- Introduction:
- When Lightning Strikes: Remembering Why Simple Living Is Important
- Don't Buy It!
- User Support CyberAngel Appeal
- New Resources: Highlights Of The Latest Additions To Our Resource Directory
- 10 Things You Don't Need When You Have A Baby: Organically Inclined
- Slow Money, Manure & Prudence: GreenMoney Journal
- Tea Towel Salad Dressing: The Non-Consumer Advocate
- Trash Watch: Cleaning Our Neighborhoods Of Corporate Litter
- Gems Of The Discussion Forums: Fuel Prices Spark Much Discussion
- Simple Living In A Nutshell: Frugal For Life
- YAWNs: Young & Wealthy But Normal
I was working in my garden on a Sunday afternoon in early June. It was an overcast day and it had started to rain lightly. I was determined to finish planting my tomatoes. I put up a big umbrella and sat down on an overturned bucket, I was happily working away when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of lightning across the field above the local organic dairy. I thought, "WOW! That was close!" I got up and walked the 15 paces to the front porch of my greenhouse when all of a sudden everything became eerily quiet.
Now, I have lived in the Midwest in the past and been through a couple of tornadoes. I know that feeling when "something is coming." As such, I hit the deck getting as low to the ground as possible. Before I had a chance to think I experienced the most intense flash and instantaneous thunderclap of lightning I have ever witnessed.
Not 50 feet away a thunderbolt struck the tallest tree in my neighbors' back yard. The bolt shot straight down the tree ripping a strip of bark from top to bottom and throwing the resulting debris across the yard. At the bottom of the tree was a small electrical box linking the house with the barn. The box exploded sending shrapnel flying in all directions. I felt the electricity surge through my body. I had become an energized bunny! I just remembered why I have such a great respect for nature. It is a force beyond our control. We are not in charge here!
Since I first went to summer camp as a child, I have had a great sense of respect and appreciation for the natural world. It is the source of all things required to sustain life. That is why I live in the remote mountain community of Trout Lake, Washington. That is why my favorite activities are gardening and spending time wandering in the forest or sitting by the river. I know that learning to live more in harmony with the earth and its life was one of many inspirations for The Simple Living Network. (Of course there are other inspirations — building community, spiritual growth, having more time for the things that are important, having less stuff to deal with, etc.)
One of the many reasons I believe that we must simplify and get back in touch with the natural world is that doing so will help us understand why it is important to reverse and repair the damage we have done to the natural systems that support life. The industrial revolution and cheap oil derailed humankind. Now things are changing. We have taxed the earth to its limits. Unless we change our ways, living on this planet will soon become very difficult if not impossible. The air, water and soil will be polluted beyond repair. Oil will be gone. The resources that go into making the goods of consumerism will be depleted.
It is no longer cool to be a consumer. The American Dream of more, bigger and better does not cut it any more. It is time to wake up from the dream and realize that it has been a nightmare. Consumerism has removed us from our direct connection to nature. It is too complex, unhealthy, destructive and downright irresponsible.
I am not telling you anything new. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know the earth is in trouble. However; the problems often seem overwhelming and leave us wondering, "what can one person do?"
Well, as the old riddle goes, "How do you eat an elephant?" Answer, "One bite at a time."
It is time for individuals to do what corporations and government cannot. We must take the reins, learn new and relearn old ways of doing things. It is time to get serious about simplifying our lives. If each of us does just a few things, every day, always vigilant and learning to use much less stuff (the natural resources of the earth), there is hope, but we must act fast.
Simple living as a lifestyle choice is not about depriving ourselves of a few necessities and creature comforts. Simplifying is about examining every aspect of life, deciding what is important and responsible, and then discarding the rest. It is about having enough and no more. As Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity puts it, simple living is "living in a way that is outwardly simple and inwardly rich."
Lightning is striking all around us. Experience a thunderbolt of recognition.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world."— Gandhi
On February 1st The Simple Living Network launched its Don't Buy It! campaign — a nonviolent protest against the tax rebates the IRS is sending many Americans. The campaign has been quite a hit and has become the most viewed section of our web site ever.
