Frugalversary 2024: We'll take Manhattan

Most years, Brian and I celebrate our anniversary in a modest style. For the first few years of our marriage, I'd put on the bodice from my wedding dress, we'd buy a little 4-inch version of our wedding cake, and then we'd go to the park where we got married to eat it. When the bakery stopped carrying small cakes, we started going to Princeton instead and visiting the bakery cafe to order a slice of the same cake. And when the cafe shut down during the pandemic, Brian started baking the cake himself. Our gifts to each other were either small tokens (like the game I made for Brian and the aluminum-foil flower he made for me on our tenth anniversary) or practical items (like the cherry tree we planted for our fourth anniversary, which sadly didn't survive, or the glass-and-silicone lids I got Brian for some of our Pyrex containers on our fifteenth). The biggest celebration we ever had was going shopping at IKEA and having lunch in the cafe.

But this year, for our twentieth anniversary, we decided to splash out a little. We've discovered that one activity we really enjoy is going to a town where we haven't spent a lot of time before and just exploring, wandering up streets and into shops looking at whatever takes our fancy. So, for our anniversary, we decided to carry out this activity on a grander scale by visiting the biggest town on the whole East Coast: New York City.

Although this trip was bound to be much costlier than our usual anniversary outings, we tried not to go overboard. We made no attempt to get tickets to a show, which could easily have cost more than we'd spent on all our previous 19 anniversaries put together. We didn't even plan a visit to a museum, not even the intriguingly named Museum of Illusions or Museum of Sex, which would have cost over $70 for two tickets. Instead, we looked for things we could do at little to no cost within walking distance of Penn Station, thus avoiding any need to find our way around on the subway. 

Our first stop (well, second, after the rest rooms at the station) was 9th and 31st, where an article from Beloved City had promised we could find a "magical art installation" called Citrovia. But as it turned out, this article was several years old, so the exhibit was no longer there. Fortunately, we hadn't gone very far out of our way, so we just continued on to the next site on our list: the High Line, a park built on a disused set of former elevated train tracks. It's only about 1.5 miles long, but it has lots to see, including a variety of native plants, some funky art exhibits, and an above-the-fray view of the city. 

We also got a look at the neighboring Hudson Yards, which is both a resting spot for the city's trains and an open-air food court. We weren't quite ready for lunch at that point, but we did get a peek at a huge public sculpture in that area called "The Vessel": a series of staircases and landings visitors can explore. The ground-floor level is normally open to the public for free, but it was closed for construction, so we had to content ourselves with snapping a photo or two from outside.

Being thwarted by construction continued to be a theme of the trip as morning wore into afternoon. We'd planned to exit the High Line at 16th Avenue and then descend to street level to go visit Chelsea Market, a sort of Bohemian shopping mall with lots of eateries, but the section of the park between 23rd and 16th was closed for maintenance. So we got off at 23rd and wended our way through the streets to Chelsea Market in the wake of a large crowd of students all wearing yellow backpacks with "MLA" on them. (My first thought was "Modern Language Association?", but a quick search showed it referred to Moving Language Ahead, an English course for foreign students that culminates with a trip to an English-speaking country.)

For lunch, we chose a place called Berlin Currywurst, which offered an intriguing-sounding tofu kielbasa. Sadly, the sausage itself was disappointing, a bit mushy and lacking the garlic punch I expect from a proper kielbasa sausage. Also, the bun it was served on (along with some unremarkable sauerkraut) disintegrated about three-quarters of the way through, and Brian's more traditional meat bratwurst sandwich didn't fare any better. So, 6 out of 10 for the sausages, but 10 out of 10 for the accompanying French fries, which had a crisp, golden exterior over tender insides. The only fault I could find with them was that they were perhaps a trifle over-salted, but Brian thought they were just right. 

We ate our sausages at a small table, shoulder to shoulder with several Italian students, then spent some time exploring the rest of the shops. We ventured into a fancy bakery, an artists' market, a vintage candy store, a place called Imports from Marrakesh featuring an intriguing assortment of clothing and decor, a quaint delicatessen, and finally a genuine independent bookstore called Posman Books. We browsed through the volumes and found nothing irresistible, but I did drop $5 on a little LED flashlight for my key ring. I'd been looking for something like this anyway, so I took the opportunity to support an independent bookseller and pick up a little souvenir of our trip at the same time.

After reascending to the High Line and continuing down it to the end, we wove through the streets and crossed the bridge to Little Island, an artificial island built out in the Hudson. It's mostly used in the evenings as a live music venue, but it was a fairly interesting place to walk or, more accurately, climb along sloping paths and natural stone staircases. After rambling up and down in the midday heat, we were feeling a little tired, so we stopped into Pier 57—another large, upscale food court—to have a cup of coffee and spend some time in the air conditioning.

Refreshed by our rest, we sallied back out and made our way to the garment district, where we strolled up 7th Avenue peeping into shop windows. I slipped into one store just long enough to check the price of a dress I'd seen in the window, which I'd guessed would be too rich for my blood at $278. Apparently I'd failed to account for the Manhattan conversion rate, because the actual price tag read $795, causing me to back carefully out the door and flee before a salesperson could spot me. 

The only store we actually explored in detail was the always entertaining Williams-Sonoma, home of pricey kitchen gear. (An amusing and very New York sales clerk at this particular branch described it as a "toy store for adults.") None of the on-sale items appealed to us, but Brian found one thing he thought he could use: a candy thermometer to replace the wildly inaccurate one we have now. Unfortunately, it was a $65 model equipped with Bluetooth, a feature for which we'd have no use whatsoever. So instead, I bought him a more reasonable $29 instant-read thermometer, suitable for a variety of applications, as my anniversary gift to him. (He's already used it once to test the temperature of an ice cream base he's preparing in our new-to-us ice cream maker.)

As the clock ticked past 5pm, we had to decide whether to stay in the city for dinner or head home. Deciding that we didn't want to wait that long to eat, we settled for a quick bite at New York Pizza Suprema right near the train station. Beloved City had described this as the best slice of pizza in New York, but I strongly suspect this isn't true; both the fresh mushroom and the vegan margherita were pretty good, but neither was superior to Brian's homemade pizza. (The crust was nicely crisp on the edges, but a bit soggy in the middle, and the cheese on the vegan slice had an odd, liquid texture, not nearly as good as our homemade vegan mozzarella.) Still, it was unquestionably an authentic New York experience, and at $12.50 for both slices, undoubtedly the cheapest meal we could have expected to enjoy in the city. After this light supper, we roamed just a few blocks farther north before heading back to the station and home again for cake.

Although we hadn't officially made a budget for this trip, my private goal was to keep the entire excursion under $200: $10 for each year of our marriage. As it turned out, we met this target with plenty of room to spare. Our expenses were:

• Two round-trip fares on NJ Transit: $64.40
• Lunch at Berlin Currywurst, including tip: $31.30
• Mini flashlight from Posman Books: $5.44
• Tip for a busker playing the erhu on the High Line: $2
• Coffee at Pier 57, including tip: $6
• Thermometer from Williams-Sonoma: $29.34
• Dinner at NY Pizza Suprema: $12.50
• Parking in New Brunswick, which saved us a long walk at the end of a busy day: $16.00
• TOTAL: $166.98

Even if you add in the $21.27 Brian spent on my anniversary gift (an amusing board game called Cat Lady) and the groceries we bought for our anniversary cake, our celebration still easily rings in at under $200. It's more than we'd usually spend for a one-day outing, but when you consider that Arthur Frommer's 1957 feat of seeing Europe on $5 a day would cost at least $125 today—or $250 for two people—New York on $167 a day doesn't sound so bad.

