The ecofrugal lifestyle rests on a few basic principles, one of which—to invert a phrase from Aldous Huxley—is "mending is better than ending." In other words, repairing an item is usually both cheaper and greener than replacing it. Usually. But as I noted a month ago in my "Repair or replace?" post, the decision isn't always that straightforward. Sometimes the cost of repairing an item exceeds that of a cheap replacement, causing the "eco" and "frugal" halves of ecofrugality, which normally go together like chocolate and peanut butter, to come into conflict.
This week we came across another example. My husband's sturdy workboots became damaged beyond repair—the sole completely split in half, and since it's a molded sole, we couldn't just resole them. We couldn't complain too much, since the boots were free in the first place (gleaned from a pile of stuff our former neighbors discarded when they moved), but since they were his everyday footwear, he needed something to replace them. So our first thought was to try repairing an old pair of shoes that he'd owned for nearly 20 years but had worn very little in the past ten because all the tread had worn off the sole, making them slippery in the rain. I figured that for around $20, we could resole these and possibly make them last another ten years.
Ha ha, silly me. When I took them to our local shoe shop, they informed me that this type of sole cost $60 to replace. I might have thought it was worth the money to extend the life of an otherwise good pair of shoes, but we'd already done a little poking around in a Famous Footwear and found that a new pair of shoes in the same brand and similar style would only cost around $70. So the cost of repairing a 20-year-old pair of shoes, with who knows how much life left in the uppers, would be 85 percent as much as a whole new pair. Eco says repair, frugal says replace...help, mental overload!
In the end, we went to Sears and bought him a new pair of sturdy work shoes, which cost $35 on sale and have proved to be very comfortable. But we still haven't come to any firm decision about what to do with the old pair of shoes. Since they have sentimental value as well as usefulness, he doesn't want to throw them out, so it seems like we might as well repair them so they can be used. But on the other hand, is it really worth $60 to give him what would now be only a secondary pair of shoes, since he has a decent pair for every day? Will spending the $60 now save us money in the long run, eliminating the need for future $35 stopgap shoes that might only last a year or two? Or will it be money down the drain, since the uppers will soon go the same way as the soles? Is it truly ecofrugal, in this case, to repair them, or are we better off just keeping them as an extra pair to be worn on sunny days only until they finally fall apart completely?
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Spend where it counts (or, a $45 band on a $13 watch)
The watch I wear every day is a cheap Timex Carriage model that I bought nearly ten years ago at Target. I think I paid $13 for it, on sale. I chose it at the time because it met my fairly basic requirements:
1) A dial face with an hour hand, a minute hand, a second hand, and all twelve numbers. (You'd be surprised how hard this last feature is to find in a women's watch.)
2) A bracelet-type metal band. (Cloth ones wear out too quickly, and the metal "expansion bracelets" always seem to snag the tiny hairs on my arm.)
Those were the only features I specifically wanted, and they're pretty much the only features I got. The watch does also have a little built-in night light that has turned out to be handy. But other than that, it's got no bells and whistles: no calendar, no calculator, no stopwatch. It's just a very basic watch—about as close as you can get to the Platonic ideal of a Wristwatch.
For a cheap watch, it's held up surprisingly well—or at least, the timepiece itself has. After a few years of everyday use, however, the plating on the two-toned metal band wore completely through, exposing the base metal underneath, which gave me a rash as it rubbed against my skin. My first attempt at an ecofrugal fix for this problem was to paint over the exposed metal with nail polish, and that kept the watch wearable for a while—but eventually, the links got clogged with dried polish. So I replaced the band with a similar one, but within a year, the plating on the new band started wearing off just as the old one had. Rather than buy another cheap band, I went back to the store and asked if they had one made of solid stainless steel. They did—but it cost $45, more than three times what I'd originally paid for the watch. And I had to make a hasty decision: is it really worth it to put a $45 band on a $13 watch?
My conclusion: not only is it worth it, it's the only choice that really makes sense. What I need from a watch itself is extremely simple: all it has to do is keep good time, and a cheap watch does the job just as well as an expensive one. A cheap band, by contrast, doesn't meet my needs, at least not for very long. Buying a new, cheap watchband every year would cost more in the long run, and surely be more wasteful, than investing $45 in a good one. For my needs, a cheap watch and a high-quality band is simply the best combination.
It seems to me that the same principle applies to most purchases. It almost always makes sense to spend money on the features you want and skimp on the features you don't want. For example, if you have an old car you're happy with, but it lacks some new feature you want (say, cruise control), it makes sense to spend the money to have it added, even if it's more than the value of the old car itself. It will still cost less than a whole new car, so why trade in an old car you're happy with for a new one with lots of features you don't want just to get the one that you do?
