included a full set of basic sewing supplies: needles of various sizes, straight pins, safety pins, a pincushion, a box of odd buttons, a pair of fabric scissors, and dozens of spools of thread in assorted colors. The entire box cost me a quarter.<br /><p></p><p>In the years since, I have used these supplies more times than I can count. I have replaced buttons on shirts and pants, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2012/12/pride-of-ownership.html" target="_blank">mended holes in sweaters</a>, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-pocket-patch-simplest-way-to-fix.html" target="_blank">sewn patches on jeans</a>, and darned countless socks. I've made Brian a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/09/garb-on-ye-cheape.html" target="_blank">belt pouch</a> and a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2021/08/my-first-made-from-scratch-garment.html" target="_blank">hat</a> to wear to Renaissance fairs, using only scrap materials. I've made several oversized garments wearable by shortening pant legs and taking in waistbands with either <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/01/closing-gapin-my-pants-waist.html" target="_blank">elastic</a>, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/07/another-quick-fix-for-oversized.html" target="_blank">hooks</a>, or simple stitching. I've even repaired a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2020/11/a-simple-shoe-fix.html" target="_blank">damaged pair of shoes</a> with a few well-placed stitches. And I did nearly all of it with only the supplies that came with this 25-cent box. (I've bought a few notions like buttons and elastic, and a year or so ago I finally had to spend $4 on one new spool of thread to replace a color that I'd used up. But most of those repairs were covered by my initial 25 cents' worth of materials.)<br /></p><p>So how much has this purchase actually saved me? It's impossible to say exactly, because I haven't kept track of every single item I've repaired with this sewing kit and how much it would have cost to replace. But let's take a wild stab and guess that I've repaired at least one garment every month, on average, in the years since I bought this sewing kit. Let's also assume that I've had it for fifteen years, making a total of 180 repairs during that time period. And let's finally suppose that those garments would have cost, on average, $5 each to replace. (Some of them, like socks, would undoubtedly have cost less, but others, like Brian's <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/09/an-ecofrugal-fashion-makeover.html" target="_blank">heavy wool cardigan</a> that I mended just this week, would have cost significantly more.) That works out to $900 in savings, which means that my 25-cent sewing kit has paid for itself 3,600 times over.</p><p>Of course, this estimate could be wildly inaccurate. But even if it's off by a factor of ten and this sewing kit has only saved me $90 over the years, that's still a really impressive return on such a tiny investment.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-75521874204936342632024-01-22T14:06:00.001-05:002024-01-23T18:37:11.335-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 6: Glad Rags<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXfR_rZBZsT5LSYT0X84hpnwqV9AeqAwo8vCThHgGGbaS6W_Rlwl8iT_F7yO-JOfw7jVbSppU3ukLkeOawbzql7EAlLP4LIAZfVvBesKq9sJxXKGV1xPPspnZD9mNM5Skmp8JuqhJ8f7kmRbSD7h92rVur1fqDYiqeQL-DU8eeWCJU6oMwvbo8bVF5Vr-m/s640/6rags.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXfR_rZBZsT5LSYT0X84hpnwqV9AeqAwo8vCThHgGGbaS6W_Rlwl8iT_F7yO-JOfw7jVbSppU3ukLkeOawbzql7EAlLP4LIAZfVvBesKq9sJxXKGV1xPPspnZD9mNM5Skmp8JuqhJ8f7kmRbSD7h92rVur1fqDYiqeQL-DU8eeWCJU6oMwvbo8bVF5Vr-m/w200-h150/6rags.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Today's item is one I've <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/01/thrift-week-2019-day-5-lady-stuff.html" target="_blank">already covered</a> in a previous Thrift Week series: my Glad Rags, a set of reusable feminine napkins. In that post, I observed that the average American woman spends $7 a month, or $84 per year, on "sanitary products," known to the less squeamish as tampons and pads. Meanwhile, I have now successfully made it all the way to menopause with just half a dozen cloth pads that probably cost me around $50 in total. (A <a href="https://gladrags.com/collections/value-kits/products/cloth-pad-starter-kit-plus" target="_blank">comparable set</a> of the same brand purchased today would cost around $110, but there are also numerous other brands available now from stores like <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/6Pcs-Reusable-Menstrual-Pads-Wet-Bag-Washable-Bamboo-Cloth-Heavy-Flow-Wings-Overnight-Waterproof-Period-Pads-Reusable-Sanitary-Women/2749804698?athcpid=2749804698&athpgid=AthenaItempage&athcgid=null&athznid=si&athieid=v0_eeMjMuMDQsNTc1LjQyMDAwMDAwMDAwMDEsMC4wNjIxODg5MDY2NjQ3OTE4MiwwLjVf&athstid=CS055&athguid=cptN0cWckDIOP8Gq-UIEqm0nKrq93-n8tTaD&athancid=560551624&athposb=0&athena=true&athbdg=L1400" target="_blank">Walmart</a> for as little as $10.)<p></p><p>I bought my first set of three cotton Glad Rags some time around 1996 or 1997, and within a year or two I was using them almost exclusively (eked out by a few disposables for travel or tampons for swimming). To make the math simple, let's say that I used them for exactly 25 years. At $7 a month, that means they saved me a total of $2,100 for a one-time cost of $50. That's a hell of a return on such a small investment.<br /></p><p>The only problem I've ever had with these is what to do with them now that I no longer need them. I can't quite bring myself to dump them in textile recycling, since most of them are still in usable condition even after 25 years of use. But I hesitate to list them on Freecycle because I think even people who wouldn't be squeamish about reusable pads—and I suspect many women would be—would draw the line at using secondhand ones. </p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-60173234083839123822024-01-21T12:24:00.001-05:002024-02-05T15:08:12.641-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 5: A $30 lock on a $15 bike<p>To put this Thrift Week post in context, I need to provide a little background. This is a story I never got around to discussing on the blog when it happened, partly because it was a bit embarrassing for us. I told you about how, when Brian's old junker of a bike finally bit the dust in 2012, we bought him a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2012/04/bike-is-dead-long-live-bike.html" target="_blank">nice, new bicycle</a> to replace it. It cost us $400, but we thought it was a good investment, since he expected to be using it for many years to come. Here's the part you didn't hear: within a year after we bought it, that nice, new bicycle was stolen from the bike rack at his workplace. </p><p>The reason this is embarrassing for us is that it's possible we could have prevented it. At the time we bought the new bike, we didn't invest in a new lock for it, because Brian was pretty confident that the old, heavy chain he was using was sturdy enough to prevent theft. But he was thinking in terms of casual theft, and the thieves who actually came for his bike were professionals. They drove up in a big, black van, parked it in such a way that it blocked the view of the bike rack from security cameras, and then systematically removed all the bicycles from the rack and drove off with them. As far as I know, none of them were ever recovered. His beautiful new ride probably ended up being stripped down for parts. And since its value was less than our insurance deductible, there was no way to recover any of what we'd spent on it.<br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaXawesFlO2L8SEFoNfuI8zQ3kPT4Hwwhz3ZKLBSyQ7An7s9-ejCjv4aNY1OdiPTwF-dmVVbOCMWmUNYxQp7ld22DA0-A7nFRncQCdJ4VKEEMlmreXKMe7yeH8TZHOzWRuEf-YUhka8M1D_-t-nDWfqzA2_GrPDjTr2dY_ydpbV4naqrUAijak0rUwoM4/s640/bike.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcaXawesFlO2L8SEFoNfuI8zQ3kPT4Hwwhz3ZKLBSyQ7An7s9-ejCjv4aNY1OdiPTwF-dmVVbOCMWmUNYxQp7ld22DA0-A7nFRncQCdJ4VKEEMlmreXKMe7yeH8TZHOzWRuEf-YUhka8M1D_-t-nDWfqzA2_GrPDjTr2dY_ydpbV4naqrUAijak0rUwoM4/w200-h150/bike.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Well, after that, we weren't about to spend a lot of money on <i>another </i>nice, new bike. Instead, I searched Craigslist and found a seller in Princeton offering not one, but two bicycles in rideable condition for $30. We drove down, checked them out, paid in cash, managed to get both bicycles into the back of our little Honda Fit, and brought them home, giving Brian one bike for everyday use and a spare for parts. (We've since acquired yet another one from Freecycle, which explains why there are three bikes—or more precisely, two and a half—crammed into our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2024/01/tackling-our-homes-worst-room.html" target="_blank">back room</a>.)<br /><p></p><p></p>After that, we had to replace all the equipment that had been on the old bike when it was stolen—including the lock that had so dramatically failed to protect it. So we went back to the same shop where we'd bought the previous bike and invested $30 in a top-of-the-line Kryptonite lock—a purchase that, if we'd made it sooner, might have been enough to deter the thieves and save Brian's old bike. (Professional thieves can get through one of those too, with the right tools, but it takes time, and they might have decided it wasn't worth it.) Thus, Brian's current ride is protected by a lock that cost roughly twice as much as the bike itself. This gives him two layers of protection: a lock that's hard for even professional thieves to get through, and a bike so cheap that it's not really worth the effort. <br /><p></p><p>This $60 set of equipment—riding bike, spare bike, and lock—is a major money-saver. Each time Brian rides his bike to work or to the grocery stores, he saves money on gas, as well as and wear and tear on our car. One way to estimate the total savings is to use the IRS's mileage reimbursement figure, which is currently <a href="https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2024-mileage-rate-increases-to-67-cents-a-mile-up-1-point-5-cents-from-2023" target="_blank">67 cents per mile</a>. Brian's daily commute to work is about four miles each way, and he makes the trip an average of twice a week (roughly four times a week in the summer, about once a week in the winter, and varying amounts in between) for 50 weeks a year. That's a total of 100 eight-mile round trips, or 800 miles, and he probably makes another six-mile round trip to the grocery store every two weeks or so, adding about another 150 miles. That makes 950 miles at 67 cents per mile, for a total of $636.50 in savings every single year.</p><p>To be fair, this number is probably a serious overestimate. In the first place, the IRS's mileage reimbursement is based on the average vehicle, and ours is much smaller than average. In the second place, Brian no longer drives to work on most of the days he doesn't ride the bike. The pandemic established that his job could reasonably be done from home, so now he's only required to go into the office once a week. The rest of the time, he only goes in to work on days when he can reasonably ride there. So he's probably only saving himself around 40 trips to the office (the one day a week he would otherwise have to drive, assuming weather permits him to make the trip by bike 80 percent of the time). But according to the government's <a href="https://www.fueleconomy.gov/trip/" target="_blank">fuel economy calculator</a>, the gas alone for that trip costs him about 80 cents each way, or 20 cents per mile. So even if Brian is only avoiding 470 miles of driving per year, that's still a savings of at least $94 per year on a one-time investment of $60 nearly 12 years ago. I'd say it has clearly paid for itself many times over in fuel savings alone—not even counting what it could be saving us on medical bills by helping Brian stay in better shape at 53 than he was 30 years ago.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-74356793384533624612024-01-20T15:50:00.002-05:002024-01-20T15:50:27.753-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 4: Chromecast<p>When streaming video first became a thing, sometime in the late 2000s, Brian and I used to watch it by hooking up his laptop to our TV set. When that laptop died in 2010, he built a dedicated <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2010/01/mediaspud.html" target="_blank">media computer</a> with around $325 worth of parts. That served us well for several years, but eventually it started to struggle. We'd have pauses of a few minutes each in the middle of a tense moment on Critical Role as the machine struggled to keep up.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWgD37yitk9PMpg1xE77O4O2wn4P8Z5zWCQMtM00teJaVgib5Byg6RkcvsBrft4m0Z6vn-64l05qetsv03_P0fuJzbkzzK2dSv6YIlf-VnasThLllmqAN3WxyQl0fi4vnrtMTquxclbt33SqKYr8mAzdETVlJOQ91wsKDAHyDVhfeFwN0ycbECVlJt85J/s640/Chromecastbox.