Life of utter garbage

One figure jumped out at me when I read this story about a guy who decided to live without throwing away a single piece of trash, from wine bottles to chewing gum and pizza boxes.

Rather than the 1,600 pounds of trash the average American family produces each year, (Dave) Chameides, his wife and two daughters have amassed only 32 pounds over the last 12 months. (Underscoring mine.)

Good grief! 1,600 pounds of trash means more than 4 pounds of trash a day!

Start by not buying water in a bottle. When I was growing up (when the dinosaurs still roamed the earth), we drank tap water. Now I use those water pitchers with a filter on them. In principle, I refuse to pay for water when we have decent tap water in the United States.

My wife and I have also eliminated virtually all processed food. We cook all our food from scratch. We bake our bread and pizza dough without a bread machine. (We use a vintage Hobart KitchenAid stand mixer that my late mother-in-law used when my wife was a little girl.)

I agree with Dave:

"It's just little steps. I'm not living in a cave. People think that the U.S. quality of life should be living in a house with lights on all the time. We live a pretty decent life, by many people's standards we live a phenomenal life."

A dollar well-unspent

Some examples of people who decided to spend a lot less money -- and ended up richer for it ...

VA family experiments with forced frugality

For two weeks in November, the couple paid their bills and mortgage. But that was it. No eating out. No double espressos at the corner cafe. No pedicures. No iTunes, groceries, even. Austin went to Best Buy twice, just to wistfully look around.

But as the Wheelocks came to the end of their forced frugality, they felt giddy instead of deprived. Katy found herself humming "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. They checked their money-tracking software and figured they had "saved" more than $2,000 during those two weeks just by not spending it.

$1 a day on food

This fall a couple in Encinitas, Calif., conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, both high school social studies teachers, quickly discovered what cash-strapped consumers have known all along. In the United States, the cheapest foods tend to be so-called junk foods — candies, chips and other processed fare that is packed with calories but devoid of nutrients. Meanwhile, fresh fruits and vegetables are priced out of reach. And living on a tight food budget adds lots of extra time and effort to meal preparation.

“We’re used to eating some type of vegetable with every meal and fruit every day,” Ms. Leonard said. “Finding out there was very little way to fit that into our budget, that was a huge struggle.”

The couple blogged about the diet project and also raised about $1,500 for a local community center. While the dollar-a-day diet was just a monthlong experiment for the couple, health researchers say their experiences reflect many of the real world conditions people on limited incomes face every day. To read more about the high price of healthful food, read this week’s Well column, “Money Is Tight, and Junk Food Beckons,” and then please join the discussion below.

And, from the bible of capitalism itself, The Wall Street Journal, comes:

Hosting a Holiday Party on a Budget



This caught my eye, because I'm always on the lookout for cheap wine...

Cheap wine doesn't have to mean poor quality. Buy wines from lesser known regions such as British Columbia and Portugal (for non-port wine), which tend to better priced, says wine writer Ms. Werlin. Also try boxed wines, which have made strides in quality in recent years, she says.

"It's not the most beautiful presentation, but you can put the wine in a carafe," Ms. Werlin says.

Ms. Werlin recommends the Wine Cube, which is available in four reds and four whites at Target. A 1.5 liter box (equivalent to two bottles) retails for $9.99 and a 3 liter cube sells for $15.99.

As for champagne, there was a time when all bubblies paled in comparison. Not anymore. Spanish cavas, Italian proseccos and American sparkling wines have improved to be nice alternatives for that New Year's toast, and can be cheaper by more than 50%.

Mr. Wondrich recommends Gruet, a sparkling wine fermented in New Mexico. "It's got a nice, champagne-like flavor," Mr. Wondrich says. "It's about $12 to $15 a bottle. But you don't want to get cheaper than that -- it should still taste good."

For the best holiday season, be frugal

You can celebrate the holidays without going broke.

The holiday season should be about spending time with family and friends. Instead, we've turned the holiday season into an excuse to go on a gigantic shopping spree.

It's time to just say "no" to mindless shopping. It's time to say "Enough" to going into debt because of your holiday spending.

Some suggestions:

• Plan only pot-luck dinners. That way no one is stuck with making all the food.
  
  
• Use homemade decorations. Use your children's artwork. One person I know makes a collage of greeting cards on the wall. Use inexpensive, festive LED lights.
  
  
• Make homemade gifts of cookies, fudge, jams, anything.
  
  
• Give "gift certificates" of things that you can do for someone close to you -- a 30-minute massage, a lesson on how to make homemade pizza dough, etc. You can use a simple program like Microsoft Works to create elaborate gift certificates.
  
  
• Plan a "white elephant" gift exchange. According to wikihow, "White elephant gifts are traditionally gifts considered extremely tacky, or that do not fit the tastes of the recipient ... The thought behind a white elephant gift exchange is to give everyone a chance to rid themselves of these tacky gifts--and invariably gaining a new one!"
  
  
• Or, if you prefer to exchange new gifts, set a maximum cost. Say, $20. That way, no one need bankrupt themselves.
  
  
• Or draw names by putting everyone's name in a hat. Everyone draws one name, and that's the person you buy for. Everyone gets a gift. Nobody is excluded.
  
  
• Take photos of your get-togethers with a digital camera. Upload them to an online photo album and send the links to your family and friends who attended the get-together.
  
  
• Give compassion. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or to deliver meals for homebound seniors. Donate to a charitable organization that your loved ones and friends care about. Give to Race for the Cure for breast cancer research, or Doctors Without Borders, or Habitat for Humanity. Give so someone else can live longer and have more holiday seasons to enjoy.

More about for saving money online

In today's paper, I found an article called Numerous deals can be found online.

Travel booking: Kayak.com.
Kayak scours more than 140 sources for the best airfares, hotel rates and vacation packages.

Last-minute travel: US.LastMinute.com.
Book your whole trip just days or even hours before takeoff. Some of the sweetest deals pop up at the last minute.

Online bargains: Dodtracker.com.
This deal-of-the-day site surfs the Web for the best bargains on everything from electronics and jewelry to tools and kitchen gadgets.

Cheap gas: Gasprices.Mapquest.com.
Rather than rely on volunteer "spotters," Mapquest updates fuel prices daily via a data feed from the Oil Pricing Information Service. Type in your Zip code and rank stations by price or distance.

Pet care: PetInsuranceReview.com.
Compare plans from all the major pet-insurance providers, and get customer reviews and ratings.

Pet medications: 1800PetMeds.com.
No other service even comes close to the leading purveyor of pet medications. You can reach the company by phone at 800-738-6337.