Of course, sometimes in order to get the one feature you want, you have to accept some others as well, because the manufacturer doesn't give you a choice. On a new car, for instance, a feature you want (such as extra airbags) may be available only as part of an "option package" that also includes power windows and GPS and other assorted bells and whistles. But by looking carefully at all the alternatives, you should at least be able to avoid taking any features you actually prefer not to have. For example: as some of you may remember from my "Repair or Replace?" post, I recently bought a new computer. All I wanted was more memory and faster processing speed, but buying a new Mac Mini meant that I also got all the additional "features" of the Lion operating system—such as a complete lack of back-compatibility with all existing PowerPC applications. Besides having to abandon my beloved Eudora mail client for a new one, I couldn't use my existing version of Office, and the new version I was forced to "upgrade" to crashed all the time. So I sent it back to Apple and then, after a bit more research, bought last year's Mini instead from a reseller called PowerMax. (Note to anyone in the market for a computer: I recommend them. Their prices are good and their customer service is terrific.) In my case, this "downgrade" was actually an upgrade.
So now I'm happily settled in with my one-year-old Mac, running seven-year-old software, hooked up to an eight-year-old monitor and printer. Because after all, if all I need is a better band, why replace the watch?
1) A dial face with an hour hand, a minute hand, a second hand, and all twelve numbers. (You'd be surprised how hard this last feature is to find in a women's watch.)
2) A bracelet-type metal band. (Cloth ones wear out too quickly, and the metal "expansion bracelets" always seem to snag the tiny hairs on my arm.)
Those were the only features I specifically wanted, and they're pretty much the only features I got. The watch does also have a little built-in night light that has turned out to be handy. But other than that, it's got no bells and whistles: no calendar, no calculator, no stopwatch. It's just a very basic watch—about as close as you can get to the Platonic ideal of a Wristwatch.
For a cheap watch, it's held up surprisingly well—or at least, the timepiece itself has. After a few years of everyday use, however, the plating on the two-toned metal band wore completely through, exposing the base metal underneath, which gave me a rash as it rubbed against my skin. My first attempt at an ecofrugal fix for this problem was to paint over the exposed metal with nail polish, and that kept the watch wearable for a while—but eventually, the links got clogged with dried polish. So I replaced the band with a similar one, but within a year, the plating on the new band started wearing off just as the old one had. Rather than buy another cheap band, I went back to the store and asked if they had one made of solid stainless steel. They did—but it cost $45, more than three times what I'd originally paid for the watch. And I had to make a hasty decision: is it really worth it to put a $45 band on a $13 watch?
My conclusion: not only is it worth it, it's the only choice that really makes sense. What I need from a watch itself is extremely simple: all it has to do is keep good time, and a cheap watch does the job just as well as an expensive one. A cheap band, by contrast, doesn't meet my needs, at least not for very long. Buying a new, cheap watchband every year would cost more in the long run, and surely be more wasteful, than investing $45 in a good one. For my needs, a cheap watch and a high-quality band is simply the best combination.
It seems to me that the same principle applies to most purchases. It almost always makes sense to spend money on the features you want and skimp on the features you don't want. For example, if you have an old car you're happy with, but it lacks some new feature you want (say, cruise control), it makes sense to spend the money to have it added, even if it's more than the value of the old car itself. It will still cost less than a whole new car, so why trade in an old car you're happy with for a new one with lots of features you don't want just to get the one that you do?
Of course, sometimes in order to get the one feature you want, you have to accept some others as well, because the manufacturer doesn't give you a choice. On a new car, for instance, a feature you want (such as extra airbags) may be available only as part of an "option package" that also includes power windows and GPS and other assorted bells and whistles. But by looking carefully at all the alternatives, you should at least be able to avoid taking any features you actually prefer not to have. For example: as some of you may remember from my "Repair or Replace?" post, I recently bought a new computer. All I wanted was more memory and faster processing speed, but buying a new Mac Mini meant that I also got all the additional "features" of the Lion operating system—such as a complete lack of back-compatibility with all existing PowerPC applications. Besides having to abandon my beloved Eudora mail client for a new one, I couldn't use my existing version of Office, and the new version I was forced to "upgrade" to crashed all the time. So I sent it back to Apple and then, after a bit more research, bought last year's Mini instead from a reseller called PowerMax. (Note to anyone in the market for a computer: I recommend them. Their prices are good and their customer service is terrific.) In my case, this "downgrade" was actually an upgrade.
So now I'm happily settled in with my one-year-old Mac, running seven-year-old software, hooked up to an eight-year-old monitor and printer. Because after all, if all I need is a better band, why replace the watch?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Weather permitting
It occurred to me yesterday, as it has before, just how much of the ecofrugal life is contingent on the phrase, "weather permitting." For example:
Yesterday Brian rode his bike to work (having just finished installing the new rear wheel and brake line). He usually bikes to work during the warmer months, unless he needs to get in particularly early or to stay particularly late. But he can't do it during the winter, because it's too cold and, more to the point, too dark. And he has to skip it on those summer days when the temperature is over 100 or there's the threat of a thunderstorm. So although biking to work is an undeniable win-win-win in ecofrugal terms—a way to save money, help the environment and get some exercise all at once—it's also a habit that depends on the weather and climate.
I did a load of laundry yesterday and hung it up on the line. I generally use the clothesline during the summer, even if it means having to put off doing the laundry until the forecast calls for sunshine. But I can't do it in the winter, because the clothes would just freeze solid. (I've heard of people who do it anyway and claim that they're "mostly dry" once they thaw. But I have my limits.) So once again, even though drying clothes for free with sunlight, rather than paying to do it with fossil fuels, is an ecofrugal no-brainer, it's still a practice that only works when the weather allows it.