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWgD37yitk9PMpg1xE77O4O2wn4P8Z5zWCQMtM00teJaVgib5Byg6RkcvsBrft4m0Z6vn-64l05qetsv03_P0fuJzbkzzK2dSv6YIlf-VnasThLllmqAN3WxyQl0fi4vnrtMTquxclbt33SqKYr8mAzdETVlJOQ91wsKDAHyDVhfeFwN0ycbECVlJt85J/w200-h150/Chromecastbox.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Sometime in 2017, we decided to give one of the nifty new set-top streaming boxes a try. We started out by hazarding $5 on a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/09/yard-sale-index.html" target="_blank">secondhand Roku</a> at the townwide yard sales, but it turned out to be incapable of streaming from Twitch or YouTube, the two sites we relied on most. This experience made us more cautious about which model to choose as an alternative. We realized that products made by certain companies, such as Apple or Amazon, would probably give us easy access to their own content and make it difficult, if not impossible, to watch anyone else's. So we eventually settled on a Google Chromecast, which was capable of streaming anything that a computer could display. (True, it required a computer or other device to stream from, rather than being a self-contained unit, but that wasn't a problem for us.)<br /><p></p><p>In the six years since, our Chromecast has certainly saved us more than the $30 or so we spent on it. But exactly how much depends on what you compare it to. If you consider it to be the thing that allows us to <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/09/how-we-ended-up-without-cable.html" target="_blank">live without TV service</a>, then it's saving us around $40 a month, the price of <a href="https://www.optimum.com/tv" target="_blank">Optimum's cheapest plan</a>. Even if you deduct from that the $5 to $15 a month we pay for streaming services (depending on which ones we're using at any given time), that's still a savings of roughly $30 per month—over $2,000 for the approximately six years we've been using it.</p><p>But it's probably a bit of a cheat to calculate this way, because it's unlikely we'd be willing to pay for TV service under any circumstances. If we couldn't use Chromecast to watch our various shows, we'd have spent $400 or so on a <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-windows-mini-pcs" target="_blank">new media computer</a> instead. That's a much more modest savings, but still a pretty good return on a $30 investment.</p><p>It's only fair to point out that just like its predecessor, our Chromecast now occasionally runs up against a problem it can't handle. For instance, it can no longer cast episodes of Critical Role on Twitch from Brian's laptop to our TV—quite possibly because Twitch has now been acquired by Amazon, which doesn't like to play nicely with its competitors. This is, of course, exactly the problem we were hoping to avoid by choosing the Chromecast, which was supposed to be able to cast from any browser window, but perhaps Amazon has found a way to block this capability. (Brian can manage to get the "cast" button to appear by opening up
YouTube in a separate tab, but when he tries to cast the screen showing
Twitch, it simply quits.) </p><p>However, if the behemoth is hoping to force us into buying a new Amazon Fire Stick to stream "its" content, it's going to be disappointed. We've found not one but two work-arounds: we can either cast from the Twitch app on Brian's phone, or we can skip casting entirely and watch Critical Role on the tiny screen of Brian's laptop instead. It's not ideal, but we'd rather sit on the couch and peer at a tiny screen than give even $30 of our hard-earned cash to Amazon.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-7577961783936592442024-01-19T20:21:00.004-05:002024-02-05T15:08:26.173-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 3: Costco membership<p>Brian and I spent a few years waffling over the issue of whether to become Costco members. In 2012, while <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2012/12/costco-revelation.html" target="_blank">visiting the store</a> with my in-laws, I was impressed with its prices on eco-friendly staple items like Fair Trade coffee and organic sugar. But the Costco coffee turned out to be terrible, and the following year I found a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-ecofrugal-java-jive.html" target="_blank">cheaper alternative at IKEA</a>. I revisited the idea from time to time, perusing articles with titles like "9 Items that Will Single-Handedly Pay for Your Costco Membership" to figure out if we could <a href=""9 Items that Will Single-Handedly Pay for Your Costco Membership" target="_blank">get our money's worth</a> out of joining, but the answer always seemed to be no.</p><p>What tipped us over the edge was Brian's discovery, in 2017, that he needed progressive-lens eyeglasses. He wasn't prepared to trust an online seller for a prescription this complicated, and Costco's prices were miles ahead of any other brick-and-mortar retailer's. The price they quoted us on a pair was over $180 less than our local optician's—enough to <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/08/price-check-how-our-new-costco.html" target="_blank">pay for a $60 membership</a> more than three times over.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsKH4JoNEhf-6pt3JBHMyRfD8iobvBjEB17EMOWl-JBUCKhAaa-TARDt-2RxMydv9QADFT9dhQ9FWYerwWowJ63t39plAwASAknr5ZXxECGxVsgjhnR4ga6zSbaX33jutWCA9ybWe9OnlgOZeL-1KQhFTjAusYHp3ejNW8qV9sn3mahTYqDJWZ4dEDdznN/s640/costcoreceipt.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsKH4JoNEhf-6pt3JBHMyRfD8iobvBjEB17EMOWl-JBUCKhAaa-TARDt-2RxMydv9QADFT9dhQ9FWYerwWowJ63t39plAwASAknr5ZXxECGxVsgjhnR4ga6zSbaX33jutWCA9ybWe9OnlgOZeL-1KQhFTjAusYHp3ejNW8qV9sn3mahTYqDJWZ4dEDdznN/w200-h150/costcoreceipt.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>Once we'd become members, we quickly learned which of our staple items were the best deals at Costco. Some, like oats and raisins, were only slightly cheaper than at other stores where we shopped; others, like walnuts and organic sugar, were ahead by a country mile. In addition to these savings, we got considerable value out of our Costco credit card, which earned us 2% cash back at Costco itself, 3% back at restaurants, and 4% gas stations, all paid out annually in the form of Costco store credit. In 2019, I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/03/price-check-costco-nomics.html" target="_blank">tallied up all these savings</a> and concluded that our Costco membership was paying us back roughly three times as much as it cost us each year, even when we didn't happen to need new glasses.<br /><p></p><p>Mind you, just because Costco membership has proved to be a good deal for us, that doesn't mean it would be for everyone. Some folks we know have tried it out and found that the prices on most items they buy weren't significantly better than the supermarket's. But for us, just these few staple items, plus the cash back from the credit card, are enough to make it a worthy investment.</p><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-84315342838551483552024-01-18T16:26:00.001-05:002024-02-05T15:10:59.138-05:00Thrift Week 2024, Day 2: Raspberry canes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoG-uFoHhf3gwn5PrGOWyQETDODMS93bz4I3RpxuqKsoUtmTF9g0OsQ7Q3iYsDGB5F7ZkhVVRzk58drMxzPSvaRYW2sgY-slvyBk16-Q0v3mZthVF-PEbbq7dxshtMbUhPF5YSpBLezwWBk_PcggSduyc53bLQU_BQX1jEOLQ3fWsTtxeYNCagIVgPETOh/s640/raspberries.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoG-uFoHhf3gwn5PrGOWyQETDODMS93bz4I3RpxuqKsoUtmTF9g0OsQ7Q3iYsDGB5F7ZkhVVRzk58drMxzPSvaRYW2sgY-slvyBk16-Q0v3mZthVF-PEbbq7dxshtMbUhPF5YSpBLezwWBk_PcggSduyc53bLQU_BQX1jEOLQ3fWsTtxeYNCagIVgPETOh/w200-h150/raspberries.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>The second item in my "seven purchases that have paid for themselves" series is the topic of one of my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-we-built-our-raspberry-trellis-with.html" target="_blank">most popular posts</a> ever: our raspberry canes. We <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/01/edible-landscaping-stage-2.html" target="_blank">bought these</a> in January 2013, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/03/planting-project-final-phase.html" target="_blank">planted them</a> in March, and began harvesting our first few berries that summer. By September, I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-fruits-of-our-labors.html" target="_blank">calculated</a> that we were collecting about a pint of fresh, ripe, organic raspberries—roughly a $6 value—every week. At that rate, I figured, we'd get back the $41.50 we paid for them and then some in their first year alone, and we'd continue to harvest the same amount year after year.<br /><p></p><p></p><p>As it turns out, that was a gross underestimate. The berries were more productive the second year than the first, and more productive still after we switched to a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/06/raspberry-redux.html" target="_blank">two-crop system</a>. Production varies from year to year, but over the past three years, these canes have produced a total of 47.5 pints of berries. Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.instacart.com/landing?product_id=16689273&retailer_id=231&region_id=1826330878.00000&mrid=402536653&utm_source=instacart_bing&utm_medium=sem_shopping&utm_campaign=ad_demand_shopping_food_ny_nyc_bing&utm_content=accountid-146005746_campaignid-367540450_adgroupid-1220458301812556_device-c&utm_term=matchtype-e_keyword-_targetid-pla-4586475320224999_locationid-&msclkid=559c08dcdcfc1a93ddca6d7557e76acf" target="_blank">price of organic raspberries</a> has more than doubled, reaching $13.85 per pint. That means in the last three years, we've harvested $658 worth of berries—about $219 worth per year. And we're just now getting to the point where we think we might need to replace a few of the 11-year-old plants.<br /></p><p>The crazy thing is, these aren't necessarily the most productive crop in our garden. Last year, our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/07/gardeners-holidays-2023-plumfest.html" target="_blank">plum trees</a> yielded more than 94 pounds of fruit in total: 37.75 pounds of Opals, 21.15 pounds of Mount Royals, and 35.5 pounds of Golden Gages. The local farmers' market was charging about $2.61 per pound for plums at that time ($6 for a 2.3-pound basket), so our harvest was worth roughly $246, exceeding the value of the raspberry crop. </p><p>However, the plums aren't as consistently productive as the raspberries; they seem to have fallen into a pattern of giving us one good crop every two years and nothing at all in the off years. Also, the three plum trees cost more up front than the dozen raspberry canes, and it took them several years to become productive. So we've definitely gotten more bang for our total buck from the raspberries than we have from the plums, though both have repaid our original investment (in money and time) many times over.</p><p>Which brings me to that popular post that the raspberry canes inspired. Most of it was about the process of <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-we-built-our-raspberry-trellis-with.html" target="_blank">building a trellis</a> to support the canes so that we could more easily reach the fruit (and I'm pleased to say that after six years, that structure is still holding up just fine). But at the end, I waxed philosophical for a bit about the pleasure these raspberry canes had brought into our lives:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I was heading into the house with a bowlful of fresh raspberries I'd
just picked for my lunch, and I was struck once again by the thought,
"How incredibly lucky am I to have fresh berries there for the picking,
right outside my door? What did we ever do to deserve this kind of
bounty?"<br />
<br />
Only this time, I realized immediately that I knew the answer to that
question perfectly well: what we had done was to plant and tend the
raspberry canes. With our own hands, we dug the bed; with our own hands,
we <a href="http://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/03/planting-project-final-phase.html" target="_blank">planted them all</a>
in one chilly spring day; with our own hands, we mulched them and
watered them and trimmed them and gave them a fresh dressing of compost
every spring; and with our own hands, we built this new trellis to
support them. And whenever we want to eat some, we go out and pick them
with our own hands as well, braving the scratches for the sake of the
berries. We <i>earned</i> this blessing.<br />
<br />
And that, I think, sums up the ecofrugal life in a nutshell. It's a life full of blessings that have been earned. Home-baked bread, home-cooked meals, home-grown produce, hand-picked
flowers, an abundance of clothing and furniture and books acquired by
carefully picking through the offerings at yard sales and thrift stores.
And I don't feel I appreciate these blessings any the less for knowing
that I've worked for them, instead of having them gifted to me by some
gracious and unseen Providence; on the contrary, I think being able to
recognize in them the loving labor of my own hands makes me value them
all the more.
