Green Tightwad

Being cheap is cool again

2009-06-05T12:08:00.007-04:00

The era of conspicuous consumption is over.

According to today's article A Race to Keep Up With the Tightwads, in The Washington Post, "people ... are no longer concerned about keeping up with the Joneses. Now the goal is to fall far behind them."

According to a recent telephone survey of 1,000 people ... about 80 percent of those surveyed said they are more conscious of spending now than at the beginning of the year. A Gallup poll in April showed 59 percent of Americans enjoy saving money, compared with 48 percent in April 2001. The percentage of people who said they enjoyed spending money dropped to 37 percent in April from 45 percent in 1991.

What are they doing to save money?

Making pizza instead of ordering it delivered. It's very easy to make pizza crust. When my wife first taught me how to make pizza crust, I was flabbergasted at how easy it was. Here's a link to two easy recipes, including one without yeast for those of you who are afraid of yeast.
Clip coupons from popular websites such as The Coupon Clippers.
Buy something only if you really need it -- and if it's on sale.

In today's Small Change column, Nancy Trejos gives four websites for auctioning items or scoring bargains:

Overstock.com
Sam’s Club Auctions
Shopgoodwill.com
Ubid.com

I looked at Ubid.com, which is good for electronics, and I will keep it in mind when I am in the market for a new phone.

The best entertainment is free

2009-04-22T21:25:00.008-04:00

Open Source Music: The Green Tightwad has recently discovered musopen.com, a resource of music recordings and sheet music, all of it in the public domain.

Its motto is "free access to music anywhere in the world."

I happened to hear a Brahms recording on WETA (the classical music station in DC) that I wasn't familiar with, and my wife and I liked it so we waited until the end for the announcer to identify the music. It turned out to be Brahms' Double Concerto in A Minor, Opus 102. Lo and behold, it's also on musopen. You don't have to pay for a music download. The version on musopen is played by the Skidmore College Orchestra. (In 2006, Newsweek/Kaplan identified Skidmore as a 'New Ivy,' an elite school providing an excellent education outside of the Ivy League, according to musopen.)

I have embedded the Brahms double concerto on my blog, just to give you a sample.

So the next time you need music for, say, your wedding, check if it's on musopen. Musopen has done some terrific things. According to Arstechtnica, musopen "has recently rolled out a new version of its web site, added freely-downloadable sheet music, and raised enough cash to professionally record the entire set of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and place them in the public domain." Three cheers for Aaron Dunn, who started the site when he was in college. Donations, of course, are welcome.

Videos from PBS are now online: The Public television Service today launched its new video portal that allows online viewers to stream an array of its best-known shows over the Web. Pretty much the entire universe of PBS is now available online! You can watch programs in their entirety, just like Ian McKellen in King Lear, which was just broadcast some weeks ago.

These are just some of the shows available just one click away:

American Masters
Antiques Roadshow
FRONTLINE
Great Performances
Masterpiece Theater
NOVA

Small change, big savings

2009-04-20T17:01:00.003-04:00

This "Small Change" column in the Washington Post by Ylan Mui and Nancy Trejos, is chock full of good ideas. For examples, ever wonder what you can do with the condiment packets when you order Chinese food? Make “Condiment Packets Pulled Pork”:

Take two to three pounds of boneless country style ribs, which you can find on sale at local grocery stores for 99 cents a pound, and place it in a baking dish. Sprinkle the pork on both sides with salt and pepper. Mix two packets of hot mustard sauce with two packets of sweet and sour sauce and massage into both sides of the pork. Mix three packets of soy sauce and two packets of ketchup and pour over the pork. Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake at 275 degrees for 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, remove the foil and turn the pork. Re-cover and bake for another 90 minutes. Shred the pork with a fork and eat it as is or serve it on bread or rolls. You can also serve it with packets of barbeque sauce. It feeds three to four people.

They also clue us in to a website called Feedthemasses.org, a how-to-guide on inexpensive dinners. Their secret: They don't have recipes. They have principles.

