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Simple Living News
Issue #77 — July 2010
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Copyright © 2010
Greetings on a hot summer day, and welcome to the 77th edition of our user-supported Newsletter!
Here in lovely Boulder, Colorado (while Dave Wampler and the Simple Living Network are based in Trout Lake, Washington, I live far away in Colorado), it's finally summer. That means it's hot here, but still blessedly cool in the nearby mountains. It's a wonderful season for hiking and biking up near the Continental Divide. The wildflowers are exploding in the mountain tundra, yet the mosquitoes aren't bad so far. It's time to go camping!
At home, we planted three fruit trees this season: a sour cherry and two Stanley plums. They've taken well, so we're looking forward to enjoying plenty of fruit from them in a few years. We've tackled a few house projects (such as the solar panel installation I wrote about below), but have now put most ideas on hold for the summer in favor of spending time outdoors with friends.
While life at home has been mostly smooth and pleasant, I got the opportunity last month to go down to southern Louisiana to help document the effects of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf. What I experienced there is worse than anything I've seen, and I've seen a lot of things. The oil had already penetrated deeply into the marsh grasses, 60 miles up-current of the spill. Many birds, chicks, and eggs are covered in oil, ingesting it, and dying. I witnessed countless dolphins swimming in the oil. It was a tragic, heart-wrenching experience, and I'm very happy to be home now.
The oil spill is continuing as I write, spewing about an Exxon Valdez amount of oil into the Gulf every 6-8 days. It's a strong reminder of why now, more than ever, it's time to consider the future we're creating for our children and children's children. In simplifying our way of life, cutting our consumption, we can reduce the occurrence of disasters like this one.
Not only can we reduce environmental destruction, but we can improve our own well-being financially, socially, and spiritually. In these times of ecological disaster, economic downturn, social stress, and spiritual loss, we share the opportunity to sidestep the whole mess by individually and collectively creating the lives we love. How cool is that?!
Imagine the future: We're debt-free. Our bills are minimal, because we don't use much energy or water, we produce very little trash, we cook our meals at home, and we transport ourselves under our own power. We don't need to work for money very much, maybe half-time, because we simply don't need much money. We have time to share with our family and friends, going to the park with a frisbee regularly instead of trying to action-pack two weeks of vacation each year. We learn to fix things ourselves rather than paying "professionals", and we find that we learn and grow in the process. We de-stress, relax, and easily find time for spiritual contemplation. What a life!
That's what it's all about! No Gulf oil spill required!
In the meantime, we have a lot of progress to make. That's why we're here at the Simple Living Network, providing the resources and community forums to help enable this bright future. Most of us, including me, are volunteers, receiving no compensation other than personal delight at seeing our shared vision of this way of life take hold.
Please help to support the Simple Living Network through a Cyber Angel contribution! Although the great majority of our effort is voluntary, a lot of things still cost money: The bandwidth and server which provides everything you see here requires a chunk of money every month to keep running. With the economy in such a sad state, we haven't been able to make ends meet recently, so we're running at a monthly loss. We can do this for awhile, but not indefinitely. Please give whatever you can to help keep this service alive!
Also, please help to share your own perspectives, stories, thoughts, ideas, and visions for the future: Write for this Newsletter! You too can be a voice in our community, being a part of an upcoming edition. Read the Submission Guidelines for more information on contributing.
I hope you enjoy this 77th edition of our user-supported on-line Newsletter, and that you all have a warm and pleasant summer with plenty of time for a hammock and a good book.
Fred Ecks
Newsletter Editor volunteer
The Simple Living Network
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Issue #77 — July 2010
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There was a time when I filled up my life with activity. Everything seemed so important, everything needed my attention — or so I thought. Everything on my self-composed list had to be completed and within a specified time frame. When finished, I would write another list to engage more fully with the activity of doing. This process preoccupied me for many years until one day I realized that perhaps this pragmatism that drove me was a restrained form of enslavement, a subtle mode of distraction that kept me away from a deeper presence, a more real sense of being in the world. Those days of 'busy-ness' are so far away now that it seems like I'm almost talking about another person, for I am committed and dedicated to another existence now — following a spiritual path, one that simplifies my life by involving me in doing 'more and more of less and less.' It is a path that allows me time and space to explore deep, spiritual questions, ones that might awaken within me the underlying truth of my existence.