</p></blockquote><p>I'll be back to count more of my ecofrugal blessings tomorrow, as Thrift Week continues.<br /></p>
Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-63249232799557333062024-01-17T16:21:00.005-05:002024-02-25T19:25:33.141-05:00Thrift Week 2024: Purchases that have paid for themselves<p>Since last year's <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/thrift-week-2023-in-one-day-stuff-green.html" target="_blank">abbreviated Thrift Week celebration</a> focused on the least ecofrugal products money can buy, I thought it would be only fair for this year's to go the other way and look at some of the most ecofrugal products. Each day, I'll be looking at one specific purchase Brian and I have made that has paid for itself many times over. And I'm starting it off with one of the first purchases I ever discussed here on the blog: our pressure cooker.</p><p>When we <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2011/12/what-passes-for-extravagance.html" target="_blank">bought this back in late 2011</a>, it was kind of an impulse purchase. While visiting Brian's folks for Christmas, we saw an ad in the paper for a 5-quart pressure cooker on sale for $20 at J.C. Penney. On top of that, there was a $10-off coupon that reduced the net price to just $10. Even then, we came very close to passing it up, since we didn't "need" it, but we decided $10 wasn't too much to risk on a gadget that might be able to help us with a wide variety of cooking tasks.</p><p>Well, in the 12 years since, we have used this little pressure cooker countless times and gotten far more than our $10 worth out of it. In 2017, I was even inspired to <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/09/money-crashers-6-ways-pressure-cooker.html" target="_blank">write an article for Money Crashers</a> about all the ways it has saved us money. For instance:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>It saves energy on cooking. It can make all kinds of things—rice, potatoes, barley, <a href="http://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2017/09/recipes-of-month-fun-with-quinoa.html" target="_blank">quinoa</a>—much faster than a regular pot on the stove, reducing the amount of gas we need to burn for cooking. And the faster cooking time also means we heat up the kitchen less in the summertime.</li><li>It helps us use dry beans. We used to use a lot of canned beans because dry beans, though cheaper, were too much hassle. In addition to requiring an overnight soaking, they needed over an hour of cooking to get them tender enough to eat—far more time than we could spare most nights. Now, we can soak the beans right in the pressure cooker in the morning, turn it on in the evening, and have them ready to use in as little as half an hour. Besides being cheaper, the dry beans produce far less packaging waste, and they take up a lot less room in the pantry.</li><li>It makes homemade applesauce. Another product we used to buy fairly regularly was <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-great-applesauce-jar-switch.html" target="_blank">applesauce</a> to go with <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/01/thrift-week-2018-day-three-skillet-kugel.html" target="_blank">potato kugel</a> and other potato-based dishes. Not only did this produce a lot of packaging waste, but often the applesauce itself would start to grow fuzzy before we'd finished the jar. Now, with the help of our trusty pressure cooker, we just whip up a fresh batch of applesauce to go with every kugel. Pound for pound, this homemade stuff isn't necessarily cheaper than the kind in a jar, but it's definitely cheaper than buying a whole jar and having to discard half of it. And it tastes much, much better, even when it's made with the cheapest apples the store has to offer.</li><li><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCB2A7EDECjBpxBXIiEORkrbSHJMyXbguiCznAXK7LgGLjn2BYkDpsWewOLhEAUOHi2CrMcjUuvtSsvpioX_IL7SDx3XrF-qZHmHkflFtJ1Q_TZkYG1oncr0XPHJN09KUKZVrBDxB9vdsY7U-kbxptBUa8vhg6fxEsgL5EjyJzyiBBj1joPD2GtiSRKZyT/s640/pressureheater2.JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCB2A7EDECjBpxBXIiEORkrbSHJMyXbguiCznAXK7LgGLjn2BYkDpsWewOLhEAUOHi2CrMcjUuvtSsvpioX_IL7SDx3XrF-qZHmHkflFtJ1Q_TZkYG1oncr0XPHJN09KUKZVrBDxB9vdsY7U-kbxptBUa8vhg6fxEsgL5EjyJzyiBBj1joPD2GtiSRKZyT/w200-h150/pressureheater2.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>It doubles as a space heater. On <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/01/household-hacks-how-were-keeping.html" target="_blank">cold winter days</a>, Brian often fills up the pressure cooker with plain water in the morning and lets it come to a boil. Then he moves it to the office, where it sits on a trivet atop my desk and radiates heat throughout the day. It takes all day to cool off fully and allows me to stay comfortable without turning up the heat. <br /></li></ul><p>I'm so attached to this kitchen gadget that if we ever <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/now-were-still-cooking-with-gas.html" target="_blank">replace our gas stove</a> with an induction model, we'll have to buy an <a href="https://www.cooklogic.com/best-5-induction-cookware-converter-discs-interfaces/" target="_blank">adapter plate</a> so we can keep using it. We could find ways to replace or get along without most of our non-ferrous cookware—our aluminum saucepans, our double boiler, even our big stock pot—but giving up the pressure cooker would be a deal-breaker.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-72109310650121650742024-01-13T17:32:00.003-05:002024-01-13T17:32:30.839-05:00Tackling our home's worst room<p>The gauntlet has been thrown down. My birthday is still a few days off, but I've already given Brian notice of what home I want for my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-vanity-project.html" target="_blank">traditional DIY birthday present</a>. And it's probably the tallest order I've ever given him, because my request is to tackle the very worst room in our house. This one.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gI0Md2Z6tA7_VgieHVlZ3qtQ1JkMJrsk9jgkpt2uKntDkIXCKEJaDudk8APw1Baana1gsIANLq3xCN88677DdkMLOcv5IfBcundh7aclTALmQVu2MqiI5hA7gEM3fVad53ewWvKIF1_CGALIXEBhhX9b-5LKvlM-XwOTi5d2Zh4M8Fxw5kWfApveIYOO/s640/backroom4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1gI0Md2Z6tA7_VgieHVlZ3qtQ1JkMJrsk9jgkpt2uKntDkIXCKEJaDudk8APw1Baana1gsIANLq3xCN88677DdkMLOcv5IfBcundh7aclTALmQVu2MqiI5hA7gEM3fVad53ewWvKIF1_CGALIXEBhhX9b-5LKvlM-XwOTi5d2Zh4M8Fxw5kWfApveIYOO/s320/backroom4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />This room has several functions. It's a laundry room, a workshop, an overflow pantry, and a storage room for a vast assortment of stuff, including: <p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Two and a half bicycles (two complete ones and parts of a third)</li><li>A dozen folding chairs</li><li>A 50-pound sack of birdseed</li><li>Two ladders</li><li>Two fire extinguishers</li><li>30 gallons of water stored up for emergencies <br /></li><li>Our entire CD collection (serving as backup for the digital files we actually listen to)</li><li>My old boom box and cassette tapes, which tend to get used only during power outages <br /></li><li>Numerous power tools, including a miter saw, an air compressor, and a wet-dry vacuum</li><li>Assorted containers of paint, stain, glues, and solvents <br /></li><li>A sleeping bag</li><li>My seldom-used guitar's even more seldom-used case</li><li>A large box full of equipment for <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/02/seed-starting-30.html" target="_blank">starting seeds</a></li></ul><p>And that's far from a complete list. With all this stuff and more crammed into a roughly 11-by-15-foot space, it's very difficult to find anything. It's also sometimes difficult, and always distasteful, to spend any time in the room. It's not heated at all, and it's lit by two cold-white tube lights (one old fluorescent and one newer LED strip). The floor is raw concrete, the ceiling has exposed joists with various wires and pipes running through, and there are two cinder block walls and two frame walls with the insulation exposed. </p><p>I'm not expecting or even hoping to make this room into a beautiful and cozy retreat. But I do at least want it to be (a) functional and (b) not actively unpleasant to be in. My goals are:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>To get rid of everything currently in the room that doesn't need to be there.</li><li>To organize the rest of the room's contents so that I know where everything is and can physically lay hands on it. If I go into the room looking for an extension cord, I don't want to have to pull every box off the shelves until I find the one labeled "wires and cables." (Oh yeah, that's another thing in the room that wasn't on the list above.)</li><li>To cover up the insulation with <i>something</i>. It doesn't have to be a nicely plastered and painted wall. A sheet of OSB plywood would be sufficient, and certainly preferable to what's there now.</li><li>To have the room look at least reasonably tidy. I know it's probably still going to be cluttered, but I'd like the clutter to be more neatly organized. At the very least, I'd like to be able to walk all the way around the room without obstruction.<br /></li></ol><p>Based on our previous track record, I figure we'll be working on this for the rest of the winter and probably most of the spring. But hey, it'll keep us off the street.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-8670487683831281392024-01-07T20:26:00.011-05:002024-02-15T11:32:40.199-05:00A deep dive on bidets<p>From time to time on this blog, I've talked about the idea of getting a bidet to reduce or eliminate our toilet paper use. Every time, I've concluded that it <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2019/12/disposables-not-yet-ditched.html" target="_blank">wouldn't be worth it</a>. We spend so little on toilet paper that it couldn't possibly save us that much money, and since we use the recycled stuff, it wouldn't save trees either. So I decided the benefits of a bidet wouldn't outweigh the costs, and that was the end of it.</p><p>Except the Internet doesn't want to let that be the end of it. Since the start of the pandemic and the ensuing TP shortages, I keep seeing articles everywhere—from the Washington Post's <a href="https://wapo.st/3Sa2E7N" target="_blank">Climate Coach</a>, from the New York Times' <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/i-tested-13-bidets-im-a-convert/" target="_blank">Wirecutter</a>, from <a href="https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/bidets/is-a-bidet-seat-right-for-you-and-your-bathroom-a6974431905/" target="_blank">Consumer Reports</a>—singing the praises of bidets. And it seems like virtually every thread on Reddit about either sustainability or frugality (or, really, almost anything) eventually gets hijacked by bidet fanatics going on and on about how this little device has changed their lives and implying that mine will never be complete without one. It's like some kind of weird plumbing cult.</p><p>So I decided I needed to look into this issue in more depth. Am I truly missing out, and/or harming the planet, by stubbornly sticking to my Trader Joe's TP? Or is it the pro-bidet claims that don't, so to speak, hold water?<br /></p><p>The pro-bidet crowd makes four main arguments in their favor, which I'll tackle one by one:<br /></p><p><b>1. The financial argument</b></p><p>Many bidet fanciers claim that a bidet will pay for itself in months or even weeks because of all the money it saves you on toilet paper. To back up this assertion, they offer a wide range of statistics about the "average" American's toilet paper use, ranging from <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-american-uses-3-rolls-124011626.html" target="_blank">3 rolls per week</a> to <a href="https://toiletsense.net/2539/how-much-toilet-paper-does-america-use/" target="_blank">2 rolls </a><i><a href="https://toiletsense.net/2539/how-much-toilet-paper-does-america-use/" target="_blank">per day</a>.</i> (How is that even possible?) The figure I'm most inclined to trust comes from <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/15676/cmo-toilet-paper-consumption/" target="_blank">Statista</a>: 141 rolls per person per year. (This is based on a weight of 90 grams per roll; I just weighed one of ours and it's actually a bit smaller, at 80 grams.)<br /></p><p>While this may indeed be accurate as an average, it's certainly not true for us. Last time I <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2014/12/tp-tracking-results.html" target="_blank">tracked our toilet paper use,</a> I found that our family of two goes through roughly 68.5 rolls per year, just over 34 per person. Admittedly, I did this experiment at a time when Brian was working at
the office five days a week rather than one or two. But according to