If you haven't visited the Don't Buy It! pages and reviewed the many suggestions for how you can put your rebate to work for positive, real change, please do! Join the thousands of others who are choosing not to spend their tax rebate in ways that support consumption as a solution, deficit spending, predatory lending, outsourced jobs, unaffordable health care, tax cuts for the wealthy, or war over oil and religious ideology.
Together we can change this stupid economy!
The Community Services on this web site — this Newsletter, the Discussion Forums, our Study Groups Database, SimpleRadio and the rest — would not exist without your support.
Because The Simple Living Network is a small, home based business that operates without government, industry or foundation support, advertising revenue, or subscription fees of any kind, we rely on user support to continue offering our services.
If you enjoy and use this web site, we ask for your voluntary financial support — any amount large or small will help!
Our goal for 2008 is $20,000. The year is now half over and, as you can see, we still have a long way to go. These funds will cover important upcoming expenses. Keeping up with the technology required to operate this web site is expensive! Old software is beginning to expire. We need to replace old equipment because it cannot keep up with the speed requirements and storage space of this growing web site. Bandwidth charges are increasing due to the growing number of folks, just like you, using this site. (I could go on....)
Please do your part! Even a small gift, (just a few dollars from your tax rebate,) will make a huge difference!
Thank you to those of you who have become CyberAngels over the years. Without you, this web site would not exist.
We hope you enjoy this edition of our Newsletter!
Dave Wampler
Founder
The Simple Living Network
Copyright © The Simple Living Network. All Rights Reserved.
Resources To Simplify Your Life & Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
- Blessed Unrest: How The Largest Social Movement In History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, & Beauty To The World
- Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers
- Recycled Crafts Box: Sock Puppets, Cardboard Castles, Bottle Bugs & 37 More Earth-Friendly Projects & Activities You Can Create!
- Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook — 15th Anniversary Edition
- The Self-Sufficient Life & How To live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide
- Simple Living With Wanda Urbanska — Season 4 DVD — Highly Recommended!
- What Would Jesus Buy? — DVD — Highly Recommended!
New Cookbooks
- Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt On Vegetables
- Feeding The Whole Family: Recipes For Babies, Young Children & Their Parents
- In Defense Of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
- Keeping The Harvest: Discover The Homegrown Goodness Of Putting Up Your Own Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs
- Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition & The Diet Dictocrats — Highly Recommended!
- The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals
- Preserving Food Without Freezing Or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage & Lactic Fermentation
- The Raw Revolution Diet: Feast, Lose Weight, Gain Energy, Feel Younger
- Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage Of Fruits & Vegetables
- Serving Up The Harvest: Celebrating The Goodness Of Fresh Vegetables
- Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition & Craft Of Live-Culture Foods
New Gardening Titles
- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year Of Food Life
DVD — Highly Recommended! - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year Of Food Life
Book — Highly Recommended! - Don't Throw it, Grow It! 68 Windowsill Plants From Kitchen Scraps
- Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food In Hard Times
- King Corn: You Are What You Eat — DVD Highly Recommended!
- The Real Dirt On Farmer John — DVD
New To Alternatives For Simple Living
- The 11th Hour: Turn Mankind's Darkest Hour Into Its Finest DVD — Highly Recommended!
- Cause For Hope: Humanity At The Crossroads
- Living Faith: How Faith Inspires Social Justice
- Soul Sunday: A Family's Guide To Exploring Faith & Teaching Tolerance
- Starting Simple: Conversations About The Way We Live
- We Belong To The Land: The Story Of A Palestinian Israeli Who Lives For Peace & Reconciliation
- What Would Jesus Buy? — DVD — Highly Recommended!
- Whose Birthday Is It Anyway 2008 Edition
- Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How
Copyright © 2008
When I became pregnant with my first child, I had been babysitting for a wealthy family for quite some time. They had every gadget you could possibly imagine for raising a child. They also had every glossy magazine available detailing every shiny new gadget I would "need" in order to have my baby. I was 20 years old and a little overwhelmed by the finery. How would I ever afford it all? I soon learned that yard sales were the best places to find all of the gadgets I would need. Between the sales and the baby shower, I was outfitted. I had every gadget a mother could possibly need to take care of her baby. It wasn't until baby number two arrived a little over a year later that I realized that I needed very few of those gadgets — and had a yard sale myself to get rid of the clutter that was overtaking my apartment.
