Spend less green, BE more green!

If you're outside of Washington State, you might not know that we had a carbon fee initiative that failed to pass on Election Day 2018. Regardless of how you vote(d), I think being environmentally friendly is something most people can get behind. This is where some frugality practices can help you minimize your carbon footprint. I'm going to limit these suggestions to my own habits that I currently practice.

(By Kevin Schoenmakers) This lady figured it out!

Let's start with a seasonal favorite: hot beverages. They double as hand warmers! If you've been here before, you'll know what's coming. Make. That. Shit. Yourself! Hot beverages are super easy to make. They're tastier than cold beverages by default because they're not dulling your tongue! Milk, some kind of sweetener (honey, sugar, maple syrup), and a flavoring (cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, vanilla). I get the hand warmer part, but folks are going to that place with the green mermaid/Statue-of-Liberty-ripoff and spending $4 a pop! You can raid your pantry for the makings of a hot beverage. For $.50 a cup, you can drink some of the finest coffee available to the middle class if you make it yourself. I alternate between LaVazza (more like $0.20 a cup) and Kirkland Signature (which is Starbucks, minus the label. $0.11 per cup).

A trip to the cafe or McDonalds means you've commissioned TWO people to do the work of one, albeit amazingly efficiently. However that wad of napkins and fistful of sauce packets you throw away every spring is just plain irresponsible. Sit-down restaurant? The host, the waiter, the cook and the busser. I completely understand the convenience of having an expert prepare your food, but another way to shrink your carbon footprint is to cook for yourself. Or invest in some great pre-assembled entrees. Either way, you're going to create less waste, spend less green and likely eat healthier.

No recipe needed. Seriously.

In addition to cooking for yourself, eat oats and vegetables! Actually, for the last month, I've added 3 cans of different beans, some dry lentils and sausages into a crockpot. For about $4 of ingredients, I get lunch for 4 days. A friend of mine who has a high-paying job as a software engineer still lives frugally. Once a month he buys two big ass bags of rice and lentils that works out to something ridiculous like $0.10 per meal, except on those decadent days where he adds an egg, skyrocketing the cost to $0.40 per meal. Washington Post gives a chart on just how much of a reduction of greenhouse gases you make if you choose veggies over beef! Of course, frugal people like ourselves opt for chicken, pork and tofu anyway.

It hurts to dryyyyy...

I am one of those weirdos who uses his dishwasher as a drying rack and hand washes everything. Green. I also air-dry my laundry. In addition to living in Asia where that's till normal, a 25-year-old me once saw a friend's gorgeous blue dress that I thought was brand new. Turns out she'd had it for 10 years and just doesn't use a dryer. The only drawback of hang drying is crusty towels that don't get fluffed by the dryer. There are also weeks where it's just too damn cold and humid so I concede to the machine.

Public transportation. Use it. Be green. Airport run? Take the light rail. Read a borrowed book from the library or read this blog on your phone instead of being accident-fodder!

One of the stats is that skipping beef once a week is equivalent to switching 12 incandescent light bulbs to LED, which is the first thing I did when I moved in August. If you live in Washington State, LED bulbs are subsidized and you can get ~20 bright-as-day bulbs for $15 at your hardware stores (significantly cheaper than buying online, where the store likely can't pass along the discount.)

Recycling is pretty obvious, and buying secondhand accomplishes a few things: it generally avoids wasteful packaging, it proves the item itself is durable enough to survive the first owner, and you aren't economically supporting the manufacturer (if you have ethical issues with them.) Full disclosure: I struggle with this because as much as I love to save money, my favorite game developers miss out on my cash when I buy their games used.

Just because the law doesn't (yet) push you to be green doesn't mean you can't be green yourselves! All of these require more time than simply paying for the various services that most others use everyday. One thing that shocks me is how much time I spend washing dishes for just me and my wife. We clear the sink after every meal and still spend a good 20 minutes on weekend days cleaning dishes. Air drying laundry means your skivvies won't be ready for up to 2 days. Making your own coffee robs you of 2 precious minutes, but the way I see it, you can do these things yourself, or you could earn the income to pay someone else to do it: you're investing time and energy regardless.