Burn your Cookbooks. Don’t look at a recipe and create a shopping list of items you won’t use again. There’s probably a lot you can do with what you already have in your fridge. Or with what you can get on sale at your local grocery store. “Mario Batali doesn’t know what’s on sale at your grocery store this week,” Christina said.
Stock Your Kitchen: Keep your basic cooking supplies around: Olive oil, vegetable oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, soy sauce, honey, flour, brown sugar, corn starch, baking soda and powder, and yeast. Also have eggs, canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables, garlic, olives, dried fruit, nuts, beans, pasta and rice. You can get a lot of these supplies for much less at ethnic grocery stores. A tiny bottle of curry powder that is $4 at the supermarket is $6.99 a pound at the Indian grocery store. Pick up some pine nuts and chili paste at the Korean market, some chorizo at the Mexican bodega, and some goat from the Pakistani halal butcher.
Stop wasting perfectly good food. Christina threw a party on Election night 2008. One of the desserts she served was banana bread, which she made with overly ripe bananas she had lying around her kitchen. “Never waste bananas,” Christina told me. Remember, she said, you can freeze food. “Peel, chop, grate, or dice into a convenient form, stick in a bag and toss in the freezer,” Christina wrote on her blog. “Then you’ll have frozen fruit anytime you want a smoothie, sliced peaches for cobbler, apples for pie. When you want to make zucchini fritters later, you’ll have grated zucchini ready to go.”
Grow and make your own. Save the bones and make your own chicken or beef stock which generally costs $3 for 32 ounces. Christina said she makes a 10-quart pot of stock for less than $3 in ingredients. Even though she lives in a small apartment in D.C., she grows her own herbs outside her windowsill. She also makes her own salad dressings, marinades, hummus and a variety of sauces. “You just have to use a little creativity and imagination,” she said.

An online education -- for free!

2009-03-31T14:21:00.010-04:00

Earn degrees for free

An Israeli entrepreneur has created a free online degree-conferring university. Shai Reshef, 55, has founded University of the People (UoP). He says:

"Education, just like democracy, should be a right, not a privilege ... With a few keystrokes, UoP takes the concept of social networking and applies it to academia, providing a global chalkboard for all students."

Operating as a non-profit, UoP offers two degrees: business administration and computer science. Run and taught by volunteers, he will expect those enrolled to pay basic costs - $15 to enroll, and about $15 per exam.

Reshef is currently based in Tel Aviv, but the school is applying for U.S. accreditation, and will operate out of Pasadena, California.

And if you want to study just for the love of learning ...

Check out Open Courseware Consortium. It's composed of colleges and universities worldwide that make their courses available online for free.

U.S. participants include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Michigan.

Cut back on these, save $1,000/year

2009-03-23T11:21:00.003-04:00

"Organic produce" is one of things the author, Kelly B. Grant, wants you to cut?

Yes, because not all organic produce is necessarily worth the money.

Fruits and vegetables like kiwis, sweet corn and broccoli require very little pesticide to grow. Others -- like avocados, onions and pineapples -- have thick or peelable skins that reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals.

So don't buy produce just because it's labeled organic.

Anyway, here's a link to 7 Things You're Wasting Money On:

Bottled Water
Extended Warranties
Gym Memberships
Overdraft Fees
Organic Produce
Auto Insurance
Music Downloads

No cash? No problem!

2009-03-15T10:01:00.003-04:00

Websites where you can barter your skills (say, plumbing work) for a benefit that normally takes money (say, a vacation) are all over the Internet.

One person in England recently traded several old cellphones for a secondhand motorcycle, while others have traded gardening for babysitting. They are swapping skills from physical therapy to French lessons, to a woman offering services as a "secretary/stripper."

According to this Washington Post article by Kevin Sullivan, some of these websites are:

http://swapaskill.com
http://U-exchange.com
http://swapthing.com
http://swapz.co.uk
http://whatsmineisyours.com
http://homeexchange.com (For home exchanges for those who don't want to pay for a vacation home)

And, of course, there's that old standby, Craigslist.

Going green and off the grid

2009-03-11T12:10:00.004-04:00

The New York Times's Adam B. Ellick visits a former college professor who now lives and works on an organic farm that produces its own power and, for the most part, avoids the whims of the wider economy.

Food for thought ...

Here's a link to the NYT video: Going Green and Off the Grid

Ultimate cheapskates now have to spend more ...

2009-03-11T09:14:00.006-04:00

I've always been a cheapskate. Now more and more people are elevating it to a high art, says this story from AP.