Thrift Week 2024, Day 5: A $30 lock on a $15 bike

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 nice, new bicycle 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. 

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.

Well, after that, we weren't about to spend a lot of money on another 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 back room.)

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. 

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 67 cents per mile. 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.

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 fuel economy calculator, 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.

What's the most ecofrugal car?

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I didn't post anything last weekend. That's because we were away visiting some friends down in the D.C. area. Like us, these folks are eco-conscious, and in two major ways, they're ahead of us on the green scale: their house has solar panels, and they drive a plug-in hybrid car. Brian and I have already determined that solar panels aren't really an option for us, and we've now subscribed to a community solar project instead. But on the way home, we got into a discussion of whether we could be driving something more ecofrugal than our small, fairly fuel-efficient Honda Fit. If we had to replace the Fit this year, we wondered, what would we get instead?

Last time we had to make this decision, back around the beginning of 2011, we decided a hybrid car wasn't worth the added cost. It was much more cost-effective to buy an inexpensive, fuel-efficient gas-powered car and pay a little extra for carbon offsets. But since then, the math has changed. Electric vehicles, both battery-powered and plug-in, have grown steadily cheaper, and experts are predicting that they could reach price parity with gasoline vehicles as early as this year. And electric cars were already cheaper than gas vehicles to fuel and maintain. So, in theory, the most ecofrugal ride would be a small car like our Fit, but one that we can plug in to power it.

But in practice, it's not that simple. Because while electric cars are getting cheaper and more prevalent, most of the choices are battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Buy one of these, and you're limited by its driving range. The EV charging network is much bigger than it used to be, but charging stations—especially the ultrafast kind that can power a car in "as little as 30 minutes"—are still nowhere near as easy to find as gas stations. And even if you can find one of these fast chargers, half an hour to refuel is much slower than filling up the tank with gas.

True, today's BEVs have much longer ranges than before, but it's still not always possible to avoid charging up while on the road. Even the longest-range BEV, the $87,000 Lucid Air, can't go more than 520 miles on a charge—not enough to get us all the way to Indianapolis. More affordable options, like the Chevy Bolt or the Nissan Leaf, can go between 200 and 250 miles, which would require us to recharge at least two or three times en route to Indy at a minimum of half an hour per stop. A shorter trip, like the one we made last weekend, might be possible on a single charge, provided we could plug the car in at our destination. But we probably wouldn't want to count on it.

So, if our Fit were to die tomorrow, there's no BEV that could replace it for all our driving. Our best choice would be a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV), which would allow us to do most of our driving on battery power alone and have the gas tank as a backup for longer trips. What we'd really love is a PHEV version of our current car, the Fit—a hatchback with folding seats that combines fuel efficiency with ample storage space. But unfortunately, no such car exists. (Non-plug-in hybrid versions of the Fit are available in some parts of the world, but not only does Honda not offer them in the US, it no longer offers the gasoline version either.) 

In fact, there's no PHEV on the market that's even remotely similar to the Fit. When you search for "PHEV hatchback," the only model you find is the Hyundai Ioniq, which is no longer available; Hyundai now makes the all-electric version only. Lists of the top PHEVs at sites like Edmunds and US News are dominated by SUVs and luxury cars, with only one non-luxury sedan (the Prius Prime) making the cut. The closest thing to our Fit would be a smallish "crossover" SUV like the Kia Niro, but it's still an SUV, and we hate SUVs. Even an electric SUV that doesn't guzzle gas is still big, heavy, clumsy, hard to park, and dangerous to everyone else on the road. We just aren't SUV people, and we never will be.

After discussing this dilemma a bit, Brian proposed another solution: We could get a BEV as our main car and keep the Fit as a backup. The vast majority of all trips we make are well within the range of the Bolt or the Leaf, so we'd only need the Fit for long drives. But there are obvious downsides to this plan as well. Although our driveway is technically big enough for two cars, it's a tight fit, and keeping two cars parked there all year round would leave us with no place to dump the snow after a big snowfall. (Not that we've had any of those this winter, but we can't assume it's ceased to be a problem.) And even if we weren't driving it often, the Fit would still need insurance and at least some maintenance every year. So owning two cars would definitely be more expensive than owning just one, even a more expensive one.

Perhaps a better option would be to buy a BEV and plan to rent a car for long trips. Renting a car for just a few trips every year would be a bit of a hassle, but almost certainly cheaper than maintaining and insuring a second car year round. And we might not have to keep doing it indefinitely, since the charging network could eventually get good enough to make taking the BEV all the way to Indy a reasonable option. Our biggest concern is that this may not happen by the time gas-powered cars are phased out completely. Then it will be impractical to drive across the country with our BEV and impossible to rent a gas-powered car for the purpose. Under those circumstances, our only choices will be to fly out to Indy for the holidays—which has a much bigger carbon footprint than driving a fuel-efficient car with two people in it—or make the drive significantly longer than it is now, possibly spanning multiple days. Or, I guess, stay home.

Of the electric options available now, this BEV-plus-rental setup is probably the best. But for us, it seems like the best approach of all is to keep our little Fit running as long as possible. Then we can hope that, by the time we're finally ready to replace it, there will be more options that actually work for us: either PHEVs that fit our preferences or EVs and chargers that can reasonably take us 700 miles in one day. Our failure to jump on the EV bandwagon right now may damage our green cred, but it gives us the best chance of making the switch in a way that will work for us long-term. And you can buy an awful lot of carbon offsets for the price of an EV you're not really happy with.

Thrift Week (in one day) 2023: Stuff Green People Hate

If you've been reading my blog for several years, you may have noticed that I did not run my usual Thrift Week series this past week, as I have done every January since 2010. And you might reasonably have suspected that after 13 years, I had simply run out of good ideas for a whole week's worth of related posts. But actually, that wasn't the problem; I still had several possibilities in the pipeline that could have worked. The fact is that last Tuesday, when my birthday (which is also Ben Franklin's birthday and thus the official start of Thrift Week) rolled around, I happened to be busy with other stuff, and I just forgot.

Having remembered about this just now, on what would normally be the last day of Thrift Week, it seems a bit silly to start a weeklong series at this point. So, for this year only, I'm going to compromise by condensing a whole Thrift Week into a single post. Instead of seven short-to-medium posts on a single ecofrugal topic, you'll get one long post covering all seven ideas in list form. And the topic I've chosen for this Thrift Week blitz is: The Seven Least Ecofrugal Things You Can Buy. (It's sort of the anti-ecofrugal counterpart to my Stuff Green People Like series.)

When I first jotted down this idea, I planned to lead off the series with a Keurig coffee maker. This seemed like the perfect example of an anti-ecofrugal product, since it's both expensive and wasteful. The machines themselves start at $80, while a drip or French press coffeemaker can cost less than $20. Then there's the cost of the K-cups: $19.99 for 22 K-cups of Starbucks Breakfast Blend coffee, or 91 cents per cup. Compare that with the cost of the same coffee in whole bean form at Walmart: $13.24 for 18 ounces, which works out to 25 cents per cup assuming 47 cups per pound. On top of that, the K-cups are neither recyclable nor compostable, while the leftover grounds and filter from a press or drip machine (or my trusty Aeropress) can go straight into the compost bin. And they don't even make good coffee.