My new life of simplicity led me to explore and discover many avenues of personal growth that have brought me numerous spiritual gifts which I still cherish today, and for which I am enormously grateful. Slowing down to greet simplicity (the natural way of presence in this world) has many rewards, if only we can connect to it in a purposeful way. One of its great benefits is its ability to cultivate (under the conditions of solitude and silence) a contemplative mode of being that can expand and enrich our inner lives by allowing us to open up to something much bigger than ourselves.
The Contemplative Life
Every day I gained more and more pleasure from listening and looking, always seeing and hearing more clearly. As time went on, I appreciated how glorious and beautiful existence is. I saw how busy, preoccupied were most people with doing, making. Existence was already so much to enjoy, so grand and lovely, so exquisite.— Laurie Seagel
Truly and deeply engaged contemplation evokes a perception that is non-intellectual, free of active speculation and devoid of ambitious pragmatism because at its heart it involves a surrendering. It is a process of giving oneself over in confidence and faith to the dynamics of life, to God, or to the Tao, which will open us up to fresh insights — taking us where we need to be. But we must never be misled into thinking that this approach is an abstraction, a misguided pseudo-attempt to escape from reality, because it is quite the opposite — it is a sure-footed concrete path that will lead us to wholeness through clarity of vision. It offers a sanctity of mind and being that we may have never experienced before, giving us an authentic, personal grasp of the real value and meaning of reality. In this fullness, contemplation makes us feel our deep interconnectedness with life, our unity with everything — there is no separation. Further, it nourishes our minds and bodies, making us feel tranquil, calm and relaxed in the turbulent, frantic world that surrounds us all. As a consequence of all this, an enriched, genuine humility can surface within that will lead us into new territory. A landscape of feelings develops that is fresh, invigorating and spiritually nourishing. We experience feelings of deep, appreciative joy for the life we have been given and feelings of profound connectedness to our full, compassionate hearts that can reach out to touch our fellow brothers and sisters.
However, we must recognize that although contemplation is available to each and every one of us as a natural gift, it is not necessarily easily available. Despite the fact that it comes from within us, it still cannot be 'accessed' if we try to artificially enforce or impose it. It can only really emerge as a natural rising which is a consequence of a fully sought-after engagement with solitude, silence and stillness. A closing down from the busy activity of a quasi-neurotic world allows us to penetrate into an entirely different realm that involves a surrendering of yesterday (all that has gone on before), and a surrendering of tomorrow (all that we fear may happen in the future), in order to be present in the precious moment of now. With this said, I still feel that contemplation can emerge (if the conditions are right) at almost any time, in any place. Whether in the morning sitting in a church or temple, in the afternoon walking in the woods or in the evening relaxing at home, it can make a powerful presence in our lives. It's not the time or location that is so important, but the open-hearted commitment we have to engaging with its riches. And could it be any different? Wherever we go we can take it with us because it is us, a new life that can live and breathe at the core of our very being. Awakening to the rewards of a contemplative life is enough to start us on a spiritual journey that could turn our lives completely around, making our presence in the world that much more nourishing and purposeful. This leaves just one question to address: are we ready to fully commit to this inner journey of self discovery?
About The Author
Michael Lewin, who has a degree in Psychology, has spent 25 years teaching and supporting a variety of different groups, from children with special needs to adults with learning difficulties. He is active in a number of UK-based Buddhist groups and has regularly published articles in a number of UK psycho/spiritual magazines. As he says, "I am at that stage in my life that I want to pursue the spiritual path even further to find out the depth I can penetrate. I am a seeker, if not for perfection, then at least for some kind of personal progress that can bring me joy, contentment and happiness." Contact Michael at: lewinmick@hotmail.com or through his website: www.michaellewin.org
Related Resources
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Simple Living News
Issue #77 — July 2010
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Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Transition US' weblog at http://www.transitionus.org/blog, reprinted with permission.
"Walk your talk," I've written here and elsewhere. Even as we work to "change the world," we must still be rethinking and changing our own lives too. And in that vein, two weeks ago our family took yet another (major) step along the path by bringing four young chickens into our lives!