They're going way beyond sharpening their coupon scissors, replacing already cheap store-brand fabric softener with vinegar and even making their own detergent.

But what jumped out at me is this revelation -- a surprise to others but us cheapskates:

Many cheapskates such as VanDeventer haven't lost their jobs and are not in danger of losing their homes. Many have stashed a good chunk of cash away. (Italics mine.) But the economic uncertainty is catapulting them to new levels of thriftiness.

Now I'm going to break my own rule. If you're financially solid, with a stable income and high-enough net worth, I think now is the time to loosen your purse strings.

Major governments are trying all kinds of ways to stimulate their economies. The U.S., the European Union and China are trying to spend their way out of this recession by investing in infrastructure, etc. When people acquire jobs, they are going to spend, and the economy will begin to recover.

If you have no financial worries, I encourage you to spend more. My wife and I do take-out once in a while. (We love the shawarma sandwich at our local restaurant.) We're now doing it more. We are not shoppers, but if something is worn we don't go out of our way to mend it. We replace it instead. And if we want Parmiagiano-Reggiano cheese for our cooking, we buy it. We don't try to substitute.

So, until the economy recovers, and if you can afford to, spend more.

A "how to" site for newbies

2009-03-05T16:38:00.000-05:00

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has launched a new "how-to" site this morning called Quamut, which apparently is Latin for "how to."

Part of the site is about energy conservation:

http://www.quamut.com/quamut/home_energy_efficiency

A cornucopia of smart money tips

2009-02-24T10:12:00.003-05:00

Don't know much about money? You can get help -- free help -- online through the OpenCourseWare Consortium. It's -- a group of about 250 universities world-wide, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California-Irvine.:

A Boost in Online Money Courses

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Don't throw old clothes away. Re-use them!

Green Cleaning: 37 Reuses For Old Clothes

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The Wall Street Journal's Neal Templin about how to talk yourself out of buying things that you don't need:

The urge to splurge: Don't worry, it'll pass.

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You spend $76 a month on what!?! First, make a list of your must-haves and what you can do without. Says Karen Blumenthal:

The bane of my budget isn't a trip to the mall or dining out, but an insidious creature who takes more than his share when I'm not looking. I call him "Bill Creep."

In the Fight Against Bill Creep, Every Extra Fee Is the Enemy

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Yes, you can live mostly in a cash-only world. Funny how it's easy to fight the urge to splurge if you have to pay for it in cash.

Make a plan. Use credit cards to get gas or big-ticket items, but commit to using cash when shopping for everything from food to clothes.

Make a budget before you shop. If the fear is you'll carry too much cash, make multiple trips.

Trash the plastic. But do keep the debit card.

Pay them off. If you keep any credit cards, pay them off in full each month. That's not a new idea, but sticking to that resolve achieves much the same result as using all cash without the drawbacks.

Yes, You Can Live With Less Plastic

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And finally, I've always maintained that the Internet can help you cut costs.

Web sites like billshrink.com.
Hulu.com will let many people save money by canceling some of their cable TV package.
High-speed wireless Internet, from 3G to new WiMax, should let them save on home Internet connections. (Xohm, the new WiMax service, is priced well below cable- though at this point it has only been launched in Baltimore and rollout to other cities is taking time.)
Google Talk lets you make video phone calls to family, friends or colleagues around the world for free.

More from Brent Arends' Cutting Monthly Bills? Turn to the Web.

The New Frugality

2009-01-02T14:29:00.005-05:00

Businessweek has a new article out about the new age of frugality.

People who overconsumed during the past decade are now rejecting extravagant lifestyles. They're spending less, and more wisely. Some are getting their finances in order. Others are fearful of losing their jobs, shocked by investment losses, or hunkering down amid the general uncertainty. ...

Which brings us to what John Maynard Keynes called the paradox of thrift. What's good for the individual, argued the famous economist, can ignite or deepen a recession. But that won't deter the newly thrifty. "I can't help the economy," says Kim Schultz, a resident of hard-hit Avoca, Mich., who with her husband, Jon, owes $40,000 in credit-card debt. "I've got to help myself." On the other hand, this newfound austerity could—emphasis on could—rewire Americans as savers rather than spenders. And that would help put the economy on a sounder footing over the long haul.