But this week's Washington Post presented an article on the topic that contradicted this view. As I noted last week, you probably can't read the article if you're not a subscriber, but the headline sums it up: "Single-use coffee pods have surprising environmental benefits over other brewing methods." It points to an environmental analysis published in The Conversation (which you can read with no paywall) that compared the carbon footprints of different brewing methods and found that the biggest factors are the coffee itself and the energy used to heat the water. The least wasteful method, assuming you use the recommended amounts of both, is instant coffee (though taste-wise it has even less to recommend it than the pods). But the much-maligned pod machine actually comes in second, since it limits the amount of coffee and water used per cup. The most wasteful method is the standard drip machine, which both uses the most ground coffee per cup and uses extra electricity to keep the pot warm. (The analysis didn't cover the Aeropress, but it did list the amount of coffee used in each method: 25 grams per cup for drip, 17 grams for a French press, 14 for a pod machine like the Keurig, and 12 for instant. I just now measured the amount I use in my Aeropress and it was 15 grams, so I'm doing about as well as a Keurig without all the plastic waste.)

This just goes to show that figuring out a product's ecological footprint can sometimes be a tricky business. So for my Least Ecofrugal list, I'm going to stick strictly to things that are so clearly wasteful (of money and everything else) that there's no realistic chance some smart bunch of scientists is going to come along and prove otherwise. And by that strict standard, my seven choices are:

1. A high-end sports car. I was originally going to say an SUV, since these vehicles are not only gas-guzzlers but are also more expensive to own than most other vehicles. But I have to concede that the data shows they are indeed safer for drivers (though they make the road less safe for everyone else). Sports cars don't offer even that benefit. 

In a 2019 Insider article on the nine most expensive vehicles to own, five of the nine were sports models. And on a 2021 list of the least fuel-efficient cars you can buy, sports cars also dominate. Some models are more efficient than others, but unless you're going for an all-electric (and really expensive) Tesla, they're never going to compete with a fuel-efficient sedan.

2. A boat. Everything that's wasteful about cars goes double for boats. I'm not talking about a little canoe here, obviously, but a big boat that costs money to fuel, maintain, dock, and insure. A longstanding joke among the yacht set is that owning a yacht is like standing in a cold shower tearing up hundred-dollar bills.

How many hundreds are we talking here? Well, according to Deep Sailing, the cost of boat ownership can be anywhere from $450 for a speedboat to $250,000 for a big yacht—per month. However, Watercraft 101 puts the cost much lower, saying that a boat that costs $20,000 to buy up-front will probably cost less than $3,000 per year to own. And Born Again Boating splits the difference, saying that a 23-foot boat will cost around $30,000 in its first year and $15,000 per year after that. The cost seems to depend a lot on what kind of boat it is and how it's financed. 

But here's the thing: unless you fish or run a ferry for a living, you don't actually need to own a boat at all. Unlike a car, a boat is used mainly for recreation, not transportation. So both the cost of ownership and the environmental cost of the boat's emissions are entirely unnecessary.

3. Cigarettes. This one's a no-brainer. At an average cost of $8 per pack, a pack-a-day smoker would spend over $2,900 per year on cigarettes alone. But that cost is just the tip of the iceberg. Smokers also pay significantly more for health care, health insurance, and home insurance, and they're less productive at work, reducing their ability to earn. According to a WalletHub study, the lifetime cost of being a smoker can be anywhere from $2.2 to $4.1 million. And from an environmental standpoint, tobacco not only pollutes the air that nonsmokers have to breathe, it's also responsible for habitat loss; soil degradation; pesticide pollution; deforestation; significant costs in water, energy, and transportation; and, of course, discarded cigarette butts all over the place.

4. Diamonds. You know who came up with the "rule" that a diamond engagement ring should cost two months' salary for the groom? Big surprise: it was the DeBeers diamond cartel, which has kept the price of diamonds artificially high for decades by deliberately restricting supply. One hundred years ago, most engagement rings didn't have diamonds in them at all. Then DeBeers launched a successful campaign to convince husbands-to-be that the only proper ring was a diamond, and moreover, a diamond costing a month's salary. This was such a success that DeBeers later bumped the figure up to two months' salary in the U.S. and three months' salary in Japan.

By 2021, according to The Knot, the average cost of an engagement ring in the U.S. had reached $6,000. (Granted, this figure may be skewed upward based on the magazine's readership.) And what do you get for that $6,000? Not an investment that produces any sort of return. Not an asset that you can sell for a profit, since the recipient is obviously expected to keep the ring as long as the marriage lasts. And definitely not a happier marriage, since a 2014 Emory University study found that the couples who spent most on their rings (between $2,000 and $4,000 in 2014 dollars) had a 30 percent higher risk of divorce than those who chose more affordable rings ($500 to $2,000). 

A big diamond ring is a pretty ornament and a status symbol, but it provides no tangible benefits whatsoever. And given all the environmental and human rights abuses associated with diamond mining, you're probably doing both the earth and your wallet a favor by choosing an old-fashioned ring with a different type of stone—or a modern one with a lab-created diamond. Or, if you're willing to break with this not-so-old tradition, doing what we did and skipping the engagement ring entirely.

5. An expensive wedding. You know what else that Emory study found increased the risk of divorce? Expensive weddings. Couples who spent between $10,000 and $20,000 on their weddings were 29 percent likelier to end up divorced than those who spent between $5,000 and $10,000; couples who spent over $20,000 increased their divorce rates by a whopping 46 percent. By contrast, couples who spent less than $5,000 (like us) actually reduced their risk. Couples who spent even less than we did—$1,000 or less—cut their divorce rate nearly in half. (Having a big wedding, with lots of guests, did not pose the same dangers: the couples with the most wedding guests actually had a lower risk of divorce than those with the fewest. Apparently, the real mistake is spending a lot of money on each guest.)

A frugal wedding like ours also eliminates many of the environmental costs associated with traditional weddings: elaborate invitations, single-use decorations, pesticide-laden cut flowers, gas-guzzling limos, and even one-use-only wedding attire. We didn't have any of that stuff, and we're still together after 18 years, so it clearly didn't hurt us any.

6. Marble countertops. I've complained before about the ubiquity and price of granite countertops, but marble is even worse. It's even more expensive than granite, at $15 to $190 per square foot, and even harder to care for. Since it's porous, you have to not only seal it but also use special, non-abrasive cleaners to avoid scratching it. It's also vulnerable to chipping and etching from acid. And it has all the same environmental problems from quarrying and transporting the heavy stone that granite does.

7. The latest smartphone. After many years of not owning a smartphone at all, I've finally come to accept that the benefits of these little gadgets outweigh their drawbacks. But there's a big difference between owning a smartphone and buying a new top-of-the-line phone every year. 

The financial costs are obvious. The latest, greatest iPhone has a starting price of $1,100; the latest Samsung Galaxy model costs $1,200. You could get around half of that price back by trading in last year's model, but you're still paying over $500 per year for new phones (not even counting the cost of the service). By contrast, my first smartphone, a bottom-of-the-line Motorola, cost $130, and I'd still be using it now if it hadn't developed a problem that I was unable to fix. 

