Peasful morning

I spent a peaceful morning shucking peas:






And listening to The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Lifeon Simple Living Radio


(Can you forgive me my punning?)

4 Lazy ways to be more green (and frugal!)

There is really nothing I enjoy more than being lazy. Sitting with a cup of coffee and a book or taking a nap in the middle of the day are my kind of entertainment. Sometimes, though, I get overwhelmed by all the things I know I should be doing in my journey to make my life more green, and to save a bit of money (so I can work less of course, what other goal would a lazy person have?). The good news is that there are lots of green changes you can make in your life that don't take any effort: in fact, many of them actually require less effort than what you are already doing.

1. Do less laundry. Unless you are exercising or have a job where you have to work in dirt all day long, do you really need to wash your clothes every time you wear them? Instead, assess your clothes and hang them back up if they are still clean. Then, when they are dirty, wait until you have a huge old pile of laundry and do a gigantic load of laundry in cold water, no sorting required. Easy peasy!

2. Cook less. Especially in the summer, it's a good idea not to cook every single night. Turning on your stove uses energy, and heats up both you and the kitchen. Plus, it's a pain. So every so often (or more), have a salad night, a cold sandwich night, or even eat cereal for dinner like you did in college. And once a week have a free-for-all leftover night to make sure none of the good food you paid for ends up in a landfill.

3. Pay your bills automatically. Sure this takes some effort upfront, but it will be one less thing for you to do and to worry about every month from now on. Go online and set your bills up to autopay. This will save paper, save gas for shipping, and save you time and the money for a stamp. While you're at it, make sure your paycheck is direct deposited and your bank statements are paperless.

4. Stay home. Probably the greatest lazy green tip of all. If the mere thought of figuring out bike routes or public transit makes you tired, just think about whether you need to go out and spend your money at all. Stay in, play a board game, eat from your pantry and just chill out on your couch for a while.

Filling my freezer little by little

One of the things I've been doing lately to combat my Weakness for restaurant food is trying to put up fully cooked meals in my freezer for days when I just feel blah and don't want to cook. My husband is a big fan of once a month cooking and all its variations, but I tend to get overwhelmed by big projects and making two gallons of chili, a lasagna, and a big pot of beef stew in one day makes me nearly want to crawl under my bed and hide. So, instead, I've been babystepping towards a freezer full of meals.

I was reading Love food, hate waste a lot lately and the obvious idea occured to me: freeze my leftovers. A lot of the meals I usually make tend to be too much for just the two of us, and then the leftovers go in the fridge and I have to either adjust my meal plan or end up throwing out the food when it finally goes bad. Instead, unless I have a specific plan for the leftovers, I'm popping the 1-2 extra servings of dinner into my freezer so I'll have it for another day. Right now, I have two servings of chicken taco meat and a container of barbecue pork (both from my crock pot). Since I also have rolls, tortillas, and shredded cheese in my freezer, it sounds like I have two easy dinners already taken care of. I'm hoping to save them for the first few weeks of school when I'm tired and cranky and overwhelmed.

Now that I also have all my beautiful CSA vegetables, I'm going to have to double time at getting things into the freezer in order to prevent food waste. Anyone know the best way to freeze or preserve summer squash?

<3

Today is my two year wedding anniversary. How should we spend our afternoon? (G-rated please, and the answer is not "writing a blog post.")

Book Review: How to be a budget fashionista

How to Be a Budget Fashionista by blogger extraordinaire Kathryn Finney of The Budget Fashionista is a fun little book on how to dress well without spending too much money. Targeted at young professional women, this book carries off it's casual, slightly irreverant tone without ever coming across as silly or offensive. Instead, it breaks down buying clothes to its most basic components so that the fashion-challenged (like me!) can learn to dress well for less.

Budget Fashionista is broken down into three parts: Know your budget, know your style, and know your bargains. It begins with a simple discussion of budgeting and ways to save and earn a little extra, to scrape up a good pot with which to update your wardrobe. While this may be useful for a lot of women, and while it was quite pleasant to read, I found it a little basic. The heart of the book is in the section on style. With lighthearted quizzes, descriptions, and exercises, Finney helps the reader to define her personal style and then gives recommendations of what to buy for each style type. This gets down to specifics (with a chapter called "Clumpy, Frumpy, and Lumpy: The importance of good undergarments" how can you go wrong?), explaining what articles of clothing are staples and what are just extras. The overall message is to invest in some good basic timeless articles and then to buy a few trendy items for fun, on clearance or deeply discounted, since these items are less likely to last in your wardrobe.

The third section on where and how to find bargains gets into the detail and nitty gritty about everything from sample sales to yard sales, and how to get the best deals at each. These are really practical tips, no hypotheticals just actionable points ("join the mailing list," "shop in the children's department").

I think this book would be particularly great for young women who are just out of college and trying to figure out how to wardrobe themselves for new professional jobs - without going into debt trying to do it. It's also got useful tips that just about anyone could use, along with fun tools, resources, and quizzes. It's a great, quick read for anyone who wants to know how to buy great clothes for less.