The End to a new Beginning…

When I started this project I never realized how much I would re-learn. When I mean re-learn I just realize just a couple of days ago that I actually had forgotten some things I used to do before I came to college and somehow I lost along the way. Then re-learn because I had to learn how to brush my teeth and turning of the water, or take shorter showers. This also helped me spread the word to other people such as friends and family regarding what I was going and why I was doing it. I also think that just because the project is over does not mean I will stop and go back to my old ways. At least I want to believe and try that I will continue to be cautious regarding my usage as well knowing that I can live without eating meat 2-4 days out of a week, plus greens are good!

As far as the ovo-lacto vegetarian goes, I am please to say that it brought me back to what I used to do before I got to college.  What I mean is that before college, I would not eat so many process foods or even can foods, i would normally eat fresh food. When I say fresh not always organic but not canned. I would also not eat out as much if I did it would be on the weekends on Sundays as a treat and only 1 meal. How did being an ovo-lacto vegetarian help me do that? Well to start of I wanted to eat healthier than what I had been, and I knew that most of the foods I had were meat related microwaveable meals. Excuse was no time to cook, or too tired to cook. As well as the cheap the better since I am poor.  So when meat was cut off from my diet 3 days out of the week I had to re-invent my meals. I found it a bit hard to find microwaveable meals that did not contain meat, or in other words that were fresh and healthy. So I actually had plan my meals, and most of the recipes where ones I learn from home and they all require fresh ingredients, even if some people substitute it with other non fresh ingredients. That forced me in a way to buy only what I needed for that particular dish and probably 10 time healthier than a Banquet TV dinner plus I had left overs!

As far as dinero ($) having a plan of my week meals helped me not to buy out of the list items like chips, juice, cookies and well junk food saving me money! plus having left overs helps because I would not always have to cook the next day unless I wanted something different then I would just save the left overs for another day.

Another perk is that I have lost some weight, and that’s because I actually get full with a meal instead of having to eat 2 TV dinners. I also feel healthier even if I have been getting sick lately… I think is for the lack of sleep not nutrients though… but Its the end of the semester and I am always sick toward the end… but over all I have also worked out, and when I walk I don’t feel like I am about to die! So Woohoo!! Plus when I don’t buy my TV dinner is less cardboard

Water usage… I have cut down a lot of my water usage, my showers have been cut down to 12 minutes and if i’m not too dirty 9! If I don’t shave then 5 minutes. Over all m usage of water has lowererd and I’m happy for that. I no longer wash my dishes by hand since my roommate prefferse to do it plus according to this article a dishwasher is better than hand-washing: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/08/dishwasher_vs_h.php

Electricity usage: This last bill was $65.52! so if you remember from $138.65 to $81.03 and now to $65.52 15.51 was saved from the last bill to this new one. Over all savings have been $73.13 so I think that says pretty much everything. I won’t deny it’s been hard at times, because unplugging everything can be frustrating in the beginning but after a while its just part of your daily routine.

Recycling: I never thought that most of our trash was made up of cardboard, paper, and plastic.  As I mention before before we took out 4 trash bags of more if we had extra people over, but now since we recycle we only take out 1 trash bag a week or 2 if other people are over, or my roommate eats out then we have extra trash… Eating out and having left overs make a lot of trash… never thought about it before but they just take so much room… and most of the containers can’t really be recycled… but over all thanks to recycling our trash has been cut down more than 50%. This I should have known because I used to do this all the time in California, but when I moved to KS in 2002 somehow it just diapered… or in other words its easier to be lazy and just do one movement instead of two… that should not be so!

Over all this project made me happy, it made me realized what I was missing and it makes me crave healthy food! I will be going to the farmers makerket this saturday!! I can’t wait I love food, and when its fresh and good for you even more!

I have to give thanks to Dr. Carroll for giving us this opportunity because I believe we all learned so much not only new information but we learn new things about ourself, and I know we will all take something with us from this projects. I am not looking forward to having my own garden of fruits and vegis, and just eating more healthy and in hopes that some people might also get motivated to be more green and diminish their foot print on earth.