But worse still is the environmental toll. Producing all those new phones requires a lot of rare materials like lithium, cobalt, and gold. Mining these materials is environmentally destructive, and disposing of them is hazardous. And while old smartphones can be reused and recycled, many users simply discard them when they upgrade.

It's clearly better for the environment to buy a decent phone, hang onto it as long as possible, and make sure it gets recycled when it finally becomes unusable. And it will clearly save you a bundle, too.

***

So there you have it: my selections for the seven least ecofrugal consumer purchases. If you think any of my choices are unreasonable, or if you think there's something even worse that I left off the list, let me know in the comments.

That's it until next Thrift Week, when I promise to be a little more on the ball about starting on the 17th. (This time, I'll get Google to remind me about it ahead of time.)

How weird are we?

I originally intended for this week's post to be about some more possible climate solutions that I've heard about in the past few weeks. (No doubt I'll cover these eventually, but just as a teaser, they include artificial trees that absorb carbon, small-scale nuclear reactors, carbon-negative concrete, advances in solar panel and wind turbine blade recycling, new battery technologies, and ultrawhite paint that makes surfaces absorb much less heat.) But yesterday morning, as I was hanging out the laundry, it occurred to me that there was another topic I'd rather discuss: Just how weird are we?

I don't know if ours is the only house on our block that has a clothesline in the back yard, but as far as I've ever been able to tell, we're the only people who actually use one. So for over ten years, our neighbors have been watching me hang our laundry on the line and have, quite possibly, been wondering why these weirdos take the time to hang their clothes when they could, duh, use this amazing modern device called a dryer that can get them dry in a fraction of the time, with much less work. And on top of that, if they're observant, they may have been wondering as well about some of the specific items in our wash that can be observed fluttering from the line. Handkerchiefs? Who in the world still uses cloth handkerchiefs when we have disposable tissues now? And rags? Bits of old socks and T-shirts that are clearly no longer wearable garments, yet these weirdos for some reason not only hang on to them, but apparently take the trouble to keep washing them over and over? What's up with that?

Thoughts like these have run through my mind on laundry day before, but this time they particularly resonated because of an article I'd been reading just before going out to hang the wash. It was a piece in the New York Times about how Uruguay is managing, practically alone among the nations of the world, to combine prosperity with sustainability. (Their population is overwhelmingly urban, and their electricity is 98 percent renewable.) It's an interesting read, but one thing that really stuck with me is the way the author opened the piece. As a contrast to what life is like in Uruguay, he outlines the lifestyle of a "typical American household," which according to him includes:

• A house of around 2,200 square feet
• Yearly energy use of 11,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 37,000 cubic feet of natural gas
• Six or seven plane flights every year
• Two cars, at least one of them an SUV
• At least one child
  
• A total of 25,000 miles of driving each year ("most of which you barely register anymore, as you listen to Joe Rogan or Bad Bunny")
• A couple of trips to Target each month for "six or seven things: double-sided tape, an extra toothbrush, an inflatable mattress"
• A carbon footprint of 25 tons per person
  

As I read those paragraphs, my jaw was, if not literally hanging open, certainly feeling a bit wobbly. I knew our ecofrugal household was a bit atypical, but are we really that far out of the mainstream of American life?

Our house is, in theory, a three-bedroom measuring just 936 square feet, although the finished basement expands the usable living space to more like 1,400 or 1,500 square feet. Our yearly energy use is 2,113 kilowatt-hours of electricity (all from renewable sources) and about 404 therms of natural gas. (That apparently works out to 40,390 cubic feet, so we're actually a little above average there.) The last time I went anywhere on a plane was for my grandmother's funeral 11 years ago. We have one car, which we drive about 11,000 miles per year (and we've never listened to either Joe Rogan or Bad Bunny, ever). We do go to Target occasionally, but more like a few times a year than a couple of times a month. And while estimates of our household carbon footprint vary widely, they're all between 4.5 and 12 tons per person per year — nowhere close to 25.

So, if the Times article is right about what a "typical" American lifestyle looks like, then we are indeed pretty far out of the mainstream. But is it? The author doesn't cite any sources for any of the statistics in his opening paragraphs, so can we be sure they're right?

Digging around on my own, I found that the true picture is a little more complicated than the author's figures suggest. Take housing, for instance. The article says says a typical American family has a 2,200-square-foot house in a "middle-class suburb." And Census data confirms that the average new, single-family house built in 2021 measured 2,273 square feet. But there's a problem with this statistic — two problems, in fact. First of all, not all homes are single-family houses, and second, not all homes are newly built. And anyone who lives in an apartment, or a townhome, or an older house like ours, almost certainly has less than 2,273 square feet of space.

For more accurate figures, I went to the 2021 American Housing Survey and ran a search based on square footage. And after a few minutes with a calculator, I worked out that the average reported home size (at least among households that did report it) was around 1,440 square feet. Pretty close, in fact, to the size of ours with the basement included. So as far as housing goes, we're not actually out of the mainstream at all.

Now, not all the statistics were this far off base. For instance, the Energy Information Administration says average household electricity consumption in 2020 was 10,715 kWh, close enough to 11,000 for government work. The average number of cars per U.S. household, according to Statista, is 1.88, which rounds off to two. And SUVs and other trucks do indeed account for most new car sales.

But some of the other figures were pretty farfetched. Gallup says that in 2021, 62% of Americans did not travel by air at all, and 23% made only one or two trips. (These numbers were a little lower than they had been before the pandemic, but even when Gallup asked the same question in 2015, only 10% of Americans said they had flown five or more times in the past year.) A majority of US households have no children living at home. And the average U.S. driver put 12,724 miles on their car in 2020 (down from 14,263 in 2019, but that's still far less than 25,000). So on balance, it seems like our ecofrugal lifestyle is actually closer to the norm than the "typical" American lifestyle described in the Times article.

As for line-drying laundry, it was hard to find statistics on that. The best bit of data I could find was from a 2009 Pew poll, which found that roughly two-thirds of Americans consider a clothes dryer a necessity. That puts us line-dryers in the minority, certainly, but not such a small minority as all that. Using handkerchiefs appears to be a bit farther out of the mainstream; based on this Reddit thread, the general consensus seems to be that they're gross and unhygienic (though based on my prior research, paper tissues aren't really any better). But hankies do still have their staunch defenders. And as for the use of cloth rags in place of paper towels, an informal survey by Family Handyman found that respondents actually prefer cloth dish towels by nearly two to one.

The bottom line? Being ecofrugal may be a little bit weird in 21st-century USA, but it's not that weird. And if Forbes and the Good News Network are to be believed, it's getting more normal all the time.

Now, if you'll excuse me, a bunch of those socks I just washed yesterday need darning.

The ecofrugal challenge I'm not taking

As regular readers know, I love a good challenge. I don't mean just something that's difficult to do, but a Challenge, something you basically dare yourself to do for a week or a month or whatever. In the 12-plus years I've been writing this blog, I've challenged myself to follow WWII rationing rules, eat on a food-stamp budget, and live on the minimum wage. I completed roughly the first half of the 52-week savings challenge before realizing that most of the weekly challenges weren't saving us any money, and that I had better things to write about. I've designed my own challenges as well, including two local shopping challenges (finding a new outfit locally and finding a different bargain in town every day) and decorating an entire apartment with a $1,000 budget at IKEA.

