Green Minded Wallet

So I love the idea of homemade products, nice personalized items that match my individual tastes. I have a number of projects that I would like to start from a bunch of old sheets, worn out jeans, and fabric picked up on the cheap. But the truth is that summer has come and gone and I haven’t gotten a lot done (which is to say anything). I definitely believe in the idea of recycling materials and saving money versus going to box stores, but I’m just not passionate about homemade projects like I am other activities. Well, this weekend I decided to explore a different option, buying someone else’s homemade products. At our local farmer’s market, not only can you get an excellent selection of local produce, meat, and baked goods, but they also sell craft items as well. I picked out a nice set of cloth napkins with a fall oriented theme for $1.25 each. To me that’s a price that is so inexpensive, I’m not sure if it would be more economically prudent to make my own. The way I figure it, even if I could make all four napkins with a 1/2 yard of fabric it would probably still cost me 3 dollars or so. When you add in the cost of the other sowing supplies, and the time it would take for me to actually make the napkins, it would definitely seem to be advantageous to just buy them from the farmer’s market. Now I would think that once you start look at more expensive (larger) items that can be made from recycled materials (for example curtains), it might be more advantageous to make my own, but I don’t think that’s always the case. While there is the fact that the napkins are using new, not recycled material, their projected longevity makes me feel this difference is fairly negligible. What do you think, did I get a good deal or am I just lazy?

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One of the nice things about “relaxing” around people who know you well, and that you know well, is that you can often see things that you don’t see in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. I tried to keep my eyes opened during my vacation on how I do things and how others do things. It was very illuminating; I saw patterns of behavior manifested in my family members (that I know I do as well) that I realized I’d like to adjust. I also saw that others did certain things well and I would like to try to adopt some of those habits. Here are a few of the habits that I want to work on in the future.

• Learning to be okay with not being poor/broke. This may seem weird to some people, but if you’ve ever struggled financially whether it be for lack of funds or proper management, it can be really hard to accept having enough funds and control. Sometimes I have a hard time excepting that it’s okay to buy nice things if I’ve budgeted the money for them, instead of hoarding it.

• Sometimes you have to let go. One of the big challenges that I have is that I let things get to a pretty poor state before replacing them. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to fix things or just replace things once they start to show a little wear, I’m talking about when then lose their reliability. For example, my laptop lost it’s functionality as a portable computer some time ago; however I hadn’t done much before my vacation to really address the problem. (This situation however has been rectified.) Besides the computer, I can point to additional items in my possession that have long outlived their usefulness such as the can opener that can’t open cans on one rotation. I think part of the psychology here likely ties into the first challenge, but it also is part of a frugal person’s dilemma of determining exactly when you’ve gotten all the usefulness out of a product.

• Sometimes you have to keep your conservation inside. Here’s an example: at the end of my great-great grandmother’s 100th birthday party, some of my family members took to cleaning up and they just threw everything — disposable plates, cans, water bottles — into big garbage bags together. There had to be a least 100 cans and bottles. Now I could have made a big stink about recycling, but really it didn’t seem worth it to criticize the way that others were doing things. You know, I only have one great-great grandmother and she’s only going to have one 100th birthday, to me it was way more important for everyone to enjoy themselves together on such a momentous occasion, than for me to start a squabble about recycling.

• It’s worth the expense to be generous. I think that there are times to be frugal, but to me people who truly give selfishlessly, especially in all the day to day little things, really have been a much bigger impact on me than the most amazing frugal people. I think that part of being frugal is about determining your priorities and trying to maximize opportunities, I don’t think it’s about nickeling and dime-ing every decision until you become a person no one wants to be around.

Well I had a good time. Perhaps not every day went as I would have hoped, but I had a chance to connect with some people that I haven’t seen for years, rejuvenate myself, and reflect a little bit on life.

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