I also took a walk in the afternoon, as I do on all but the very hottest or coldest days. It was a particularly ecofrugal walk, as I stopped in at the local farmer's market and, after that, at the nearby thrift shop. Locally grown peaches for $2 a pound and pants in good condition for $2 a pair—a definite ecofrugal triumph. But it's a trip I wouldn't have been able to make in the winter or the spring, because our local farmers' market is only open from July through November. (It's also only open on Fridays until 4pm, which means it's really only available to those of us who don't work bankers' hours, which has always struck me as a bit annoying. But I guess they can't really do it over the weekend, because there are other markets to set up in neighboring towns on Saturday and Sunday.) So this particular ecofrugal habit is one that's only available at certain times of year. (The thrift shop is open year-round, but only for a very few hours a week; I'm much less likely to pass by there at a time when it happens to be open if I'm not on my way to the farmers' market.)
Finally, in the evening, we went to a free concert at the park in Hopewell. This happened to be Broadside Electric, a band we particularly know and love, but we've gone to other outdoor concerts like this in our area without knowing the band, simply because they're fun and free of charge. But this ecofrugal form of entertainment is—once again—only available in the summertime. Even if it weren't too cold for outdoor entertainment in the winter, the light wouldn't last late enough to make it practical.
Basically, what it comes down to is that it's a lot easier to be ecofrugal in the summertime than it is in the winter. And that's true not just of a few special events, but of our whole lifestyle. We generally manage to get through the summer without using air conditioning more than two or three times, but we'd never get through the winter without heat.
Perhaps if I want to take my ecofrugal lifestyle to the next level, I should be concentrating on ways to save money and natural resources during the colder months. So far, all I can think of is canning and freezing garden surplus (which would be a great idea if we ever had any surplus) and wearing layers to stay warm (which I already do, and I still can't seen to tolerate any temperature below 68 degrees). So maybe, like a squirrel storing up nuts, I should really make a start now on gathering nuggets of ecofrugal wisdom to get me through the winter. Does anyone out there have any nuggets to contribute?
Yesterday Brian rode his bike to work (having just finished installing the new rear wheel and brake line). He usually bikes to work during the warmer months, unless he needs to get in particularly early or to stay particularly late. But he can't do it during the winter, because it's too cold and, more to the point, too dark. And he has to skip it on those summer days when the temperature is over 100 or there's the threat of a thunderstorm. So although biking to work is an undeniable win-win-win in ecofrugal terms—a way to save money, help the environment and get some exercise all at once—it's also a habit that depends on the weather and climate.
I did a load of laundry yesterday and hung it up on the line. I generally use the clothesline during the summer, even if it means having to put off doing the laundry until the forecast calls for sunshine. But I can't do it in the winter, because the clothes would just freeze solid. (I've heard of people who do it anyway and claim that they're "mostly dry" once they thaw. But I have my limits.) So once again, even though drying clothes for free with sunlight, rather than paying to do it with fossil fuels, is an ecofrugal no-brainer, it's still a practice that only works when the weather allows it.
I also took a walk in the afternoon, as I do on all but the very hottest or coldest days. It was a particularly ecofrugal walk, as I stopped in at the local farmer's market and, after that, at the nearby thrift shop. Locally grown peaches for $2 a pound and pants in good condition for $2 a pair—a definite ecofrugal triumph. But it's a trip I wouldn't have been able to make in the winter or the spring, because our local farmers' market is only open from July through November. (It's also only open on Fridays until 4pm, which means it's really only available to those of us who don't work bankers' hours, which has always struck me as a bit annoying. But I guess they can't really do it over the weekend, because there are other markets to set up in neighboring towns on Saturday and Sunday.) So this particular ecofrugal habit is one that's only available at certain times of year. (The thrift shop is open year-round, but only for a very few hours a week; I'm much less likely to pass by there at a time when it happens to be open if I'm not on my way to the farmers' market.)
Finally, in the evening, we went to a free concert at the park in Hopewell. This happened to be Broadside Electric, a band we particularly know and love, but we've gone to other outdoor concerts like this in our area without knowing the band, simply because they're fun and free of charge. But this ecofrugal form of entertainment is—once again—only available in the summertime. Even if it weren't too cold for outdoor entertainment in the winter, the light wouldn't last late enough to make it practical.
Basically, what it comes down to is that it's a lot easier to be ecofrugal in the summertime than it is in the winter. And that's true not just of a few special events, but of our whole lifestyle. We generally manage to get through the summer without using air conditioning more than two or three times, but we'd never get through the winter without heat.
Perhaps if I want to take my ecofrugal lifestyle to the next level, I should be concentrating on ways to save money and natural resources during the colder months. So far, all I can think of is canning and freezing garden surplus (which would be a great idea if we ever had any surplus) and wearing layers to stay warm (which I already do, and I still can't seen to tolerate any temperature below 68 degrees). So maybe, like a squirrel storing up nuts, I should really make a start now on gathering nuggets of ecofrugal wisdom to get me through the winter. Does anyone out there have any nuggets to contribute?