So in theory, the Take The JUMP challenge should be right up my alley. Because this challenge is all about ecofrugality: "Less Stuff, More Joy." It comprises a set of six specific steps you can take to "protect our earth and live with joy" — exactly what I've always said ecofrugality is all about. You can challenge yourself to take these steps for 1, 3, or 6 months. 

The six steps are:

1. End Clutter: Keep electronic products for at least seven years. Actually, the description on this one is a bit inconsistent; it says seven years in the headline, but within the text it says to "keep electronic products for 5-7 years - their full optimum lifetime." And in the video, it says, to keep them until they are "past repair, and aim to keep all electronics for at least seven years."
2. Travel Fresh: Get rid of private vehicles. Entirely. Simply switching to an electric vehicle isn't enough, the authors argue, because a big part of their carbon footprint comes from their manufacture, and because even EVs contribute to congestion and "cause pollution from tyres and brakes." (As you can see from the spelling of "tires," this challenge originates in the UK.)
   
3. Eat Green: Move to a plant-based diet. Eat everything you buy. Eat healthy portions. The full description of this one concedes that not everyone is willing to go full vegan, and that replacing "most" of the meat and dairy you consume is good enough.
   
4. Dress Retro: Only buy three items of clothing a year. Once again, the full description clarifies that this is not as extreme as it sounds. They're really recommending that you get most of your clothing secondhand and buy no more than three new garments per year.
5. Holiday Local: Keep short haul flights to one every three years. (Note the use of the British "holiday" in place of the American "vacation.") Again, the full text provides further clarification: you can take a short-haul flight (less than 1500 kilometers, or 932 miles) once every three-years, and/or a long-haul flight every eight.
6. Change the System: Make at least one life shift to nudge the system. This last step acknowledges that individuals shouldn't be expected to fix the environment by themselves. Thus, the most important changes are ones that push governments and big businesses in the right direction. Examples include switching to a green power provider, making your home more energy-efficient, moving to a green bank or investment firm, and writing to your political representatives (MPs for them, Congresspersons for us).

Now, in principle, I approve of all of these. In fact, I already do most of them. I did recently replace my first smartphone after a mere four years, but only because it was actually past repair (the battery just wouldn't hold a charge, and I'd already tried replacing it), and my last two computers each lasted ten. We've already given up nearly all meat and dairy, and our food waste is negligible. (You can argue about whether our portion sizes are healthy, but they're not ludicrous.) We currently buy most of our clothes secondhand, and while we don't limit ourselves to three new garments a year, we probably could if we had to. The last time I flew anywhere was for my grandmother's funeral in Florida over ten years ago. We're already using green power at home, and I not only write to my Congresspeople, I call them every month to push for climate-friendly legislation.

And yet, as you've no doubt deduced from the title of this post, I haven't pledged to Take The JUMP, and I don't intend to. The sticking point is #2: giving up the car.

It's not that I love driving. I dislike it, in fact. When I lived in Princeton, I routinely took the Dinky (the shuttle train from Princeton to Princeton Junction) to work, even though it was much more expensive than driving. I generally walk to doctor's appointments in New Brunswick, over two miles each way. And though Brian doesn't mind driving as much as I do, he still prefers to take his bike when possible.

But where we live, a car is often the only practical way to get around. Maybe in the UK, it really is true that "Depending on where you live, taking the train, tram or bus usually doesn’t take much longer than driving"; here, it emphatically does take much longer. And I mean, MUCH longer.

For instance, to get to Princeton for an 8pm dance practice on Thursday, Brian and I would have to leave the house at 6:40, walk a couple of blocks to the bus stop, catch a bus to New Brunswick, walk another couple of blocks to the train station, take the train to Princeton Junction, transfer to the Dinky, and arrive in Princeton at 7:48pm. And when practice ended at 9:30, we'd have to reverse all those steps to get home, except that the bus would no longer be running. We'd have to walk a mile and a half from the train station to get home, arriving around 11pm. That's over two and a half hours of travel for an hour and a half of practice, as opposed to a car trip of roughly half an hour each way.

And mind you, this would only work in summertime, when we practice in an outdoor location right near the Dinky station. In winter, we practice at a church at the north end of town. To get there, we'd have to leave home by 6:15 and take a different bus into New Brunswick, then transfer to another bus that would get us to the middle of Princeton, and walk a mile north to the church. But by the time we left practice at 9:30, the buses would no longer be running, and neither would the Dinky. There would be literally no way for us to get home short of calling an Uber to take us to Princeton Junction. Which means we would still be relying on car transportation — just in someone else's car, at considerably more expense.

And that's only one of the places we go regularly. Grocery shopping? Well, we'd probably have to confine ourselves to stores within walking distance of home, which would mean going without some foods and spending more on others. All other shopping? Guess we'd have to buy most things online. Concerts at the Troubadour in Morristown? Once again, we could only make the trip in one direction before the trains stopped running, so we'd just have to watch online. Visiting friends? We do have a couple of friends we could manage to reach by rail, but everyone else would have to come to us if they wanted to see us. Visiting Brian's parents in Indianapolis at Christmas? With both driving and flying off-limits, it would take over 26 hours each way by rail and bus. And visiting my parents in Hopewell, a mere 45 minutes away by car, would become literally impossible, because there is not one single bus or train that stops anywhere within walking distance of their house.

The creators of The JUMP acknowledge that for people who are disabled or "live in remote areas," a car may indeed be a necessity. But Highland Park is not, by any reasonable definition, a "remote area." It's smack dab in the middle of the most densely populated state in the country. A major highway runs within a mile of our house, as the crow files. We're within walking distance of two rail stations, and within two blocks of the nearest bus stop. In short, we are much better off as far as transit options go than the majority of Americans. And still, we can't go everywhere we need to without a private vehicle.

The simple fact is, the US as a whole is a car-dependent society. That is not my fault nor my responsibility to fix. The reason America is dependent on cars is not that there are too many people like me selfishly refusing to give up their private vehicles; it's because our entire society is built around the automobile. Convincing Americans to give up their cars will not make their lives more joyful; it will make them more stressful, because they'll have to spend so many of their hours on buses and trains — or figuring out which buses and trains can get them from one place to another — and so much less time doing things that actually bring them joy.

If the authors of The JUMP want to create a version of it that works for Americans, they need to change step 2. If they're not willing to get rid of it altogether, perhaps they could ditch most of the text and focus on this one little paragraph at the very end:

If you do need to have a car then try to keep it for a long time rather than swapping it out for a new model (and when you do swap it, choose electric!). Cars can last more than 20 years, and the shell and interior of a car can last even longer if well cared for. But if you replace it with a new one every 3 years you’re generating 5 or 6 times the amount of emissions involved in making these cars over that period. 

When and if there's a "JUMP for Americans" that doesn't require me to be car-free in a society built around cars, I'll take the challenge happily. Until then, I just can't. It would be making a promise I know I can't keep.