Saving money with online coupons

I favor using coupons only if the coupon is for something that I would have bought anyway. Sometimes, people do it backwards. They buy something because a coupon for it exists. That, in my opinion, is a no-no.

But, with that as a caveat, I can recommend the following New York Times story.

In Lean Times, Online Coupons Are Catching On

On the Internet, nothing travels faster than a tip on how to score a bargain. Especially in an economic downturn.

With online retail sales falling this month for the first time, Internet merchants are offering steep discounts to anyone willing to punch in a secret coupon code or visit a rebate site for a “referral” before loading up their virtual cart.

Shoppers obsessed with finding these bargains share the latest intelligence on dozens of sites with quirky names like RetailMeNot.com, FatWallet.com and the Budget Fashionista. And more consumers than ever are scanning the listings before making a purchase at their favorite Web site. ...

... (These Web sites include) CouponMom.com, which includes coupons for physical stores; and CouponCode.com, which is organized by category. "

Outsaving the Joneses

But it will take more than white papers and wonkery to change social norms. So what societal forces could be harnessed to make economizing admirable? A couple seem promising. One is environmentalism: The mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle" is also a formula for saving money because wasting resources not only is personally profligate but also harms everyone by hurting the planet. In Hollywood, a Prius is far hipper than a Hummer. Another force might be retirement anxiety: If you don't save enough to pay all your own bills, then you're forcing your kids and mine to pay them, and that's not right.

A Return to Thrift, by Geoff Colvin, The Washington Post, 10/21/2008

---

"Frugal" is not a dirty word. "Thrifty" is not a dirty word. However, "debt" is.

All of you know people who refinanced their home so that they could free up money to buy, say, a car. In effect, they turned something that appreciates or gains in value (the equity in their home) into something that depreciates or loses value.

I think that the global meltdown of 2008 is a wake-up call to change our profligate habits. We Americans are ready to rediscover thrift. And the first thing that we have to do is take stock of our situation.

How rich (or poor) are you?

The Millionaire Next Door: The surprising secrets of America's wealthy, by Thomas J Stanley and William D. Danko, contains a formula for computing one's expected net worth. (Expected net worth is how much you should be worth considering your age and income.) It is as follows:

Multiply your age times your realized pretax annual household income from all sources except inheritances. Divide by ten. This, less any inherited wealth, is what your net worth should be.

For example, if Joe Blow is 30 and earns $50,000 a year, his net worth should be $150,000.

30 (Joe Blow's age)
x 50,000 (Joe Blow's annual income)
= 1,500,000

1,500,000 divided by 10
= 150,000

The authors have developed a simple rule of thumb:

• If your net worth equals the average calculated by the formula above, you are an AAW (average accumulator of wealth)
• if your net worth is twice the average, you are a PAW (prodigious accumulator of wealth)
• if your net worth is half the average, you are a UAW (under accumulator of wealth)

If you want to calculate your expected net worth, you can do it here.


Here are 2003 statistics on the net worth of U.S. households.

Source: Claritas, December 2003 data

So, now that you know where you stand, you can start your own thrift program. There is a video and how-to on WikiHow. You don't have to buy anything to be happy. Here's how to buy nothing.

---

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

-- Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens' David Copperfield

The electoral map turns blue ...

And therefore it also turns green ...

Scale down your holidays ... and other good ideas

The Green Tightwad has been remiss, I admit.

The darn U.S. election has been a major distraction. (I am for the candidate with only one house, one car and one wife.)

But I couldn't help notice the excellent piece in the Washington Post, 20 Steps to Toughen Up Against Hard Times, by Elizabeth Razzi. Here are my favorites among Razzi's money-saving tips:

• Caulk, repair and paint (or seal) exterior surfaces. A paint brush now avoids a carpenter later.
• The latest thing in kitchens: less remodeling, more cooking.
• Search and destroy water leaks.
• Go to http://www.dmachoice.org to have all catalogues stopped.
• Tone down the holiday decorations. Fifty bucks on a fog machine? Not this Halloween...
• Count the holiday kilowatts. If you need new holiday lights, choose LED bulbs.

I would add a few of my own:

• Maybe it's time to give up your land line and just use a mobile phone.
• If you want to trim your energy use, learn to use a pressure cooker. It's the ultimate green cooking machine. You can cut cooking times up to 70 percent. Today's pressure cookers are safe and easy to use. And because food is cooked above the boiling point of water, you can kill bacteria and viruses.
  
• While we're on the subject of cooking ... if you haven't yet, learn to bake. Even if it's with a mix. Have you checked the prices on cookies and other baked goods lately?
  
• Make more of what you cook for dinner so you can take it to work the next day.
  
• Ask yourself before every purchase: "What bad thing will happen to me if I don't buy this?" If the answer is "nothing," don't buy it.
• Turn off the television. If you want background sound, listen to public radio.
  
• Turn a critical eye to your possessions. If you have fewer possessions, you have fewer stuff to keep clean. Donate your stuff to Goodwill and get a tax deduction for it.
• Plan your meals around what's on sale at your grocery store that week.
  

Toward a truly green America

Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times Thomas L. Friedman has a new book out called "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- And How It Can Renew America."

Joseph S. Nye Jr.'s review in the Washington Post says:

Three years ago, in The World is Flat, he warned that borders, oceans and distance no longer protect us from the information revolution that is leveling the global economic playing field and relocating our jobs. Now he updates and expands this diagnosis by showing how population growth, climate change and the expansion of the world's middle class are producing a planet that is "hot, flat, and crowded." Unchecked, these trends will produce dangerous instability; but Friedman remains guardedly optimistic that we can stave off this nightmare, particularly if the United States changes its wasteful energy habits. In this important book, Friedman says we can survive, even prosper, by going green.

Of course, rousing a full-bellied nation, groggy from decades of energy overconsumption, is no small task. As the current election debate reminds us, the United States has proven inept at developing a serious energy strategy. Our approach, says one expert quoted by Friedman, is "the sum of all lobbies"; we have energy politics rather than energy policy. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush ignored calls by Friedman and others for a "USA Patriot Tax" of $1 per gallon on gasoline. Instead, the president offered tax cuts and urged us to shop. Rather than stimulating the economy to move toward fuel-efficient vehicles and renewable energy, we became more dependent on China to finance our deficit and Saudi Arabia to fill our gas tanks. Americans wound up paying even more for gas in 2008, but we enabled OPEC to be the tax collector instead of using the revenues ourselves. Friedman calls this a "No Mullah Left Behind" policy and quotes former CIA director Jim Woolsey: "We are funding the rope for the hanging of ourselves."