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Self-employment, self-sufficiency
Thought for today: working from home is a big help with living an ecofrugal lifestyle. The time that I don't spend commuting, for instance, can be used for hanging a load of laundry—so I save on gas for the car and gas for the dryer at the same time. And since I set my own hours, I can run errands on foot in the middle of the day and get a bit of exercise at the same time.
Of course, the down side is that if I didn't have a husband working full-time, all the money I save with my little ecofrugal habits, and a lot more, would be eaten up by private health insurance. I'm sure hoping the state health pools that kick in three years from now will fix that.
Of course, the down side is that if I didn't have a husband working full-time, all the money I save with my little ecofrugal habits, and a lot more, would be eaten up by private health insurance. I'm sure hoping the state health pools that kick in three years from now will fix that.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Repair or replace?
[Note to readers: Once again, apologies for the long lag time between entries. Our last two weekends were completely booked up, the last one with family and the one before that with friends, and during the intervening week our free time was partly filled up with evening engagements and partly drained away by the brain-frying effects of last week's record-breaking heat wave. So this entry, originally started a week ago, is only now coming to press (changing somewhat in the process to reflect the events of the past week). We now resume your regularly scheduled blog.]
My husband's old ten-speed bike, originally cobbled together by his dad from the parts of three other old bikes found at police auctions, looks like it may be on its last legs (or wheels, as it were). The brakes aren't functioning, and the rear wheel has four broken spokes—more than the bike shop is willing to repair. So we're faced with the age-old question: repair or replace? Is it worth trying to fix it, or is it time to give up and send it to the landfill?
Naturally, we tried first to figure out if there was a way to do the former on the cheap. I put out an APB on Freecycle for a 27-inch bicycle wheel from a ten-speed, but the only response we got was from a guy in another town who said, "Will an old and rusted one do?"—and then didn't respond to my "We'll try it, when can we pick it up?" We might have more luck looking for a whole non-working ten-speed bike, rather than just the rear wheel—but then we'd have the rest of the bike to dispose of.
Next we looked into the cost of repairing the bike with new parts. Brian checked with the local bike shop and found that he could get a new wheel and a new brake line for $70 (plus $20 if he wanted them to install it). But it isn't really clear whether this is a more ecofrugal option than picking up an entire bike secondhand. Is it better, environmentally speaking, to keep our old bike on the road with new parts, or to keep someone else's old bike on the road and scrap ours? I checked on Craigslist and found several used 10-speeds for around $65, a bit less than it would cost to repair the old one—but in each case, we'd have to drive an hour or more to pick up the bike (and we might find after looking at it that it wasn't worth the money).
It seems clear that either buying used or repairing with new parts is the best option, but just to get a complete picture, I also checked to see how much a basic new bike would cost. I checked the ConsumerSearch report on "comfort bikes" (that is, bikes suited for commuting and other light use) and found that their top pick in the "budget" category costs close to $500. This, clearly, is the least ecofrugal option of all; it would cost more than five times as much as repairing the old bike, plus the environmental cost of all the new materials and energy required to manufacture it.
And yet, I must confess, there's a part of me that wants to choose this option. Why? Because we recently went through this same decision process with my ten-year-old Macintosh computer, and the verdict in that case was "replace." So we have just spent about $700 on a new Mac Mini for me (along with the various cables and bits of software we had to replace because the creaky old versions I've been using won't work on the new machine). And even though this computer was a genuine need and not a want—even though my old computer was ten years old, and so slow at Web surfing that it was impeding my ability to do my job, probably costing us money because it took me so much longer to finish each work assignment—even though it's at least partly a business expense that I can deduct on my taxes, and even though I made a good-faith effort to repair the old one first by adding more memory, only concluding that I truly needed a new one when the upgrade failed to speed the machine up significantly—even so, still I can't help feeling somehow that if I got to buy a whole new computer, Brian shouldn't have to settle for repairing his old bike. If we just spent a big chunk of money on me, in other words, we should spend a comparable chunk of money on him.
I know this is an incredibly stupid way to make this decision. I guess the problem is, I don't really have a good sense of what would be a smart way to make it. If I had a straightforward "repair or replace" formula in my head (e.g., [cost to replace] / [cost to repair] * [annoyance factor of current item] / [annoyance factor of repaired item]), I could just apply it and feel confident that I'd always made the right decision. But this seems to be one of those choices that you have to make at least partly based on emotion, and emotional factors (such as "how much do I hate this old computer?" and "how much do I love the new one?") are much harder to quantify. The few formulas I have seen for making repair-or-replace decisions have all been fairly limited in scope—for example, "replace your old car when the cost to repair it exceeds its book value"—and even those seem flawed to me. The cost to repair the car may be more than its book value, but chances are, if you replace the car, you will not be replacing it with a used car exactly the same age, make, model, and condition as the one you have. Even assuming you could find such a car, it still wouldn't be identical to the old car; you wouldn't know how it had been driven over the past several years, or how carefully it had been maintained. (Thus, when we had the accident that totaled our old Honda, we decided to keep driving it, even though the insurance company thought the repairs would cost more than the car was worth. They were, but they were still less than it would cost us to buy another car that we could trust the way we trusted the old one.)