Money Crashers: Two inflation articles

Just a quick update to fill you in on my two most recent articles at Money Crashers. The first is a quick "explainer" on inflation, a much-discussed topic in the news these days. It covers all the basics about causes inflation, what its effects can be, how it's measured, some historical examples, and the monetary policy tools the Fed uses to combat it. So the next time someone (inevitably) starts grumbling about inflation, you'll be able to join intelligently in the conversation.

What Is Inflation (Definition) – Causes & Effects of Rate on Prices & Interest

One particular form of inflation a lot of people are worrying about is rising gas prices. One way to deal with them is to use a gas savings app, which helps you find the cheapest gas station in your area and fill up your tank for less. For my second piece, I compare the features of six top gas savings apps to help you find the one that's best for you.

The Best Apps to Find Cheap Gas Stations & Save Money On Fuel

Money Crashers: Five pieces

Money Crashers has posted a whole bunch of my articles in the past week, so here's a really quick roundup:

Should You Buy an Electric Car? – 5 Cost Considerations

Here's a topic that's on a lot of ecofrugal people's minds these days: Is it time to switch to an electric car? This piece focuses mostly on the financial side of that question (cost of buying, cost of maintenance, cost of charging at home and on the road), but I also go into the convenience and environmental costs of electric versus gas-powered vehicles.

Best Personal Finance Books for Kids

This is a companion to my earlier piece on personal finance books for teens and young adults. While that one included some books aimed at adults, this one focuses on books that help younger readers (ages 5 through 11) learn the basics about money.

What Is a Debt Consolidation Loan and How Does It Work?

Here's a topic ecofrugal people are unlikely to need, but I'll include it here anyway: debt consolidation loans. I explore how these loans work, what kind of debt you can use them for, who can qualify for one, and their costs and benefits.

Should You Buy a Fixer-Upper House? The Pros and Cons to Consider

And we're back firmly on ecofrugal ground with the costs and benefits of buying a fixer-upper. Does it really save you money? Does it save you enough to be worth the cost in time, sweat, and stress? (Should you decide the answer is yes, check out my earlier piece on how to do it.)

The Best Places to Buy Wine Online of 2022

Finally, here's one for frugal wine lovers. During the COVID pandemic, Americans discovered the benefits of buying our booze online, and many of us have stuck with it. In this roundup, I share eight of the best places to find great wine online.

Money Crashers: Two new articles

Two more of my articles popped up on Money Crashers today. The first is about how to decide when it's time to ditch your old car in favor of a new (or at least newer) one. I outline the factors to consider, from car payments and fuel costs through safety and gas mileage, and how to decide what's right for you.

Keep Driving an Old Car or Buy New – What’s Better?

The second is a head-to-head comparison of the features of Walmart+ and Amazon Prime. I don't actually subscribe to either myself, but I compare them point for point — cost, delivery options, other shopping perks, and entertainment — to demonstrate which (if either) could be a better value for you.

Walmart+ vs. Amazon Prime – Which Is Better?

Money Crashers: 2 new articles

A quick post to let you know about two new articles of mine that have popped up on Money Crashers in the past week:

9 Best Books to Read Before Buying a Home

From the author who brought you "7 Best Personal Finance Books to Read of All Time," a new piece on the best books about home buying. These volumes cover every aspect of your biggest purchase ever, including real estate agents, mortgages, inspections, title insurance, negotiation, and closing costs. It's everything you've ever wanted to know about home buying but were afraid to ask.

How to Get the Best Price on a Rental Car – 10 Simple Steps

The second  article is a companion to my earlier piece on avoiding rental car fees. This one focuses not on the fees, but on the base price you pay for a rental car. It lets you in on the secrets to getting the lowest possible price, from avoiding upselling to taking advantage of discounts.

Money Crashers: Two car-related articles

Money Crashers has posted two of my articles this week, and as coincidence would have it, they're both about cars.

The first deals with car rentals. If you've rented a car recently, you most likely found that the price you actually paid was nowhere near the price advertised. And if you asked about it, the clerk no doubt pointed out that the list price did not include (insurance, toll fees, satellite radio, a second driver fee, a late fee, or what have you). My article identifies these various fees that car rental companies tack on to pump up their bottom line and offers a few tricks to counter them.

How to Avoid Rental Car Fees – 12 Steps to Stop Extra Hidden Charges

The second article is about the car you own — or, to be more exact, your family's second car, and whether you could save money by getting rid of it. I go into the nuts and bolts of what it costs to own a second car, the various ways of getting around without one (walking, cycling, transit, ridesharing, etc.), and what they cost. YMMV (your math may vary), but I can at least help you figure out what to add and subtract.

Should You Become a One Car Family?

Money Crashers: Why Gas Prices Are Rising So High

Earlier this month, a post popped up on my Nextdoor group lamenting about how expensive gas is getting. I honestly hadn't noticed, since we never really go anywhere these days and it's been over a month since we filled up our gas tank. But what struck me about the post was that the comments on it immediately turned political and extremely nasty. Many of the commenters — my neighbors — blamed the rise in gas prices on the incoming Biden administration, even though Biden hadn't actually been inaugurated yet. Others snarled back about Trump, and I guess a lot of people complained about the "unneighborly" tone, because eventually the moderators took the entire thread down.

This experience did more than just reinforce how toxic the combination of politics and any kind of social media can be (and how hard it is to keep them separated). It also showed that most people don't have any real understanding of what causes gas prices to rise and fall. Since they have no way to make sense of it, they just weave it into whatever political narrative they've decided to believe and pin the blame on whichever party they don't like.

I hope my latest Money Crashers post can serve, in some small way, as an antidote to that. It explains the real, complex, and intertwining factors that lead to changing gas prices, including seasonal fluctuations in demand, foreign affairs, changing technology, natural disasters, and shifts in gas taxes (the only one that really has anything at all to do with U.S. politics).

I don't expect most of my Nextdoor neighbors to read it, but if any of them do, perhaps they'll realize that the government can't possibly control all the factors affecting gas prices, and so it's silly to blame any government (especially one that isn't officially in power yet) when they go up. It's much more useful to adapt by driving less: making fewer trips, walking and biking more. And if the price remains high, perhaps even choose a more fuel-efficient vehicle (or even an electric one) the next time you change cars. This not only saves you money but also prevents climate-destroying emissions, so it's a win-win.

Why Gas Prices Are Rising So High – Reasons for Fluctuations

Money Crashers: 6 Things You Should Maintain & Take Care of to Save Money Long-Term

One of the key tenets of the ecofrugal life is, to inversely paraphrase Aldous Huxley, "Mending is better than ending." In other words, it's almost always better for both the environment and your wallet to keep something you own in good condition than to toss it and buy something new. (Of course, there are some exceptions, like our old microwave that would have cost more to repair than to replace with a good used one, or a threadbare pair of socks that would cost an hour to darn one more time and only a dollar to replace. But it works as a general principle.)

My latest piece for Money Crashers takes that basic principle and turns it into solid, practical advice. I name six items that are particularly useful to maintain, mainly because it makes such big difference in their overall lifespan, along with the key maintenance tasks that matter most for each one. Most of these are high-end items that would cost a lot to replace, like cars and major appliances, but clothing also makes the list because it's so easy and cheap to do. (Remember that pair of pants I repaired two years ago in the hopes of making it last out the winter? I'm still wearing them.) 

