Some Favorite Reads

First eggs from our first CSA pickup of the season.
Too bad nest eggs aren't as easy to procure.

I've thoroughly enjoyed some blog posts and articles that I have come across recently, and I've been meaning to share them with you. I hope you find inspiration or ideas in the links below. Enjoy!

• Want to simplify your life, but not sure where to start? This great WikiHow called "How to Live a Simple and Peaceful Life" will give you some guidance on reducing your time commitments and slowing down.

• Want to retire sooner rather than later? Mainstreet.com's article How Extreme Savers Can Retire By 40 may be a little optimistic age-wise. But it does point out how what many consider to be ordinary lifestyles could seem lavish to others — and just how much we could really save if we considered some extreme changes. You may not be ready to go this far, but it does get you thinking, and perhaps one of these actions will feel doable for you.

•  Mr. Money Mustache's post Curing Your Clown-Like Car Habit is a hilarious, crass, and sort of hard-assed reprimand to those of us driving for most of our transportation needs (yep, that includes me). Definitely worth the read.

• If you aren't getting ahead but find yourself in avoidance-of-reality mode, this Simple Dollar post called Staying Afloat Isn't Enough might be just what you need. For me it was a good kick-in-the-pants to stop ignoring my financial problems and start getting serious. I have to do that every few months if I want to stay on track to stop living paycheck to paycheck someday!

And I'd like to leave you with a quote I read yesterday in the Huffington Post article Anxiety Quotes: 8 Reasons to Stop Worrying: 

"Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”

 – Benjamin Franklin 

Keep in the sunlight, friends.

March Challenge Update: Biking to Work

We’ve been without internet access at the new apartment – something I wanted to try to help us save money as well as stop wasting so much time online. That plan backfired. So much happens online these days: communicating with my people (not one of whom lives in this state), reading news, any take-home work from my internship, and of course posting to this blog. Forgive me, dear reader, for not posting last week. I’ve been trying to find time to get to the coffee shop to use the wifi, but it just hasn’t panned out. Alas, I’ve given in and we will be getting internet access (at the reduced introductory rate) on Thursday. After that, you can expect to hear much more from me J

On to my update…

If it was an easy habit to get into, I wouldn’t need a challenge to make it happen, now would I? In week one of my March challenge, I biked to work all of one time. To be fair, I only went in to work three days last week because on Monday and Tuesday I was still hacking like a smoker and didn’t want to scare my co-workers. When I finally went back to work on Wednesday, it was snowing (!) and the ground was wet and icy. Never mind the slipperiness; I don’t have fenders. I didn’t want to walk around work all day with a wet line up my derriere from my bike tire throwing street water. So I drove, which was fine because I gave myself three drive days, remember?

On Thursday the ground was dry and I wasn’t about to give up another of my precious drive days. I rode to work. Let me tell you, the ride is really lovely. Most of it is on a greenway that crosses a little brook. The first leg of the trip from my house started with a steep downhill. (Well, steep for this flatlander, anyway.) The rest of the ride (about 10-15 minutes) is a very mild but steady climb.

It was a cold day – I think it was in the twenties when I left in the morning, and although it reached the forties by afternoon there was a biting wind. I got all dressed up for the ride in: long underwear, wool socks, mittens, and a winter hat under my helmet. About half way to work, I started sweating. By the time I reached the office, my hair was drenched with sweat. I was overheated…but that didn’t last long. At one point the business owner came over to tell me that I had the coldest spot in the office. Boy, could I feel it. Between my chilly location and my sweaty clothes, my body temp dropped continuously throughout the day until at 4:30 pm I realized I was once again wearing my winter hat, along with half mitts, and my jacket over my shoulders. The bike ride home was sounding less and less appealing. To top it off, my lungs were not ready to jump into a bike ride after two weeks of sickness. I was tired.

I emailed my trusty B, asking him to pick me up on his way home from work. Little did I know, he was leading a workshop and would be leaving a half hour late. When I hadn’t heard from him by 5:30, I decided to brave it and head home on the bike.

Of course, the first 2/3 of the bike ride home would be down hill. It felt like the wind was whipping through my sweaty clothes right to my bones for that long 10 minutes. My helmet, squished down over my winter hat, was giving me a killer headache. And I was still feeling run down from my best-flu/worst-cold-ever. I was a wreck. I finally got off my bike, took off my helmet, and called B again, this time talking through frozen lips and tears. He was still 20 minutes out, which was about how long it would take me to walk the rest of the way home. So I walked, thinking about how fantastic a hot bath would be to melt my frozen body. The last leg of the way home, though, was a steep uphill that I hopped on the bike to complete, and by the time I got home I was fairly thawed.

I drove to work on Friday, and again today.