Or, to take an example offered by Consumer Reports, "If your appliance is eight or more years old, usually it makes sense to buy a new one. If you have a favorite high-end, older appliance, you may want to repair it...But skip any repair that costs more than half the price of a new product." This may be a nicely calibrated break-even point if you're doing the calculation purely in dollar terms, but what about environmental considerations? Shouldn't you factor in how much it's worth to you to keep your old appliance out of the landfill (and, on the other side of the equation, the potential energy savings of replacing it)?
Has anyone out there ever heard of—or thought up—a simple, useful rule for determining when it's best to repair an item, and when it's time to replace?
My husband's old ten-speed bike, originally cobbled together by his dad from the parts of three other old bikes found at police auctions, looks like it may be on its last legs (or wheels, as it were). The brakes aren't functioning, and the rear wheel has four broken spokes—more than the bike shop is willing to repair. So we're faced with the age-old question: repair or replace? Is it worth trying to fix it, or is it time to give up and send it to the landfill?
Naturally, we tried first to figure out if there was a way to do the former on the cheap. I put out an APB on Freecycle for a 27-inch bicycle wheel from a ten-speed, but the only response we got was from a guy in another town who said, "Will an old and rusted one do?"—and then didn't respond to my "We'll try it, when can we pick it up?" We might have more luck looking for a whole non-working ten-speed bike, rather than just the rear wheel—but then we'd have the rest of the bike to dispose of.
Next we looked into the cost of repairing the bike with new parts. Brian checked with the local bike shop and found that he could get a new wheel and a new brake line for $70 (plus $20 if he wanted them to install it). But it isn't really clear whether this is a more ecofrugal option than picking up an entire bike secondhand. Is it better, environmentally speaking, to keep our old bike on the road with new parts, or to keep someone else's old bike on the road and scrap ours? I checked on Craigslist and found several used 10-speeds for around $65, a bit less than it would cost to repair the old one—but in each case, we'd have to drive an hour or more to pick up the bike (and we might find after looking at it that it wasn't worth the money).
It seems clear that either buying used or repairing with new parts is the best option, but just to get a complete picture, I also checked to see how much a basic new bike would cost. I checked the ConsumerSearch report on "comfort bikes" (that is, bikes suited for commuting and other light use) and found that their top pick in the "budget" category costs close to $500. This, clearly, is the least ecofrugal option of all; it would cost more than five times as much as repairing the old bike, plus the environmental cost of all the new materials and energy required to manufacture it.
And yet, I must confess, there's a part of me that wants to choose this option. Why? Because we recently went through this same decision process with my ten-year-old Macintosh computer, and the verdict in that case was "replace." So we have just spent about $700 on a new Mac Mini for me (along with the various cables and bits of software we had to replace because the creaky old versions I've been using won't work on the new machine). And even though this computer was a genuine need and not a want—even though my old computer was ten years old, and so slow at Web surfing that it was impeding my ability to do my job, probably costing us money because it took me so much longer to finish each work assignment—even though it's at least partly a business expense that I can deduct on my taxes, and even though I made a good-faith effort to repair the old one first by adding more memory, only concluding that I truly needed a new one when the upgrade failed to speed the machine up significantly—even so, still I can't help feeling somehow that if I got to buy a whole new computer, Brian shouldn't have to settle for repairing his old bike. If we just spent a big chunk of money on me, in other words, we should spend a comparable chunk of money on him.
I know this is an incredibly stupid way to make this decision. I guess the problem is, I don't really have a good sense of what would be a smart way to make it. If I had a straightforward "repair or replace" formula in my head (e.g., [cost to replace] / [cost to repair] * [annoyance factor of current item] / [annoyance factor of repaired item]), I could just apply it and feel confident that I'd always made the right decision. But this seems to be one of those choices that you have to make at least partly based on emotion, and emotional factors (such as "how much do I hate this old computer?" and "how much do I love the new one?") are much harder to quantify. The few formulas I have seen for making repair-or-replace decisions have all been fairly limited in scope—for example, "replace your old car when the cost to repair it exceeds its book value"—and even those seem flawed to me. The cost to repair the car may be more than its book value, but chances are, if you replace the car, you will not be replacing it with a used car exactly the same age, make, model, and condition as the one you have. Even assuming you could find such a car, it still wouldn't be identical to the old car; you wouldn't know how it had been driven over the past several years, or how carefully it had been maintained. (Thus, when we had the accident that totaled our old Honda, we decided to keep driving it, even though the insurance company thought the repairs would cost more than the car was worth. They were, but they were still less than it would cost us to buy another car that we could trust the way we trusted the old one.)
Or, to take an example offered by Consumer Reports, "If your appliance is eight or more years old, usually it makes sense to buy a new one. If you have a favorite high-end, older appliance, you may want to repair it...But skip any repair that costs more than half the price of a new product." This may be a nicely calibrated break-even point if you're doing the calculation purely in dollar terms, but what about environmental considerations? Shouldn't you factor in how much it's worth to you to keep your old appliance out of the landfill (and, on the other side of the equation, the potential energy savings of replacing it)?