Save yourself the space and cash. Here is a list of 10 things you absolutely do not need in order to have a baby. There are many others, but this should get you started.
1. Baby lotion / baby cleanser — I've received a number of bottles of these items through the years and I must admit, they do smell pretty good. However, not only does your new baby not need to smell any better (they already smell really good), take a look at the list of what's in the bottle - no, no, it is not just baby goodness. Indeed, I can't pronounce 90 percent of what's in it. Buy a nice bar of natural soap from your local co-op if baby is really that dirty... but really, a little warm water will do just fine for baby's already very soft skin. Savings: $10 (plus refills)
2. Diaper genie — OK, well, you won't be using disposable diapers anyway, right? But if you did use disposables, this thing has got to be one of the most wasteful, ugly things on the planet. It produces what can only be described as a giant doody caterpillar when full and I have no idea what you do with it after that. Savings: $30 (plus refills)
3. Changing table — I had one of these too - for my oldest. But I soon learned that I changed 99 percent of his diapers on either the floor or the couch. Instead, make yourself up a little basket with the appropriate changing needs (diaper covers, diapers, washcloths, etc.) and keep it next to the sofa. Especially in those first weeks, you spend a lot of time on the couch as most of your time is spent nursing and changing diapers - and trying to catch a nap! Forget the table; someday you'll just stand there looking at it, trying to think of something else to turn it into - and then giving up and passing it along to someone else who really doesn't need it either. Savings: $100 (at least)
4. Disposable diapers — Do you have to ask? We'll get into cloth diapering a little later on in this article, but for now - I swear it's not that hard! Savings $20-$30 a week ($1500 a year for at least two years)
5. Baby wipes — Buy two dozen super-soft washcloths and either a small "Rubbermaid" style container or some Ziploc bags. Put six to ten well-wrung out wet washcloths into the container. Close it. Voila! Baby wipes. Just toss in the diaper pail when used. Bring a plastic grocery bag on trips with you for dirty cloth diapers and wipes. Savings: $5 a week. ($260 a year)
6. Nursing pillow — I swear, your favorite pillow from the couch works just as well. So does a rolled up towel or blanket in a pinch! Savings: $20-$50
7. Nursing bras — They're expensive and make you feel silly. The little clasps are a pain. Get sports bras (if you don't mind the uni-boob issue) or just plain jersey knit underwires from your favorite discount store. Saving: $20-$50 each
8. A "diaper" bag — If you must have all the pockets and little goodies, go ahead. But if you have a tote bag in the closet (LL Bean boat totes work great! found at a yard sale of course) from the library or anywhere else, then just use that. Want the changing pad? You can buy them separately or make one from one-inch foam cut to size from the fabric store and a quick pillowcase cover if you hate to sew! Save the $40-$80 for your first night out alone!
9. Hooded towel — Cute, but unnecessary. Need I say more? OK, if I must... really, your baby does not need animal ears on his towel to be cute. I swear, the kid will be cute enough. Just get a clean towel from the closet. He'll get dry either way. Savings: $10-$30
10. A vibrating infant seat — Silly and loud! If you think your baby is dying to vibrate in his infant seat (and you just want to put him down for a while), run the washing machine (full, of course) and put the seat on top of it. Just make sure you don't leave! He could vibrate right off the top! Fold some laundry (if you're feeling ambitious) or just read a book (a book? what's a book?). Savings: $35 or more...
There you go. Ten things you absolutely don't need when you have a baby. I promise.
About The Author
Michelle Kennedy Hogan is the mother of six and the editor of Organically Inclined, www.organicallyinclined.org. Her new book, "100 Ways to Save Money Right Now" is available in digital and print formats. She and her husband John homeschool their children, work from home and practice sustainable living on an organic farm in Vermont. Email her at editor@organicallyinclined.org.
Related Resources
Copyright © 2008. Reprinted here with special permission from GreenMoney Journal
We have, of late, begun to get religion about carbon in the atmosphere. We have begun to pour venture capital into clean tech, searching for ways to maintain our lifestyles and grow the economy, while dramatically reducing our ecological footprint. This vision of ecological footprint is in a great many respects a mechanical one, asking only: How can we design new machines that work more cleanly?
