Photo by Stefan Baudy
I am so excited to welcome my new readers to Live Renewed! I was so honored that Money Saving Mom featured my Homemade Clorox Wipes post last week, and that as well as my guest posts at Kitchen Stewardship, means that there are some new faces around here – except we can’t really see each other, right! 🙂
I wanted to start a Question of the Day post, once a month, because I would love to hear more and learn more about you, my wonderful readers. I want to know what you all are passionate about, what you do to live more green and more frugally around your home and in your lives, and what motivates, encourages and inspires you. Basically, I wish that we could all just go out for coffee and chat about our lives and find out more about each other!
So, for my first Question of the Day I just want to know,
What is your favorite frugally green thing that you do, and why is it your favorite?
Whether your just starting on your journey, or you’re much farther along, we all have things that we do, not just because they’re frugal, or because they’re green, but because we actually like doing them.
I’ll start. My favorite is washing my hair with the no ‘poo method. I have been doing this for a little over a year now, and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to regular shampoo. I love that it is so cheap, and that I’m no longer using toxic products on my hair, but even more than that, I LOVE how it has simplified my morning routine, and made my hair much more manageable and easier to style.
Okay, you’re up. What’s your favorite frugally green things that you do and why is it your favorite?
Please, don’t be shy!
My favorite thing that I absolutely love the feeling I get while doing it and the after affects as well is that I have always made my daughters own baby food. I would like to say that I do this even though we had the choice of buying the ridiculously expensive store-bought kind, but we actually are very strictly following a budget in order to live within our means, and that did not leave any room for the store bought. I love that I know what she is eating, how much of it, and how easy it is to make and have available. I don’t always feel like I can do much more in order to bring extra cash our way, but I really enjoy the feeling that I am contributing to helping our famiy save a lot of money, and waste for the environment without swimming in excess baby jars or those plastic containers.
It is great that homemade baby food saves so much waste, as well as the amount of energy used in the production, manufacturing and transportation of the baby food! Did you see my recent guest posts on feeding baby real foods? It’s a great way to feed little ones without having to spend a ton of time in the kitchen making your own baby food!
http://www.liverenewed.com/2010/10/feeding-baby-breastfeeding-and-beyond-part-ii.html
I grow a vegetable garden every year and pick fruits from local farms. The foods I harvest I then can, freeze, preserve etc. for the months I cannot have my fresh veggies. I know exactly what goes on the food (no chemicals in my garden), where they are grown and the freshness. Doing my own canning and freezing cuts down on containers needing to be thrown away as I can re-use jars, boxes, lids, etc. From homemade spaghetti sauce to jams and fruits, pie fillings, apple juice… So much cheaper than buying it at the store, and much healtheir too!
Kristy – that is so great! I need to delve more into the areas of freezing, canning and preserving food to make the most out of the wonderful local food that we have available!
My favorite recent change has been to use less paper towels. I liked your idea from a prior post and bought wash cloths and use them to clean the kid’s hands/faces and kitchen. I have different colors (blue is for kids, green is for counters). My next step is to make cloth napkins from an old tablecloth. Also we’ve started a compost pile in hopes of starting a garden next year and I have actually been diligent about using it. These are just small changes but I hope to continue to making small changes one step at a time.
Great job on using less paper towels and the compost pile! Composting is still on my list of things to do!
I just saw your comment about this question on Twitter. I came over here and laughed, because like you, go no-poo is my favorite. We switched to using a local, homemade soap with an ACV rinse over a year ago. The baking soda no poo solution just doesn’t seem to work for me. However, I love that one large bar last our family two weeks and is the only thing besides the ACV rinse in the shower. Simplicity and beautiful hair I had only wished for before. 🙂
I love shopping at our local farmer’s market. I love knowing where my food comes from, and I have really enjoyed getting to know many of the farmers over the years. I love that when my kids pretend to play “store” they actually play “market”. One of them is Dennis who sells apples or Miss Trudy who sells us eggs. You had mentioned in a previous post how cool it was for you when your daughter didn’t know what a paper towel was. For me, I love that when I said something about buying apples at a store, my 3 year old corrected me, “No mommy. Apples don’t come from the store… they come from the market!”
Love it, Kristen! I have a friend who shops so often at garage sales that when her daughter is talking about something they need to buy she doesn’t say, “Let’s go to the store and buy one”, she says, “We need to go to a garage sale to get one”! I love hearing stories like that! 🙂
I love to hang my laundry. I started doing it to save money, but now I just love the way my clothes feel and smell. And for some reason, I find it rather therapeutic. I may use the dryer twice a year, in extreme emergencies.
I use cloth diapers and I love it! I don’t use them as much as I would like, but I know any amount that I do use them cuts down on the cost and waste of disposable diapers. I also will be making wash clothes to use as wipes at home and then making homemade wipes for the diaper bag.
My favorite has to be using homemade cleaning products. The one product I love the most is the club soda that is used for cleaning glass and mirrors. I found this idea in a book called Clean House, Clean Planet by Karen Logan. Check it out!
Ooh, I’ll have to try club soda on glass and mirrors – that’s a good one! And I definitely need to check out that book, I have heard about it from more than one person!
When I saw your question and started thinking about what my favorite green thing that I do is I couldn’t think of anything. I KNOW I do lots of money-saving green things, but nothing was coming to mind. Then I realized that the changes I have made in my life to save money and be more environmentally conscious have become such a way of life for me that I don’t even think of them as doing something different than the norm. Does that make sense? I do love my cloth diapers, clothes line, homemade breads, vegetable garden and homemade laundry detergent! I just feel that these things shouldn’t be “Frugally Green” but instead “Society Standard”.
I totally agree!! 🙂
I agree with Leah Free – I love my cloth diapers and wipes! With my *very* limited sewing skills, even I was able to sew up some homemade wipes. My favorite cloth diapers are Bumgenius, although I’m a sucker for other cute brands. The best part of cloth diapering is the ripple effect it’s having in my circle of friends. My sister and I were the first to try them, and once our friends saw how frugal and easy they were (and not at all as scary as people make them out to be!), they are branching out as well. I’m still considered a bit of an oddball in my group, but I’m excited that more people are discovering green and frugal living. Thanks for your blog…I still have SO much to learn! One day, I will try to be brave like you and go no-poo!
I love line-drying my laundry! I’ve been doing it for years, so I’m now able to see the benefits in the number of garments I have that look basically new after 5, 10, or more years. It saves electricity and doesn’t take all that much time.
But the thing I’ve really been appreciating lately is being adapted to not showering and washing my hair every day (I also do no-shampoo and now need to wash my hair only about once a week) so that I haven’t felt totally gross these past two weeks while our bathroom’s being renovated!
My favorite thing so far–I haven’t gotten very far, though–is the many, many uses for vinegar. I was really bad about using a popular fabric softener because of the way it smelled. Now I use vinegar in place of softener and it works even better than store-bought. It even removes the awful smell from all of my husband’s workout clothes which has never been possible until now!
Yes! I love multipurpose products like vinegar! I love how they simplify things around my home. I don’t have to have bottles and bottles of different cleaners, fabric softener, jet-dry, etc. I just use vinegar!