Brian, even then, nearly all of his toilet paper use occurred at home. So even if he used, say, a dozen sheets per week at work, that only works out to around two and a half rolls per year. That means our TP usage now comes out to roughly 71 rolls per year.<br /></p><p>The toilet paper we buy at Trader Joe's has also gone up a bit in price since the time of my experiment, from $4.50 per dozen to $4.99. But at 71 rolls per year, that still puts our annual TP cost at only around $29.50. According to Consumer Reports, the cheapest available bidet attachments cost around $30, so there's literally no way one could pay for itself in less than a year. And Wirecutter's top-rated bidet seat, the $400 Toto Washlet, would take over 13 years to pay for itself—assuming it lasted that long.</p><p>That's also assuming that a bidet would eliminate our use of toilet paper entirely. However, it's by no means clear that it would. There's widespread disagreement online about whether a bidet is a replacement for paper or merely a supplement to it. Some folks say they use the bidet first to wash, followed by toilet paper to dry off; others say they wipe first, then use the bidet to get fully clean. Several bidet users interviewed by Consumer Reports said they used <i>less</i> toilet paper since getting it; one said it had cut their family's TP use by about half, while others said they use "up to 80 percent less." If our experience was the same, a bidet would only save us between $15 and $24 per year and would take 1.3 to two years, minimum, to pay for itself.</p><p>Except there's one more problem: A bidet would add to our household's annual water use. Each use consumes about <a href="https://www.bidet.org/blogs/news/bidet-water-use" target="_blank">two cups of water</a>. If we both used it every time we sat on the toilet, that would be, according to my rough calculations, about 24 cups (1.5 gallons) of water per day. (I'm estimating that we each use it twice a day for a bowel movement and I use it an additional eight times a day to urinate. If we used the bidet for bowel movements only, it would consume only about half a gallon of water per day, but it would also eliminate no more than one-third of our toilet paper use.) </p><p>We don't pay for our household water by the gallon; our town uses a tiered system, and our quarterly water usage is generally low enough to put us into the lowest tier, up to 799 cubic feet. But not by much. Particularly in the summertime, we often get up into the 700s and occasionally even top the 800 mark, bumping us up to the next tier and costing us an extra $23.44. If we were using a bidet regularly, that extra 1.5 gallons per day would make it that much trickier to stay in the bottom tier. If it bumped us up into a higher tier even once per year, that would erase all or most of our TP savings.</p><p>In the absolute best-case scenario—we acquire a bidet for no more than $30, it saves us $24 a year on toilet paper, and it never bumps our water bill—it would pay for itself in 15 months. But it hardly seems like it would be worth the hassle for such a small savings. Which brings us to...<br /></p><p><b>2. The environmental argument</b><br /></p><p>The main reason "you need a bidet," according to the Climate Coach, is "to reduce clear-cutting mature forests." Millions of trees, the article claims, go to satisfy American's gluttonous need for toilet paper and our pigheaded refusal to switch to bidets. But once again, this doesn't really apply to us, since our TJ's TP is made from 100 percent recycled paper, with a minimum of 80 percent post-consumer recycled content. (N.b: that means it's made from <i>other</i> kinds of paper, not toilet paper that's been recycled post-flush.) </p><p>Now, tree pulp isn't the only resource that goes into making toilet paper. <a href="https://www.treehugger.com/which-is-greener-toilet-paper-or-a-bidet-4863723" target="_blank">Treehugger</a> argues that the best reason to use a bidet is because, ironically, they save water. "Paper making is incredibly water-intensive," the article claims, and the wastewater from the process creates "a flood of organic waste and chemical residue
which must be processed or, worse yet absorbed, after being treated and
dumped into some unlucky river or ocean."</p><p>But here, again, it's not clear that the math works out in favor of bidets. According to the Climate Coach, each roll of toilet paper requires about 6 gallons of water to produce. We take about 5 days to go through a roll of toilet paper, so that's 1.2 gallons per day. And according to my off-the-cuff calculations, switching to a bidet instead would use up 1.5 gallons per day—0.3 gallons more than just using paper.</p><p>In fact, it's probably even worse than that. When I clicked through to the Climate Coach's source for the 6-gallons-per-roll figure, an <a href="https://thepublicsradio.org/episode/should-i-use-toilet-paper-or-a-bidet-" target="_blank">episode of the Possibly podcast</a>, it said that "A roll made from 100% recycled materials uses half as much water." Thus, cleaning our butts with recycled TP uses only 0.6 gallons of water per day—less than half as much a bidet. In short, if the main purpose of using a bidet is to save water and trees, it looks like our recycled-fiber TP actually does significantly better.</p><p>[UPDATE, 2/15/24: I've since found some more reliable numbers on water use. A little further digging led me to the Environmental Paper Network's <a href="https://calculator.environmentalpaper.org/home" target="_blank">Paper Calculator</a>, which you can use to calculate the environmental impact of various kinds of paper use. I punched in the weight of a 12-pack of our Trader Joe's TP (about 2.1 pounds) and selected "tissue" for the grade. It said this amount of paper would
use 42.8 gallons of water—3.56 gallons per roll—if it contained no recycled paper content whatsoever (either pre-
or post-consumer). If made with 100% recycled paper content, it would
use only 22.5 gallons, or 1.875 gallons per roll. Thus, the amount of TP we go through in one day uses only 0.375 gallons to produce—one-quarter of the amount we'd use with a bidet. Thanks to the <a href="https://handyfinch.com/minimalism-zero-waste/zero-waste-bathroom/plastic-free-toilet-paper" target="_blank">Handy Finch blog</a> for helping me find this source.<br /></p><p>Obligatory citation: <i>Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Paper
Network Paper Calculator Version 4.0. For more information visit
www.papercalculator.org.</i>]<br /></p><p><b>3. The hygiene argument</b><br /></p><p>A lot of bidet users argue that it's simply not possible to clean your bum adequately with toilet paper alone. One analogy they're fond of using is, "If you got poop on your hand, would you just wipe it off with paper? No, of course not! You'd wash it off with water!"</p><p>My inclination is to respond to this with a snarky, "Well, that's because I pick things up with my hands, and I almost never pick anything up with my butt." But in the interests of fairness, I thought it was only right to look into this argument as well. Is a bidet really superior for cleaning?<br /></p><p>Amazingly enough, it appears there are few to no scientific studies addressing this question. But as a colorectal surgeon interviewed by <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/bottom-line-bidets-180974916/" target="_blank">Smithsonian magazine</a> points out, "It kind of doesn’t matter." Failing to get every last particle of poop off your bum will not in any way harm your health. There's <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092075/" target="_blank">some evidence</a> that switching to a bidet may offer some relief for people who suffer from pruritus ani (itchy butthole) caused by over-wiping, but there's <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34746497/" target="_blank">also evidence</a> that "excessive" bidet use may <i>cause</i> this problem. Another expert interviewed by Smithsonian says a bidet may be helpful for people with specific disorders, such as Crohn's disease or physical disabilities that make wiping difficult, but those problems don't apply to us. In fact, for me, at least, a bidet would more likely do harm than good. Regularly using the "feminine wash" setting on a bidet to clean the
lady parts can <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21058441" target="_blank">spread fecal bacteria to the vagina</a>, which definitely isn't desirable. </p><p>[UPDATE, 1/31/24: In the interest of fairness, I should add that a recent "Ask a Doctor" column in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/10/16/bidet-benefits-toilet-paper/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> cited a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35100172/" target="_blank">2022 study</a> showing that bidet use doesn't just clean your butt better; it also greatly reduces the amount of bacteria on your hands after you wipe. A small sample group, 32 nursing students, wore clean gloves while using the toilet, and afterward the gloves were tested for microbe contamination. Result: the gloves of the TP users had nearly 10 times as many microbial colonies as the gloves of the bidet users. But here's the catch: as far as I can tell from the abstract, the volunteers <i>did not wash their hands</i> after wiping and before handing over the gloves to be tested. And in the real world, based on my observations in public restrooms, the overwhelming majority of people do wash their hands afterward, even if they don't always do it for the recommended 20 seconds. So I don't think this study provides much useful information about how clean the hands of TP users and bidet users are in real life.]<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p><b>4. The hedonistic argument</b><br /></p><p>In short, there's no sound reason for using a bidet to promote better health. But for most users, having a squeaky-clean bum isn't mainly about health; it's about happiness. Over and over, I see bidet lovers using phrases like "Once you've tried it, you'll never be able to go back to just paper" or "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/comments/qvr7hj/bidet_users_are_a_cult/" target="_blank">once you have one you feel like an animal not having it</a>." (That latter one, by the way, was a response to a complaint about how annoying bidet evangelists are.) Some even say they can no longer stand to take a dump anywhere except at home. </p><p>Since I've never experienced this myself, it's not an argument I can refute. Maybe a sparkling clean butthole really is one of life's greatest pleasures, and I can't possibly say it isn't worth it without having tried it. But the same could be said about heroin, and I've never found that a compelling reason for trying it. Because the worst-case scenario wouldn't be that I didn't like it; it would be that I liked it so much I couldn't live without it.<br /></p><p>This, for me, is the best argument <i>against</i> getting a bidet. I don't want to be a person who can't use a public restroom (or who needs to carry a portable bidet everywhere she goes) because she can't bear to clean up with paper. And even more than that, I don't want to become a person who is so enthralled with her bidet that she can't stop talking about it. I don't want to drive my friends, my family, and complete strangers on Reddit up the wall by telling them constantly why they <i>need</i> a bidet, and they may think they don't, but that's just because they haven't tried it, and once they do they won't know how they lived without it, and anyway it will pay for itself in a month and save the forests, and there's no way to get truly clean with just paper, and how can they stand to walk around with a dirty anus?<br /></p><p>If I had found that a bidet truly had significant benefits for my health, my wallet, or the environment, I suppose I would have to bite the bullet and get one, even at risk of turning into an annoying bidet snob. But fortunately for me, none of these things appears to be the case. I'm not telling anyone who has a bidet and loves it that they should stop using it; I'm just saying I see no good reason to get one for myself, and I'd appreciate it if we could talk about something else.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-77793949830255081102023-12-31T20:32:00.001-05:002024-01-01T19:58:18.198-05:00Ecofrugal gifting games, 2023 edition<p></p><p>One of our most successful holiday gift ideas this year was a model of ecofrugality. It provided not one, but eight secondhand gifts for family and friends, with a little extra entertainment thrown in—all for just a few dollars.<br /></p><p>Last year's <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/12/ecofrugal-gifting-games.html" target="_blank">round robin gift exchange</a> with our niblings was so successful that we decided we'd try to repeat it this year. Our original plan was to do it with books again, picking up secondhand ones throughout the year and supplementing as needed with new ones. But last summer, as Brian and I were weeding out our collection of board games, it occurred to me that maybe we could make some of these discarded games the basis of this year's gift exchange. This would kill two birds with one stone: finding new homes for the games we no longer played while crossing eight people off our holiday gift list.</p><p>After clearing out our game shelves, we had more than eight possible candidates for the gift exchange. As Christmas drew nearer, we supplemented this selection with others that we <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/11/ecofrugal-episodes.html" target="_blank">picked up at the local thrift shop</a> (some of them still in their original shrink wrap) and at yard sales. We picked and chose among these to get the best variety of different games to fit differing tastes. The finalists were:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Bali, a word game for one or two players</li><li>Rook, a trick-taking card game</li><li>The Sherlock
Holmes puzzle case, a collection of mini-mysteries</li><li>Tantrix
Match, a pattern-matching game</li><li>A nice wooden version of the classic peg solitaire game</li><li>How to