No one, it seems, is asking a corollary question: If we cannot create wealth without degrading soil fertility and draining the vitality out of local economies, how can we, no matter how clean our machines, hope to thrive or even survive?
Last August at the 25th Anniversary Gala for the Rocky Mountain Institute, eminent panelists tried to answer yet other questions posed by moderator Thomas Friedman: "If this is a win-win-win, if these new technologies and design solutions are so elegant and so profitable and so clean, what is holding them back? Where is the resistance to these innovations coming from?" To my surprise, since this was not a finance conference, the group discussion zeroed in on CEO compensation, shortsighted financial incentives and the structure of capital markets.
Inventor Dean Kamen opined from the dais:
Venture capitalists have great enthusiasm but short attention spans. We are stuck in a 19th century way of thinking that leads to large scale, centralized production and power generation. We don't have the mindset to really invest for the long-term in small-scale solutions that would improve life for billions of people.
Such questions and observations lead to the premise for a new kind of financial intermediation, going by the improbable name of slow money.
That premise is this: The problems we face with respect to soil fertility, biodiversity, food quality and local economies are not primarily problems of technology. They are problems of finance. In a financial system organized to optimize the efficient use of capital, we should not be surprised to end up with cheap food, millions of acres of GMO corn, billions of food miles, dying Main Streets, a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and obesity epidemics side by side with persistent hunger.
Speed is a big part of the problem. We are harvesting from the soil in decades fertility that was created over millennia. We are extracting generations-worth of economic and cultural vitality from our communities. We are acting as if the biological and the agrarian can be indefinitely subjugated to the industrial and the urban without significant consequence. We are, as the colloquial saying puts it so eloquently, beginning to believe our own bullshit.
Which reminds me of a story...
About 15 years ago, I was turning a horse stall into my office. My first project was to shovel out the dried horse manure and shovel in sand, in advance of the construction of a wooden floor.
One day, reflecting on the transition from equine to intellectual, I realized, "How appropriate: from horseshit to bullshit."
No consideration of the disconnect between capital markets and the land is complete without at least one reference to manure.
•
If slow money is going to be effective, it is going to be in part due to inspiration derived from the celebratory, life-affirming, pleasure-inducing humanism of Slow Food.
Slow Food began as a protest against McDonalds. However, it quickly evolved from a single act of protest into an international NGO, due to the strength of a family of pro-biodiversity, pro-small farmer initiatives dedicated to restoring and preserving quality of life. Similarly, slow money seeks to support the creative power of entrepreneurship to build new commercial relationships that enhance quality of life for farmers, food consumers and their communities. In a world of monoculture and special interests, the emergence of for-profit social entrepreneurs, whose companies integrate private enterprise and public benefit, is particularly intriguing and worthy of support.
Just as is the case with Slow Food, slow money needs an approach that dares to be cultural, agricultural, economic, historical and biological. We will need to fight against over-specialization, putting the jargon of the specialist, the technician, the quant in its place. We will need to define new benchmarks, being unafraid to assert the importance of qualitative distinctions.
• •
"Money only knows one speed," the scion of one of America's wealthiest families once said during a public discussion. "Money only goes fast, faster, fastest. Try to slow it down, and you'll just end up with sloppy investing."
To which I say: If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different outcome, then it is insane to think that by continuing to create wealth via an extractive system, so that we will have more money to give away, we will be able to adequately address the urgency of the current global moment. Both unfettered fast money, and its twin, philanthropy, which has an odd non-speed all its own, create and depend upon broken social relationships. We must seek to build an economy in which healthy relationships remain integral to the wealth creation process.
Prudence —as in the Prudent Man— can no longer be defined completely by tens of billions of dollars of fast money pouring into high-tech venture deals. Such prudence is incomplete.
We must find new ways to steer capital to tens of thousands of independent enterprises that promote the health and diversity of communities and bioregions. For every $1 billion that zooms around the planet —or is it cyberspace?— looking for the highest return and lowest risk, and supporting globalization, consumerism and unlimited economic growth, we must invest $10 million or $100 million in enterprises that support what is going by many names: virtuous globalization, localization, local living economies, natural capitalism, restorative economics.