The Green Tightwad now has this book on hold at the local library.

Vinegar, baking soda, Borax -- and elbow grease

"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." That's a good rule of thumb for eating only natural (not processed) food. (It's from the book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan.)

I would add another rule: Don't use cleaning products that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize.

That's the Green Tightwad way, because:

• You don't inhale toxic chemicals and send them down the drain to waterways.
• They cost just pennies to use.

Clearing the air

The simplest air freshener is composed of water and a few drops of any essential oil, like orange or lavender oil.

Most surface cleaning

A mixture of half-vinegar, half-water is all that you need for most surface cleaning. It also works for hardwood floors. To disinfect surfaces, just use rubbing alcohol.

Washing windows or glass

Add a teaspoon or so of tea tree oil (or any essential oil) to a gallon of water to wash windows.

Polish wood furniture

Polish furniture with a half-olive oil, half-vinegar mixture (plus a drop or so of an essential oil to mask the smell).

Scrub bathrooms

You'll need baking soda and an old dampened brush. Clean mildewy grout with a vinegar-dipped toothbrush. Mix about 2 ounces of Borax and a cup of white vinegar to make a spray that you can use for mold in the tub or shower. After you spray it, let it sit for an hour or so before you wipe it off.

For cleaning toilets, mix 1/4 cup baking soda, 1/4 cup dishwashing liquid, and 1/4 cup water. Pour it in the toilet bowl. Let it sit couple of hours, swish with a toilet brush, and flush.

Refrigerator

Don't, I repeat, don't use a chemical spray for something that holds your food. Just make a paste of baking soda with water. It's non-toxic and deodorizing as well.

. . . . . . . . . .

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

Fellow tightwad, Dr. Bob Browning

A mantra for frugal times

"Make it last, wear it out, use it up or do without."

Dr. Robert M. Browning, former Coast Guard historian

How to piss away money

I'll say it again: Be clear about whether something is a "need" or a "want."

"I only buy things on sale" is the most bogus excuse of all, particularly if what you are buying are things that you want rather than need. Ask yourself, "Will anything bad happen to me if I don't buy this?" If the answer is "no," don't buy it.

Here, in no particular order, are ways that we piss away money and guarantee that we, as Americans, will never have enough savings to retire:

• Bring a sack lunch to work: It's easy. Just cook too much at dinnertime so you can have leftovers for lunch at work the next day. If lunch at the cafeteria costs $7, but you pack a sack lunch costing $2 in leftovers, you can save $1,250 a year.
• ATM fees: Convenience comes at a steep price. Americans paid almost $4.4 billion in ATM fees in 2007. You can avoid it by using ATMs within your bank's network, and by withdrawing bigger sums on fewer occasions. Or get cash back when you make credit or debit card purchases.
• Bottled water: You can buy a water filter pitcher for less than $10. Filtered tap water is almost free, and there is no guarantee that you get better quality with bottled water. (I always suspect that behind every designer brand of bottled water there is a couple who's figured out an entrepreneurial opportunity with their tap water and is laughing all the way to the bank.) And think of the estimated four billion pounds of plastic bottles that end up in landfills or as roadside litter.
• Magazine subscriptions: Why, oh why, do people subscribe to magazines that offer all their content for free on the Internet? Duh.
• Take public transportation. Reduce gasoline (and damage to the ozone), and you can read a book (or snooze) and arrive at work rested. Or, who knows, you could write the Great American Novel while commuting to work on the subway.
• Don't drive so fast. Doing 55 mph instead of 65 mph can improve your mileage by about 15 percent. (And keep those tires inflated.)

Greening your vacation

You don't have to go broke just because you want to go on a vacation within North America.

• Travel in the off-season if you can, and you'll save a bundle.
• If you want to drive, go to AAA's Fuel Cost Calculator. You can estimate the fuel cost by keying in your vehicle make, year and model, and your starting city and destination.
• Check www.gasbuddy.com to find your cheapest prices for gas along the way.
  
• Better yet, take the bus. Companies like Boltbus charge as low as $1 per seat (if you book way in advance.)
• If you want to fly, here are some options. Sidestep and Farecompare allow you to search airfares across hundreds of airlines.
• Before you book a hotel online with one of the travel sites like hotwire.com, call the hotel directly. Ask for the best rate they got if you've got AAA membership, senior citizen status, etc. Sometimes you'll be surprised.
• Better still, freeload off friends. But be a good guest. Offer to take them out to dinner while you're there. If friends can save you $100+ a night at a hotel, you can afford to take them to dinner.
  
• When you travel, it's cheaper to buy some healthy snacks at a supermarket or grocery store rather than eat every meal at restaurants. That's why before I book hotels I first find out if there are grocery stores nearby. I like to know where my food supply is.
  
• When you eat at a restaurant, order a few things first. It is difficult to guess what the portions will look like, and you can always order more later. But if you've ordered too much, you will have a lot of leftovers. That's a waste of food.
  
• BYOB. Bring your own beer, wine, vodka, etc., if you are traveling by car. (In the trunk, not the front seat.) Anything is cheaper than ordering booze at a restaurant. I like to chill out in my hotel room with my own booze after dinner.
  
• Pack a large cooler with sandwiches, drinks, non-perishable snacks, and so on.

Have a good vacation. Bring back a snowglobe for me.

"Was this a need? Or was it a want?"

In an excellent Wall Street Journal piece, Andrea Coombes talks about the dangers of credit cards.

The U.S. economy is in the toilet, and inflation is back with a vengeance, so it's no surprise that credit card debt rose 7% in May. But some of it is self-inflicted.

Says Coombes:

In an HSBC Direct survey conducted last month, 42% of 1,084 consumers said they had splurged on themselves in the past month, and 28% of those said they did so "because I deserve it." When I catch myself "deserving" something, I try to remember to ask myself: Do I really need this?"

One exercise to use, says Nathan Dungan, president of Share Save Spend, a Minneapolis-based firm providing values-based money education, "is when your credit-card bill comes in, go through it line by line, answering...was this a need or was it a want?"

She has eight tips for avoiding too much credit card debt. I will not repeat them here, because I've provided a link.

But no amount of tips and advice will help you if you have the wrong idea about what constitutes your "deserving" something.

Remember the TV commercial (I think it was for hair dye) that ends with "I'm worth it"? I'm going to put my Dr. Phil hat on for a few minutes and disabuse you of any notion that the way to prove you're worth it, that you're deserving, is to spend, spend, spend.