Rob a Bank, in which a team of robbers takes on a team of security guards</li><li>Anomia, a hectic group game with a lot of shouting</li><li>The Resistance, a social deduction game in which you have to find the traitors in your midst<br /></li></ul><p>But the gifts themselves were just the start. The thing our niblings (and one nibling-in-not-quite-law) seemed to enjoy most about last year's gift exchange was a puzzle that we threw in kind of as an afterthought: a hidden message spelled out by the first letters of the pages where we'd stashed $5 bills. So for this year, we decided to craft a more elaborate treasure hunt based on clues hidden in all the game boxes. Brian's first thought was to put one clue in each box, so the kids could either collaborate or compete to find the hidden treasure first. But eventually he decided it would be better to make them all work together, so he decided the first step in the hunt would be to put together a puzzle. On the back would be either some sort of treasure map or the first in a series of clues leading them to the treasure.<br /></p><p>On a video call with his folks, Brian scoped out the house to find good hiding places for clues. These had to be spots that were within reach, but enough out of the way that the clues wouldn't be found by accident before the game had started. Possibilities included a spider plant hanging in the dining room, a curio cabinet in the living room, an old dollhouse in the basement, and the tops of various tall pieces of furniture, such as the grandfather clock. We thought it would be nice to have all the clues joined by a common theme, and after considering several ideas (names of games? Literary quotations? Cards and suspects from the game Clue?) we came up with one suggested by the plant: species names.</p><p>On the back of the puzzle, Brian wrote a winding trail of letters spelling out <i>Clorophytum comosum, </i>the Latin name of the spider plant. We knew they could easily find that out with a Google search, leading them to the plant. In the plant pot, we placed a slip of paper with the second clue: <i>Strix occidentalis.</i> Although this is a real species (the spotted owl), there wasn't a real one in the house, but there was a stuffed animal version of it in the family room wearing a baseball cap. Under this cap, we hid the third clue: <i>Brunus edwardii (magnus)</i>. This is not a real species, but a search on the name would lead them to a joke article that appeared in a 1972 issue of <i>The Veterinary Record </i>on common diseases of the teddy bear, and the <i>magnus </i>would tell them the specific specimen they wanted was the one known as Big Teddy up in the sewing room. Big Teddy was holding a piece of paper bearing an entirely made-up species name: <i>Erinaceus horologium. </i>The first half of this refers to a genus of hedgehogs, and the second half is Latin for "clock," directing them to the toy hedgehog sitting on top of the grandfather clock in the hall. Under that was the final clue, <i>Chrysochus cobaltinus. </i>This is a real species name referring to a type of blue beetle; there were no such beetles in the house, but there was a model of a blue Volkswagen beetle in the curio cabinet, and behind this we stashed our treasure chest (a cigar box filled with chocolate coins, jewel-like polyhedral dice, and some other odds and ends).</p><p>This gift exchange was a big hit. Once we had all eight youths in the room, we laid out the gifts for them to take turns choosing and swapping, and before they'd even finished opening up all the packages, some of them had peeked inside and discovered the puzzle pieces stashed there. This so piqued their interest that they immediately started putting the puzzle together, not even waiting to look at the rest of their presents, so the adults in the room exchanged their gifts to each other while the youngsters set about solving the puzzle and hunting down the clues. The only part we had to help them with was finding the treasure chest hidden behind the blue Beetle; we'd marked it with a slip of paper bearing the traditional X, but they thought that was just the next clue in the series and had to be directed to the box it was sitting on. We did see at least one of them later playing with the game she received in the gift exchange itself, but I think that the hunt-the-treasure game was more exciting for them than the actual presents.</p><p>This has led us to two conclusions for next year: First, we should definitely keep this tradition going. Since we seldom see our niblings, it's much easier to get them something they like by having them swap gifts among themselves than just trying to guess who would like what. And second, since the treasure hunt seems to be their favorite part, maybe next year we should start with the puzzle rather than the gifts. That is, rather than choosing presents and designing a puzzle to go with them, maybe we should start by thinking about what would make the best puzzle and selecting gifts (ideally ones we can find secondhand) to fit it. Because with this crowd, apparently, it's the fun that counts.</p><p>
</p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-16078661378834267052023-12-22T18:57:00.000-05:002023-12-22T18:57:37.922-05:00Gardeners' Holidays 2023: The Changing of the Garden<p>Most years, Brian and I celebrate this Gardeners' Holiday by picking out new seed varieties from a catalog during our drive to Indiana to visit his folks. However, this year, there were a couple of complications. First of all, the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/12/gardeners-holidays-2022-changing-of.html" target="_blank">new seed company</a> we used this year, Botanical Interests, didn't send us a catalog—and by the time I realized they hadn't, it was too late to order one in time for the trip. But even if we had received one, we might not have chosen to use it, since <a href="https://www.botanicalinterests.com/" target="_blank">Botanical Interests</a> doesn't carry our favorite Carmen pepper seeds. That didn't matter so much this year, since we had a few left over from our last Fedco order. But for next year, we'll definitely need some more.<br /></p><p>So we decided to give a different seed supplier a try in 2024. I checked the website of <a href="https://www.trueleafmarket.com/" target="_blank">True Leaf Market</a>, which was also on our short list last year, and found that they carry the Carmen peppers and everything else we're currently out of. However, trying to browse True Leaf's website on my phone in the car would have been a bit awkward—especially while trying to take notes of our selections on paper at the same time. So, since we had a little free time today, we opted to do our seed selecting at home instead. </p><p>The seeds we plan to either renew or replace are: <br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><b>Arugula.</b> True Leaf sells several varieties, most of which were unfamiliar to us. Our first instinct was to go with Rocket, since we've successfully grown it before and know it works in our garden. But the Rocket arugula has one problem: it always bolts as soon as the weather turns hot, leaving us with leggy, bitter plants that aren't really worth harvesting. So when we saw a variety called Slow Bolt, which was actually slightly cheaper than the Rocket and had a 5-star rating from growers, we decided it was worth a try.</li><li><b>Thai basil. </b>The company touts its Siam Queen variety as an <a href="https://all-americaselections.org/winners/" target="_blank">AAS winner</a>, but it's extremely expensive: a minimum of $12.24 per packet, more than three times as much as its other varieties that have better user ratings. We decided to go with the more modestly priced Red Leaf Holy Basil, choosing it over the equally well-reviewed Thai Sweet Large Leaf because its red color will make it easier to distinguish from the regular Italian basil.</li><li><b>Dill. </b>This is another plant that has a tendency to bolt. Usually, by the time our cucumbers ripen in the summer, there's no dill left in the garden to make dill pickles with. In hopes of mitigating that problem, we chose a variety called Dukat, which allegedly "holds longer at the leaf stage than other dills." One user says it "didn't even bud until July despite unusual heat," which sounds promising.</li><li><b>Lettuce.</b> The Marvel of Four Seasons variety we bought this year from Botanical Interest performed very well in our garden. It was so bolt-resistant that we were able to keep harvesting it all summer and well into the fall. Initially, we thought True Leaf didn't stock this variety, but it turns out it was just listed under its French name, Merveille de Quatre Saisons. However, the packet it comes in is only 500 milligrams, which might not be enough for six squares' worth of lettuce (especially with a second planting in fall). Rather than buy two packets, we decided to hedge our bets by adding a packet of a blend called Gourmet Mix. Since it includes five different varieties of Bibb, leaf, and romaine lettuces, it maximizes the chances that at least one of them will do well.</li><li><b>Peppers.</b> The Carmen pepper seeds were the reason we came to this site in the first place, so naturally we're ordering more of those. Their performance this year was actually a bit disappointing—only a dozen peppers off two plants—but we're hoping that's just because the seeds were two years old. We plan to put in two or three of those and fill in with a Banana pepper from our last Fedco shipment, rather than take our chances on a new variety.</li><li><b>Snap peas. </b>Our trusty Cascadia snap peas did moderately well this year, yielding a total of 26 ounces. That's better than their performance in 2021 (when a deer ate most of the plants) or 2022 (when some of them never germinated), but nowhere near as good as the whopping 79 ounces we got in 2019. Still, this variety has done better overall than any other we've tried, and it gets better ratings for yield at <a href="http://vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/main/showVarieties.php?searchCriteria=cascadia&searchIn=0&crop_id=40&sortBy=overallrating&order=DESC&sideSearch=Search" target="_blank">Cornell's Vegetable Variety site</a> than any of True Leaf's other offerings. We're going to stick with it for at least one more year, but if our yields remain lackluster we'll consider a different variety, like the well-reviewed Sugar Ann or Super Sugar Snap.</li><li><b>Zucchini. </b>The Emerald Delight zucchini seeds we bought from Botanical Interest were a resounding flop. Though described as "extremely productive," they produced only six usable squash off both plants and suffered a bit from blossom end rot. True Leaf doesn't carry the highly productive Green Machine variety that did so well for us in 2021 and 2022, so we're going back to Black Beauty, which we've grown with moderate success in the past.</li></ul><p></p>One other item we'll have to replace in next year's garden is the bird tape we <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/search/label/pests" target="_blank">hung up to deter deer</a>. As far as we can tell, it worked—that is, we've suffered no more deer invasions since hanging it (although without a control, we can't be entirely sure if they're only keeping away deer the way <a href="https://nicwestermann.co.uk/keeping-elephants-away/" target="_blank">balled-up newspaper keeps away elephants</a>). And contrary to our fears, the lines stayed in place pretty well and didn't blow around that much. But this week, Brian discovered that the tape was disintegrating, leaving little scraps of shiny plastic scattered around the garden. So he took them all down, and next year we'll either buy another roll of the stuff or see if we can achieve the same results with something similar, like strips of aluminum foil.<p></p><p>But that's a problem for next year. For now, we've taken care of all the necessary tasks to put our garden to bed for the winter. Our <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/07/re-roll-out-barrel.html" target="_blank">new rain barrel</a>, unlike the old one, has not gone back into the shed; instead we've partially drained it and covered the opening with a trash can lid, weighed down with a brick, so no more water accumulates in it. We've also covered the entire garden with a thick layer of leaves—not just in the beds, but also on the paths. I noticed this year that the back edge of the garden, where leaves naturally tend to accumulate, didn't have weeds popping up all over the place the way the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2014/10/arugula-invasion.html" target="_blank">rest of the paths</a> do, so I decided to spread leaves everywhere and see how well they did at keeping the weeds down. We piled a good couple of inches on the paths and more on the beds, and when we plant them in the spring we'll sweep that lot onto the paths as well. Fingers crossed, this may be the solution that finally provides us with a mostly weed-free surface to walk on.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVfNot1jaEwDLjCoo5gAisEblVyMgSGyOAmd_3z38gmBxnxpBlJi2KmNc1DaHnjFJHrcZDpfJdBGkDrv5yoB0URf4p7O_KLha5jryn5BJxyZ-yxXsCVFpjB8icI2dp9jLxo4PfnsUW6aCxb-RVaIctDcm1O6nxzw9lcFER4xy5a50gYddgPBgd56NPp_qg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgVfNot1jaEwDLjCoo5gAisEblVyMgSGyOAmd_3z38gmBxnxpBlJi2KmNc1DaHnjFJHrcZDpfJdBGkDrv5yoB0URf4p7O_KLha5jryn5BJxyZ-yxXsCVFpjB8icI2dp9jLxo4PfnsUW6aCxb-RVaIctDcm1O6nxzw9lcFER4xy5a50gYddgPBgd56NPp_qg=w150-h200" width="150" /></a></div><p></p><p>And lastly, we've brought our new rosemary plant—bought to replace the one we unsuccessfully <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/11/shelter-from-cold.html" target="_blank">attempted to winterize</a> last year—indoors until spring. Its predecessor didn't survive the winter even tucked inside a plastic bag and piled with leaves, so when we bought this one, we just put it in a large pot that we could carry indoors when the frost hit. And since it was going to spend this month parked in front of a sunny window downstairs, I figured I might as well give it a seasonal makeover.