Reconnaissance with respect to this new prudence comes from author Michael Pollan in a recent New York Times Magazine article:
The story of Colony Collapse Disorder and the story of drug-resistant staph are also the same story: Both are parables about the precariousness of monocultures. Whenever we try to rearrange natural systems along the lines of a machine or a factory, whether by raising too many pigs in one place or too many almond trees, whatever we may gain in industrial efficiency, we sacrifice in biological resilience. The question is not whether systems this brittle will break down, but when and how, and whether when they do, we'll be prepared to treat the whole idea of sustainability as something more than a nice word.
Pollan reminds us that the particular challenges that face us in this or that sector of food or energy or health actually have much deeper roots, reaching all the way to an historic struggle between the industrial and the biological. His reference to parable is telling. As easily, he could have referred to myth.
We are quick to assume that no battle between myths, or no myth at all, could hold sway over the modern mind. Yet could it be called anything other than myth, the story that is powerful enough to have us believing that unlimited economic growth is not only possible but desirable, despite the rapidly accumulating data to the contrary? What else but a myth could be powerful enough to convince us that what made sense as an economic organizing principle in a 1 billion person planet or a $1 trillion dollar global economy would still be appropriate in a 6.4 billion person planet and a $24 trillion dollar global economy? What else but a myth could be powerful enough to convince us that there is no such thing as a company that is too big, intermediation that is too complex or money that is too fast? What else but a myth could make the violence of the modern economy invisible to the modern investor?
• • •
I believe that social investing can best be understood, with its roots in Quakerism and anti-apartheid divestitures, as an expression of the ethos of non-violence in the context of fiduciary capitalism. Of necessity, this expression manifests itself in partial adaptations, pragmatic mutations and imperfect applications — lots and lots of half-steps. After all, who can ignore how daunting it is to look at the Fortune 500 or the Russell 5000 and think: What would I invest in if I really wanted to do no harm?
Our success in moving beyond half-steps depends upon unabashedly acknowledging the violence of the modern economy, without scapegoating or undue recrimination, and with a commitment to looking forward.
This is the violence of the modern economy: by prioritizing markets over households, community, place, land, it does violence to the relationships that underpin health and that give life sustaining meaning: family relationships, community relationships, relationships to particular places, relationships between consumers and producers and between investors and the enterprises in which they invest, relationships between companies and the places in which they do business, relationships between wonder and awe and the universe that gave us plutonium, light-years, fertility, sentience, poetry, fugue. All of these relationships are attenuated, or in the extreme, deracinated, by the modern global economy.
This is violence of the most fundamental kind. It is no accident that such an economy would find it easy to support and depend upon the building of nuclear weapons, the waging of wars in distant lands, the selling of cigarettes, the flying of trillions of air miles, the commodification of leisure, urban and suburban sprawl, gated communities and favelas, toxics in the food and water, and kids who watch an average of four hours per day of TV, paying more attention to instant messaging than to people in the room.
In these first few decades of the 21st century, it is our "inescapable duty," to use Wendell Berry's words, to change not only our light bulbs, but our myths. And along with them, our concepts of entrepreneurship, investing and philanthropy, which will have to be amended, expanded, and perhaps even radically transformed as part of a new vision of restorative economics.
About The Author
Woody Tasch is the Chairman and President of Slow Money, which is currently holding Slow Money Institutes in several U.S. regions in anticipation of launching a first Slow Money fund in 2009. He is also Chairman of Investors' Circle (www.investorscircle.net) and author of the forthcoming book "A Bee's-Eye View and Inquiry into the Nature of Slow Money," which is due out fall 2008 from Chelsea Green.
This article was originally published in the GreenMoney Journal's Summer 2008 issue. For more information, go to www.greenmoney.com.
Related Resources
- Deep Economy
- Fostering Sustainable Behavior
- Simple Prosperity
- The Corporation DVD
- The Natural Step Story
Copyright © 2008
Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from Katy Wolk-Stanley's Non-Consumer Advocate weblog at thenonconsumeradvocate.wordpress.com.