This article may not tell you much you couldn't have learned by R-ing TFM. But it condenses all the key info from more than six manuals' into just one place — and it has the advantage of being right in front of you, not buried in a drawer somewhere. See? Here it is:

6 Things You Should Maintain & Take Care of to Save Money Long-Term

Money Crashers: How to Choose the Right Bicycle

Here's another new Money Crashers piece on the topic of shopping for a new bicycle. When I say "new," I really mean "new to you," since secondhand bikes are a perfectly acceptable option (especially if every time you shell out money for a nice new bike, someone steals it, which is what keeps happening to Brian). But whether you're buying new or used, you need to get the right type of bicycle. Bikes come in many different flavors — racing bikes, mountain bikes, cruisers — and each one has its own strong and weak points. So, to choose the bike that’s best for you, your first question should be, "What am I using it for?"

I start out with a loose classification of the major types of bikes, discussing what each variety is good for and what it costs. Then I go into specific features that you might want based on your riding preferences, such as suspension, brake type, and an electric motor. And lastly, I outline the process for choosing a new bike that's right for you: determining your needs and budget, testing different models, and getting the best price.

How to Choose the Right Bicycle – Different Types of Bikes

Money Crashers: 3 new pieces, 2 updates

Several more of my articles have appeared on Money Crashers in the past few days — some new, some older articles that needed to be refreshed with up-to-date numbers. Some of these were meant to be published for Earth Day, but only one of them actually made it onto the site in time; however, they all appeared during Earth Week, at least, so that's sort of a win.

The new pieces are:

1. Latte Factor – Giving Up Lattes Won’t Make You Rich But Here’s What Will

In this piece, I quibble with financial guru David Bach's famous "latte factor" formula: the idea that you can become rich by just cutting out some small indulgence, such as a daily latte, and channeling that money into investments instead. The problem: the math doesn't add up. This piece show exactly why the latte factor doesn't work, and explains how to tackle the much harder jobs that actually will make a difference: minimizing your fixed expenses, maximizing your income, and choosing the right investments.

2. 14 Disposable Items You Can Ditch to Save $1.5K This Year – Alternatives

This is the piece that got published in time for Earth Day, though it had actually been in the works for months. It covers a lot of the same ground as last year's Thrift Week posts, showing how reusable alternatives to disposable stuff — water bottles, soda bottles, batteries, paper towels — can keep money in your pocket and help the planet at the same time.

3. What Is the Freecycle Network – Give & Get Free Stuff

An updated version of a piece done in 2012 by another writer, this one is also relevant to Earth Week because it deals with reuse. It sums up a lot of what I've said about Freecycle on this blog over the years in a single post: how it works, what it's good for, what kind of problems you can run into when Freecycling, and how proper Freecycle etiquette can make the process smoother for everyone.

The updated pieces are:

1. How to Save Money by Living Green – Saving Electricity, Gas & Trees

One of the first pieces I ever published on Money Crashers back in 2015, this article has been updated with new prices and other facts that reflect changes in technology and consumer behavior over the past five years, such as improvements to energy-efficient light bulbs, the continuing decline of paper newspapers.

2. How to Save Money With Your High-Speed Internet Service Provider

This 2018 piece is newer, but even two years have brought about significant changes in the spread of high-speed Internet and the prices people pay for it. And, with so many people moving more of our lives online in response to COVID, it's timely.

Earth Week Challenge 2020: Transportation Tuesday

The second in the Earth Week series of challenges is Transportation Tuesday. Normally, this challenge would simply involve reducing your carbon footprint from transportation by a variety of methods: walking, biking, carpooling, car sharing, and public transportation. However, on account of the pandemic, the last three options have been discarded as too risky. This year's challenge is to "bike, walk, run, and move around without generating emissions."

Well, this one ought to be a gimme, right? I mean, during this lockdown, we basically aren't going anywhere anyway. We're both working from home, and we only leave the house for a daily walk and, every week or two, to get groceries. So in theory, this should be no challenge at all.

But once again, we've managed to arrange our lives so that what would normally be easy for us just happens to be hard today. See, Brian and I are regular blood donors, and right now the need is greater than ever due to the pandemic. Normally, we schedule our appointments at the same time, with me giving whole blood and him doing apheresis (which I don't qualify for). But because the blood donor room has reduced appointments due to the pandemic, we couldn't quite manage that this time. The best we could do was a 10 am appointment for him and one at noon for me...and the only date we could get was today. Which makes this the one day in the week we actually have to drive somewhere.

In theory, we could have walked to the blood room, since it's only two miles away. But two miles is a much harder walk than usual after losing a pint of blood, and it's time-consuming under the best of circumstances. We're already losing three hours out of our work days, and going on foot would add an extra hour and a quarter to that.

So we're taking advantage of a loophole. Since the original version of this challenge included carpooling as an option, we've decided to count this trip under that heading. After all, we did go out of our way to schedule our appointments together, so we're making only one trip instead of two. If we would get credit for that in a normal year with no global pandemic, I certainly think we should now.

Money Crashers: How to Negotiate Financing on a Car Loan

Unlike most Americans, I've never actually had a car loan. I've bought two cars in my life, and I paid cash for both of them (though my parents loaned me some of the money for the first one). So I've never been personally subjected to the array of sneaky tricks the dealers use to maximize the total amount you pay them for the car, like focusing exclusively on the size of the monthly payment while stretching those payments out as long as they possibly can. And I'm very grateful to have been spared this experience, since just reading about it was enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.

If you'd like to escape this ordeal next time you buy a car, my newest Money Crashers article can help. It explains how you can save money on your car loan by shopping for the loan before, not after, you find the car, and offers specific tips for reducing the total amount you pay, such as:

• Shopping around for a loan
• Comparing lenders online
• Making sure your credit report is accurate
• Comparing loans by APR
• Choosing a shorter loan
• Making a bigger down payment
• Using online loan calculators
• Always reading the fine print

Get the details here: 6 Tips on How to Negotiate Financing on a Car Loan (Interest Rate)

Provisioning a road trip

I'm making my weekly blog post a little early, because we're going to be away this weekend visiting some friends. We're making the trip by car, which we find is nearly always the most convenient and cost-effective way for us to travel. It's by far the cheapest option per mile traveled; we can leave and arrive on our own schedule; and it's easy to haul any extra baggage we want, such as a batch of home-baked cookies for our friends and a crate full of board games, books, and other equipment for role-playing games.

In addition to the stuff we'll need when we get there, Brian and I always like to pack the car with a variety of items we might like to use during the trip itself. Having snacks, drinks, medications, toiletries, and entertainment ready to hand makes the drive a lot more agreeable, which makes it an easier call for us to choose driving over a costlier method of travel. So I thought I'd do just a quick post here to tell you about what we like to take along on a road trip like this, and why our choices help make the trip a more ecofrugal one.

Books

Brian and I have worked out what we consider a reasonable division of labor on trips like this: he does the driving, and I provide entertainment by reading aloud to him. We first developed this pattern on the very first road trip we took together, when Brian was moving out to New Jersey from his old home in San Diego. I kept offering to take a turn at the wheel, but Brian generally preferred to keep driving and have me read to him from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. So he drove most of the 2,500 miles by himself, and I read most of the 636 pages by myself, and we each considered that we were getting the better end of the deal.