Has anyone out there ever heard of—or thought up—a simple, useful rule for determining when it's best to repair an item, and when it's time to replace?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Savings in the bag
The other day, as I walked out of the supermarket carrying one bag of seltzer in my reusable, folding Chico Bag, it occurred to me, as it has several times before, that when I buy only a single item, the nickel I get knocked off for bringing my own bag is actually a significant percentage of the bill. And then I started wondering just how much I actually save in a year by bringing my own bags. Of course, carrying reusable bags is something I would do anyway, even if it didn't save me a cent, because it's such an eco-friendly move. The materials and energy that go into making a reusable bag are presumably more than the amount used to make a single disposable plastic bag—but that plastic bag is good for only one use (or two, perhaps, if you count lining a trash can with it), while the reusable bag will give years of service. But now that so many stores have started giving cents-off discounts for bringing your own bags—anywhere from two cents to ten cents per bag—it's a true ecofrugal no-brainer. Save money, save energy, and prevent waste, all at the same time—can't beat that with a stick.
So, how much does that savings actually amount to? To answer that question, I started checking through my past year's spending records to see how many trips I'd made to different grocery stores. Here's what I found:
The store we shop at the most often is our local Stop & Shop, less than a mile down the road. Since I generally take a walk in the middle of the day anyhow, I frequently stop by there along the way to pick up just one or two items that I happen to need. Thus, on a typical Stop & Shop trip I use only one bag (generally the little Chico Bag, which I carry with me in my purse so I can never be caught without one). Stop & Shop gives a nickel discount for each bag, so that's 5 cents off per trip—and in the past year, I've made 113 trips to the Stop & Shop. So that's $5.65 right there.
The store that gives the most generous bag discount of all those we visit regularly is the Whole Earth Center, a natural foods store in Princeton. They give a dime off for each container you bring from home—not just the grocery bag itself, but also all the bags you use for your produce and all the containers you use to carry items from the bulk bins. (This produces the interesting result that if you buy a very small amount of something—for example, a spice—the amount you save on the bag may actually exceed what you spend on the product. I don't know whether anyone has ever made a serious attempt to exploit this loophole.) I estimate that on a typical trip to the Whole Earth Center, we use around five containers, including the shopping bag. So at 10 cents each, that's 50 cents per trip. That means our 31 trips to the Whole Earth Center in the past year have earned us $15.50.
Another store we visit frequently is the Shop-Rite a few miles away. It doesn't have the best everyday prices, but it tends to have the best sales in our area, so we stop in once or twice a month to stock up on sale items. Usually, we take only one bag on these trips (not the Chico Bag but the big string bag I bought years ago from the Whole Earth Center, which can expand by a larger amount than you'd believe possible). This one bag gets us a nickel off on every trip, so on our 21 trips in the past year, we've saved $1.05.
At the bottom of the list, savings-wise, is the Pathmark, which we visit a few times a year for sale items, using an average of one bag per trip. Pathmark is less generous with its bag discount than other retailers—only 2 cents off per bag—so in 6 trips a year, we save a measly 12 cents.
The other grocery store where we shop often is Trader Joe's, which we visit every couple of months to stock up on the items that are cheapest there (such as raisins, 100-percent-postconsumer-recycled toilet paper, and cruelty-free toothpaste). However, Trader Joe's doesn't give you a discount for bringing your own bags; instead, they offer you an entry into a drawing to win a gift card. Since I've never won it, I assume that bringing my own bag there 9 times in the past year has gained me nothing but personal satisfaction.
So, adding it all up, I find that bringing our own bags has saved us $25.52 over the course of the past year. It's not a big number, but look at it this way: bringing our own bags all year long gets us the equivalent of one bag of groceries for free. Or, to put it another way: a $7 Chico Bag could potentially pay for itself more than three times over in its first year of use.
So, how much does that savings actually amount to? To answer that question, I started checking through my past year's spending records to see how many trips I'd made to different grocery stores. Here's what I found:
The store we shop at the most often is our local Stop & Shop, less than a mile down the road. Since I generally take a walk in the middle of the day anyhow, I frequently stop by there along the way to pick up just one or two items that I happen to need. Thus, on a typical Stop & Shop trip I use only one bag (generally the little Chico Bag, which I carry with me in my purse so I can never be caught without one). Stop & Shop gives a nickel discount for each bag, so that's 5 cents off per trip—and in the past year, I've made 113 trips to the Stop & Shop. So that's $5.65 right there.
The store that gives the most generous bag discount of all those we visit regularly is the Whole Earth Center, a natural foods store in Princeton. They give a dime off for each container you bring from home—not just the grocery bag itself, but also all the bags you use for your produce and all the containers you use to carry items from the bulk bins. (This produces the interesting result that if you buy a very small amount of something—for example, a spice—the amount you save on the bag may actually exceed what you spend on the product. I don't know whether anyone has ever made a serious attempt to exploit this loophole.) I estimate that on a typical trip to the Whole Earth Center, we use around five containers, including the shopping bag. So at 10 cents each, that's 50 cents per trip. That means our 31 trips to the Whole Earth Center in the past year have earned us $15.50.