I used to always buy bottled salad dressing. Sure, I'd tried making it from scratch, but it was never thick enough. It slid off the lettuce like an Exxon Valdez oil slick.
All that changed a few years ago. I realized that the elaborate cursive writing on one of my tea towels (which I had never actually taken the time to read) was actually a recipe for salad dressing. "Hmm...," I thought to myself, "I have all the ingredients for that!"
I mixed everything up, and delish, magic was created.
Katy's Tea Towel Salad Dressing
Mix all ingredients in a bottle and shake to combine:
- 1/2 Cup olive oil (I've used canola oil as a substitute)
- 1/4 Cup rice vinegar
- 3 Finely minced garlic cloves
- 1 Tablespoon honey
- 1 Tablespoon grainy Dijon mustard
- Salt and pepper to taste
This dressing gets rave reviews from dinner guests, and the recipe is a frequent request. It transformed my older son from a salad-hater to a salad-glutton — something I once thought as likely as Ralph Nader's purchase of a Hummer dealership.
Remember this, fellow Non-Consumers: Every time you can whip up something from scratch, there are wonderful ripple effects. You'll save money, decrease packaging which clogs our landfills and recycling plants, and eat less processed food.
Most importantly though, the end product is usually far more delicious than something pulled off a dusty grocery store shelf.
-Katy Wolk-Stanley
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."
About The Author
Katy Wolk-Stanley writes a daily blog as "The Non-Consumer Advocate." She works part-time as a labor and delivery nurse and full-time figuring out the minds of her pre-teen boys. She is a library patron, Goodwill enthusiast, utility bill scholar, laundry hanger-upper and citizen. You can read her thoughts on living a responsibly fun and frugal life at: thenonconsumeradvocate.wordpress.com.
Related Resources
Copyright © 2008
Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from the Trash Watch weblog at trashwatch.blogspot.com.
How Trash Watch works - submit your photos today!
Expose the litter problem in your neighborhood!
Send me an email with a photo of the litter you find in your neighborhood to sean@madmanbamboo.com. One photo per piece of litter. Please submit photos that have clear corporate logos on them.
List the date found, the street you found it on (with nearest cross street), city, state, and date you found it. I will post the photo on this blog (at my discretion). At some point, I will gather photos and the data you give me and bring it to the offending company's attention.
What I will ask the offending company to do is either (1) send their employees to pick up the litter; or (2) help support a local, state or national litter clean-up organization with a donation.
Being a good corporate citizen means doing something about it. It's time to ask these companies to do their share and help clean up litter in our neighborhoods!
About The Author
Sean Bigley created the Trash Watch weblog in an effort to help clean our neighborhoods of corporate-branded litter. Sean is looking for your photos and stories of corporate-branded litter found in your neighborhood. Send them to Sean at: sean@madmanbamboo.com.
Related Resources
- The Power Of Community DVD
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- The Consumer's Guide To Effective Environmental Choices
- Our Ecological Footprint
Copyright © 2008
Fuel prices spark much discussion
Apologies for the pun, but I couldn't resist. There are many discussions all over the Forums this month resulting from increasing fuel prices. There's a general discussion of the effects people are feeling in Gas Prices. Over in the Money Forum, folks compare traffic in their areas and whether they've noticed a reduction in traffic since prices rose. One participant notes the positive environmental effects of expensive gas, and another asks if we have reached peak oil supply and what happens now.
There's discussion of what people think our elected representatives should do about the situation in the Public Policy Forum, including Oil Addiction and Drilling, Gas Welfare - Yes or No?, and Is Drill Now the new Republican mantra?.
As far as what folks are doing about the change, two people discuss trying public transportation: driving versus taking bus and I took the bus to work today. Participants are also discussing other ways of cutting back on gas, one by downsizing a minivan, another by contemplating a bicycle vacation, and a third by inviting creative solutions from other people. Personally, I'm trying to bicycle more frequently. Add your solutions to the fray!
CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT THE INTRODUCTION to our on-line community. Then join in the fun!
About The Author
Ann Haebig is a part-time geek, part-time bicycle advocate, and dedicated follower and promoter of the Your Money Or Your Life program. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her partner, cat and recently adopted guitar. Ann can be reached at ahaebig@pobox.com.