I say "major" step because in the first few days we novice chicken owners have had to learn everything from how to clip wings (thank you You Tube!) to how to prevent severe pecking. I'll recommend City Chicks by Patricia Foreman — her book deals specifically with the issues we encounter in the city that country folks probably don't have to bother with.
First off, realize that we do indeed live in the city. My house is about six blocks from Los Angeles International Airport. Yes, you can have chickens in L.A. — hens, that is. (There is a city ordinance that supposedly "allows" a rooster, but when you read it you'll discover that basically nobody has a property big enough to qualify).
Having chickens in the city is an amazing process. First, there's the contemplation stage. When you're "thinking about" getting chickens, you start discovering all the people who DO have chickens, who you never knew had them. You begin connecting, and sharing stories. You begin visiting a few city chicken homes, and learning. We went into deep contemplation at this point, and spent nearly a year still "thinking about it," but taking no real action. We read a few chicken books, but didn't do any building or anything specific.
Then one spring day, you break through the inertia. You decide to go for it. We did a few casual measurements, made a few phone calls to suppliers, and suddenly the feelers we'd put out over the past year all came in. We found a used rabbit hutch on Craig's List which my son could remodel. My sister had discarded construction parts which worked fine as a chicken playpen. Suddenly we were in business.
Our girls came home about two weeks ago. They're lots of fun to watch. My niece refers to it as "watching the Chicken Channel." Patricia Foreman refers to it as "working out chicken politics."
Our girls were accustomed to eating only pellet food. We had to teach them that, yes, chickens do indeed eat green vegetables. At first we minced them, and then gradually increased particle size. Now they can cope with whole leaves of most veggies. Note here, though, that our chickens "range" in their movable playpen — they don't have free range of the vegetable garden. Our friends did that with disastrous results, and no longer have any garden left; the chickens ate everything.
Chickens are changing my perspective. While weeding the community garden, I found myself thinking "the chickens would like this" as I pulled old leaves of chard. It suddenly seemed like a waste to put such great food into the compost pile!
Rob Hopkins has been exploring the Pattern Language on his blog and in his recent work. Suddenly I am seeing a pattern language in my own waste stream.
At first we move away from mainstream throw-it-away, and we begin to separate out our recyclables.
Then we learn that, better than recycling, we can reduce the amount of waste we generate in the first place.
When we bring a composter into our lives, we begin extracting our vegetable trimmings from the mess, and we reduce our waste stream still further. Now we begin to appreciate what "rich garden soil" really means, and our garden explodes into productivity.
Perhaps we try worm composting as well. Suddenly our waste stream is divided multiple ways: worms, regular compost, recyclables, and the other stuff. The other stuff is getting smaller all the time. So is the amount we need to haul home.
Chickens bring in a whole other dimension. Now they're getting our prime garden scraps. Compost worms are getting what the chickens can't take, and the regular composter is getting yard trimmings plus chicken bedding. The compost goes to the vegetables, which we (and the chickens) then eat ... The pattern is deepening.
Resources
- City Chicks by Patricia Foreman
- L.A. Urban Chicken Enthusiasts meetup group
- The City Chicken info website
- Chicken Tractor photo gallery
About The Author
Joanne Poyourow is a blogger at Transition US, which is the U.S. representative of the international Transition Network. Joanne is active in the Transition Los Angeles city hub and is the co-founder of the Environmental Change-Makers community group which initiated Transition activities for many areas of Los Angeles. She is the author of two books including the novel Legacy: A Story of Hope, which illustrates one potential positive path into the future. Joanne can be reached through her website: http://LegacyLA.net/
Related Resources
- Chicken Coops
- Eggs & Chickens
- Building Chicken Coops
- Raising Chickens
- Making A Living While Making A Difference
- Siesta Lane
- The Happy Minimalist (PDF)
- The Power Of Purpose
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Issue #77 — July 2010
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Note: The following is an excerpt from the new book, The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means, published June 8, 2010, by Jeff Yeager. It is reprinted here with permission from Broadway Books.