Also Fox has some good ideas that we can all try, please take a look:

http://www.fox.com/earthday/

Also if you are intresting in doing something good this can help you start that project:

http://www.dosomething.org/dosomething101/home

Also you can enter to win the Green home from HGTV, the car you can sell since its an SUV. But how cool is it to have such a green home, and be close to shops and all you need in walking distance! At least thats what they said.

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv-green-home-2010-giveaway-enter/package/index.html

P.S

As I said this is the end to a new beginning! I hope its the same to all of you.

Here is my presentation board.

It pretty much has the information that is provided here in my blog, just more colorful:

Breaking it down to #’s, and $!

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the late post, my computer got the Blue Screen of death and been without a computer… I am curretly in Hale.

Okay last blog I mention that this blog would be conduction of money and how much I have actually been able to reduce my usage in electricity, water.

Electricity

Well I will start with my Electric (Westar Energy): Before I started this project our Electric bill was $138.65 our latest bill turn out to be, $81.03 We saved 57.62 , I am expecting the next bill to be even less. All it took was some extra blankets, unplugging any electrical devices not being used, and making sure the lights were turn off. I mean think with that 88.45 you can do a lot with! When my roommate and I SAW the big difference we were stoked! It might have been hard at first, but in the end it was totally worth it.

Water

Water: We don’t pay for water at our apartment, but I found this awesome tool, that is a calculator on how much water you use. I have the initial water usage and the final water usage with mostly my usage, and some information about my roommate water usage.

First Results: As you can tell, they are horrible, I was shocked to see that… Also if you are intrested in figuring out how much water you use, here is the link:

http://www.tampagov.net/dept_water/information_resources/Saving_water/Water_use_calculator.asp

As you can tell there is a big change in my water usage. It is sad how much water I still use, but have done a lot better then when I first started. I will like to invite you to use the calculate, and see how much water you use! Its unbelievable, and to think that there is people that don’t have water, while I waste a lot of it…

Recycling/Trash

As far as my recycling I have counted how many times we took out the trash before I started to do this. Now keep in mind that I was only able to recycle for a whole week, meaning separating bottles, cans, cardboard etec. for one week, since my roommate was not too happy to have that around the house.

Before not doing any type of recycling we took out the trash 4 times in 7 days.

When I started separating the cardboard it made it to 3 times

the whole week while I recycle all that was possible, 1 time.

As of now we are only recycling cardboard items and since I am trying to get things that are not package in a box our trash is now 2 times in 7 days (that includes the bathroom trash as well)

So in other words we started by taking the trash 4 times in 7 days to now 2 times in 7 days, so half our waste are recyclable!

Here is a “Trash Trivia Game” even if it says its for 4-6 grade, I think some of the questions most of us don’t know the answers to! try it out!

http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/TrashGoesToSchool/Trash.html

Food!

Well when I started this project I bought the cheapest things I could get for my money, so normally I would buy food for 2 weeks that would bring me to 60-76 dollars, that would include microwave oven ready foods, Ramen, chips, juice, ham, bread, box dinners were you just add the meat, Beef (steak, ground beef, chicken you name it).

After the project i bought food for only a week, had meals plan, and it cost me 50-57 dollars: it consisted of lentils, cheese, milk, tortillas, eggs, vegetables such as cilantro, onion, peppers, lettuce, fruits, tomatoes, strawberries, mango’s, apples, pears, and grapes as well as more. I would still buy some of the frozen pizzas (have a week spot for them) and cereal but overall I felt I would get more full in one sitting instead of having to keep munching when I did the TV dinners. Plus I also had leftovers that helped a lot when I had no time to cook. I have not lost any weight but Its good to cook again! I won’t deny that sometimes I am too tired to cook, but for the most part I love to cook and I had started to forget about it. One could say that I may have not save much money, but I think other wise, I had more leftover food, and I actually got full with just one plate instead of having to munch on something else since most TV dinners did not conquer my appetite! Also if you plan your meals ahead it helps too!