Related Resources
- Divorce Your Car!
- How To Live Well Without Owning A Car
- My Other Car Is A Bicycle
- The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide & Cookbook
- Winning Our Energy Independence
- The Last Hours Of Ancient Sunlight
Copyright © 2008
Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from the Frugal For Life weblog at frugalforlife.com.
Simple living is reducing the clutter of life and space down to the essentials of what is important; allowing what remains to stand out and bring value. Kind of like the picture to the right, if there were many other colored flowers around the yellow one you would see beauty of ALL the flowers, but with only one flower, you see the beauty in it down to the delicate details.
Simple living has been going on for many, many years — Hindu and Buddhist from the east and in the west with Shakers, Mennonites, Amish and Quakers. They practice a life of moving away from wealth and technology. Though simple living is a part of these religions, it is more a philosophy and lifestyle that could, in a sense, become its own religion. Much like the voluntary simplicity movement in the US and the downshifting taking place in parts of Europe.
People who are active in their simplicity voluntarily reduce their need for consumable goods and put a monetary value on their time as it relates to what they buy. For instance: If you make $100 a day at work and a sofa costs $500, you just spent a week working to buy that sofa — you want to make darn sure it is worth your time and lasts you as long as possible.
This reduction of stuff in our lives not only simplifies the clutter around us, but also the stress 'clutter' in our lives. If you are only working towards maintaining the few things of value in your life, you have a better direction as well as less stress about 'keeping up with the neighbors'.
With fewer consumable goods in our lives, being able to reuse/recycle an item to make it last longer also allows you to live with a smaller 'footprint' in the world. I believe that there is not a religion out there that says we shouldn't take care of the world provided us.
Technology in the simple life is a personal decision. If you feel removing it might be best for you, test it out and see what you can do without. However, minimizing the technology to only the items that bring VALUE to your life, and not distraction, might be the first step to make.
Where do you start?
- Reuse items — Coffee in travel mugs instead of Styrofoam; use rags instead of paper towels.
- Reconnect — Spend time with family, with no distractions, outdoors, and alone.
- Rethink — Ask yourself if you need the item. Is it worth the money you make, will it be used, will it be of value?
- Reevaluate — Take a look at your bills and see where you can lower consumption; add a low-flow showerhead, conserve water, lights, etc.
- Reduce — Live in a smaller space. There's less to take care of and less to worry about.
One of the biggest influences in our lives is advertising and the pressure to 'fit in' to a certain cookie-cutter mold. Break out and break away!
About The Author
Dawn Cadwell writes the "Frugal For Life" weblog. Read more at: frugalforlife.com.
Related Resources
- 30 Days To A Simpler Life
- A Simple Choice
- Choosing Simplicity
- The Simple Living Guide
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches
- The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map To True Riches — Audio CDs
Copyright © 2008
Editor's Note: This article is a reprint of an Associated Press article that appeared recently in numerous national and regional newspapers. It is included here by permission of the author.
SAN FRANCISCO — They drive hybrid cars, if they drive at all, shop at local stores, if they shop at all and pay off their credit cards every month, if they use them at all.
They may have disposable income, but whatever they make, they live below their means, in a conscious effort to tread lightly on the earth.
They are a new breed of Gen Xers and Ys, Young and Wealthy but Normal, or Yawns.
The acronym comes from The Sunday Telegraph of London, which noted that an increasing number of rich young Britons are socially aware, concerned about the environment and given less to consuming than to giving money to charity.
Yawns sound dull, but they are the new movers and shakers, their dreams big and bold. They are men and women in their 20s, 30s and 40s who want nothing less than to change the world and save the planet.
Take Sean Blagsvedt, who moved from Seattle to India in 2004 to help build the local office of Microsoft Research. Moved by young children begging on the streets, Blagsvedt quit Microsoft and launched two networking sites, babajob.com and babalife.com, to link India's vast pool of potential workers with the people who need labor. The larger goal — to reduce poverty.
Far from the techie cafe life, Blagsvedt, 32, lives at babajob's headquarters in Bangalore, a 3,000-square-foot apartment where his mother and stepfather also live and 15 workers come and go every day.