</p><p>Happy holidays to all, and best of luck with your gardening efforts in 2024.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-75216055037279352462023-12-17T16:11:00.002-05:002023-12-17T16:11:49.961-05:00Recipe of the Month: Whole Wheat Raisin Rye<p>OK, I realize it may be a bit of a cheat to use a bread recipe as my Recipe of the Month for December. After all, the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/01/veggie-of-month-buttercup-squash.html" target="_blank">original point of the whole exercise</a> was to get more fruits and veggies in my diet, and each month's selection is supposed to be a recipe that features either veggies or fruit in a prominent role. This raisin bread does <i>contain</i> fruit, but it's hard to argue that it's fundamentally a fruit recipe. But on the other hand, my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2014/01/recipe-of-month-rhubarb-bread.html" target="_blank">very first Recipe of the Month</a> was also a bread—in fact, a sweet quickbread that was closer in spirit to a cake, and thus less healthful than this one—so if that was allowed, this should be too. More to the point, there are only a couple of weeks left in December, and we're spending the last week of the month celebrating Christmas with Brian's folks, which doesn't leave us much time to squeeze in a new dish that's more veggie-centric. So calling this bread my fruit-based recipe for December seemed like the safest play.</p><p>Technically, this isn't even a brand-new recipe. Brian has made a similar raisin rye bread before, which I quite enjoyed, but that one used a mixture of white and rye flour. This time he replaced the white flour with whole-wheat flour to make a heartier (and healthier) loaf. He was afraid this substitution might mess up the texture, but it came out fine; a little dense, but still agreeably chewy. The only downside was that the whole-wheat flour somewhat overpowered the rye, so it tasted more like a whole-wheat raisin bread than a raisin rye bread. But it was tasty all the same, with a hearty, wheat-forward flavor punctuated by the pops of sweet raisins. It worked quite nicely with our new <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-small-step-away-from-palm-oil.html" target="_blank">homemade plant-based spread</a>.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotCdj9a8F35uuwXdnbZJfHPHxc03l7DoXlO_tmNippD6emwt_38Mx4wnXzX17qZK-i9_gqSG2wufcVpm7U9T6f0kAFN64pif2vst9vksxRvjb2UNwPaYviHzHlS-FieALKZ4PMNQ41k6NSJqSP_95iclf9kxBgdsq9qtgvrzB5X5qbuRiS-c8Mtr9LryQ/s640/raisinbread.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotCdj9a8F35uuwXdnbZJfHPHxc03l7DoXlO_tmNippD6emwt_38Mx4wnXzX17qZK-i9_gqSG2wufcVpm7U9T6f0kAFN64pif2vst9vksxRvjb2UNwPaYviHzHlS-FieALKZ4PMNQ41k6NSJqSP_95iclf9kxBgdsq9qtgvrzB5X5qbuRiS-c8Mtr9LryQ/w200-h150/raisinbread.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><p>So how healthy is this modified recipe? Well, it depends on your priorities. If I were still on my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/02/recipes-of-month-two-low-carb-pastas.html" target="_blank">low-carb diet</a>, there's no way I'd be able to eat this on a regular basis; the three small slices I usually have for breakfast contain about 50 grams of carbs, including 15 grams of sugars (mostly from the raisins). But they also have 7 grams of fiber and 7 grams of protein, both of which appear to be more important for me to keep my blood sugar within a reasonable range. And with all those raisins, this fiber-packed loaf still feels like a treat.</p><p>If you'd like to give it a try, here's the complete recipe:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><b>Whole wheat raisin rye</b><br /></p><p style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><u>Ingredients</u>:<br /></p><ul style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li>1.75 cups lukewarm water</li><li>3 Tbsp brown sugar</li><li>1 Tbsp yeast</li><li>1.5 cups rye flour</li><li>2.5 cups whole wheat flour</li><li>1 Tbsp vital wheat gluten</li><li>1 Tbsp caraway seeds, coarsely ground</li><li>2 tsp salt</li><li>2 Tbsp oil (Brian used canola)<br /></li><li>1 cup raisins</li></ul><div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><u>Directions</u>:<br /></div><ol style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;"><li>Dissolve/suspend sugar and yeast in water and set aside for a few minutes. The mixture should start to foam up.</li><li>Combine flours, gluten, caraway, and salt in a large bowl. Add oil and yeast mixture and stir to mix. Cover bowl with a cloth and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes.</li><li>Knead dough for about 5 minutes, adding additional flour or water as necessary to maintain consistency. Knead the raisins into the dough, then continue to knead for an additional five minutes. Cover the bowl with a cloth and place in a warm, moist place (an unheated oven over or next to a pan of hot water works nicely) until the dough has doubled in size (about an hour).</li><li>Divide the dough into two equal-sized pieces. Shape the pieces into rough cylinders and place them in two bread pans. If you’re worried about the loaves sticking to the pans, you should grease and flour the pans before placing the dough in them. Return the dough to a warm, moist place and allow it to rise until once again it is doubled in size (about an hour).</li><li>Bake the loaves at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. Turn out of the pans as soon as they're finished and cool them on a wire rack if you have one.</li></ol><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-64543162938389943842023-12-10T18:29:00.000-05:002023-12-10T18:29:42.256-05:00Return of the Shoe Conundrum<p>Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the snow...</p><p>Last March, I bought myself a new pair of winter boots. I'd already limped through most of the winter with <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-bootless-effort-or-shoe-conundrum.html" target="_blank">boots that leaked</a>—two pairs of them, in fact—and all attempts to repair them had come to naught. After spending over a month searching for a replacement that met my tough criteria (comfortable, weatherproof, leather-free, not too ridiculously expensive, and not too ridiculous-looking), I finally found a <a href="https://www.womanwithin.com/products/cliffs-marlee-bootie/1064581.html?turntosuid=SUcGbU8aZA&turntosku=1064581&transId=15288164&turntoRecipient=eyJlbWFpbCI6IkhBVkVSV0VOQ0hAR01BSUwuQ09NIiwiZmlyc3ROYW1lIjoiQW15In0%3D&turntoTrackingToken=eyJ0dXJudG9za3UiOiIxMDY0NTgxIiwidHJhbnNJZCI6MTUyODgxNjQsInR1cm50b0VtYWlsVHlwZSI6InJldmlld1NvbGljaXRhdGlvbiJ9&turntoEmailType=reviewSolicitation&reviewStartAction=rateIt&turntoNotificationData=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJmaXJzdE5hbWUiOiJBbXkiLCJsYXN0TmFtZSI6IkxpdmluZ3N0b24iLCJ0cmFja2luZ1Rva2VuIjoiZXlKMGRYSnVkRzl6YTNVaU9pSXhNRFkwTlRneElpd2lkSEpoYm5OSlpDSTZNVFV5T0RneE5qUXNJblIxY201MGIwVnRZV2xzVkhsd1pTSTZJbkpsZG1sbGQxTnZiR2xqYVhSaGRHbHZiaUo5IiwiYWxyZWFkeVJldmlld2VkIjpmYWxzZSwidmFsaWRhdGlvbkVycm9ycyI6ZmFsc2UsInR5cGUiOiJyZXZpZXciLCJza3UiOiIxMDY0NTgxIiwiaWF0IjoxNjgxNDg4MzE0LCJlbWFpbCI6IkhBVkVSV0VOQ0hAR01BSUwuQ09NIn0.5sWfHpLiDK2bVGB-0nP5UdmjDAd7ZZwCGugNaagQ9xI&tttok=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJhIjpmYWxzZSwicyI6IlJTRSIsInQiOjE1Mjg4MTY0LCJlIjoiaGF2ZXJ3ZW5jaEBnbWFpbC5jb20iLCJ1IjoxNzE5MzE0NCwic3VpIjozNzI3NzU2LCJpc3MiOiJUdXJuVG8iLCJleHAiOjE2ODE1NzQ3MTQ1MDgsImlhdCI6MTY4MTQ4ODMxNCwiY2EiOiJXV19Db2xkX1dlYXRoZXJfQm9vdHMifQ.0_Rhl-6zetTHYG6lZvStEAs-mh6YTTcWV-vpKCirgS0&utm_campaign=LB811+Customer+Reviews+Solicitation&utm_medium=em_t&utm_source=Other&turntoflow=review" target="_blank">pair at Woman Within</a> that seemed acceptable. Not ideal, but acceptable. They weren't available in my exact size, but they were wearable; they weren't very warm, but with a thicker sock, they were tolerable; they didn't have much in the way of arch support, but I could add that with a suitable insert; and while they didn't look all that durable, they were cheap enough that I figured I could at least get my money's worth out of them. And they were actually kind of cool-looking—nice enough for both indoor and outdoor use and even reasonably appropriate for wearing with skirts. Of course, by the time they arrived, winter was nearly over, so they didn't get a lot of use before I put them away for spring. But it was nice to know that when colder weather came around again, I'd have suitable footwear ready to go and wouldn't have to subject myself to another frantic round of shoe shopping.</p><p>Fast forward to late October, when I decided it was cool enough outside to start wearing my new-ish boots again. All through the fall, I remained quite pleased with their looks and comfort...until the first wet day, when I discovered after about 20 minutes of walking in them that my right foot had become damp around the toes. I hadn't been stomping through puddles or anything, just walking outdoors in a light rain, and even that was enough to get my feet wet. In short, I now had not two but three pairs of leaky boots, including one that was practically brand new.<br /></p><p>So here it is, the start of another winter, and I'm right back to where I was a year ago. Once again, I'm facing the same old dilemma: what's the most ecofrugal way to get through this winter with dry feet? Is there any reasonable hope of repairing these boots, even if I was unable to repair either of their predecessor pairs? And if that doesn't work, where, oh where, can I find a replacement pair that meets my criteria?</p><p>However, I do have a couple of advantages that I didn't have last year. First of all, I'm armed with the knowledge of what didn't work last time around. I know not to bother trying to fix these boots with Shoe Goo or hot glue, as neither will hold up. I also know where <i>not </i>to look for replacements, as I've already tried a bunch of different styles that weren't suitable. For instance, I'm not going to waste time or money on any more Sperry boots, given that the last pair I bought wore through at the heel and began taking on water within a matter of weeks. (If only I'd seen this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3G1Pkbjt-U" target="_blank">YouTube video</a> deconstructing the boots before I bought them, I could have saved myself the hassle.) Nor am I going to bother with specialty vegan retailers from overseas, like Will's Vegan store, since last time I <a href="https://www.wills-vegan-store.com/collections/vegan-womens-sustainable-fashion/products/vegan-insulated-biker-boots-womens" target="_blank">hazarded $136</a> on a pair of their boots I ended up having to ship them all the way back to Britain.</p><p></p><p>Also, I've found some better sources of information this year about both boot repair and boot shopping. For starters, I found an article on how to <a href="https://www.gearaid.com/blogs/learn/repair-boot-shoe-sole-how-to" target="_blank">fix boots that leak at the seams</a> with a product called Aquaseal SR. A little research showed that this product <a href="https://footted.com/aquaseal-vs-shoe-goo/" target="_blank">has different ingredients</a> from Shoe Goo, and it appears to <a href="https://scducks.com/forum/showthread.php?179907-Aqua-seal-vs-Shoo-Goo" target="_blank">do a better job</a> with waterproofing, so there's hope that it may succeed where Shoe Goo failed. It's not available in any local stores, but I found a tube for $13 or so on eBay (shipping included). So I'll start by trying to repair my existing boots with that. If it works, I should be able to make it through the winter with them.<br /></p><p>If that doesn't work, I also have more possible places to look for replacement boots than I had last year. Thanks to my uncle's Hanukkah gift, a full-access subscription to the New York Times that includes their product-review site, Wirecutter, I was able to consult this roundup of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-winter-boots-for-men-and-women/">best winter boots</a> for recommendations. Most of their picks didn't fit my criteria in one way or another—either they contained leather or they were pull-on styles that would never fit onto my feet—but there was one "also consider" pair from Bogs that looked like it might do. (The pair they recommended is a pull-on boot, but there's a <a href="https://www.bogsfootwear.com/shop/style/73048-074.html?pt_asset=1WArcata" target="_blank">similar style</a> available that laces up and is leather-free.) It's rather pricey (around $150), but it has solid reviews and a one-year warranty, so I know it will at least get me through one winter, which is more than I can say for the $100 Sperry boots. Wirecutter also recommended a Columbia boot that's no longer available, but there are a <a href="https://www.zappos.com/columbia-heavenly-omni-heat" target="_blank">couple of similar styles</a> priced at $100 to $120 that get good reviews for warmth and waterproofing.</p><p>The YouTube video I linked to above—part of a series in which a guy cuts up four pairs of duck boots to assess their construction—also yielded some useful information. The best performers of the lot were the pricey <a href="https://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/513859?nav=CT0i513859-506708" target="_blank">L.L. Bean boots</a>, which don't meet my criteria because they have leather uppers. But the review also found that a truly crappy pair of $30 boots from Walmart performed almost as well as the the $100 Sperry boots. Both were terrible, but one was terrible for a much lower price. So if I just need a stopgap pair of boots to get me through the winter, a cheap pair from Walmart might not be such a terrible idea. Even if they fall apart after a few months like the Sperry boots, I won't have to feel as bad about it.