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it's you.— Rita Mae Brown
"Are you saying that people will be happier if they shop less?" Judging from the way she was sneering at me across the faux-news desk, it was clear that the local noonday TV anchorwoman wasn't asking a rhetorical question. She looked like she'd bought-and was wearing-one of everything that QVC was selling that day. And her clothes clearly weren't all she'd bought. Her extensive cosmetic surgery reminded me of a roadside billboard I once saw for a plastic surgeon just across the border in Mexico: "U Pay 4 UR Face + Hips?. . . I do UR Breasts 4 Free!"
I'd endeared myself to her earlier by arriving for the interview on my bicycle, in a sweat-stained T-shirt. Suffice it to say that we came from different worlds.
"But shopping is what we do. Shopping is what makes us happy. Are you crazy?" she said, looking at me like I must have been hitting the box wine in the green room before the interview.
Well, the cheapskate's brain is definitely wired differently, of that I'm convinced. You don't need to spend much time around us or be trained as a psychiatrist (or local news anchor) to figure that out. Whether we're born that way or we pick up certain attitudes and beliefs about life as we go along, the cheapskate next door sees the world a bit differently than most folks.
Here's a brief tour of the cheapskate mindset — a synopsis of the sixteen key synapses that set the cheapskate next door apart from the typical American consumer.
1. The Joneses Can Kiss Our Assets
"Welcome to the Taj Mahovel!" Jacquie Phelan greeted me with a big smile and friendly hug on the doorstep of the eclectic house in Fairfax, California, where she's lived with her husband, Charlie, for the past twenty-six years. As I'd driven down their street, I had trouble spotting addresses on the immaculately maintained, uber-yuppiefied, overly remodeled houses that lined the pleasant lane. But when I saw the warren of little outbuildings strung together by pergolas constructed of every type of salvaged material imaginable, I knew I'd arrived at Jacquie's house. This was clearly the house of someone who wasn't concerned about what the Joneses think. This house had to belong to a cheapskate.
"A few years ago we heard a realtor walking past our house with some prospective buyers, and they were talking about how tacky some of the homes on the street are," Jacquie told me as we sat having lunch under a lean-to made of scrap lumber (aka "The Habitat") in their jungly side yard. "And I piped back to the real estate agent from inside the Habitat, 'It's going to stay that way, too!' "
My lunch with Jacquie and Charlie, by the way, was chicken soup and a truly tasty array of little finger foods, most of which my Freegan hostess told me she'd salvaged the previous evening from dumpsters behind area markets. "Hmm?. . . trash-can tapas," I thought to myself. "There's a first time for everything." (Among other journalistic enterprises, Jacquie writes about her unique approach to food and cooking on her blog, "Salivation Army," at phelanfood.wordpress.com.)
Don't get me wrong: Jacquie and Charlie's house isn't a public hazard or anything like that. In fact, it's kind of cool and rather pretty in its own Hobbit-treehouse-ish way. It's just that it's a house designed to please the people who live in it, and not necessarily the people who live next door to it. According to Jacquie, it's also the couple's personal attempt to help "stem the seemingly inevitable shift of the neighborhood from a cozy place, filled with humble homes" into one of "investment (properties) for upwardly mobile but of course deeply-in-debt people" who have no time to become part of the community — and no intention of staying there once they can afford to move on and gentrify the next modest-but-content neighborhood.
Will Rogers once said, "Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." Well, he wasn't talking about the cheapskates next door.
When asked the question "On a scale of one to ten, with one being not important at all and ten extremely important, how concerned are you about 'keeping up with the Joneses' (ie. maintaining economic status / appearances with your peers)?" roughly 85 percent of cheapskates ranked it as "one," not important at all. (Incidentally, of the remaining 15 percent of respondents, more than half took the liberty of going off the chart and rating it as a "zero" or even less!)
Because of the cheapskates' strong sense of self-worth, they rarely covet the lifestyle or material possessions of others, and have little desire to try to impress other people or keep up appearances. Dylan Davis, of Twinsburg, Ohio, wrote: "We make more money than almost everyone we know, but spend less than all of our peers. . . neither of us cares what other people think about us."
That's not to say that cheapskates are always immune to peer pressure. And luckily, there are things you can do to ward off the big green monster when he does come calling.
Gerald Thomson told me about a time when his wife, Julia, came home from work feeling a little envious of the big homes some of her coworkers were buying. "She sat down at the computer and submitted our financial information to see how much of a mortgage we could qualify for. Once she saw that we could qualify to purchase a larger home, she felt better. As long as she knew we could keep up with the Joneses, but choose not to, she was able to keep focused on our early retirement goals."