Here is an article that talks about junk food as an addiction that maybe causing obesity:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62R23O20100328

Hope this helps!

Hope to write my final blog this Friday!

Thanks for reading

WATER USAGE

RESULTS
PER CAPITA DAILY WATER USE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD (gallons)
INDOOR WATER USE		OUTDOOR WATER USE
Bathroom	30	Lawn Watering	0
Toilets	20	Other Outdoor Uses	0
Faucets	180	GENERAL WATER USE
Laundry	1	<!—->
Dishwasher	1
Hand Washing Dishes	27
Click one of the categories above to learn how to reduce your water usage. COMPARISON BETWEEN YOUR HOUSEHOLD AND THE TAMPA AVERAGE* HOUSEHOLD Total Per Capita Gallons of Water Used in the House Per Day Per Month Per Year Your Household 259 7874 94535 Tampa Average 106 3180 38690 New and improve calculations of water reduction. RESULTS PER CAPITA DAILY WATER USE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD (gallons) INDOOR WATER USE OUTDOOR WATER USE Bathroom 20 Lawn Watering 0 Toilets 20 Other Outdoor Uses 0 Faucets 72 GENERAL WATER USE Laundry 1 <!––> Dishwasher 1 Hand Washing Dishes 2 Click one of the categories above to learn how to reduce your water usage. COMPARISON BETWEEN YOUR HOUSEHOLD AND THE TAMPA AVERAGE* HOUSEHOLD Your House Tampa Average Interior per capita gallons per day 116 64 Exterior per capita gallons per day 0 40 Total Per Capita Gallons of Water Used in the House Per Day Per Month Per Year Your Household 116 3526 42340 Tampa Average 106 3180 38690 *Based on Tampa Water Department data.

Reduction -duction what’s your function?

I am still struggling with trying to reduce my food consumption. When I go to eat (in the dorms) I still take too much food initially. I’m learning to really try and cut down and have smaller portions and keep in mind that I can always go back for more if I am still hungry.

As we have discussed before in class, the average time it takes for an American to consume a meal is just minutes. It’s really important to me to make an effort to spend some serious time when I sit down to eat. This isn’t always a possibility with my hectic schedule, but when I’m not rushing to eat I can devote more time to focusing on the foods being consumed. I have found that I am more satisfied and feel better with smaller portions of healthier food.

There is not an overwhelming variety of fresh foods in the dorms, but the salad bar has become a close friend of mine. I don’t know if it is the changing weather or what but there seems to be more fresh produce available now than before.

Another way I have sought to reduce my consumption is by trying to look for products that use less packaging/materials or have better recycling possibilities when I do purchase items. After reading others blogs about the recycling options in Manhattan I’ve become more conscious of looking at what the number type is of the recyclable item. I have also greatly reduced (and nearly eliminated) drinking packaged beverages (coffee shop drinks/pop/bottled water). I have switched my remaining coffee intake to a fair trade product.  I am also more prone to purchase organic or “natural” products. I have really tried to take my role as a consumer much more serious.

When contemplating the financial benefits of this project I was surprised. A strong theme for this project for me has been my caffeine addiction. I used to hit up coffee shops like no other—Radina’s, Starbucks, Caribou, Bluestream, vending machines—yum! I would say that I went to one of these places two or three times a week spending 2-4 dollars each time (lets say ten bucks a week?). I never realized how much spending a little here and there was really adding up. Going through a case of Coke every few weeks (even when I bought a 12 pack on sale it was still $2.50 so maybe $15 a month?) just added to the total. In addition, I would spend at least $10 a weekend going out to eat. SO looking at it in this light, with just these few items, I was able to save a lot of money for this project.