<br /></p><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-23618163381021566242023-12-03T17:42:00.000-05:002023-12-03T17:42:31.592-05:00Are consumers really responsible for consumerism?<p>I recently read a hand-wringing story in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/28/too-much-stuff-can-we-solve-our-addiction-to-consumerism?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> about the problems of consumer culture. It starts by describing a visit the author, Chip Colwell, made to a huge landfill in Denver and his horror at seeing the literal mountains of trash created by "mass consumption." Feeling the need to do something about the problem, Colwell sat down with his family and worked out a plan for a "slow-buy year." During that year, each of them would purchase no more than five items beyond basic necessities (food, medicine, school and work supplies, and any parts needed for car repairs). They'd be allowed to accept gifts of material objects, though they were supposed to "discourage" others from giving them, but any gifts they bought for others would count toward their five-item limit.<br /></p><p>Now, I'm all for being mindful about consumption, but this struck me as unreasonably extreme. I've seen, and even taken, challenges along similar lines, but they were much more limited. For instance, the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-dress-retro-challenge.html" target="_blank">Dress Retro challenge</a> I'm taking this year requires me to purchase no more than three new garments—but that's only for clothing, and it doesn't include shoes, socks, underwear, or anything purchased secondhand. Under the rules of the Colwell family challenge, none of those exemptions would apply. </p><p>Moreover, it struck me as problematic that the Colwells were taking it on themselves to fix what is, fundamentally, a social problem. It's the same problem I had with the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-ecofrugal-challenge-im-not-taking.html" target="_blank">Take the Jump Challenge</a> and its requirement to give up personal vehicles: American society is designed around car use, and giving up my own car won't solve that problem. All it will do is make my own life considerably more difficult. And it's the same problem I had with the Climate Coach's advice to switch to <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-were-not-zero-waste-household.html" target="_blank">zero-waste personal care products</a>: the amount it would cost me to replace my conditioner, dental floss, and toothpaste with zero-waste versions is simply not a reasonable price to pay for the tiny amount of waste it would eliminate. Car dependency and plastic waste don't exist because of individual consumers making irresponsible choices: they exist because, for all practical purposes, we don't have any better choices. It's big business and big government that have shaped our society to look the way it does, and they're the ones who have the power and the responsibility to fix it.</p><p>Eventually, Colwell comes to the same conclusion. Six months into his family's yearlong experiment, when the project has been all but derailed by real life—a hole in his only pair of running shoes, a pen going through the laundry with most of his clothing, a new home—he feels a need for "bigger answers" that "don’t reframe just individual consumption, but how our larger world of consumerism operates." He speaks with scientists who point to the sheer scope of the waste problem (one estimates that there are around 250,000 tons of plastic) and say that addressing it is going to require fundamental changes in business and public policy. Even if Colwell's family produced no plastic waste whatsoever for an entire year, that would be a tiny drop in a very, very large bucket.<br /></p><p>This doesn't mean that it's pointless for us as individuals to be conscious about our consumption. Even if my personal choices don't have a huge impact, every little bit helps—and more to the point, it helps keep me sane. When I've been calling Congress month after month about climate legislation with no result, it's a nice change of pace to focus on the little things that are within my control, like buying stuff secondhand. But that doesn't mean that I should beat myself up every time I give in and buy something new from the store. My small decisions aren't going to save the planet, and they aren't going to destroy it either.</p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-46331528768031680492023-11-26T17:02:00.005-05:002023-11-26T17:02:38.495-05:00Recipe of the Month: Spicy Butternut Squash Ribbons<p>Back in July, I thought I might have hit on the <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/07/homemade-coffee-creamer-take-2.html" target="_blank">ideal vegan coffee creamer</a>: a blend of homemade oat milk and commercial soy milk from Lidl. But, sadly, after a few weeks of fiddling with the recipe, I couldn't come up with a version found as satisfying as the Silk Protein milk I'd been using. So, reluctantly, I went back to hitting the Stop & Shop every few weeks for a new container of Silk Protein. To get a little more value out of each trip, I'd also add a grab a copy of the store's free magazine, Savory, and flip through it looking for interesting recipes. But most of the time, I wouldn't find anything useful. </p><p>However, the latest issue of Savory yielded one recipe that looked intriguing: <a href="https://www.savoryonline.com/recipes/spicy-butternut-squash-ribbons-with-chickpea-crumbs/" target="_blank">Spicy Butternut Squash Ribbons with Chickpea Crumbs</a>. Mind you, we didn't exactly need a new butternut squash recipe, since our harvest this year has been pretty small (just six Waltham squash and three tiny Honeynuts). That's barely enough to do justice to all our favorite go-to squash dishes—soufflé, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2016/11/recipe-of-month-butternut-squash-pizza.html" target="_blank">pizza</a>, <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2013/11/gardeners-holidays-festival-of-butternut.html" target="_blank">lasagna</a>, and the newly veganized version of <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/09/recipe-of-month-vegan-butternut-squash.html" target="_blank">butternut squash pasta with brown butter</a>. But this one still looked worth trying because it was so different from those other recipes. It was a lighter, healthier dish containing almost nothing but veggies and fruit: ribbons of uncooked butternut squash topped with roasted chick peas and pomegranate seeds. We already had most of the ingredients on hand, and Brian was easily able to pick up the pomegranate and some cilantro at the Shop Rite on his bike.</p><p>The dish is pretty simple to put together. The most time-consuming part (and messy) part is extracting the seeds from the pomegranate. Slicing the butternut squash into long, thin strips also takes some time; it probably would have gone faster with our veggie spiralizer, but Brian decided to use a vegetable peeler since that's what the recipe called for. One of our smaller squash ended up yielding about enough ribbons for a half-batch of the dish. These got steeped for one hour in a marinade of olive oil, lime juice, garlic, chili pepper, and cilantro (which the recipe kept referring to as a "vinaigrette" even though it contained no actual vinegar). The one part of the recipe Brian didn't follow exactly was the instructions for the chick peas. It says to pulse them to "fine crumbs" in a food processor before roasting them, but he feared that would make too much of a mess, so he just mashed them up coarsely. They still got reasonably crisp with a 20-minute roasting, and he then sprinkled them on top of the squash ribbons along with the pomegranate seeds.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJinejJQPHWJMchWLTs-yrjoobxUFcL7Z8nbFxzSWoqO75JLTB3K0yhzgfFQ8oLuZzyryyFtCn-eIJx8dIZZcNOysFrfkYzsrzM5Y4_htEKkGYjClIi61czjYh-D10OwpBsEfCtxOzpQmakwj-iQsVjD1Edg_W3eokC5epVDrUz_Ng3qjgBTsw87GQxxhL/s640/butternutribbons2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJinejJQPHWJMchWLTs-yrjoobxUFcL7Z8nbFxzSWoqO75JLTB3K0yhzgfFQ8oLuZzyryyFtCn-eIJx8dIZZcNOysFrfkYzsrzM5Y4_htEKkGYjClIi61czjYh-D10OwpBsEfCtxOzpQmakwj-iQsVjD1Edg_W3eokC5epVDrUz_Ng3qjgBTsw87GQxxhL/w200-h150/butternutribbons2.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>The finished dish was certainly very pretty to look at, with the bright red seeds and speckles of green cilantro against the golden ribbons of squash. Taste-wise, though, it was less impressive. Although the raw squash strips were as thin as Brian could make them with the vegetable peeler, they still came out crunchy and not very sweet, not at all like cooked squash. (If the dish had been described as a salad, maybe we wouldn't have minded the crunchy texture, but on the other hand, maybe we wouldn't have chosen to make it at all.) With the garlic, lime, cilantro, and pomegranate, the dish certainly wasn't lacking in flavor, but it didn't have the flavor we expect from butternut squash.<p></p><p>On the whole, this recipe was interesting as an experiment, but not really worth using up any more of our few precious butternut squash on. The one part of the dish we might be interested in making again is the crispy chickpea crumbs, which have a nice texture and could be useful for adding a protein boost to salads or pasta dishes. But unless we get a real bumper crop of butternut squash in some future year, we'll probably
stick to our tried-and-tested favorites.</p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-17718634648027665442023-11-18T17:15:00.001-05:002023-11-18T17:18:29.589-05:00What is Circular Monday?<p>Some time ago, I visited a site called <a href="https://climatehero.me/" target="_blank">Climate Hero</a> to check my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2020/07/is-our-carbon-footprint-growing-or.html" target="_blank">carbon footprint</a>. (I like to check it on a variety of sites to see how they compare and get a wider range of suggestions for lowering it.) Ever since then, I've been getting occasional mailings from the site offering tips for cutting or offsetting my emissions. Most of these are stuff I already know, but this week I got an intriguing email telling me about something I'd never heard of before: <a href="https://www.circularmonday.com/?__s=k2ikkz2ukqdc0x30z11w" target="_blank">Circular Monday</a>.</p><p>Circular Monday, which is celebrated on the Monday before Thanksgiving, was conceived as an alternative to the consumer frenzy of <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2015/11/money-crashers-5-black-friday-shopping.html" target="_blank">Black Friday</a>. Apparently, it was originally called White Monday, but the name got changed to something that better reflects its purpose, which is to promote the circular economy. A quick primer for those not familiar with this term: A circular economy is one in which all products can be broken down into their original components for reuse or recycling. This is in contrast to our current linear economy, in which most products are created from raw natural resources, used once, and then discarded in a landfill. (You can see a simple diagram of this model on the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/what-is-the-circular-economy/" target="_blank">World Economic Forum</a> website, or a much more complex one on the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/circulareconomy/what-circular-economy" target="_blank">EPA site</a>.) </p><p>Now, this idea of a circular versus a linear economy isn't a simple matter of either-or. It's a question of degree. The more stuff gets reused, repaired, and recycled, the more circular the economy is; the more stuff gets extracted and discarded, the more linear it is. There's probably no such thing as a perfectly circular economy in which absolutely everything is reused; some things, like food or medicine, are always going to be used up. But the closer you can get to a true circle, the more you improve efficiency, reduce resource use, and limit pollution and waste. Examples of ways to make the economy more circular include:<br /></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Making and buying products built to last, such as a pair of boots that can be resoled, and then keeping them in use longer </li><li>A car-sharing or bike-sharing service that reduces the number of new cars or bikes being produced </li><li>Refilling containers, such as milk bottles or printer ink cartridges, instead of tossing used ones and producing new ones </li><li>Shopping at thrift stores and yard sales<br /></li><li>Giving away unwanted but still usable items on Freecycle</li><li>Upgrading your computer to keep it working longer so you don't need to buy a new one</li><li>Turning old clothes that absolutely can't be worn any longer into rags or putting them in a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2020/08/how-do-you-solve-problem-like-textiles.html" target="_blank">textile recycling</a> bin<br /></li></ul><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]-->Naturally, all this stuff is right up my ecofrugal alley, but I was a bit unclear on how I was supposed to set aside a particular day for it. It seems like you have to do these things whenever they happen to come up: refill your ink cartridges when they run dry, resole your shoes when the old soles wear out, donate your old clothes when you discover they no longer fit, turn socks into rags when the holes in them get too big to repair. The only thing you might be able to schedule on a particular day is a trip to the thrift shop, since you can always hunt for treasures even if there's nothing specific you need at the moment. But surely it would be easier to do that on a weekend than on the Monday of a busy holiday week.