"I'm a happy person," he said. "It's great to do something that you believe in doing."
The high-tech world has spawned some Yawns, but they can sprout anywhere. In fact, Yawns are a subset of a growing global movement of the eco-socially aware. The state of the economy and the state of the planet have inspired people to consider what they buy and how they spend in ways not seen since the "Small is Beautiful" and ecology movements of the 1970s.
The movement makes perfect sense, said David Grusky, a sociologist at Stanford University, since society tends to follow cycles — with anti-materialist periods like the hippie movement generating a pro-materialist reaction — the yuppie period, and so on. Not to mention, he adds, that the evidence of major climate change and a concern with terrorism gives rise to more interest in spiritual as opposed to material objectives.
The upshot, he said, is that "A cultural and demographic 'perfect storm' may well push us decisively toward an extreme form of postmaterialism in the upcoming period."
That helps explain why Earth Day has become so big again, why products are all going "green" and why freecycle.org, an Internet community bulletin board where members offer items for free, has grown in five years from a dozen members in Tucson, to a network of over 3,000 cities in 80 countries.
Deron Beal, the site's founder, counts 4 million members, and growing by 20,000 to 50,000 members each week.
"People have many reasons for freecycling," said Beal. "But the biggest reason is environmental — reusing and recycling instead of helping create more waste."
Could it also be that we are sick to death of buying stuff?
Pam Danziger, a consumer trends expert, thinks so. "The green thing is just a small part of it," said Danziger, whose firm, Unity Marketing, has new research showing luxury spending is way down. "Americans have been on a buying binge for the last 10 years," she said. "Our closets are full. Our attics are full. Our garages are full. Enough already!"
Yawns live small, but they already own whatever they want.
Rik Wehbring, a 37-year-old dot.com millionaire — he worked for multiple start-ups — limits himself to living on $50,000 a year. That's no chump change but well below what he could spend in San Francisco, where his rent eats up 40% of his allotted spending. Wehbring doesn't own a television, his mp3 player cost $20 ("and it works just fine") and he drives (when he drives) a Toyota Prius.
He buys most of his food from local farmers' markets, is leaving the bulk of his estate to various environmental organizations and donates money to what he considers worthy causes. Everyday, he grapples with "how to live a low-carbon life."
But Wehbring doesn't buy clothes, or much of anything.
"I don't need a lot of material possessions," he said. "I haven't had to buy anything in a while."
Such frugality seems to run in his circle.
Brad Marshland, 44, the husband of Wehbring's cousin, is a successful filmmaker living near Berkeley. He and his wife and two sons, ages 10 and 12, dry their clothes on a line, grow their own vegetables and buy what they need at garage sales and second-hand stores. (Second-hand stores are to Yawns what The Gap was to Yuppies.)
"We're pretty low on the stuff scale," Marshland said.
Marshland offsets his family's "carbon footprint" — how much energy it uses — by donating money to environmental groups online.
Yawns hate ostentation.
When Ray Sidney, a software engineer at Google, cashed in his stock options in 2003, they yielded him more money than he could ever burn through in his lifetime. (Billions? He won't say.) But instead of building himself a 10,000-square foot mansion in the Googledom of Silicon Valley, he retired to a four-bedroom house in Stateline, Nev., and started giving money away.
He has given $400,000 to a local arts council to help build a new arts center, $1 million to a bus company to help launch a route so that casino workers wouldn't have to rely on private transportation to get to and from work, and $1.7 million for a new football field and track at a local high school, for example.
Sidney also donates millions to charities that try to cure diseases or save the world.
His one rich-guy, carbon-hogging guilt trip: a single engine plane he flies about once a week to see his girlfriend in San Francisco.
But his pet project these days is pure Yawn. He is building what he calls "an environmentally friendly affordable housing development" on 100 acres near his home in Stateline.
"This world and our society and the people in it are good and worthwhile," he said, by way of explanation, "and I think it's worth spending money to keep it around and try to improve it."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
About The Author
Evelyn Nieves is a syndicated author who writes about a wide variety of subjects. She can be reached via her website at www.evelynnieves.com.
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