2. A Cheapskate Values Time More Than Money
In my conversations with the cheapskates next door, I was struck by how often they spoke about the value and cost of things not in terms of dollars and cents, but rather days and hours. It's like cheapskates have their own currency. They automatically convert the price of things into the currency of time-their own time.
We've always heard that "time is money." Cheapskates tend to reverse that axiom, making it "money is time." A new pair of boots might cost $150, but for Clara, the cheapskate who makes $32,000 a year, those boots cost close to two days of her time spent working in a job that she doesn't really enjoy. When Clara looks at it in those terms and considers what else she might do with that time and that money, she decides that her old boots will do just fine.
The idea of translating money into the cost of your time was popularized — and maybe pioneered — by Vicki Robin and the late Joe Dominguez in their bestselling book Your Money or Your Life. The authors present various formulas and exercises to help readers determine the true value of their time — or "life energy," in the authors' words — and evaluate whether you're really getting the most value out of the limited time we all have here on Earth. This classic book is credited by many cheapskates, myself included, with fundamentally reshaping their attitude toward money and life, and it was one of the most frequently recommended reference books by those responding to my questionnaire.
It's not unusual to encounter cheapskates who actually carry around a card in their wallets or purses with a homemade conversion chart on it, showing how much they earn in their jobs by the minute, hour, day, week, and so on. "It helps to put the true cost of things in perspective," one card-carrying cheapskate told me. "When I think of the joy I get out of having a day off with my kids, or reading, or relaxing, or whatever. . . stuff and the cost it represents in terms of my time quickly loses its appeal. It just becomes too expensive."
The cheapskate next door also recognizes that, if you go about it wrong, frugality and saving money can be a time-suck in its own right. If instead of buying that $150 pair of new boots in the department store, Clara spends two days combing yard sales and thrift stores across the city to find a used pair for only $20, then in terms of time-value she'd have been better off just buying the new pair.
That's why the cheapskate next door is a "premeditated shopper" and not a "bargain hunter," as I'll discuss in a minute. That's also why they use things up, wear things out, make things last, and, sometimes, simply do without. For the cheapskate next door, it's really more about stretching their time than it is about stretching their dollars.
3. A Cheapskate Values Value
"Frank's the kind of guy who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing."
My friend Carol Martina has a knack for zingers, many of them directed toward Frank, her husband of forty years and a retired U.S. government accountant. "Frank's so tight, he squeaks when he walks. When he opens up his wallet, Washington and Lincoln squint from the shock of seeing daylight."
I like Carol and Frank a lot. While Frank may indeed be tight with a buck, if Carol is correct about him "knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing," then he really doesn't fit the profile of the typical cheapskate next door. Sorry, Frank. But keep trying.
In response to the questions I asked about which factors influence cheapskates most when they consider whether or not to buy a product, surprisingly "price" was not the top choice. "Quality/durability" was ranked as the number-one consideration, with about 95 percent of cheapskates ranking "quality/durability" and "price" as the top two considerations, in many cases ranking them both as equally important. As Warren Buffet once said, "Whether we're talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down."
Coming in third was "something that will increase/maintain value," which I'll also discuss in a minute. Trailing far behind those top three were a variety of other factors, including a "healthy choice," "eco-friendly," "hand/locally made vs. mass produced," "country where made," and, in last place, "brand."
It's clear from the questionnaires and comments I received that for the cheapskate next door, "value" is defined as Durability/Quality Divided by Price, or D4D (Durability for Dollars), as I sometimes call it. This is reflective of the cheapskate's desire to own things that are going to last a very long time, and that perform well over the long haul without requiring expensive repairs or becoming functionally obsolete.
On this point, some of the cheapskates I've met kind of freaked me out, in a Rain Man sort of way. It's like they had an amortization calculator implanted in their brains. Rob Crabtree, for example, could instantly tell you whether one item-from a new car to a new pair of underwear-was a better value than another, based on the price and projected lifespan of each.
"When you don't live in a throwaway world — or at least you've made your own little world where you don't throw things away — then you need to do the math and figure out how much something costs based on how long it's going to last, not based on how long you're going to keep it before you throw it away," Rob told me.
