Green Minded Wallet

There seems to be a lot of buzz lately about simple things you can do to “go green”: things like changing your light bulbs to CFLs or unplugging your appliances. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against these things per se, it’s just that I consider these to be small changes worth implementing after big changes. When people seek personal finance advice most websites, books, blogs, etc. generally suggest that you get your basic finances in order, before you start worrying about major investing. Most people aren’t going to advise you to learn more about REITs, or decide if index mutual funds or ETFs are your best bet, if they realize that you are carrying $10,000 in credit card debt.

Well, personally I feel the same way about environmental conservation. Why worry about whether or not your computer and microwave are completely shut-down at night, if your four TVs are constantly running through out the day. And if you’re commuting 50 miles a day in a car that gets 20 mph, does it really matter what kind of light bulbs you use? Maybe it does; I mean it will make a difference to the overall picture and it might give you some small savings. But I think that sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re getting ahead when really we’re just falling behind at a slower rate. It doesn’t work in personal finance, and I don’t think that it will work in environmental conservation. Small changes can be good first steps as bigger changes, like downsizing your living quarters or moving to a more fuel efficient vehicle, can take time. However, if you’re serious about decreasing your environmental footprint, perhaps there are bigger inroads that you can make: perhaps your have more TVs in your house than people, or you drive around town for every little thing. Just like debt reduction and personal financial management don’t happen over night, neither does environmental conservation. I know that we can’t always do everything, and frankly it probably wouldn’t be worth it to most of us even if we could. I just think that it’s good to keep a bit of perspective.

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When I was younger, I couldn’t wait to have a car; to be able to drive myself wherever I needed and wanted to go, whenever I wanted to go there. But as I’ve gotten older and become responsible for maintaining my own car my feelings have changed. Instead of envying those who have cars, I actually look towards those people that I know who have successfully managed to survive without one. I have friends here in town that do it. Personally, I find it both a scary and exhilarating prospect. In the past few weeks, I’ve had enough setbacks with my car to make me wonder why I own one. I don’t think that the problem is that I have a particularly old or defective car, on the contrary I have had a lot fewer challenges with my car than most people I know. I think that the problem is, I see more (or at least equal) downsides, than upsides to owning a car (which makes me more prone to get annoyed when something goes wrong with it). When I was younger I always thought about the freedom of owning a car, but I never realized that there are burdens associated with vehicle ownership as well. Even if you’re not making payments on your vehicle, you will end up paying for insurance, gas, and maintenance (often monthly). Furthermore, there is the upkeep as well as having one more thing that you have to safeguard from accidents and theft.
I also like the environmental aspect of a carless existence: the feeling of doing something really good for the planet. One of my good friends released her old car and went a few months without one, simply getting by on just a bike. While there were definitely consequences, some rather surprising and unwelcome (e.x. high car insurance rates later on), she definitely can look back to that time in her life as a unique period. Personally, I don’t think that I’m there yet, and I’ll just have to keep hot-wiring my car when the need arises. But I do think that it might be something nice to try. If not forever, at least for a little while.

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Last year I was having a conservation with someone at my job (back in the days when I held full-time employment), and he mentioned that his wife would buy them all new socks and underwear every six months or so and chuck all the old ones. At the time I was rather disturbed: it seemed like an incredible economic and environmental waste to simply chuck clothes, regardless of condition, away twice a year. However, the other night as I was washing some clothes in the sink, I thought that perhaps they had a point. While I certainly can’t imagine buying all new socks and underwear every six months, sometimes I think about all the time, water, and chemicals necessary to satisfactorily scrub a couple of small items every couple of weeks and I have to wonder at a what point is it no longer really worth it. Another place where I have this issue is with the re-use of little plastic bags. I’ve tried a time or two to reuse them, but for the most part it seems more trouble than it’s worth. To get them clean enough that I would feel comfortable putting food in them requires a great deal of water and soap, and at a certain point I’m not sure if it’s worth it for one little bag. For the bag problem, I try to find alternative food storage options, perhaps other more permanent containers that are easier to clean. However, that isn’t really an option when it comes to socks and underwear (at least not in my mind). I don’t really think that there’s one right answer when it comes to disposal versus continual reuse; certainly some approaches are more wasteful than others, but in the end there is probably a gradient depending on personal use and tastes.