What better way to show that you're worth it than to have enough savings so that if your boss mistreats you, you can afford to quit? What better way to show that you're worth it than to grow your investment portfolio (as opposed to your closet)? Twenty designer purses or a roomful of electronic gadgets that you don't need do not make you a winner. It just makes you look like someone who is extremely foolish about money.

If you want to really prove that you're worth it, nothing speaks louder than money saved.

You can get that for free at a public library?

OK, multiple choice question.

Which of the following can you get for free at a typical U.S. public library?

1. A. DVDs
2. B. CDs
3. C. Audiobooks
4. D. Books, DVDs, CDs and audiobooks that are not owned by your local library.
5. E. All of the above

If you answered "5," all of the above, you're right.

Everybody knows libraries have books. But did you know that you can virtually eliminate your spending on movies and music at the public library?

In my local library, I can choose DVDs (and, yes, you can get new releases there) and put them on hold if they're not available. When the movie arrives at my local branch, they send me an e-mail and I pick it up.

The same goes for music.

What about 5, "Books, DVDs, CDs and audiobooks that are not owned by your local library"?

If your local branch library doesn't own the book, DVD, CD or audiobook you want, you can put in an Inter-library loan request. Same drill. They e-mail you once the item you requested has arrived. The cost is about $3, a pittance compared with what you would have had to pay if you bought it.

Wait, it gets better. There are many other free resources at your library.

• Author events: You can meet writers and ask questions. For example, Cake Love owner Warren Brown's book tour included a stop at the Shirlington (Arlington, Virginia) library for his book, CakeLove: How to Bake Cakes from Scratch.
• Free screenings: Not long ago, we were at a free screening of The Golden Venture, with a Q&A afterward with filmmaker Peter Cohn. An upcoming event at the Shirlington Library is a screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
  
• Live performances: The Arlington Philharmonic will perform an all-Mozart concert at the Arlington Central Library on August 2 and August 3, 2008. There are many such free performances, sometimes linked to an ethnic/cultural festival, like the Lunar New Year.
  
• Book group: Be part of a discussion on various books. For example, the July 28, 2008, Monday evening discussion is about Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert.
  

And don't forget e-books, e-audiobooks and e-journals, courtesy of NetLibrary. You can join for free.

At my local library, you can also find free online lessons in 12 languages via Mango Languages.

• Spanish
• French
• Italian
• Brazilian Portuguese
• German
• Russian
• Japanese
• Mandarin Chinese
• Greek
• English for Spanish Speakers
• English for Portuguese Speakers
• English for Polish Speakers

Every U.S. public library system is different, but chances are they have a combination of resources, both traditional and multimedia.

Best of all, it's free. And you don't have to clutter up your house or muck up the environment in any way. The Green Tightwad approves.

Can you afford that? A new way of thinking

"The people who judge you based on the cost of your cars and clothes and purses, you don't want to have for friends anyway."

Mrs. Green Tightwad

A New York Times series called The Debt Trap details practices that have produced record profits for lenders but have pushed Americans to financial ruin. The Green Tightwad is convinced that the fundamental trouble lies in a couple of things:

• We have forgotten how to live within our means
• And, more importantly, we don't really know whether we can afford something or not

Earlier generations know how to live within their means. Forbes profiled the average American's financial picture.

Personal Savings Rate

1965	8.5%
1975	10.5%
1985	11%
1995	5%
2005	0.4%
	Source: Commerce Dept.

The thing that has brought me to my second point is the video in The Debt Trap of Diane McLeod, 47.

She made $48,000 in 2007 before taxes. In one part of the video, she holds up a purse that she subsequently had to sell on eBay to pay her bills. McLeod paid $69 for it, which she thought at the time was a good deal. She sold it for $30.

Now my wife, who is even more of a tightwad than I, has never bought a $69 purse. She pays maybe 1/3 of that, and her closet only has half a dozen purses -- total. She considers it a waste of her money even though she could easily afford any purse she wants. (On the other hand, she is inordinately proud of her investment portfolio.)

My wife suggested to me that it is time that I, the Green Tightwad, reminded people of what they truly can or can not afford.

There are two ways of thinking about the cost of things. One is the pure cost of things. For example, a car may cost $20,000.

No problem, you say, it's a cheap car, and I can easily afford it on my salary. But if you compare the cost of things to your net worth, a different picture could emerge.

In 2000, the median household net worth (total of assets minus liabilities) was $79,400 for households with a non-Hispanic white householder. If your net worth is $79,000, the $20,000 car represents a whopping 25% of your total household wealth. In short, you can't afford it.

The woman in the New York Times article was evidently comparing the $69 cost of the purse to her $48,000 before-tax income. On this basis, she concluded that she could afford it. But the woman was also deeply in debt, which meant that she had a negative net worth because her liabilities were more than her assets.

When looked at it this way, she couldn't afford it.

The Green Tightwad humbly suggests that the next time you have an urge to buy something -- especially something you can live without -- you should calculate the price of the thing versus your net worth. The answer might surprise you.

Not all green goods are worth the added green

Sometimes, it's not easy being green. It can be expensive.

Kelli B. Grant of SmartMoney has come up with five green goods that are not worth the additional money.

1. OLED TVs

Too expensive. Not worth the lower electric bill.

2. Groceries

Especially "organic" seafood. There is no such thing.

3. Carbon Offsets

"You could be paying for something that would have been done anyway," says Brian Clark Howard, eco-tips editor for TheDailyGreen.com.

4. Wine and Spirits

Fermentation, distillation and filtering — intrinsic parts of wine and spirit production — eliminate any pesticides anyway.

5. Green Building

Solar panels for your roof or a geothermal heating system can easily set you back tens of thousands of dollars. It will take you at least a decade to recoup the cost.

Gas-savings hooey

Three words about "gas-saving additives": They don't work.

If a company claims it has an endorsement from the government, that's a big, fat lie. The EPA has issued reports based on its testing and evaluation of some products. There's a set of links to those reports at http://www.epa.gov/oms/consumer/reports.htm. By the way, if a company claims that its product has been evaluated by the EPA, ask for a copy of the report.

That's according to Michelle Singletary, in her latest "The Color of Money" column.

One good thing, though, is $4-plus gas could lead to fewer deaths, say the authors of a new study.

"For every 10 percent rise in gas prices, fatalities are reduced by 2.3 percent. The effects are even more dramatic for teen drivers."

Cheap eats (and good for you, too!)

A list of The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating appeared in The New York Times on June 30, 2008. The Green Tightwad became very excited when he read the list.

The foods are beets, cabbage, Swiss chard, cinnamon, pomegranate juice, dried plums, pumpkin seeds, sardines, turmeric, frozen blueberries, canned pumpkin.