(Hint from Rob "Rain Man" Crabtree: Go with boxers, even if they cost up to 20 percent more than briefs. Gotta factor in the increased risk of premature elastic failure with briefs, don't you know.)
4. Shopping Isn't a Cheapskate Sport
When people discover that I'm a cheapskate, I'm surprised at how often they say something like, "I just don't have all that time to shop for bargains." There's a common perception — a misperception, in my experience — that "cheapskate" is synonymous with "bargain hunter."
Don't get me wrong, we cheapskates like to get the best possible value for our money. So yeah, when we shop, we do our best to scope out bargains. But the difference between a cheapskate and a bargain hunter is that cheapskates generally don't like to shop. Cheapskates spend and consume less in large part because we take little or no joy in shopping — so we simply shop less — in contrast to most true bargain hunters I know.
Anecdotally, nearly all of the cheapskates I personally interviewed while writing this book made it clear that they don't view shopping as "recreation," "sport," or "therapy," as they often put it. That's not to say that they don't boast about what a good deal they got on this purchase, or how much they saved on that deal, because they frequently do (trust me). But in the case of the cheapskate next door, that's the result of being a smart but reluctant shopper, not a bargain hunter or hyper-consumer.
A number of studies and personal experiments over the years have supported the fact that the more time people spend shopping, the more they tend to buy and the more they tend to spend. As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise."
As we'll see in Chapter 11, nearly 90 percent of the cheapskates I polled say they shop for groceries only once every week, if that often. That's in sharp contrast to the almost 50 percent of Americans who say they shop for groceries three or four times every week. And when asked how often they shop for clothing, a majority of cheapskates I polled responded twice per year or even less frequently.
Another rather surprising case in point: About 75 percent of those cheapskates polled say that they rarely or never shop at garage/yard sales, auctions, or rummage sales, often mentioning that such shopping venues encourage people to buy things they don't really need.
"I've never understood why people like to shop," cheapskate Janice Rogers told me. "To me it's a chore. Hell, I have more fun doing the laundry than going shopping. I guess [shopping's] like alcohol or drugs. . . some people are addicted to it, and to other people it's nothing."
According to the cheapskate next door, the best way to win at the sport of shopping is to simply refuse to take the field.
5. A Cheapskate Regrets Nothing
I've been waiting on the World Health Organization to issue a Pandemic Alert. It's clear to me that here in America we're in the midst of an epidemic of buyer's remorse. Maybe it hasn't spread globally yet, so that's why the WHO is holding off on the alert.
I recently heard a report on the NBC Nightly News claiming that Americans express at least "some regrets" about 80 percent of the discretionary items they buy, within one year of having made the purchase. In fairness, that's not saying that they "entirely regret" the purchase or that they'd choose otherwise if they had it to do over again. And that's just their level of regret within the first year of purchasing an item; I assume that the ICKM4BT (I-Could-Kick-Myself-For-Buying-That) Level steadily increases with time.
While I continue to work tirelessly in the Ultimate Cheapskate Lab to develop a vaccine to prevent buyer's remorse, results may be many years away. But there's encouraging news for all those who suffer from ICKM4BT: I've discovered that the cheapskate next door is naturally immune. Some type of anti-buying antibody, I assume.
In response to the question "On a scale of one to ten, with one being never and ten being all of the time, how frequently do you buy an item that you eventually regret buying (aka 'buyer's remorse') or that disappoints you?," more than 90 percent of cheapskates responded "one" (never). A pretty stark contrast to the NBC News report, wouldn't you say?
Evelyn "Bible Babe" Edgett confessed that she's somewhat more susceptible to buyer's remorse than most cheapskates (she rated herself a "three"), but told me, "When I do feel that I have been ripped off, there's hell to pay for the guy who did it. I almost always get my money back or a better product." Evelyn is a homesteader way back in the hills of eastern Oklahoma. She cuts her own firewood and slaughters her own hogs, so if you work at one of the stores where she shops, you might want to be careful.