Your $ Or Your Life-intro and first post

     My original post (a couple years ago) was about saving because of the importance of compounding interest.  The reason why I started this project a couple of years ago is because I got sick and hemorrhaging money and blood.  I finally feel sufficient to complete it.      

      I started reading Your Money or Your Life due to the fact that I really want to get my fiscal health under control.  Especially as women there seems to be a tendency to bury our head in the sand, and not take responsibility and have awareness for our family’s fiscal health.   All too often it takes something catastrophic happens and women are in charge of the family’s fiscal health and have no training or education about it.  People do not realize that women will generally outlive their partners at least 75% of the time.  So who do you want to teach you about money that you will be in control of, someone who is the partner that you trust or someone who is a stranger?  Do you think trying to learn about money in the midst of an illness or grief is the best time to learn about it?

      If you learn nothing else from me, I want you to learn to prepare for that catastrophic situation that you might find yourself in like I did.  All it took for me was some injuries and a major chronic debilitating illness to completely wipe out my entire savings and put me in significant debt.  I had a good job and was well on my way to being financially secure.

      I am not sure that I would ever relinquish control of my fiscal future to someone else’s management, not because I lack the trust, but because I now know what it is to be on your own with no backup.  Prince Charming and rest of the Marines are not coming are not coming to save my six.   I want to learn how to manage my money and my life in a way that agrees with where my life is at right now.

      Your Money or Your life is about focusing in on what is truly important in your life.  Is what you are doing worth your life energy?  For some a key question is it worth time away from the most important people in your life?  In my case (given my former career paths) is it worth my life?

     There are some key questions that Dominguez and Robin, the authors of Your Money or Your Life, ask at the beginning of the book that I think are pretty interesting:

“Do you have enough money?  Are you spending enough time with your family and friends?  Do you come home from your job full of life?…Are you satisified with the contribution you have made to the world?…Do you have enough savings to see you through six months of normal living expenses? …Is your life whole?  Do all the pieces-your job, your expenditures, your relationships, your values-fit together?”

Plus they made a hugely impactful statement about how money equals life energy:

“Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.  Our energy is our allotment of time here on earth, the hours of precious life available to us.  When we go to our jobs we are trading our life energy for money.  This truth, while simple, is profound.”

       Imagine my suprise when I figured out in step one of the program (Making Peace with the Past) that during the time I worked hazardous waste disposal during my undergrad days that for the time I had invested in it I was really only making about two dollars an hour (minimum wage was only about $4.15 at that time, and I was happy to find a job that paid a quarter more then that).  While as students most of us work not so great jobs either for the rent money or for the on the job experience, but I have to admit this was what the authors call a “making a dying” job, and while it did have it’s benefits.  But I needed the money to make rent, eat, and it was something that tipped the balence in my favor when I went on in my career path. 

     As I have just mentioned the first step is “making peace with your past.”  This has two parts.  The first is finding out “how much you have earned in your life,” and the second part is “what have you got to show for it?”  I have to admit I feel pretty bad about this step, and it was very hard to remember the “no shame, no blame” mantra that I have come across in other finicial management books.  In part, because at one time my future was the perfect plan, and then I got the rug jerked out from underneath me (by illness), and been living very poorly since then.  As soon as I got a little money I went a little crazy.  I actually bought a D&B bag (granted it was more then 50% off), but the funny thing is I really wish I could have bought it for my Mom (she would have love it, but she also would have told me not to spend that much money on a bag for her).  Another thing is with being poor and getting hit with some losses, I have found it very hard to let things go, and so I have a lot of clutter.  So much that when I inherited some stuff I had to rent a storage space.  But I found out in assessing ”what I have to show for it” I need to take out a larger renter’s insurance or I need to get rid of stuff.  Obviously, I am going to get rid of some stuff. 