The article explains why each of these foods are good and gives simple ways of preparing them. But best of all, many of them are not only nutritious but also cheap. Beets, cabbage, Swiss chard, sardines and canned pumpkin are supermarket bargains. These inexpensive and nutritious foods inspired me to expand on the list.

Along with Swiss chard, kale and collard greens are excellent inexpensive green veggies that should be on everybody's table. Pasta with kale (or Swiss chard or collard greens) is a great way to eat these green leafy vegetables. Google pasta and kale recipes for a boatload of good recipes.

If you're up for a culinary adventure, find an Asian market and head for the cabbages. They have a whole lot of them. Don't be intimidated by the fact that these are "Asian" vegetables. Cook them any way you like. I saute them in a little garlic and olive oil.

All frozen fruits (not just blueberries) are excellent for making smoothies and other things. Pomegranate juice, is expensive, but you can get the antioxidant benefits by drinking small amounts or including it in a smoothie. Along with sardines, canned salmon and kippered herring are also good and reasonably priced.

For maximum nutritional benefits, eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, and buy what's in season for the best values.

Keeping your cool, part deux

Three tips on how to save on your electric bill stolen from SmartMoney.TV:

• Raise your themostat by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit before you leave the house and you can save almost 10 percent.
• Install a ceiling fan. It redistributes air and makes the room feel about 2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. Adjust the AC accordingly. If you don't want to pay for a ceiling fan (the green tightwad doesn't), buy regular fans. (A small one costs less than $10.) They help.
  
• Desktop PCs, video game systems can add another 5 percent to your annual bill. Plug the into one power strip and unplug before you leave home.

Keeping your cool without blasting the AC

Summertime, and the livin' ain't gonna be easy ...

Dominion Electric in my home state of Virginia just gained approval to raise its rates 18%. Gasoline was more about $4.13 a gallon the last time I filled up. And, did I mention, we haven't eaten yet?

Here are some tips from the from the Alliance for Climate Protection, a non-profit group that wants to stop global warming (with a nod to Marshall Loeb of MarketWatch, who wrote about it), and some that I have added:

• Don't turn on the AC. Close the shades or use an awning to keep the direct sun out. I would add: Use an electric fan. Take more than one daily shower, if necessary. The wife is an expert on taking 5-minute showers with the shower head set at low-flow.
  
  
• If you must use an air conditioner, choose one room for it. Make sure it's the room you spend the most time in.
  
  
• Plant trees in places where your house gets the most direct sunlight. This is for the future, but trees in the right place can save up to 25% of a typical household's energy used for cooling by providing shade.
  
  
• Check those bulbs. Compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs) are more efficient than incandescent bulbs. They are up to four times more efficient, and last about ten times longer. They also use more than 50% less energy than incandescent ones.
  
  
• Watch those vampire appliances (the ones that suck power when you aren't using them). Computers and other electronic gadgets are the biggest offenders. Unplug them when you are not using them.
  
  
• And turn off lights after you leave a room (your parents were right).

Going Green gets cheaper

In a twisted sort of way, this is good news. Thanks to soaring energy prices, many green products don't look as expensive as they once did, says a recent Wall Street Journal article. Producers of green products use less fossil fuel than regular commercial manufacturers. They also tend to favor renewable-energy and energy-saving practices. Hence the savings.

Eco-Products Inc., a Boulder, Colo., company that makes compostable dinnerware is one company the Journal cited. Their product is made out of a corn-based polymer. Their competitors use petroleum.

Locally grown organic food producers are also benefiting from the run up in oil prices because they don't use petroleum-based fertilizers and their transportation costs are often less.

The Green Tightwad decided to look at green cleaning products to see how prices compare to the regular detergents and cleansers. The regular cleansers were cheaper, but some of the environmentally-friendly ones were in the ball park in terms of cost.

Large companies (Clorox with its Green Works line and Palmolive with its Eco Dishwasher detergent) have jumped on the green bandwagon, and their prices are the cheapest. They are undercutting some of the totally green companies like Seventh Generation. I think large corporations will eventually dominate the green product market. Look what happens to the little health food store when Whole Foods moves into the neighborhood. The organic food business is also dominated by big agribusiness. If green goes mainstream, corporate American will go for the greenbacks.

Green tip of the week
Your dishwasher drying cycle is an unnecessary waste of electricity and money. When your dishwasher's wash cycle is complete crack open the dishwasher and let the dishes air dry.

Let's go Hypermiling!

If you're looking to save gas without trading in your car for a Prius, become a hypermiler! Hypermilers use a variety of driving and maintenance techniques to exceed the EPA's estimated fuel efficiency. Some of the advanced driving tips are the product of a deranged mind, but many of the basic tips are very good.

I now find myself looking further down the road than I ever have and coasting up to red lights, rather than racing up to them and hitting my breaks. I am also less inclined to pass a slower car. I now think of the more leisurely pace as an opportunity to save gas.

Read all about it here.

And the website of the week is the Green Guide by National Geographic. No tightwad tips here, but you can easily kill a couple of hours reading their green living tips and the latest environmental news.

A little bit goes a long way ...

There are well known Green Tightwad tips that everyone knows -- inflate your tires, don't speed, insulate your home, switching to fluorescent bulbs etc. In no particular order, here is a list of things that you may not automatically think about:

• The bottled water craze has got to stop. Americans spend nearly $11 billion a year on something they can get for free. And we waste 17 million barrels of oil a year to manufacture the plastic bottles! It's insane. Filter your water if you must and put it in an Evian or some other fancy plastic water bottle. No one even has to know you aren't drinking the real stuff. Elizabeth Royte has written a book about the subject Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. If you want to read more about this marketing scam, ask your library to get the book.
  
  
• Get the catalogs out of your mail box. Go a website called Catalog Choice.
  This is a green tightwad favorite. You reduce garbage and decrease the chance of impulse spending. What could be better? Unfortunately, you have to plug in individual catalogs and can't opt out of all catalogs, but it's still a good idea.
  
  
• And think about canceling your magazine and newspaper subscriptions. You can get most of them online for free. If you are a coupon clipper, not to worry, you can get those on the Internet as well.
  
  
• Clean up the air you breath. Tropical household plants can act as natural air-purifiers. Acacia, bamboo, ferns, lady palms, spider plants and others can remove airborne toxin.
  
  
• Reuse those one-gallon freezer bags. Just turn them inside out and put them in the wash machine when you do your laundry or wash them in the kitchen sink if they have been lightly used. The best ones are Glad Freezer bags, according to America's Test Kitchen.
  