About The Author
Jeff Yeager spent 24 years working as a CEO and senior executive with national nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC before launching his career as a freelance writer, public speaker, and broadcast journalist in 2004. Specializing in an offbeat blend of original humor and practical advice for living a better life with less, Yeager was dubbed "The Ultimate Cheapskate" by the NBC TODAY Show, where he periodically appears as a guest correspondent.
Related Resources
- The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches: A Practical (& Fun) Guide To Enjoying Life More By Spending Less
- The Story Of Stuff
- Dream. Invest. Live.
- Your Money Or Your Life
- In Cheap We Trust
- Work Less, Live More
- Get Satisfied!
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Issue #77 — July 2010
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It's summer and we're in the midst of summer garden projects and trips at our house. We're not alone — folks are discussing their various garden successes and challenges over in the Gardening & Farming forum. Others are comparing notes about hostels.
Some people are noting the half-year mark and talking about their financial successes and failures. Others are working on getting their month-end balancing together.
The quieter days of summer are also an opportunity to work on decluttering projects. One participant realized it might be time to clean the closet when the closet pole collapsed! I've had that happen to me, and the noise is quite impressive. This forum participant has been inspired by the Six Items Or Less challenge (http://sixitemsorless.com/), in which you wear six items of clothing for a month (duplicates allowed for laundry purposes). On the other hand, these folks are contemplating other ways to simplify their lives by simplifying their beauty routine.
Summer is also a good time to contemplate the larger questions, preferably from a comfy hammock with a glass of lemonade. These people consider whether happiness is defined in relation to unhappiness — as in, if you're unhappy, maybe if you realize that others don't have a hammock or lemonade (or the free time to enjoy them) you'll realize how good you have it. A related conversation discusses Buddhism and its idea that wanting is never-ending, and true happiness is found through not wanting things.
Finally, forum participants are discussing the oil spill in the Gulf. What can we do? What are we, as users of oil, morally obligated to do? There are many ways we can help, including reducing the need for drilling by reducing our consumption of oil and plastics. Many locales had their Bike To Work Day last month. And some stores are starting to ask if you need that plastic bag instead of just giving it to you. Come share your thoughts and tell us what you're doing!
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About The Author
Ann Haebig is a part-time geek, part-time bicycle advocate, and dedicated follower and promoter of the Financial Integrity program. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her partner, cat and guitar. Ann can be reached at ahaebig@pobox.com.
Related Resources
- Clutter Control
- Making Peace With The Things In Your Life
- Biking To Work
- Be The Change You Want To See In The World
- Eco-Friendly Families
- Peak Oil Survival
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Simple Living News
Issue #77 — July 2010
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Roll up! Roll up! It's the great Ecotopia Biketour 2010 extravaganza!
Twenty years ago the first Ecotopia Biketour was organized to reach the Ecotopia gathering in a environmentally acceptable way and to raise attention to environmental topics. After the first Ecotopia Biketour in 1990, every year another temporary eco-caravan appeared in a different part of Europe for around two months. During the history of Biketour nearly every country in Europe was visited and the Biketour became known in a wide activist scene in most countries in Europe. This contributes to creating, year after year, a heterogeneous group of people who meet, cycle and organize activities together. The Biketour is a form of ongoing popular education and also an action in itself, as a visible and public example of sustainable transport and living.
This year the Biketour will take place between June 26th and August 31st. On our way we will visit and support local groups working on ecological and social issues, participate in different action camps and community projects, give and take part in workshops, and cook together, while we build up friendships and networks between activists from different countries. In 2010 the Biketour will participate in several climate camps and the Carfree City conference, will support No-Border activists in Calais, take part in local critical mass initiatives, and will link up with the Transition Town network in the UK. For its 20th anniversary, the Ecotopia Biketour is moving through the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.
The Ecotopia Biketour is a project based on consensus decision-making which is open to everyone who wants to help out with the preparation or join us during the tour. Find out more about us at www.ecotopiabiketour.net.
Related Resources
- Our Choice (Book)
- Our Choice (Audio CDs)
- How To Live Well Without Owning A Car
- Biking To Work
- Divorce Your Car!
- Journeys Of Simplicity
- Treehouse Perspectives
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Issue #77 — July 2010
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Copyright © 2010
Back in January, when I found a little space in my life with which to take on a project, I embarked upon installing solar panels to power our home. This is popular among environmentally-minded folks now, but most people sign on with a contractor who does all the work. I wanted to learn all about it, so I decided to do it all myself. As it turned out, it's pretty easy!