Our friend, Lily from Augsburg, Germany, has brought our attention to a phenomenon called Local Exchange Trading Systems. In essence, "LETSystems" are local, non-profit exchange networks in which goods and services can be traded without the need for printed money. It's a barter system.

I know of a few LETSystems that are active in the United States today, but I can't personally vouch for the work that they do. But, I admit, the concept of bartering goods and services intrigues me. One way to do it is through the Internet. According to an article called Consumers Try Bartering To Combat Costs,

A number of online bartering sites––including U-Exchange.com, Barteryourservices.com, and Barter Bucks––are seeing significant growth. Online classified-ad site Craigslist also has seen its monthly "barter" postings across all cities double to 121,173 in April 2008, up from 63,624 in April 2007.

Another way to make sure that you give the things that you don't need anymore a second life is to join the freecycle network. The motto is, "Don't throw it away, give it away." Freecycle is active in the United States and a lot of other countries.

The 20 healthiest foods for under $1

2009-01-02T13:53:00.006-05:00

This blog posting identifies the 20 healthiest foods for under $1 as:

Oats
Eggs
Kale
Potatoes
Apples
Nuts
Bananas
Garbanzo Beans
Broccoli
Watermelon
Wild Rice
Beets
Butternut Squash
Whole Grain Pasta
Sardines
Spinach
Tofu
Lowfat Milk
Pumpkin Seeds
Coffee

I take issue with milk of any kind, although I love the taste of milk. The jury is still out on the safety of the hormones and antibiotics they are adding to milk. And, soy milk, alas, costs twice as much as cow's milk.

And it's not true that wild rice costs the same as white rice. Have you checked the price of wild rice recently? White rice costs way less than $1 per pound, and the last time I checked, people who consumed white rice (such as in China or Japan) weighed less and had lower heart disease and cancer rates than people in the West. That's because they eat white rice with a variety of veggies and fish.

Also, I've been hearing about people buying fresh produce at U.S. dollar stores.

I would add any of the variety of bokchoys in your Asian store, which usually can be bought at less than $1 a pound and pack a nutritional punch. And:

Garlic
Onions

Most important of all, avoid soda of any kind. They are expensive empty calories. And learn to cook from scratch. You could make pizza dough for cents if you know how to make use of flour and yeast. Packaged food of any kind is full of mystery ingredients, ingredients that you can't pronounce.

If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it.

Life of utter garbage

2008-12-23T10:44:00.006-05:00

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

2008-12-21T11:21:00.006-05:00

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

2008-11-30T11:54:00.009-05:00

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

2008-11-30T11:18:00.007-05:00

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

2008-11-19T19:18:00.007-05:00

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

2008-10-21T15:38:00.011-04:00

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 ...

2008-10-07T10:52:00.003-04:00

And therefore it also turns green ...

Scale down your holidays ... and other good ideas

2008-10-05T19:08:00.009-04:00

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

2008-09-07T12:36:00.002-04:00

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

2008-08-26T10:56:00.016-04:00

"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

2008-08-12T10:42:00.002-04:00

"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

2008-08-11T10:56:00.006-04:00

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

2008-08-06T15:57:00.008-04:00

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?"

2008-07-28T21:11:00.006-04:00

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?

2008-07-25T12:37:00.001-04:00

OK, multiple choice question.

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

A. DVDs
B. CDs
C. Audiobooks
D. Books, DVDs, CDs and audiobooks that are not owned by your local library.
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

2008-07-20T12:16:00.009-04:00

"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

2008-07-12T10:29:00.004-04:00

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

2008-07-12T10:15:00.002-04:00

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!)

2008-07-01T10:46:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-29T11:50:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-27T16:54:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-25T17:30:00.000-04:00

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!

2008-06-17T22:51:00.002-04:00

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 ...

2008-06-15T20:30:00.006-04:00

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?

2008-06-12T22:26:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-12T22:08:00.003-04:00

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 ...

2008-06-10T16:37:00.002-04:00

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

2008-06-10T16:29:00.003-04:00

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

2008-06-10T15:47:00.005-04:00

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?

2008-06-10T15:16:00.004-04:00

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)

2008-06-10T12:13:00.005-04:00

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!

2008-06-08T10:45:00.004-04:00

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 ...

2008-06-03T15:53:00.001-04:00

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

2008-06-02T21:06:00.002-04:00

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

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.