    Granted, I think it might have a little to do with how poorly my quality of life has been for about the last five plus years.  Another thing the authors mention is the “fufilliment curve,” and basically what it show is that once you get “the basics of life” taken care of that more income does not necessarily increase the quality of life significantly.   Daniel Kahneman, a Noble Prize winner, did an experiment about what activities made women the happiest and they were: “Sex, Socializing, Relaxing, Praying/worshipping/meditating, eating, exercising.”

    So a question to ponder is what makes you happiest?

Invisible sucking Vampires! :O

Hellooooo! My dear classmates!

It is I the Invisible sucking Vampire Slayer! ohhhh yeeaahhh… J.K… I am not good jokes…

Any who, I have begun with week 3! and that is to save energy!

So I lower our temperature in our apartment from 75 degrees to 65-67 degrees, you can’t really tell exactly put assume its in there, we have the old retro thermostats, so It’s in between those numbers. I get cold really easily so I am always wearing a sweater now and days, as well as I feel like a baby because I carry my blanket with me everywhere in the apartment because I’m cold, but It is all worth it! It’s not killing me or my roommate, I actually think my roommate loves it! Why? she is warm blooded and is always hot. Me I am always cold…

Another thing, that we do is ( hence the title for my blog) unplug all appliances that we are not using, so that way they won’t be sucking on energy! as I will post this video, if you hear the last part, It is shocking on how much energy they consume and how much we pay for that!!! So I’m sure some of you guys knew and some did not. My mouth drop when he mention how much money we spend on those sucking little buggers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGAOZllghYo

I have also replace my regular light bulbs to energy light bulbs, ( not in roommate room just mine),  I also turn off all the light that may be on when we don’t use it. We also open windows for light during the day, and then lights for the night.

Reducing my water usage: So I was finally able to take a 10 minute shower!!!! I acomplish that on Friday! I time myself (started timing when the water was turn on and off) I was so happy! I was able to wash my hair 2 times, and scrub my body 2 times as well, and shave half my legs, so not bad eh?! I was impressed so I hope I can keep that up! I wonder if I can do a 5 minuter shower… maybe that will be my next goal… seems too short of a shower time… but I shall try!

Oh oh I am not starting to get better at turning of the water while brushing my teeth! WOOHOO for me

Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian: So I finally went to the store to get the ingreadients for the cheese… well that was the plan… as I read what was needed I realize I don’t know some (1 or 2) ingredients… so I have to research… It looks really easy I just did not realize it was hard at the same time?? So again I must push that for another week… But I did took a picture of my awesome omelet! I have been eating more eggs than normal… So my omelet has, cilantro ( love it), onion, tomato, cheese, and aguacate with a green salsa. Its soooo good! you guys should totally try it!

Well that’s all for now!

Economics of renewable energy

Hi everyone, I am sure you are all as excited to read this as I am to post it but here is my blog posting for the economical aspects of renewable (green) energy. Well to start out with lets talk about wind turbines. The electricity produced has a higher up front cost of production from wind turbines than it does from more traditional methods like fossil fuel consumption. However as with all things economic you must look past the up front cost, and consider long term cost, opportunity cost, and environmental cost. When wind turbines are built they cost a large sum of money for each unit, but in the long term they are saving fossil fuels and are producing a good amount of energy for the world. On the down side if you are a bird watcher you will hate these because well birds seem to fly into the turbine blades and kill themselves. However, a few birds to save the over consumption of fossil fuels like coal, a fair trade in my opinion. In exchange for the loss of a few birds though we will reap the following benefits:
one unit wind turbine will offset the emission of 7,100,000 pounds of CO2
33,000 pounds of SOx (an contributor to acid rain and smog)
10,000 pounds of NOx (a leading component of smog and cause of asthma)
the amount of pollution saved annually is the equivalent to planting 83,000 new trees, or driving 75,000,000 miles less in a conventional automobile each year.
This kind of put it in perspective about how green the renewable energy can really be, these numbers are annually so this is just one years worth of accumulation.