Although this post makes it sound like a complete failure, I’d say I’m on the road to completing my challenge successfully. I learned a lot on my first ride to work. First, I need to do quite a bit more work the night before if I hope to make it in on time in the morning (somehow a bike commute takes longer to get ready for). Also, I will not wear long underwear and other excessively warm clothes on the way to work (when I’ve just left my warm house and will travel mostly uphill), but will pack them and put them on for the ride home (when I’m freezing from my day at the office and travel mostly downhill). Finally, I learned that even when I’m freezing and miserable, I still very much enjoy the ride. It is just gorgeous, and that will keep me motivated to get on that bike every day.

It is warming up here, which will make the ride easier. But I’ve discovered another alternative way to get to work. If I get up extra early and stay at work a bit late, I can get a ride with B. His route to work takes him within walking distance to downtown, so hopping a ride to there wouldn’t use any additional fuel.

And even after one day of riding, my lung capacity increased substantially. Yep, I think I can do this.

Check back next Monday for an update on how this week goes.

What do you think? Failure? Success? Does it matter?

The List

The Triumph used to be heavily used, but lately spends a lot
of time sitting in the garage. Would a new bike be any different?

I'm currently recuperating from a cold that knocked me on my tail Friday afternoon and kept me in bed most of the weekend. I didn't get to do my Four Free Things, but I'm looking forward to doing them in the near future ... just as soon as walking to the kitchen no longer leaves me breathless.

Being out of commission for three days gives a girl plenty of time to think. Lately I have been spending some time thinking about the stuff that we don't yet have. There's this thing that happens to me and B on a regular basis. We will get it in our heads that we need something. We each have a running list in our brains of the items that we still need to make our collection of things complete. B's list includes a guitar and a motorcycle. On mine you'd find one of those infomercial nutritional extractors (or smoothie maker, as most of us would probably call it) and an old Travco motorhome, among other things. Our joint list consists of one thing, mainly: a 1970s turbo diesel Mercedes Benz station wagon.

It isn't like we lust after Porsches and yachts and mansions, or tons of clothes and shoes and collections. We have spent a good many years trying to whittle our possessions down to fit in a small house, and over that time have learned that we don't want a lot. But we still want. It is tricky, because a) we want those things we purchase to be good quality and long lasting and beautiful - which means the cheapest option is not an option we really want to consider, and b) any amount of money we spend on more stuff is more than we can currently afford. Need I remind you, we are trying to pay off some fairly hefty debts before we hit our forties. If we have anything left over at the end of the month after food and utilities are paid for, it should be going into paying down that debt monster. We should wait until our debt is completely gone to even consider buying anything other than what we need to survive. (This concept is really hit home by my new favorite inspirational live-below-your-means blogger, Mr. Money Mustache.) And yet, hours are spent perusing craigslist for those items we hope to acquire someday.

Sometimes on the surface, these things seem to make sense because they will help us reduce our expenses. Take that motorcycle on B's list for example. He actually already owns a motorcycle, but it is British and testy and takes more tinkering than he wants to spend with it. No, the Triumph is not the best motorcycle for my guy - he's got his eye set on an old Honda. These puppies are lovely - and run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,500.

Our new apartment is a 20 minute drive from his workplace (although only a 20 minute bike ride from anything else we need). A motorcycle would get much better mpg than our two (yes, two) vehicles, both of which actually get pretty decent mileage in their own right. We don't owe any money on either - one was a very generous hand-me-down from my mom and stepdad, and one was an old truck purchased with cash from a friend years ago. Sure, the motorcycle would save us money in fuel, but it would take a long time to see savings equal to the cost of purchasing the bike. And there are other (less expensive) options. A coworker lives a few blocks away, and may be willing to consider carpooling in exchange for splitting the gas costs. And there is a transit bus (which I admit at times carries unpleasant drunk people) that would drop him off right at the doorstep of his workplace for $20 per month. These are excellent choices for green gazelles such as ourselves. But they are not nearly as fun as riding a motorcycle through the mountains to work each morning.

Each of the things on each of our lists has a similar story that ends with "We don't need it." Whether we can make do with what we have already, even if it isn't exactly what we lust after, or we can make do without it completely, the end result is the same: we do not need more stuff. I try to remind myself of the negatives that come with that stuff. I'll have to clean it, around it, and under it. It will likely clutter up our small space. It will break, and we will have to spend money to fix it or maintain it. It is almost never as awesome in real life as it is in my daydreams. And we will be farther away from debt-free than we could have been.

It is hard to see how $50, $100, or even $3500 will make much of a dent in our debt at this point, but we are slowly deciding to believe that every little bit helps. Will we never again purchase something on our wants list? That would be highly unlikely. We are still new to this self-control thing! (And I really want that damn smoothie maker.) But we've talked ourselves away from the motorcycle, at least for the time being, and the Travco and Benz are pretty much off the table until a time when we owe nothing and have actual cash to pay for them. And by then, I'm hoping our immediate gratification habit is broken and we will look at these items honestly. We simply don't need them.