I was very intimidated at first. The whole project was daunting, requiring knowledge of the National Electrical Code, solar electric systems, rebates and incentives, and even calculations of how much power we could generate at our location for a given azimuth and tilt of the solar panels. I can see why most people pay a contractor! However, it was no big deal once I started down this road.
The first thing I did was to learn about the Federal, State, Local, and utility-provided incentives and rebates for solar installations. I found the Department of Energy's website Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE) at http://www.dsireusa.org/. This website gives a comprehensive list of the financial incentives for anyone anywhere in the USA. For example, here in our home of Boulder, Colorado, we're eligible for a Federal tax credit, a property tax exemption, a local sales/use tax rebate, and a utility rebate. When all these were added up, they paid about half the cost of our system!
Armed with a collection of recent electric bills, I was able to calculate our average electric consumption. Knowing this, I used the PV Watts Calculator (http://www.pvwatts.org/) provided by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to compute how big our solar array should be to provide for our usage. Since our consumption is lower than the average household, and because I hate paying bills, I chose a system size big enough to exceed our consumption by a comfortable margin.
In our case, the next step was to start the application process for the utility rebate, since our utility company (Xcel Energy) would have to approve this installation before I went any further. This also locked in the rebate amount we would receive, since they offer a gradually-declining rebate as more systems are installed. In the meantime, I invested ten bucks in a 1-year online subscription to Home Power Magazine (http://homepower.com/), which allowed me to read the last 3 years of this magazine online and learn about what I was getting into.
Once the application was approved, I applied for the building permit for the system I planned to install. Because our area is known to get very strong winds sometimes, I needed to specify the racking system I planned to install, and provide calculations showing that the solar panels wouldn't get torn off our roof the next time we have a tornado watch. It wasn't hard, and I learned a tiny bit of structural engineering — cool!
Once the paperwork was all approved, it was time to write the Big Check. I had been doing plenty of cost-comparison over the prior weeks, and settled upon a grid-tie system from Wholesale Solar (http://www.wholesalesolar.com/). I closed my eyes and sent the money, and hoped for the best. Not long after, a pallet of solar panels arrived by truck, and a few boxes contained the inverter, disconnect switch, and more.
It really wasn't a lot of work to install the racks and run the electrical conduit. It felt like a big job at first, and then it was done. We invited some friends over to help us install the solar panels on the racks; everything else I did myself. Because I'm no expert, I failed inspection the first time, and had to change the wiring a little. The reinspection went smoothly, and the utility company installed a "net meter" shortly afterward.
The net meter is like a regular electric meter, except it runs both ways. At night, it runs in the usual direction, measuring our electric consumption. But during the day (especially now in the sunny summer months), it spins backwards quickly! In the month and a half since we "flipped the switch" on our system, our meter is reading a negative 250 kWh. At the end of the year, the utility company will pay us for our excess electric generation.
The economics of the system turned out about like this: After receiving the rebates, the total out-of-pocket cost of our system was $4,739.93. The savings on our electric bill works out to about $25/month, or $300/year. At that rate, the system will pay for itself in less than 16 years. But considering that electric rates will increase, the payback period will actually be substantially shorter than that.
Now that it's all done, I can't believe we didn't do this sooner! The entire system is so simple: it consists of the solar panels, a disconnect switch, and the inverter. That's the whole thing — there are no moving parts, no batteries, and there's no maintenance. It just sits there and provides all the power for our home. Best of all, we take comfort in knowing that our home doesn't burn coal or use nuclear power. I can't get over the fact that our refrigerator runs on sunshine!
About The Author
Fred Ecks is the volunteer Newsletter Editor for The Simple Living Network. He's a dedicated follower of the 9-step Financial Integrity program. He uses the time freed up in his life for writing, volunteering, and ultramarathon trail running. He can be reached at fredx@pobox.com.
Related Resources
- The Carbon-Free Home
- Low Carbon Diet
- The Human-Powered Home
- No Impact Man (Book)
- No Impact Man (Audio CDs)
- How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
- The Happy Minimalist (PDF)
- Treehouse Perspectives
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