So now, before we set out on a trip, we always make sure we have one or more books with us that should be long enough to get us through the journey. We prefer lighter fare for these occasions— usually fiction, which gives me a chance to show off my talents at switching among character voices and accents, but occasionally a collection of entertaining and informative nonfiction pieces like the latest Freakonomics book.

These days, the book we choose is as likely as not to be an e-book downloaded to our tablet, usually from the electronic library or Project Gutenberg, rather than a printed book. These e-books have the advantage of being easy to keep reading once night falls without having to switch on the light in the car; the downside is that they're often harder to read in the daytime, when sunlight can create glare on the tablet screen. I often find myself attempting to cover the tablet up with a blanket or something, or hold it in an awkward position to keep it out of the sun, just so I can see the screen clearly. At some point we should probably shell out a few bucks for one of these anti-glare screen covers to make it easier.

Cost for books: Usually free, though we might occasionally spend a few bucks on a Kindle e-book that the library doesn't have (such as the latest Ilona Andrews) or a secondhand printed book from a yard sale.

Other Entertainment

On long trips, I can't keep reading aloud the whole time without a break, so we like to have some other forms of entertainment available as well. One of our favorite features on our current car (which we still think of as our "new" car, even though it's now seven years old) is a built-in music player that can read audio files off a data key plugged into a cord tucked inside the glove compartment. We can simply use the controls for the car stereo to select the album and track we want, which is much easier than trying to manipulate the controls on a phone or music player while driving (or fumble with CDs and cassettes the way we used to do back in the day).

We always like to have a wide variety of music available on this data key, so we can switch it up depending on our mood. For this latest trip, we're loading on a copy of the Hamilton soundtrack, which I got as a Christmas present but haven't yet got around to transferring to the key. This will be nice to have available at other times as well.

For longer trips, we also like to have a few podcasts loaded, so we can listen to something with more of a story. This, in fact, is how I first became familiar with the show "Critical Role," (in which "a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons"), which is now a near-obsession of mine: Brian downloaded the audio from the first several episodes (each of which is several hours long) onto the key, and we listened to them en route to and from Indianapolis. By the time we got home, I was gung-ho to watch the rest of the series, and after going through the backlog of old episodes we've kept up with the new ones every week thereafter. We've also listened to episodes of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," "S-Town," "Freakonomics," and something called "Bullshit."

In addition to audio entertainment, I usually take along a few crosswords to amuse myself with. However, these are less for the car trip itself than for filling up spare moments while we're away, since it's rather awkward to do any crossword—print or electronic—in a moving car. I just print out a selection from my favorite sites, which include the Wall Street Journal, Best for Puzzles, and, when I'm in the mood for some real punishment, Puzzlecrypt. All of these are free, except for the cost of ink and paper to print them out.

Cost for entertainment: Free.

Food

When we're driving out to Indiana, we usually grab some breakfast to go at Dunkin Donuts and plan to make one stop along the road for dinner. We used to try and get up ludicrously early so we could make it to Indiana in time for dinner, but we found we lost too much sleep this way, and stopping for dinner helps break up the trip a little.

However, to save money and time on the road, we don't stop for lunch; instead, we pack ourselves a bag of foodstuffs to nibble on as we drive. Typical choices include peanut butter sandwiches, clementines (which are better than most kinds of fruit because they're easy to peel and not too messy), baby carrots, and cookies. Instead of taking a formal lunch break, we'll just help ourselves from the bag whenever we feel peckish. I usually keep the bag up front near my feet, so if Brian wants something, he can just ask me to dig it out and hand it to him as he drives, which minimizes the amount of distraction from the road for him.

For shorter trips like we're making today, we have lunch beforehand, but we still pack a few snacks for the road so we don't get cranky or fatigued from low blood sugar. Today, we have a bag of mandarin oranges and most of a batch of sourdough raisin muffins. We also take along a couple of reusable water bottles (just Snapple bottles emptied of Snapple), which fit handily in the car's cup holders. On longer trips, we carry these into rest stops en route to refill them as needed; for shorter ones, like this, three full bottles are enough to carry us through the whole trip.

Cost for food: Varies depending on the length of the trip. For a long trip, figure a couple of bucks' worth of peanut butter sandwiches, maybe four or five bucks for fruit, and a dollar or two for baby carrots. (The cookies are usually free, since we get a care package from our friends around this time of year and save it for the trip.) So it's around ten bucks for a long trip and maybe half that for a short one. That's not counting what we pay for meals we actually stop and eat along the road.

Other

In addition to these necessaries, we always have a few other things in the car to keep ourselves as comfortable as possible on the trip. These include:

• Blankets. It gets chilly in the winter, and the car's heater isn't always good at directing heat where it's needed, so we always keep a couple of blankets in the car. Brian can't exactly drape himself in one while driving, but I'm usually the one who gets cold anyway, so that works out fine. And, if we're ever stuck in a snowbank, we'll have something to keep us from freezing to death. Cost: We paid about $10 for our biggest blanket, and we've had it close to 15 years, so I think we've gotten good value for it.
• Medication. I always carry a pill box with an assortment of often-used OTC drugs: ibuprofen, antacids, antihistamines, and one or two Gas-X capsules. These days, I even carry zinc spray in my purse, since I know that if I feel a cold coming on, the faster I can use it the more likely I am to shake off the infection. I also have a small first-aid kit with bandages and antibiotic ointment. Cost: Maybe a few cents per pill, since these are meds I always buy in bulk for our medicine chest at home.
• Emergency Supplies. In the wintertime, we always have an ice scraper in the car and even a small shovel, in case we get stuck somewhere and have to dig ourselves out. We don't carry a bottle of antifreeze or washer fluid, but we check the levels and top them off before setting out on the road. And we always keep a couple of rags in the car in case we need to clean something off ourselves or off the car itself, as well as a small packet of tissues in the glove compartment. Cost: The rags are free (made from Brian's old socks, usually), and the shovel and scraper cost maybe 10 bucks together.
• Maps. Yes, actual paper road maps. We still don't have a smartphone (though I really do intend to get one in the next month or two, honest), so we carry maps in the car for whatever area we're passing through, just in case we run into an unexpected detour. They also come in handy if we want to where the nearest rest area is. Cost: We've had most of these maps for ages, so I don't remember what we paid for them, but I know we picked up a couple for free at the last town yard sale.
• Phone and charger. Though we don't have a smartphone, we make sure to carry our little clamshell phone in case we need to make a call from the road and say "We're going to be late, there's traffic" or "We have to turn back, there's a blizzard" or even "We're stuck behind a truck full of flaming marijuana candy." (This honestly happened once, though we didn't know what was in the truck while we were stuck behind it—we had to look it up on Google afterwards.) We make sure the phone is charged up ahead of time, switch it on during the trip (something we don't do most of the time), and bring the charger to bring it back up to full afterwards. (We don't actually have a car charger for this phone, though we'll probably get one for our future smartphone.) Cost: Essentially free. The cost of electricity is minimal and our cheap prepaid phone plan supplies more minutes than we ever use anyway.

And that's how we make our road trips as comfortable as possible, without adding significantly to the cost. With these costs, plus gas and tolls, a trip like this one costs us maybe $100 round trip, including money spent while we're there—less than the cost of just one plane or train ticket. Getting there isn't exactly half the fun, but with these supplies, at least it doesn't detract from the fun too much.