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People often talk about having emergency funds; in fact I would say that the idea is one of the cornerstones of modern day personal finance. And I will admit, I have a set of funds designated solely to true emergencies. However, I’m starting to think that I seriously need a fund, that consists of perhaps a few hundred dollars, that is there when I have an accident or mistake and I want to replace something but it isn’t really an emergency. The idea is that it would be used for unexpected, non-emergency situations that represent a personal inconvenience. Here are two real examples of things that would be covered with the Oops Fund.

• Last month I did a triathlon and somewhere in between the car and my house I misplaced my sports bra. I have no idea how this happened (especially since it is the only yellow piece of clothing that I currently own). I certainly didn’t mean to lose it, but I guess in the excitement of the day it fell out of a bag or something. So now I’m short one sports bra that wouldn’t have needed to be replaced for a couple more months or so, definitely a candidate for the Oops Fund.

• Remember last week when I talked about my fabulous fifty-cent bike. Well, unbeknownst to me the key to my bike-lock key fell off of my key ring. Of course I only discovered this after I had already locked my bike outside of the library. Yeah, oops. So I had to cut the lock off, but I can’t really ride my bike anywhere until I get a new lock.

If these were just isolated incidents, I would say that the money could come out of my pocket money. But since these are just a few examples of the silly things that I’ve done in the past month alone, I think that there might be a need for some sort of revolving fund. How about you, could you see a need in your life for an Oops Fund?

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I mentioned a while ago that I got a bike for 50 cents at a garage sale. Well, I’ve got it all cleaned up and a I’ve been riding it for a while now, so I figured I would share about my fabulously frugal find. I must admit that while the initial price was $0.50, I put another $50.00 worth of parts and labor into it, to make it safe and pleasant to ride. Even so $50.50 for a fully functioning bike is great. One really nice thing about it is that even though it’s not bad to ride, it doesn’t attract too much attention on campus (I still lock it up of course), if I decide to ride it in. While it’s a bit heavy (my neighbor calls it “The Tank”), it still rides rather smoothly, especially since it has thinner, smoother tires than a mountain bike (which is normally what you find in lower price ranges). It’s perfect for trips to the library and grocery store when I want to carry back a decent-sized load or I just don’t feel like walking. It isn’t bad for a nice trip around town, though anything over eight miles can get a little uncomfortable (it doesn’t have the best bike seat in the world). The only problem that I have had with it is that the kickstand is rather loose, though I think that it could probably be ameliorated with an appropriate sized socket wrench, but I haven’t tried yet. So that’s it, that’s my fifty-cent bike. Would do you think? The biggest problem is that I am now the proud owner of three bikes (though one of them is hanging up in my friend’s garage 700 miles away).

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This week is (or I guess was) back to school week for a number of people, though some of us have been back to school for a while now (sigh). Well, I thought I would share a couple of thoughts on going back to school, since I’ve already been back for over two weeks now.

Get a good backpack - The further along you get in school, the heavier the books seem to get. I’m amazed at the size of the textbooks that my neighbors who are in junior high/middle school bring home. The thing about backpacks is that you will carry them around for a long time. Even in college most of the students still carry backpacks, and if you decide to go on for an advanced degree, you’ll still need them. There are even some professors on college campuses who carry them. Many backpacks now also come with a built-in laptop compartment. However, I would personally would not want to carry a bag from a big computer company or a computer bag company (example, Dell, Targus) because it advertises that you’re carrying a computer. However, you can get a pack from anywhere. Many people, myself included, carry daypacks (outdoorsy type bags: The North Face, EMS, etc) which are nice because they have lots of great pockets and compartments. Additionally they are also meant to withstand a lot of abuse.

Shop around for textbooks - Fortunately I only needed one textbook this semester, but even so there was a great distribution in prices. I could have gotten the book new from Amazon for only $59, after using a $5 promotional code and free shipping. However, I went shopping around town and found a used copy with no markings for $52. Now the prices in town ranged quite a bit (from $52 to $74 dollars). None of the other online resellers were cheaper than Amazon.com after shipping. If you’re going to go the used route then you need to make sure you look early (generally before classes start), because the best conditioned ones tend to go the fastest. Furthermore reusing textbooks is more environmentally friendly so there’s that added bonus as well.

Wait until after you go to class to buy notebooks and binders - This is really geared towards college students. Over the years, I’ve found that some professors give lots of handouts, while some still use a chalk and blackboard. So instead of spending a lot of money buying supplies that you might not need, wait until after you figure out the specific equipment that you are going to need for that class and then go shopping. I normally just show up for the first day or two of classes with some notebook paper and a pen and then take it from there.

Well those are my some of my thoughts, do you have any others?

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