  
• Refill computer printer cartridges. There is a reason why printers are so cheap. They stick it to you when you buy a new cartridge. You can usually refill them two times. And don't forget to set your printer for "draft quality" and "B/W only" (or sometimes this is called "grayscale" or "greyscale") if you don't need to print in color. The "draft quality" setting is plenty dark.
  

Stuff breaks. When should you replace them?

Major elements of a home (including foundations, exterior doors, basements and framing) should last at least 50 years, according to the National Association of Home Builders,

Other parts of the home have a much shorter lifespan. Here is a list of common appliances and their approximate life span. Approximate is the key word here.

Major appliances

Appliance	Expected life in years
Microwave oven	10
Garbage disposal	10-12
Trash compactor	10
Water heater, gas	11-13
Water heater, electric	13-14
Water heater, tankless (on demand)	20+
Smoke detector	10
Refrigerator, side by side	14
Refrigerator, top mount	14
Refrigerator, bottom mount	17
Refrigerator, single door	19
Refrigerator, compact (dorm type)	5
Washing machine, top load	14
Washing machine, front load	11
Dryer	13
Range, electric	17
Range, gas	19
Dishwasher	10
Cooktops	13-20
Air Conditioner (room size)	10

Keep what you have in good shape:

• Clean the condenser coils on refrigerators annually.
• Change air-conditioner filters monthly during the operating season.
• Replace washer fill hoses every five years; turn off the water supply when away for an extended period. Drain hoses if below-freezing temperatures are expected.
• Inspect and clean the exhaust duct on the clothes dryer at least once a year, and clean the lint filter before each use.
• Don't allow heavy grease buildup on the oven interior.

Replace them with energy star appliances.

The appliance life expectancy chart above should help you decide when to replace your appliances. You may want to consider upgrading some of them earlier, especially power hogs like refrigerators. There have been great leaps in appliance efficiency during the last four or five years. As long as you buy an Energy Star appliance, you'll see a noticeable decrease in your electric or gas bill.

One electricity hog not mentioned in the appliance section is your television set.

The plasma TV is the SUV of the appliance world.

If you are planning on getting a large-screen TV, go with an LCD instead of a plasma. The LCD sets use 30 to 40 percent less energy.

$4 gas makes some hybrids a better deal

Hybrids are more expensive than comparable gas models, but at $4-plus a gallon some of them may pay off more quickly than you think. Here is a chart that appeared in the Wall Street Journal this week.

If you have to pay to store it ...

Maybe you don't need it.

Self-storage companies have exploded in recent years, along with credit card debt. I can't help but think these two are connected.

People are buying way more stuff than they need and are putting it in storage. One woman that was cited by Melissa Repko of the Buffalo News pays $900 a month to keep her possessions in storage.

According to the article, a 5" by 5" unit, about the size of a closet, would cost about $30 or $40 per month. (Or $360 to $480 a year.)

A storage unit big enough for a car would cost about $150 to $200 per month. That's $1,800 to $2,400 a year!

If you are renting one of these things, clear it out and turn in the key. De-clutter your life and save some money. You'll feel better.

If you don't know whether you have a clutter problem, take this quiz, available at Oprah.com.

Here are some de-cluttering tips by 0rganizational guru Peter Walsh, host of TLC's hit show Clean Sweep.

Green Planet, coming to a TV near you

Check it out!

Planet Green, the first and only 24-hour eco-lifestyle television network, invites you to enjoy the freshest, ecoist shows on TV. From gear to gourmet, renovation to innovation, find out what's cool, what's hot and what's next. For more ways to make your world more beautiful, watch Planet Green in the stunning clarity of HD. It's an eye opening experience.

Taco please, hold the antibiotics

Kudos to Steve Ells, founder and chief executive of Chipotle Mexican Grill, who aims to offer what he terms "food with integrity" to the mass market.

The Mexican fast food restaurant Chipotle is worth a visit if you haven't been there. Chipotle's has incorporated sustainable architecture in many of their restaurants.

These include time clock/photocell controls that regulate lighting levels throughout the day, taking ambient light into consideration. They use motion sensors in the rest rooms and walk-in cooler, and highly efficient sprayers are used at sinks, etc.

They also use responsible and sustainable farmed ingredients in the chain restaurants. The pork Chipotle sells comes from hogs raised naturally on family farms, without antibiotics or hormones.

The majority of their chicken are naturally raised. Almost 30% of their beans are organic. They haven't been able to switch to organic vegetables because of the expense (a frequent Green Tightwad complaint).

But note: This isn't diet food. Their burritos are enormous. One would be enough for two people.

Link

Where's the (organic) beef?

The Wall Street Journal recently tasted test grass-fed and organic beef that is available at some supermarkets. Here are the results (and prices). (Note: This is big. The capitalist's Bible has an article about organic grass-fed beef.)

We put them to a taste test. We lightly salted and peppered the hamburgers and steaks and put them on the grill, and cooked the filets mignons in an oven. Here's what we found:

La Cense Grass Fed Beef
	Where	www.lacensebeef.com
	Price	$26.97 for eight 6-ounce burgers/ $21.88 for one 5-ounce filet mignon
Comments
These cows graze on an 88,000-acre ranch in Montana and are 100% grass-fed. The burgers had a distinctive, sweet taste that one tester liked but the others found a turnoff. The New York strip steak and flank steak were tender and had a more subtle flavor.

Estancia Beef
	Where	www.estanciabeef.com; some retailers
	Price	$39 for 5 lbs. of ground beef/$120 for four 8-ounce tenderloin steaks
Comments:
The company says that this beef, from cattle raised on the grasslands of Uruguay, has about half the fat and cholesterol of standard beef. The ground beef was so soft the burgers easily fell apart -- but, once cooked, they were tasty. The filet mignon was tender.

Blackwing Organic Beef
	Where	www.blackwing.com; retail stores such as Woodman's Food Markets and Big Y
	Price	$4.90 for one pound of ground meat/$9.90 for one 6-ounce filet mignon online
Comments:
The organically raised beef is from Piedmontese cows, originally from Italy and raised in Canada. They are fed organic snow peas, alfalfa, flax and barley. We found that the burgers packed good, rich flavor but were a bit dry compared with the others. Our tasters applauded the buttery and flavorful filet mignon.

Dakota Beef
	Where	www.dakotaorganic.com; Costco and regional stores such as Food Emporium and Gelson's
	Price	$32 for four one-pound packages of ground beef/$50 for four 8-ounce filet mignon steaks
Comments:
The company-owned cattle are raised on organic grass and organic grains, including corn. A main goal of production is to reduce the cattle's stress and treat them humanely. A few testers were turned off by the filet's strong flavor. But it's juicy New York strip and rib eye steaks were real crowd pleasers, as were the succulent burgers.

