The Art of Zen Living

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world…

Not too long ago, I got serious about the concept of frugal living. I put together a spreadsheet on which I listed the things I purchase on a regular basis (rice, beans, milk, flour, chicken breasts, etc - it’s an old list, going back to the pre-vegetarian days…), along with their prices at various places.  What I found was that (no surprise) Walmart was almost always the lowest price.  Price, however, is different than cost.

I know a number of people that take a measure of pride in the fact that they don’t shop at Walmart.  They’re Target shoppers. The problem is that Target is as bad or worse than Walmart.  Target does have a major advantage in being the second largest - the microscope isn’t on them.  They also have better marketing and PR.

In the meantime, I’d still like to live in a frugal manner, even if Walmart is trying hard to steal the idea of frugal living for their “save money live better” marketing.  That they’re using it for their marketing is enough to make you reconsider.  In this case, “save money” doesn’t mean “live frugally”, it means “be cheap”.  Have I lost you yet?  Bear with me, I’ll explain:

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I have to tell you right up front that writing about hypermiling is annoying.  I get really excited because I know that I’m seeing gains, but by definition, the better I do with it, the longer between stops at the gas station, which means I don’t get to write about it as often as I’d like.

I bet you’re just as frustrated as I am about how seldom you get the chance to stop for gas.

Right before we left for Disney, I topped off my tank.  I only needed about 4.5 gallons (I have the exact figures in my glove compartment, in my car, parked at mom’s since I’m in the truck that’s going to Atlanta tomorrow).  The last time I’d filled my tank, I’d also over inflated my tires to somewhere between 42 and 45 PSI - it’s hard to tell on the little gauge I have.  The mileage boost was 3.8 MPG.  Over the course of a tank, that’s like getting a free gallon of gas!

Follow me inside for the review and total mileage gain from following a few simple tips…

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Back in April, I traded my beloved 1990 Volvo 240 DL for a more fuel efficient 2000 Toyota Corolla.  Over the course of 4 tanks of gas, I found I was averaging around 31 miles to the gallon if I mostly avoided running the AC, or 30 miles to the gallon if I was mostly running the AC.  Both of those numbers seemed pretty good compared to what I was getting in the Volvo.  Then I started reading about “hypermiling”. Hypermiling is a combination of strategies designed to help maximize your fuel economy. I started wondering just how effective some of these techniques are. So the last time I filled up, I decided to test it out.

I’m not the first blogger to try this out, but I wanted to make sure I was checking milage over the course of a tank of gas. My thought process was that if you are just looking at the “Average Mileage” readout for a single trip, you might get lucky.  Not that it isn’t good to have great mileage on a single trip, but from a budgetary standpoint, good mileage on a single trip isn’t all that useful.  There’s a second reason I measured the total mileage for the tank - I don’t have an “average mileage” readout in my car.  I have to do the long math - this many miles and I just pumped in this many gallons, that means I’m getting x miles per gallon!

OK, so the math isn’t that long.

Short answer: I got an extra 46 miles out of my tank of gas.  I always fill up when the little “low fuel” light comes on, and it always takes right around 10 gallons.  If gas is $4 a gallon (today I paid $3.949 per gallon) then an extra 46 miles per tank is SIX DOLLARS per tank back in my pocket.  I drive a lot less than I used to (another good technique for saving money on gas!) but if I was still commuting to work and using a tank of gas a week, we’re talking over Three Hundred Dollars per Year saved by doing a few simple things.

I was talking about this with my father, and I found it a little painful to watch the grin creep across his face as I described some of the techniques.  I was calling it “hypermiling”, and he was calling it “driving like dad does”.  We were both right.

Details on exactly what I’m doing inside!

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Wednesday, I went to a class on worm composting at the Eco-living Center, at Rutenburg park.  It turned out to be a lot of fun, and on top of that I learned how to build a bin for worm composting.  I’ll tell you a bit about what happened, and then share with you what I learned about making a worm bin, and some of the benefits of Worm Composting.

Worms eat plant based organic waste, and excrete highly concentrated plant food.  Organic waste includes food scraps, leaves, newspaper, junk mail, sawdust, cardboard, seaweed - if it was a plant but now it’s garbage, the worms will eat it.  If you’re a gardener, the benefits are obvious.  It’s also a great project if you have kids.  Or if you fish, you’ll have a steady supply of worms.  You may also just like being kind to random plants - seeing as how they keep us provided with oxygen, it can’t hurt to drop a little extra grow juice on them from time to time, even if it’s just in a random manner!

*The picture is of a sculpture in front of the Eco-living center, called “climb every mountain”.  It has no relevance to this post other than being a pretty cool picture.

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Ever wonder where your stuff comes from? You shouldn’t have to. I know that I spent a lot of years actively avoiding even thinking about where my stuff comes from. I also avoided thinking about what happens to it when I throw it away. We all know it just isn’t a very pretty picture. So we think to ourselves “Oh, my stuff comes from the store!” and we leave it at that. I suppose because it’s too hard to face the idea that “Oh, my stuff comes from the rape of our planet and the horrific exploitation of human beings!”. Thinking about it that way would sure smash the joy of buying that new TV, wouldn’t it? Well, shouldn’t it?