Another store we visit frequently is the Shop-Rite a few miles away. It doesn't have the best everyday prices, but it tends to have the best sales in our area, so we stop in once or twice a month to stock up on sale items. Usually, we take only one bag on these trips (not the Chico Bag but the big string bag I bought years ago from the Whole Earth Center, which can expand by a larger amount than you'd believe possible). This one bag gets us a nickel off on every trip, so on our 21 trips in the past year, we've saved $1.05.
We also stop by the Aldi once or twice a month to stock up on staples that are cheapest there (such as cereal and orange juice). Unlike most stores, Aldi actually charges for bags—ten cents each, according to this post on mommysavers.com. When we shop at Aldi, we usually load up the handy folding plastic crate that lives in the trunk of our car; if we didn't have it, we'd probably have to use two shopping bags at a cost of 20 cents per trip. So over the course of 16 trips per year, we save $3.20.
The other grocery store where we shop often is Trader Joe's, which we visit every couple of months to stock up on the items that are cheapest there (such as raisins, 100-percent-postconsumer-recycled toilet paper, and cruelty-free toothpaste). However, Trader Joe's doesn't give you a discount for bringing your own bags; instead, they offer you an entry into a drawing to win a gift card. Since I've never won it, I assume that bringing my own bag there 9 times in the past year has gained me nothing but personal satisfaction.
So, adding it all up, I find that bringing our own bags has saved us $25.52 over the course of the past year. It's not a big number, but look at it this way: bringing our own bags all year long gets us the equivalent of one bag of groceries for free. Or, to put it another way: a $7 Chico Bag could potentially pay for itself more than three times over in its first year of use.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Adventures in Freecycling
I've been having very mixed results with Freecycle in the past week or so. I've been involved in seven different transactions involving nine different individuals, some of them very easy and others extremely frustrating. Here's a play-by-play:
Transaction #1: I posted an offer for a book called The Complete Cheapskate that I picked up off the free table at our library book sale, just on the off chance that it had any useful advice in it I hadn't already heard many times over. (It didn't, and it was written with a heavily Christian slant that I found a bit oppressive.) I got a request for it within one hour, and it was picked up the next day. Result: success.
Transaction #2: I posted an offer for "unidentified tomato plants" in an effort to get rid of the volunteers that popped up in the vicinity of our compost bin. (The squash plants have been transplanted to our regular garden area, where they seem, after an initial rough patch, to be settling in okay.) Three people respond, and I say yes to all three, since there are plenty of tomato plants to go around. One of them (the same one who took the book) shows up as scheduled and takes several plants. The second one gives me a runaround for several days, never actually committing to a specific time, and finally stops responding. The third one offers to come on Monday but will not commit to a specific time, does not show up on Monday because "something came up," suggests coming on Friday but still will not commit to a time, finally agrees to come on Sunday between 11 and 12, and shows up around 2:30 after I had given up on her. At this point, I assumed that the half-a-dozen remaining tomato plants would end up in the compost bin, but the first Freecycler (the one who actually came when she said she would) contacts me again and asks if there are any tomato plants left, as hers didn't survive transplanting. I tell her that she is welcome to all the ones that are left, and she shows up promptly and takes them. Result: eventual success, but with considerable frustration in the process.
Transaction #3: I respond to another Freecycler's request for a microwave cart, offering an old white one that's been sitting unused in our basement. Freecycler responds promptly with, "I can pick it up today," but then writes back saying "Sorry something came up last min" and asks if he/she can pick it up on Saturday after 5pm. I respond in the negative and propose a couple of alternative times, and I also give out my phone number to facilitate scheduling. The Freecycler does not respond and is never heard from again. Result: failure.
Transaction #4: I post an offer for three incandescent bulbs Brian unearthed while cleaning out our basement. At this point, I am feeling a bit disillusioned with Freecycle, so I'm astonished to get a response within the hour, proposing a specific date and even a specific time for pickup. I agree to leave the bulbs out on the porch (the usual method for transferring items between Freecyclers), and they are picked up more or less on schedule. Result: unqualified success.
Transaction #5: I post an offer for a "joystick with four classic arcade games." This is a little toy we picked up for a buck at a yard sale a few years back, which plugs directly into a TV set and has four 1980s-vintage video games hardwired into it. Since then we'd offered it to several friends, but no one was interested. Assuming we won't get any replies immediately, I then head out to a 4th of July party. When I get home, there's a response offering to pick the joystick up "within the hour if not spoken for." Fearing I may have missed my window, I respond that the joystick is available at any time. The Freecycler offers to come get it that very evening if I will leave the item out on the porch. By morning it is gone. Result: unqualified success.
Transaction #6: I respond to an offer for some "woven wood shades" from a Freecycler in a neighboring town. This Freecycler, apparently wary as a result of experiences like mine over the course of the week, asks me to commit to a specific time before giving an address. I suggest 7pm, and the Freecycler agrees. Brian and I pick them up and find them to be suitable for our small back room (which has gone through the past four years with no window treatments of any kind). Result: success.