So when you weigh the benefits vs the cost of renewable energy just using the example of wind power it seems to be an easy decision to me, wind power is great. This is just using one example of wind power, there are multiple different types of renewable energy that can be utilized. For more information about them and facts about them visit the following link: http://www.aresearchguide.com/energy.html

Your Money or Your Life (1)

The very first thing that I want to talk about is saving money, the offer has a time limit on it. No more after 31 MAR 08. From Suze Orman book Women and Money there is an offer: “go to TD Ameritrade open a money market deposit account and commit to a deposit of at least $50 a month. TD Ameritrade will provide the incentive in the form of a $100 contribution to your account , to be made after your 12th deposit…” So you save your 50 bucks a month for a year and you get your money, plus interest, plus $100 bucks.
“1. go to www.saveyourself.com by midnight 31 MAR 08.
2. enter save yourself offer code: 701. You will be taken to a page for the full details of this offer.
3.click link to open a new TD Ameritrade (non retirement) account.
4. Arrange for a direct deposit of at least $50 per month into the account for 12 consecutive months. The first 50 must be deposited within 30 days of opening the account.
5.At the end of one year, TD Ameritrade will deposit a $100 cash bonus in your account.
6.Should you need to withdraw the money prior to the 12 month commitment, you may withdrawal all of your deposits, plus the interest earned. However, you will forfeit the $100 bonus.”
This offer is from Suze Orman’s book Women and Money, please see pages 85-87 for full details.
I am on a morphine drip right now, so I hope this makes sense…I will cite appropriately when I can get to my APA book.

No More Eating Out

No More Eating Out

So I have some good news to report about my project. I have done really good not eating out at all. I have also found a way to solve my problem of not buying items that are packaged. I found the way to solve this problem when I called my sister and her boyfriend to see if they would like to barbecue. She said yes but they would have to go grocery shopping, and since I was board I decided to go with them. My sisters boyfriend is an amazing cook, he makes everything from scratch so I watched to see what items they bought, because I never really know what I need when it comes to making items from scratch. It surprised me to see how many fresh fruits and veggies they bought. So anyways I watched her boyfriend cook dinner so that I could get a better idea of how he does it and well he is good. We ate over at their house just about every night last week because it is like having home cooked food. It was so good and seeing how easy it was for him to whip up food out of all kinds of things had me excited because it has made me realise its not that hard. Plus seeing all the veggies they bought and how they used them has me so excited because I love veggies but I never know what to cook them with or how. My sister boyfriend also helped me solve what to do about cooking when it comes to my boyfriend since he hates veggies, He always made everything separate and then when my boyfriend’s food was cooked he would keep it separate and then add the rest of the veggies to what was left, or he would make two of the same items and one without the veggies. I am so excited to keep this up because we are moving in with my sister and her boyfriend next year, and I will really learn how too cook. ; )
As for comments I don’t really consider it failing when I do eat out it just feels that way because, well its like a diet when you say your not going to do it you think no problem till it comes down to it and you realise its not that easy to just stop. I think if everyone in the world would try to do this they would be shocked with how much they eat out, and by packaged food. Its insane when I stop and think about when I was younger that my mom had a garden and I used to help plant, grow, cook, and can food from it. And now I have no clue how to do those things because we have slipped into the habit of convenience food.

Deprogramming Necessities

Spring Break was a lot easier then I expected it to be. I spent the break in Manhattan working. Which made spending money a lot less tempting. My friends have been the biggest problem. They like to go out to eat frequently, and my girlfriends like to go shopping as entertainment. I have gotten use to going with them and not buying anything though. I have also gotten into the habit of just not going.
For entertainment I have been reading a lot more, I was a book worm to before starting this project, I am far beyond that title now. Also, the weather has made it easier for me to avoid spenging money. I have been able to go on more walks and spend time out in nature, walking or just sitting and reading, rather then at activities that require money.
I have ran into a problem though. I have gotten so use to not buying anything, that I don’t even notice things that I would have ordinarily bought to keep track of. But I guess that was is the purpose