Category Archives: Budget Environmentalism

Trying to Get Cloth Diapering Started

As I posted after she was born, Selene is a very small baby. Or perhaps I should say was. Little rascal has quite the appetite, and she’s not so tiny anymore.

She might even fit into the bumGenius diapers we have for her at last.

That’s what I’m trying out today. First time I put one on her, even as tight as I could get it, she just swam in it. Tiny, tiny baby girl! We

My mother is rather surprised that we’re doing cloth diapers, but she understands the bit about saving money. She was worried about the water use, though. A good point, but I got a great tip from a reader that I’ll be trying to save on water when I wash the diapers. She suggests soaking the diapers in the wash for a half hour, rather than doing multiple cycles. I sure hope it works for me! Thanks, Deoxy!

The diapers are fitting a bit better now. I don’t have a scale to say what she weighs now, but I would have to guess at least 7 pounds.

One challenge we’re facing is that our little miss is a queen of futile diaper changes. Yes, she’s one of those who manages to save up for just after you change her. Or during. Those are… umm… fun too, really….

Obviously that can be a bit of a hardship with cloth diapers. We’ve gotten better at catching when she’s really ready for a change, rather than just getting started, and I hope this will keep the number of quick changes down.

I know we’ll still end up using some disposable diapers. There’s pretty much no way my mother-in-law will put up with cloth. Since she is a highly willing babysitter once baby can take a bottle, there’s only so much complaint I can have about that. Doubly so since she usually buys her own diapering supplies.

I have to say, Selene looks awfully cute in a cloth diaper. It makes getting her dressed a bit more interesting, fitting her clothes over the diaper, but I can deal with that. I just like being able to cut down so much on waste.

Lemony Fresh Cleaning

I do a lot of my cleaning with baking soda and vinegar, but sometimes another choice is better. That would be cleaning with lemon juice.

You can’t beat the smell for one thing. An area cleaned with lemon juice smells good!

A classic use is as furniture polish. There’s a reason why so many store bought furniture polishes are lemon scented. You can put two parts of olive oil to one part lemon juice to make your own hardwood furniture polish.

Plain lemon juice is also good for cleaning wooden cutting boards.

Mixed with baking soda into a paste, it can polish chrome or copper. Salt can work in place of the baking soda, as it provides grit for scrubbing. I like baking soda in most cases, although it is less gritty.

Lemon juice is also good for your laundry, as it can help with natural bleaching. Hanging clothes out to dry in the sun can help with stains too, but sometimes you want that boost from lemon juice. Just add a half cup of lemon juice to the rinse cycle, then dry in the sunlight. A small amount of lemon juice also just makes clothes smell good when they dry, but honestly I’ve never found the need to worry about how my clothes smell after washing.

You can also soak clothes in a mix of vinegar and lemon juice to get a stain out. Just soak for a half hour before washing.

Lemon juice is a pretty flexible cleaner, and delightful for those times you don’t want the smell of vinegar when you clean. Sometimes scent matters.

Getting Away From Disposable Dishes

I have long been careful to use as few disposable items as possible in my daughter’s school lunches. It’s so much cheaper to buy and use reusable bottles and containers for her food.

It also ensures that she doesn’t throw everything out at school, and I know how she’s eating. But that’s just a side benefit.

But with my son’s birthday coming up, I keep thinking about the disposable dish use for most birthday parties. Just seems kind of silly to be wasting those.

One idea I’ve read about that I really like is hitting the thrift stores for cheap, old dishes and silverware to use for parties. I like that. It’s great for the budget if you keep them, or if you don’t like them, back they can go. Donating to thrift stores is very easy.

I like the idea of keeping them, of course. That’s just the cheapest way to go.

The challenge, of course, is finding dishes that young children can handle with minimal risk of breakage. Plastic dishes are of course not that great an idea.

There are other times you should be looking at your use of disposable dishes. Some people bring their own containers to restaurants to bring home leftovers. It’s a bit more challenging in some ways for take out, as you may have called ahead, plus the restaurant has a standard way they get food ready. But if you’re nice when you ask and have your containers ready, they may cooperate with a smile.

Quitting disposable dishes is challenging, but it can be a great conversation starter, both with family and complete strangers. It’s an extra step to take a lot of the time, but really not all that inconvenient once you build the habit.

Have You Picked Up the Reusable Shopping Bag Habit?

Grabbing a reusable shopping bag as you head out to the store sounds like such a simple thing, but in reality it can be a very difficult habit to pick up. All too often I head out to the store to realize that my bags are still at home.

Reusable shopping bags do quite a bit for the environment if you can remember to use them. Plastic bags are hard on the environment not only in terms of their manufacture and distribution, but in that so few are recycled. They’re terrible for wildlife. They break down very, very slowly.

Paper bags are a problem as well, although they do generally come from wood from managed forests. But they are heavier than plastic and can actually have a higher environmental cost than plastic in terms of manufacture and distribution. On the plus side, they break down nicely.

Reusable bags can even save you money. Some stores charge customers for bags, while others give a small discount for bringing your own. Either way the cost difference is small, but it can add up over time.

There are many ways to get reusable bags. You can buy them at your local grocery store, often for about $1 a bag. They’ll have the store’s logo or something along those lines on them, but they’ll get the job done. On the other hand, you’re a walking advertisement for that company. They may also not be terribly durable.

You can sometimes find them free at events. One of mine came from a local fair. The city’s information booth was giving them out.

You can also shop online for them. This is the most expensive option, but if you want the most durable and attractive bags, this is probably the way to go. You may also spend less in the long run. Many of the store bags and free bags are poorly made and won’t last through that many uses if you load them too heavily.

The key to building up a good reusable bag habit is to find something that works for you. Here are some ideas:

1. Keep them in the car.

Reusable bags are light, and take up very little room when empty, so they’re a good choice to just toss in the trunk. Do so after each time you use them, and they’ll make it to the store with you every time you drive over.

2. Buy bags that fold up into your purse.

If you carry a purse, this can work well for you. Some varieties fold up very small, and you can just have them with you all the time. No more forgetting them even in the trunk!

3. Put it at the top of your shopping list.

Just be sure you go over your list right before you leave. This won’t help you much if you don’t look at your list until you’re actually at the store.

Where Can You Walk To?

Despite that we will soon be getting another car, I do like being able to walk a lot of places in my neighborhood. Mostly to my daughter’s school, but once in a while my husband and I walk on a date, since it’s only 1-2 miles to a variety of restaurants.

So I found Walk Score to be a very interesting website. They didn’t rate my neighborhood as terribly walkable; just 32 out of 100. That doesn’t surprise me since for most people a mile is pretty far to walk, and it’s more than that to the nearest real grocery store.

I say real grocery store because they counted places such as 7-11 as a grocery store. I would have said convenience store for that sort.

I don’t walk to our local grocery store because a mile isn’t so far on the way out, but it’s pretty far when you’re on the way back with a load of groceries, some of which are heavy and need to be refrigerated soon.

The site also pointed out to me some businesses I hadn’t noticed yet. The categorization was pretty interesting… I didn’t know that a self storage place and U-Haul should be filed under Clothes and Music!

Having kids of course limits my interest in walking long distances. Mine do enjoy long walks, but have more patience for nature walks than anything on a sidewalk. Not that I mind.

Overall, it’s a nice reminder that there are many places in a lot of neighborhoods that you can walk to. Some of it is a matter of personal perception, but the reminder that you can walk in your neighborhood isn’t a bad one at all.