Alright. Time to rest up. I'd like to be over this cold someday soon. Sniff.

What is on your list?

Apartment Living

Home is where the heart is, right?
Here's the result of my weekend beet-stamp cardmaking project. 

We've just signed a lease on an apartment. After ten years of owning our own home why, you ask, are we going back to apartment living? Well, that is a good question. Here are some reasons that quickly pop into my head, although I'm honestly not sure yet how easy this transition will be.

1. Money. We still own a house in Minnesota. It is on the market, but who knows when it will sell. Until that house sells, we are on a tight budget, and an apartment fit that for us. Also, after putting years of time and money into updating our last house only to barely list it for what we still owe on it, I'm not overly confident that buying will ever be the right decision for us again. Maybe, but maybe not.

2. Money. The apartment we found is in a 1920's house. It has all of the aesthetics we like - tall ceilings, lots of windows, wood floors, large rooms - in an area that is really walkable (this house's walk score is 91). Had we tried to get a whole house that met those criteria, we wouldn't have been able to afford it.

3. Money. I really didn't want to move into a place that we would need to buy more stuff to fill. This place is smallish, and once the house sells and we move our furniture here it will be plenty full. I'm hoping that knowledge keeps me from buying home furnishings.

4. Money. I'll be a 20 minute bike ride from work my internship. As such, I'm going to attempt to break up with my car (which I have become thoroughly addicted to in the past two years). If successful, this could save me money on gas, insurance, car repairs, and health bills later in life. I'll try to post successes and failures here as I go.

5. Money. Even if our house sells, the rent on this apartment would help us live within or below our means. That means more money going into paying off our debts more quickly, and once those are gone (will it EVER happen?) more money into savings and retirement. Yippee!

6. Money. And resources. As I've written about before, I love the idea of sharing. I also have a tendency to romanticize things and then be disappointed in the reality. I've always thought it would make so much sense to live in a building with others - sharing heat through walls, only needing infrastructure for one building, living smaller. This move is my opportunity to see if I can actually handle living the lifestyle I imagine myself in. Only time will tell if I will be able to get used to hearing other people walking around above me, running into them in my hallway, and the joys that come with sharing a hot water heater.

I'm searching for sustainable habits for apartment living. If you live in an apartment, how do you make it more sustainable? Suggestions welcome!

Live where you work, work where you live

It's true. The cost of gas is high. And we Americans have a love affair with our cars. What to do?

We green gazelles have a couple of choices here. We can cut back our spending in a different area to cover the rising cost of fuel. We can buy a hybrid (although the idea of purchasing a brand new car, wasting all those resources and dollars, makes my inner gazelle very unhappy). Or we can drive less. Less time wasted in traffic, breathing in all those toxic fumes. Unfortunately, many of us drive to work, and work far enough away where not driving is not an option.

Where we live, there is no public transportation to the city that most commuters head to each morning. My partner, in his quest to work at a job that he cared about, commuted to a suburb of that city for nearly three years. It was a great move for his career and he got valuable experience which made him more marketable. But last summer, when fuel prices were rising and predicted to go much higher, he began working hard at finding a job in his field in our small town.

The best way to do this is to look constantly. Check the websites of all of the potential employers at least weekly. While you wait for your dream job to be posted, write a killer resume and cover letter, and pick out your interview outfit. And figure out what you'd be willing to give up to work in your town.

It might have been worth it for us to take a job in another field in order to get those 10 hours a week in the car back, or even taking a job that was less than full-time. The money savings may have even covered that. For us, it was easy to take a pay cut (although luckily he didn't need to take much of one). The cost savings in fuel alone made up for it. When you added in the cost of having more than one car, including insurance, repairs, car payments, etc, it was a no brainer. Plus, with extra time not being spent in traffic, he could do house projects that we had considered paying someone else to do. Now he walks to work each day, which is good for our wallet, his stress level and health, and the environment.

I moved to this community for a job, so I have always worked in the community where I lived. It wasn't until about 2 years ago, though, that I stopped driving to work. You can bike from one side of town to the other in 15 minutes, and yet it took me years to stop driving everywhere.

After making an effort to keep the car in the garage, it was probably a good 3-6 months before it became habit to walk or bike. Once I got over that hump, I discovered a pleasing side affect. Suddenly, taking the car felt like a hassle, much like taking the bike had previously. I'd have to open the garage door, find a parking spot, etc, and I didn't really save any time (it takes me 5 minutes to get to work by bike, 15 on foot). I retrofitted a burly bike trailer to have a flat bottom and now I just hook that up when I need to get groceries. I now get exercise every day, without making time for it or paying for a gym membership.

If you are looking for a money saving opportunity, consider looking for work where you live, or moving to the community in which you work. And break up with your car!