Transaction #7: Earlier in the week, as Brian was cleaning out the basement, he discovered that my guitar case (which had been sitting untouched for months if not years) had developed mildew. The guitar itself was okay and is now sitting out on a stand in the downstairs room (where I might, with luck, remember to pick it up and play it once in a while), but I thought it might be handy to get a new case for it—so when I saw an offer for a new but slightly damaged case from a Freecycler right here in town, I immediately offered to take it. The Freecycler agreed and left it out on the porch for me. Unfortunately, as soon as I picked it up, I knew it was too bulky and too heavy for me. I barely managed to lug the thing home. Now it's just sitting in the back room waiting to be relisted for some other lucky Freecycler to pick up. Result: a successful transaction, but an unsatisfactory result.
Looking over the list, it's clear that my transactions have, on the whole, been more positive than negative, so I guess I really have no cause for complaint. But the week has made it abundantly clear that the course of free shopping does not always run smooth.
Transaction #1: I posted an offer for a book called The Complete Cheapskate that I picked up off the free table at our library book sale, just on the off chance that it had any useful advice in it I hadn't already heard many times over. (It didn't, and it was written with a heavily Christian slant that I found a bit oppressive.) I got a request for it within one hour, and it was picked up the next day. Result: success.
Transaction #2: I posted an offer for "unidentified tomato plants" in an effort to get rid of the volunteers that popped up in the vicinity of our compost bin. (The squash plants have been transplanted to our regular garden area, where they seem, after an initial rough patch, to be settling in okay.) Three people respond, and I say yes to all three, since there are plenty of tomato plants to go around. One of them (the same one who took the book) shows up as scheduled and takes several plants. The second one gives me a runaround for several days, never actually committing to a specific time, and finally stops responding. The third one offers to come on Monday but will not commit to a specific time, does not show up on Monday because "something came up," suggests coming on Friday but still will not commit to a time, finally agrees to come on Sunday between 11 and 12, and shows up around 2:30 after I had given up on her. At this point, I assumed that the half-a-dozen remaining tomato plants would end up in the compost bin, but the first Freecycler (the one who actually came when she said she would) contacts me again and asks if there are any tomato plants left, as hers didn't survive transplanting. I tell her that she is welcome to all the ones that are left, and she shows up promptly and takes them. Result: eventual success, but with considerable frustration in the process.
Transaction #3: I respond to another Freecycler's request for a microwave cart, offering an old white one that's been sitting unused in our basement. Freecycler responds promptly with, "I can pick it up today," but then writes back saying "Sorry something came up last min" and asks if he/she can pick it up on Saturday after 5pm. I respond in the negative and propose a couple of alternative times, and I also give out my phone number to facilitate scheduling. The Freecycler does not respond and is never heard from again. Result: failure.
Transaction #4: I post an offer for three incandescent bulbs Brian unearthed while cleaning out our basement. At this point, I am feeling a bit disillusioned with Freecycle, so I'm astonished to get a response within the hour, proposing a specific date and even a specific time for pickup. I agree to leave the bulbs out on the porch (the usual method for transferring items between Freecyclers), and they are picked up more or less on schedule. Result: unqualified success.
Transaction #5: I post an offer for a "joystick with four classic arcade games." This is a little toy we picked up for a buck at a yard sale a few years back, which plugs directly into a TV set and has four 1980s-vintage video games hardwired into it. Since then we'd offered it to several friends, but no one was interested. Assuming we won't get any replies immediately, I then head out to a 4th of July party. When I get home, there's a response offering to pick the joystick up "within the hour if not spoken for." Fearing I may have missed my window, I respond that the joystick is available at any time. The Freecycler offers to come get it that very evening if I will leave the item out on the porch. By morning it is gone. Result: unqualified success.
Transaction #6: I respond to an offer for some "woven wood shades" from a Freecycler in a neighboring town. This Freecycler, apparently wary as a result of experiences like mine over the course of the week, asks me to commit to a specific time before giving an address. I suggest 7pm, and the Freecycler agrees. Brian and I pick them up and find them to be suitable for our small back room (which has gone through the past four years with no window treatments of any kind). Result: success.
Transaction #7: Earlier in the week, as Brian was cleaning out the basement, he discovered that my guitar case (which had been sitting untouched for months if not years) had developed mildew. The guitar itself was okay and is now sitting out on a stand in the downstairs room (where I might, with luck, remember to pick it up and play it once in a while), but I thought it might be handy to get a new case for it—so when I saw an offer for a new but slightly damaged case from a Freecycler right here in town, I immediately offered to take it. The Freecycler agreed and left it out on the porch for me. Unfortunately, as soon as I picked it up, I knew it was too bulky and too heavy for me. I barely managed to lug the thing home. Now it's just sitting in the back room waiting to be relisted for some other lucky Freecycler to pick up. Result: a successful transaction, but an unsatisfactory result.
Looking over the list, it's clear that my transactions have, on the whole, been more positive than negative, so I guess I really have no cause for complaint. But the week has made it abundantly clear that the course of free shopping does not always run smooth.
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