(Adapted from the Wall Street Journal)

Fresh U.S. produce, by season (part deux)

I've put the fresh produce in table format in case you want to print it out.

All year round: Good old bananas.

Spring	Summer	Fall	Winter
(3/21 - 6/20)	(6/21 - 9/22)	(9/23 - 12/20)	(12/21 - 3/20)
- Apricots - Artichokes - Asparagus - Avocados - Cabbage - Carrots - Celeriac - Chives - Collards - Fava Beans - Fennel - Fiddleheads - Greens - Lettuce - Mango - Morels - Mustard Greens - New Potatoes - Onions - Peas - Pineapple - Rhubarb - Spinach - Spring Baby Lettuce - Strawberries - Sugar Snap and Snow Peas - Vidalia Onions - Watercress	- Beets - Bell Peppers - Black berries - Blue berries - Broccoli - Carrots - Cherries - Chinese Cabbage - Corn - Cucumber - Eggplant - Green Beans - Nectarines - Okra - Onions - Peas - Potatoes - Peaches - Plums - Radishes - Raspberries - Summer Squash - Tomatoes - Valencia Oranges - Watermelon - Zucchini	- Acorn Squash - Apples - Bell Pepper - Belgian Endives - Butternut Squash - Cabbage - Cauliflower - Celeriac - Corn - Cucumbers - Figs - Garlic - Ginger - Grapes - Greens - Mushrooms - Okra - Onions - Parsnips - Pears - Pomegranates - Pumpkins - Quinces - Sweet Potatoes - Spinach - Swiss Chard	- Apples - Beets - Broccoli - Brussels sprouts - Cabbage - Carrots - Cauliflower - Celery - Chestnuts - Grapefruit - Kale - Leeks - Lemons - Oranges and Tangerines - Potatoes - Radicchio - Radishes - Rutabaga - Spinach - Sweet Potatoes - Turnips - Winter squash

Go on a (car-free) diet!

If you live in an urban area with good access to public transportation, why not go car-free?

In an article called "Wheeling and Dealing by the Hour," Candice Jones of Kiplinger's Personal Finance reminds us of the money we can save by going car-free.

Car-sharing is a hot trend in a growing number of cities.

For an hourly rate plus an annual membership fee, you get access to a car to run errands, go on a date or take a quick trip to the 'burbs. Zipcar -- the largest car-sharing company -- emphasizes the environmental benefits, as well as the cost savings.

With Zipcar, you pay $9 or more an hour, depending on the car, plus an application fee of $25 and an annual membership fee of $50. In each of the 35 cities where Zipcar operates, its cars are parked in designated spots around town. Members, who must be at least 21, reserve a car online, use a card to unlock it and locate the keys inside. Gas and insurance are included.

The savings are real: Drive a Zipcar Honda Civic 10 hours a month for one year and the fees total $1,155, compared with $4,500 in annual ownership costs for a new Civic that you drive 5,000 miles a year.

A 24-hour reservation can cost less than $70, for up to 180 miles. Renting an economy car for one day typically costs about $80. And gas is extra.

In a website called Arlington's car-free diet, you can get your own personal calculator on how much you will save (and CO₂ emissions you'll reduce) by going car-free.

If you must buy gasoline ...

One of our goals in life is to attain a car-free lifestyle.

But for now, buying gas is one of life's necessary evils. Here's how to reduce the impact on your wallet.

In Kiplinger's Personal Finance on Sunday, June 1, 2008, we found out that the Pentagon Federal Credit Union Platinum Gas Cash Rewards Visa is one of the most generous credit cards for gas purchases. (Not a member of the military? No problem: Become a credit union member by joining the National Military Family Association for $20 at www.nmfa.org.) The card rewards users with 5 percent on gas purchases, 2 percent on groceries and 1.25 percent on everything else.

Let's start with food

You can make a positive environmental statement by using cloth or sturdy reusable plastic bags.

This is one of those ideas that, when you hear it, you smack your head and say "Why didn't I think of that." Worldwide, 42 billion non-reusable plastic bags are used each month. They take forever to break down, kill countless birds and fill up landfills.

Using reusable bags is not only a painless way to help the environment, they also work better. You don't have to worry about them tearing as you lug a gallon of milk into the kitchen. It's also an inexpensive way to feel virtuous and smug while standing on the supermarket checkout line. Hint: Don't leave them in the trunk of your car or you'll likely forget them.

Now let's talk about what goes into the bags.

First of all, cook! Make your own food. You know what's in it, and it's cheaper.

One of the best tightwad, environmental and healthy things you can do is cut back on meat, especially beef, and eat more plants. This eye-opening video by Mark Bittman at the TED conference explains it very well. If you go to the TED site, check out some of the other videos. They are very good.

The Mark Bittman talk is at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/263

If you're interested in learning more about what you've been putting into your body, Michael Pollen's latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto is a real eye opener. It's incredibly well-researched and beautifully written. (Pollen teaches journalism at Berkeley.)

According to Pollen, any traditional diet is better than the current American diet. The old Eskimos' diet of whale blubber beats ours. Even the good food (spinach, broccoli, etc.) is not as nutritious as it once was.

Pollen's previous book ,The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, is also a wonderful book. It's a scathing critique of industrial farming and ranching techniques, and a powerful argument for buying locally grown foods. The Bittman video covers some of the same ground.

Pollen's web address is http://www.michaelpollan.com/

Pollen and others are fans of buying food directly from the producers at farmer's markets and by other means. Farmer's markets in many urban areas are very expensive. Unless you are very well off, you may want to think about what's worth buying and what's not.

If you are looking to limit your pesticides exposure without breaking the bank, take a look at the list below. The Environmental Working Group (http://www.foodnews.org/) has rated 45 fruits and vegetables for pesticides from worst to best. Some foods absorb more pesticides than others. If a food absorbs a lot of pesticides, buy organic. If it doesn't, buy the cheaper non-organic produce.

Along with watching out for food high on the pesticide list, you may want to buy non-organic thick-skinned produce that you peel (bananas and grapefruit for example) and organic thin skinned items (peaches, apples etc).

