Curbside Recycling WANTS you to be LAZY!

Now I'm not saying they don't want you to recycle, they really do want you to have them come pick up your recyclables. Why wouldn't they? You pay them on average $15 for them to come by once or twice a month and they go and take your stuff to the recycling center and get paid for it to. It's brilliant! You should do it, really you should.

Or...

You could recycle, take the recyclables to the recycling center yourself (saving yourself $15 or so in the process) and then get paid for recycling all that glass, paper, and plastic stuff you burned through in the week.

Hmmm,let's look at the math on that.

Curbside:
Pay $15 a month
Someone else makes money on the recyclables

Net Loss: $180 a year

DIY Recycling:
Save $15 a month, put that money in a jar, literally, get yourself a jar and put $15 in cash in it.

Take the the recyclables to the recycling center yourself, get paid, say an average family may get $10 (This is totally a guess) come home and put that in the jar.

Net Savings: $180 + $10 a trip every two weeks (provided that is the actual amount)
Total Savings Potential: $420


I don't know about you but I like the possibility of the last number the best.

What's up with Food Storage?

Food storage, nobody really thinks about it these days. If you need something you just hop in the car, drive to the store, get the $5 item you needed and about $95 of stuff you didn’t. Then we rinse and repeat and next thing you know, the United States is throwing out as much food as it consumes. In fact we throw out so much food it would feed several 3rd world countries. Don’t believe me; go ask the guys at the landfill, they have to track that kind of stuff.

So what does food storage have to do with that you ask?

If we organize our food, keeping track of what we have and how much we use, first we save money.

How many times have you run to the store because you were out of something, come back, and while you were rummaging for something else found the thing you thought you were out of?

It happens a lot. If you know what you have there is less waste, less is hauled to the landfill. Plus you use less gas, contribute to less traffic etc.

Emergencies…
Could you feed yourself or your family with what you have on hand for three days? And I’m talking three full squares a day. A fairly simple thing really.

Yeah but I can just run to the store you whine.

What if the car is in the shop for a big repair?
What if your little town was hit by a tornado and there was some big damage?
Current example, what if you’re snowed in and they have called off school?
Here are a couple sites you can look at from some gals who are letting people learn from their trial and error.

Food Storage Made Easy

Everyday Food Storage

Dare you to try and do it…I am.

Trying to post something new everyday...

I'm going to do my best to put something new up everyday. Whether it something I learned, or we did something cool with dinner. Being consistent will be the key.

So for today...

Homemade popcorn.

So I was making a run to the grocery store before the snow storm hit us and found a combination extra virgin olive and canola oil, it was also loaded with omega 3's and DHA's very cool. So instead of making microwave popcorn with all the extra junk I made some in a skillet on the stove, tossed it with a little garlic powder and salt, blammo instant good for you snack. Plus it had none of the bad fat you'd get in normal microwave popcorn.We also made our own chex mix yesterday, way better than the store bought too.

Potatoes for the Masses

This is what a seed potato looks like...

2 lbs of seed potatoes averages $9 if you order them. 10 lbs of potatoes at the store are currently $2-3. Let them sprout and you just had more potatoes and it just saved you $6-7. Most people throw out the ones that are trying to reproduce themselves anyway. Take that money you saved, go to Home Depot, get a 5 gallon bucket and some soil, plant these "Bad" potatoes and feed your family later.

I haven't bought a light bulb in months

The new compact fluorescent bulbs are worth the money. Not saying they don't burn out or sometimes get broken, but they do what they say they are going to do. Now if I can get the kids to turn them off and Mel to quit buying the three way bulbs we'll have pretty much eliminated a purchase.

So it's cold right now, snow and ice on the ground, not a whole lot of gardening going on. Hasn't been a whole lot of posting on my part either. I guess I'm not very good at blogging, but I have a done a lot of thinking. I came to realize that working on something that tried to make the world a better place makes me feel better, life seemed to go better. When I'm not working on it it's like life, god, the planet was saying

"Your not working on what you need to. We need you to do this."

I need to listen to that voice more often, it only wants the best for me anyway. So I'm going to listen more. I'm going to do more. I see a lot of sites who are saying they are doing this or that, and you can to if you just give them some money. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give it away. I'm going to share what I learn. I'm going to do it the right way. I've made some big changes in my life, my family has been through a lot of changes. I'm going to make their lives better.

People can do anything, but they have to start.