The system we have today isn’t the way it always was. In fact, it isn’t the way things would have progressed naturally, by themselves. The change happened in the 50’s, right after World War Two. America led the way, by inventing a new way of life - consumerism. We weren’t selfish about it - we happily exported it all over the world. There’s a problem with that. Here in America, we have about 5% of the world’s population. In order to live in a state of consumerism, Americans use 30% of the world’s resources. So what happens when the rest of the world starts trying to live in consumerism?

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About two weeks ago, I received a package from Amazon.com containing the following:

• 1 “Merkur Long Handled Safety Razor-#180- Made in Germany” $29.49
• 1 “Merkur Double Edge Razor Blades- Pack of 10 Blades- Made in Germany” $5.29
• 1 “Col. Conk World’s Famous Super Bar Shaving Soap - 3.75 oz., Almond” $5.50

Subtotal of Items: $40.28
Shipping & Handling: $8.00
Total for this Order: $48.28

It’s worth noting that I already had the (I assume) boar’s hair brush pictured.  It ran me about $4 or $5 at Walmart a while back, and works just fine.  If you have to buy one, everything I’ve read suggests that buying a badger hair brush is the way to go.

So other than being able to take really cool old-timey looking black and white pictures at the sink in my bathroom, why would I decide to buy a piece of technology that, while revolutionary in it’s time, is clearly outdated now?  I mean, the thing does have TWO blades, but you can’t USE them both on your face at the same time!  Clearly that makes it inferior to the Bladezilla shaver I’d been using, with it’s 64 blades designed to cut the fur on my face so far below the skin I’m practically shaving my skull, right?

For those of you thinking that the possibility exists that this is a trick question, I’ll save you the suspense - it is.  I’m going to share with you how I came to this decision, my impressions, and point you to a few excellent resources for learning how to shave with one of these old-fangled contraptions!

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It’s been two weeks since I first piled up my clippings, yard waste, and some kitchen scraps, sprinkled it all with a bit of (crappy) Florida dirt, soaked the whole thing in water and went away and let it sit.  And sit it did!  It didn’t seem to be doing much of anything.  Well, that’s not completely true.  I learned that you really can’t put bread into a compost pile unless you soak it in water and puree it, then dump it on when you water the pile.  If you just tear it up and think burying it in the middle of the pile will keep the birds from finding it, you’d be wrong.  I still don’t know who was more startled - that poor blue jay that popped it’s head out with a big crust of bread and saw me hovering over him, or me, when that head popped out wings all a flapping and beak all a squawking.  Suffice to say it was a rather unique moment, and I felt very much in the now.  I also screamed like a school girl.

I digress.  Two weeks yesterday I set my compost pile up at a total cost of about $4.25.  3 tomato stakes, about 7 feet of a 50 foot roll of plastic fencing, and a few twist ties.  A little American ingenuity, a little America frugality, and we were ready to go.

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“The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men.”
Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist

I love meat.  I really do - as in “What?  If I can eat the entire 5 pound Porterhouse it’s free?  Bring me TWO of ‘em, medium rare!”  So no one is more surprized than I am that I’m even thinking about this, let alone dipping my toe into the waters.  Here lately, it seems like I’m eating less and less meat, partly because I’m enjoying trying out new bean recipes and lentils and other healthy alternatives, but also partly because my beliefs have started to shift.  It doesn’t take much research to find out that the animals we rely on for meat are treated really badly, and go through a tremendous amount of suffering.  I’d heard about it before - we all have, really.  Hearing about it and seeing the pictures, or the video, are very different things.  When the video of workers using a forklift to torment and torture the “downer” cows came to light earlier this year, it became very difficult for me to continue to ignore what goes on in our nation’s meat factories (let’s face it, these animals aren’t raised on farms anymore).  Between eating less meat and not wanting to support big agri-business, I’ve decided to try and live as a vegetarian for 2 weeks, and see how it effects my health, happiness and lifestyle. This isn’t the only option out there. You can have your meat and support sustainable non-industrial farming, too. If I don’t like the vegetarian life, that’s my fallback plan.

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Recently, I mixed up a batch of laundry soap.  This isn’t really a “how to” post - Trent has already done an excellent one of those over at The Simple Dollar, as has Crystal over at The Family Homestead.  My method was kind of between what they did, and it gave me some ideas to try next time.  Based on what I’ve seen and read about making home made laundry soap, it’s a bit on the bulky side of things, and sort of a noodle soup consistency.  This was my experience as well.  As long as you stir it around a bit before scooping it out to use, this isn’t a problem.  Still, I wonder if there isn’t a way to improve the recipe a little, and end up with a smoother mix that could be packaged back into old laundry bottles for easier storage?

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As the philosopher Jagger once said, you can’t always get what you want.  He did, however, go on to point out that if you try, sometimes, you get what you need.

The problem, as I see it, is that these days, Americans not only get what they need, they get what they want, but they think they need what they want.  We live in an economy created by marketing where items are designed to wear out, break or just become unusable due to the design of this year’s products being different.  We cash in for credit cards, look to our home equity as a “free money ATM”, and constantly chase The Next Big Thing.  We’re conditioned to react this way, pretty much since birth.  We accumulate more and more stuff, rent out rooms for our stuff, buy special storage containers to keep it nice, hire consultants or purchase special shelving units to turn closest into stuff-o-rama storage.

Let me put that last part a different way: we buy stuff FOR our stuff, so that our stuff will have a place to live.

I just got tired of living that way.

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