The Full List: 43 Fruits & Veggies

RANK	FRUITS OR VEGGIES	SCORE
1 (worst)	Peaches (most pesticide)	100
2	Apples	96
3	Sweet Bell Peppers	86
4	Celery	85
5	Nectarines	84
6	Strawberries	83
7	Cherries	75
8	Lettuce	69
9	Grapes - Imported	68
10	Pears	65
11	Spinach	60
12	Potatoes	58
13	Carrots	57
14	Green Beans	55
15	Hot Peppers	53
16	Cucumbers	52
17	Raspberries	47
18	Plums	46
19	Oranges	46
20	Grapes-Domestic	46
21	Cauliflower	39
22	Tangerine	38
23	Mushrooms	37
24	Cantaloupe	34
25	Lemon	31
26	Honeydew Melon	31
27	Grapefruit	31
28	Winter Squash	31
29	Tomatoes	30
30	Sweet Potatoes	30
31	Watermelon	25
32	Blueberries	24
33	Papaya	21
34	Eggplant	19
35	Broccoli	18
36	Cabbage	17
37	Bananas	16
38	Kiwi	14
39	Asparagus	11
40	Sweet Peas-Frozen	11
41	Mango	9
42	Pineapples	7
43	Sweet Corn-Frozen	2
44	Avocado	1
45 (best)	Onions (least pesticide)	1

Organic food is also very common in supermarkets. Much of it is trucked or flown in from large farms in California, so it may not taste as good as locally grown. But it's certainly better for the soil and your body than non-organic food.

Buy in season for the best deals and taste. Here is a list of common fruits and vegetables in season in the Northern Hemisphere.

Spring (March 21 to June 20)

• Apricots
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Avocados
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Celeriac
• Chives
• Collards
• Fava Beans
• Fennel
• Fiddleheads
• Greens
• Lettuce
• Mango
• Morels
• Mustard Greens
• New Potatoes
• Onions
• Peas
• Pineapple
• Rhubarb
• Spinach
• Spring Baby Lettuce
• Strawberries
• Sugar Snap and Snow Peas
• Vidalia Onions
• Watercress

Summer (June 21 to Sept. 22)

• Beets
• Bell Peppers
• Black berries
• Blue berries
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Cherries
• Chinese Cabbage
• Corn
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Green Beans
• Nectarines
• Okra
• Onions
• Peas
• Potatoes
• Peaches
• Plums
• Radishes
• Raspberries
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes
• Valencia Oranges
• Watermelon
• Zucchini
  
  

Fall (Sept 23 to Dec 20)

• Acorn Squash
• Apples
• Bell Pepper
• Belgian Endives
• Butternut Squash
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Celeriac
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Figs
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Grapes
• Greens
• Mushrooms
• Okra
• Onions
• Parsnips
• Pears
• Pomegranates
• Pumpkins
• Quinces
• Sweet Potatoes
• Spinach
• Swiss Chard
  
  

Winter (Dec 21 to March 20)

• Apples
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chestnuts
• Grapefruit
• Kale
• Leeks
• Lemons
• Oranges and Tangerines
• Potatoes
• Radicchio
• Radishes
• Rutabaga
• Spinach
• Sweet Potatoes
• Turnips
• Winter squash
  
  

Year round
Good old Bananas

Buying pesticide-free food in season and maybe at a farmer's market is more than half the battle. If you want to find out how many servings of fruit and vegetables you should be eating, type in your age, gender and level of physical activity at this website

http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/

A tightwad article about produce wouldn't be complete without a plug for frozen fruit and vegetables. They are cheaper than fresh, nutritionally equivalent, and a lot of them are pretty darn good. There is even a growing selection of organic frozen produce.

If you are having trouble getting the recommended amount of fresh fruit, or you are buying it and throwing it out, it's time to try something else.

One simple and quick way to get your daily fruit requirement is with a home-made smoothie made with frozen fruits. This is not a perfect solution. Smoothies do not satisfy your hunger as well as eating a piece of fruit. And you can pack on the pounds if you overdue them.

That said, if you throw four or five different frozen fruits into a blender with orange juice as a base and maybe a fresh banana you can end up with a nutritious drink. Go for different color fruits (blue, red, orange, etc.) for a better nutritional mix.

Try to avoid added sugar and honey. Additional orange juice can help sweeten it. And please keep in mind, as Aristotle said, "moderation in all things". A small smoothie fifteen minutes before you eat a meal might curb your appetite. A "super big gulp" smoothie will end up on your belly or derriere depending on your body type.

Meat

As Bittman explained in his video, beef is an ecological nightmare. Cutting back on red meat is good for the environment, your pocketbook and your overall health.

Organic beef is showing up in supermarkets and at some farmer's markets. It's expensive, and being a tightwad I can't bring myself to buy it regularly.

However, if you want to try it why not buy a piece and cut it in half? A proper serving of beef is suppose to be about the size of a deck of cards. When was the last time you ate a piece of beef that small? Eat it slowly and savor every bite. Then fill up on veggies.

From the sea

Fish is a wonderful source of protein that is loved worldwide. That has unfortunately led to overfishing, as well as pollution problems caused by intensive fish farming. Mercury in larger carnivorous fish is also a problem.

Ideally, you should buy fish that is not endangered, that's free of pollutants, low in mercury, caught in an environmentally sound manner and not too expensive. Those "ideal" requirements cut down on your choices but there is still a whole lot of good fish you can eat.

The Blue Ocean website has a very good guide.

http://www.blueocean.org/seafood/

The Monterrey Bay Aquarium website has another excellent guide. They also have printable cards you can take to the fish store.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp

The FDA has a site that list mercury levels in fish. This is particularly important for pregnant women and young children.

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html

From a tightwad point of view, the news isn't all that bad. A lot of the more expensive fish are expensive because they are over-fished. Also, some fish that are high in mercury -- swordfish and shark for example -- are also expensive.

Also, keep in mind most of the fish you buy in fish stores and supermarkets has been frozen and defrosted in the store. Why not buy it frozen in the first place? Frozen fish can be very good. The trick is to defrost it slowly in the refrigerator to preserve the cell structure of the fish. Also, avoid breaded fish. It's nasty.

Other food resources:

Have you ever wondered what is the best tasting supermarket olive oil or vinegar, but you weren't about to buy six kinds and taste them. America's Test Kitchen has done it for you. They also have excellent equipment reviews and their recipes are pretty good. This link does require a subscription but I think it is worth it (at least for a year).

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/

This link from Women's Health Magazine list the "healthiest packaged food for women." I have some problems with the whole concept. If you want to save money and gain the maximum health benefits, you should be eating foods that hasn't been over-processed. However, I occasionally eat some of these items and it's probably impossible to entirely get away from processed foods.

http://www.womenshealthmag.com/files/best-supermarket-foods/inde