</p><p>I consulted the Circular Monday <a href="https://www.circularmonday.com/?__s=k2ikkz2ukqdc0x30z11w" target="_blank">website</a> and found that it's primarily a database of businesses that form part of the circular economy in one way or another. The list of U.S. businesses includes Back Market (a seller of refurbished electronics), eBay, Vinted (an online vintage clothing store), Turo (a car sharing marketplace), and Too Good to Go (a marketplace for businesses to dispose of surplus food). So it's really more Circular All Year Round than Circular Monday. However, on Circular Monday itself, most of these businesses have sales and promote them on social media with the #circularmonday hashtag. In this way, they call attention to the concept to help promote circular shopping all year round.</p><p>And this, apparently, is what Climate Hero was encouraging me to do next Monday: not necessarily to buy from these businesses right now, but to promote them by posting. "For instance," the email helpfully suggests, "you can inspire by sharing something you chose to buy circularly in the past year instead of new." Then add the appropriate tags for Climate Hero (@climatehero, #climatehero) and Circular Monday (@circularmonday, #circularmonday), and presto, you're part of the event.</p><p>Well, I've bought a lot of things secondhand in the past year, but I typically posted about them at the time. So rather than sharing new information, I'll just provide a quick recap of the posts I've done in the past year related to circular shopping:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/12/ecofrugal-gifting-games.html" target="_blank">Ecofrugal gifting games</a> (December 25) </li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-dress-retro-challenge.html" target="_blank">The Dress Retro challenge</a> (April 4) </li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/06/why-i-dont-buy-everything-used.html" target="_blank">Why I don't buy everything used</a> (June 5) </li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/08/good-hunting-at-goodwill.html" target="_blank">Good hunting at Goodwill</a> (August 20)</li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/09/an-ecofrugal-fashion-makeover.html" target="_blank">An ecofrugal fashion makeover</a> (September 10)</li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/10/why-were-not-zero-waste-household.html" target="_blank">Why we're not a zero-waste household</a> (October 8) <br /></li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/10/yard-sale-haul-2023.html" target="_blank">Yard-sale haul 2023</a> (October 15)</li><li><a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/11/ecofrugal-episodes.html" target="_blank">Ecofrugal episodes</a> (November 12)</li></ul><p>Here's hoping something on this list can provide a bit of ecofrugal inspiration for you.<br /></p><p></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6276531209730408101.post-61208105025762294642023-11-12T19:34:00.000-05:002023-11-12T19:34:33.960-05:00Ecofrugal episodes<p>The ecofrugal life, as I've observed before, is a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2022/10/small-victories-closing-clothing-cycle.html" target="_blank">series of little ups and downs</a>. This past week or so, we've had a series of small wins—including some that started out as losses—and one small win that turned into a loss, but can probably be reversed. Here's a play-by-play:<br /></p><p><b>Ecofrugal Episode 1: The Stealth Vampire</b></p><p>Remember how we got a <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-farewell-to-cfls.html" target="_blank">free home energy checkup</a> back in August that included a bunch of free LED light bulbs? Well, this ended up having an odd secondary effect—one that we didn't notice until the nights started getting longer.</p><p>Early one morning, while it was still dark, Brian got up to use the bathroom. On his way back to bed, he passed the spare bedroom and noticed something odd: the lamp in there, which was turned off at the wall switch, was ever so faintly glowing in the darkened room. When he went up to it and turned off the lamp's switch, the light went out. But when he turned it back on, the hint of light came back. (I couldn't get a picture of this phenomenon because the light was so faint, but imagine it as a vague, dim aura, just barely bright enough for the eye to detect.)<br /></p><p>We couldn't remember this lamp, or any other lamp ever plugged into that same outlet, ever doing this before. But up until recently, the light in that room has always been a fluorescent bulb, not an LED. So Brian's theory is that the wall switch is faulty, allowing just the faintest trickle of current through even when it's turned off—but in the past, that tiny bit of current wasn't enough to activate the bulb. Only now, with our new ultra-efficient LEDs, is it detectable. He tried plugging the lamp into our <a href="https://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1262654515&sr=8-1&th=1" target="_blank">Kill-a-Watt meter</a> to see how much current it was actually drawing, but once he did that, the faint light went out completely. Apparently that tiny bit of extra resistance was enough to block the current.<br /></p><p>So, this ecofrugal win (free LEDs) turned out to be a bit of a loss (a stealthy energy vampire). But it's not much of a loss, since these LEDs use only a tiny bit of electricity even when fully powered, and presumably an even tinier bit when they're only barely lit. And it should be easy enough to eliminate completely by replacing the light switch, a fix that will only cost a few bucks.<br /></p><p><b>Ecofrugal Episode 2: Vegan brown butter</b></p><p>Back in 2018, Brian and I discovered a really delicious recipe for <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2018/11/recipe-of-month-brown-butter-butternut.html" target="_blank">pasta with butternut squash and brown butter</a>. However, we have mostly gone off dairy at this point, and most plant butters (including our new <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/03/a-small-step-away-from-palm-oil.html" target="_blank">homemade plant butter</a>) don't brown. And it's the brown butter that really makes this dish special. Without it, it's just pasta with squash—reasonably tasty, but nothing to write home about.</p><p>But recently, I found a hack online for making <a href="https://avirtualvegan.com/vegan-brown-butter/#recipe" target="_blank">vegan brown butter</a>. The trick is to add a spoonful of nut butter, which provides the proteins and sugars needed for the browning reaction. It sounded worth a try, so we picked up a jar of almond butter at Costco, which we knew we could use up even if the recipe didn't work. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLE7xgqc-k5TXLskqfkvvp4VKwiKsH6Jqbda9UK0N1KPCNz-t1BkdUtBqUQXWmWHbAqxAnwA_NeXv6F_AeZ6aVd5GNeA2CwGUhDV6TuaRWgR67jcxhcM40LzsXzheCHt4bcPAlLlU-2AzMsEU-vRaUNNgvKuYlCDMglH3E84jxy_b80GkPcooHVoVzUfej" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhLE7xgqc-k5TXLskqfkvvp4VKwiKsH6Jqbda9UK0N1KPCNz-t1BkdUtBqUQXWmWHbAqxAnwA_NeXv6F_AeZ6aVd5GNeA2CwGUhDV6TuaRWgR67jcxhcM40LzsXzheCHt4bcPAlLlU-2AzMsEU-vRaUNNgvKuYlCDMglH3E84jxy_b80GkPcooHVoVzUfej=w200-h150" width="200" /></a></div>Integrating this vegan brown butter into the pasta recipe was a little tricky. The protocol is designed to make the brown butter by itself, but the pasta recipe browns the butter in the pan with the squash. Brian compromised by making the brown butter first, then adding it to the pan with the squash as it cooked. And it worked! The vegan version of the recipe had the same rich, complex flavor as the original. Take that, dairy industry! <br /><p></p><p><b>Ecofrugal Episode 3: Board-game bonanza</b><br /></p><p>This ecofrugal win started out with a loss: Brian's year-old boots, which he was expecting to last him through several winters, have developed a leak that Shoe Goo has proved unable to repair. (The Wolverine name is no guarantee of quality, apparently.) Initially, we thought the ecofrugal solution to this problem would be to buy him a really good pair of boots with Goodyear welt construction, which would allow them to be resoled. I did a little bit of research on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/goodyearwelt/comments/7qxy6p/the_2018_beginners_boot_buying_guide/" target="_blank">Reddit</a> and learned that for this kind of boot, you should expect to pay a minimum of $250. (There's one well-reviewed brand, <a href="https://thursdayboots.com/" target="_blank">Thursday Boots</a>, that starts at $200, but it's not available in stores; you can only order it online, which makes finding your perfect fit a real hassle.)</p><p>Now, for a pair of boots that will last ten years, this isn't such an unreasonable price. But after his experience with the Wolverines, Brian was feeling a bit distrustful of high-end brands. He thought that before shelling out for an expensive pair of new boots, we should at least make the rounds of local thrift stores and see what they had to offer.</p><p>What does this have to do with board games, you ask? Well, the first thrift store we visited was the one at our local Reformed Church, only a mile from our house. Their selection is quite small, but their prices are outstanding, so if we happened on a suitable pair here, we knew it would be a bargain. Unfortunately, we had no such luck; there were very few pairs of men's shoes on the rack, and none in Brian's size. But while we were there, we decided to check out the rack of board games in the back room, and there we hit the mother lode. </p><p>Someone had obviously just cleaned out their board game collection and donated the lot to the thrift store, because in amongst the usual motley assortment of old Scrabble and Monopoly sets, we found several like-new games. Three of them, in fact, were still in their original shrink wrap; two others were open but obviously hadn't been played much. I don't want to disclose exactly what we got for fear of holiday spoilers, but we scored five new, interesting-looking games (two that we'd played before and three that were new to us), for only five bucks. So even though we didn't find what we were looking for, it was well worth the trip.<br /></p><p><b>Ecofrugal Episode 4: Boots made for walking </b></p><p>Exciting as this thrift-store adventure was, it still left Brian without footwear. So, in the afternoon, we set out in the car to check out the Goodwill store in Bound Brook (the same one we <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/08/good-hunting-at-goodwill.html" target="_blank">visited for our anniversary</a>). And there, Brian found not one but two pairs of boots that fit him reasonably well: a pair of Timberland hiking boots and a dressier leather pair originally from Banana Republic. Both were in excellent condition, and each was priced at a mere $20.<br /></p><p>Each of these pairs had its own pros and cons. Brian slightly preferred the look of the Banana boots, but the way they were constructed made them a bit of a hassle to get on and off. The Timberlands were more convenient, but definitely casual in appareance, which meant he probably couldn't wear them for any kind of slightly formal occasion. When I asked him which pair felt more like the boots he'd want to reach for every day, he said the Timberlands were probably better, but he didn't seem happy about it. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYIah-QhjeblUgTaJ9Zl9tXtJxh00y6brYopNbyiX3u8Xbg-C2pm3THEArVUPyoUSOyDfoBBDdp55VA-6TMdV6E2KzJA2GsyQvBP-Txr_gNX0dQGAnv-6vcoOPmDpIDfoGSlGjbPwSJk05JrwozdRR8BeFXlOSrUDX5QV4jjiGl5dvBRqXPa3-SvGV-rOR/s640/newboots.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYIah-QhjeblUgTaJ9Zl9tXtJxh00y6brYopNbyiX3u8Xbg-C2pm3THEArVUPyoUSOyDfoBBDdp55VA-6TMdV6E2KzJA2GsyQvBP-Txr_gNX0dQGAnv-6vcoOPmDpIDfoGSlGjbPwSJk05JrwozdRR8BeFXlOSrUDX5QV4jjiGl5dvBRqXPa3-SvGV-rOR/w200-h150/newboots.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>At that point, I proposed the solution he'd secretly been hoping for: just buy them both. That way, he could use the hiking boots as a casual, everyday shoe, and the Banana ones could be his dress boots. And at only $20 a pop, the two pairs together would cost less than half what he'd paid for his current pair of Wolverines that had let him down so dreadfully.<br /><p></p><p>When we got these home, I did a little searching online to figure out just how good a deal we'd gotten. I found that a <a href="https://www.timberland.com/en-us/p/men/footwear-10039/mens-mt-maddsen-waterproof-mid-hiking-boot-TB02730R242" target="_blank">comparable pair of Timberlands</a> would cost around $120 at full price, while <a href="https://bananarepublic.gap.com/browse/product.do?pid=731961002&cid=1184286&pcid=1032801&vid=1&nav=meganav%3AMen%3Ashoes%20%26%20accessories%3AShoes#pdp-page-content" target="_blank">similar boots from Banana Republic</a> would run around $250. In short, we just acquired $370 worth of footwear for a mere $40—about 11% of retail.</p><p>Sadly, with my <a href="https://ecofrugality.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-bootless-effort-or-shoe-conundrum.html" target="_blank">weird feet</a>, I'd never be able to pull off this kind of ecofrugal shoe coup myself. But I can at least bask in the reflected glory of Brian's success. And if we end up having to blow a couple of hundred bucks on my next pair of winter boots, the $200 or so we didn't spend on boots for Brian will balance it out.<br /></p>Amy Livingstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16362533758291353748noreply@blogger.com0