A Month of Gifts from your Bookshelves

We’ve already established that kids love to open presents (hey, so do I), so what better way to jump-start a new, leaned-down gift-buying season than give the kids MORE gifts to open…and to open now, before Christmas!

Sneak into your kids’ rooms and take off the shelves any book remotely related to the Holidays- think outside the box, as anything with “snow” or “winter” will work, too. Surprised at how many you have? Hopefully you have enough to read one a day all the way until Christmas morning. If not, you may want to hit the library and check a few out.

Now, wrap each book as if it’s a gift (maybe make a discreet mark to identify the library books in case you need to renew them mid-season!) and place them in a basket by your couch. (Green tip: I wrap with newspaper then draw a stick-figure Christmas tree on them). Every night, allow your kids to pick one “gift” to unwrap, and read the book together.

I have done this with my children for a few years now, and it is possibly our favorite holiday tradition. We start December 1st, and read the last one Christmas morning. All year, I look out for holiday-themed books at garage sales, thrift stores, and library rummage sales, so am able to sneak in a few new ones amongst the old favorites.

This fun new tradition does a few things: it forces our family to sit down together every night to take a moment to celebrate the season; it allows my kids to get their “gift fix” right when they think they’re going to DIE if they can’t open that gift under the tree yet; and it even serves as a discipline tool….the child with the best manners at dinner gets to open the book that night.

This is something you can start tonight, even if you don’t have all the books yet, and is a great first step in our attempt to stretch out the season!

NEXT POST: An Advent game to improve your children’s manners all season long!

-TWM

Thinking Twice about Who Gets My Money

Today, I did something I normally hate doing- I paid retail for a hardback book. It was the latest “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” for my son, and though I could have probably held out for it to come to the library, I decided to splurge. My son will be thrilled, but honestly, the thought of his happy face wasn’t what tipped me over the edge in pulling out my wallet- it was the store selling the book.

This adorable, boutique children’s bookstore struggling to stay afloat moved into our neighborhood a few years ago, replacing a God-awful “American Opinion” store filled with skin-heads and secret late-night meetings.

This store deserves my money.

In the past few months, since my husband’s company shut down, I have, for the most part, spent as little money as humanly possible. But when I do decide to splurge, I am trying to make sure the person, or institution, getting our hard-earned (or hard-SAVED, now) dollar is worthy of it. That it is the kind of business we believe needs to still be around a year from now.

We’re all facing the conundrum of needing to save money for our own private benefit, but spend money in order to keep our economy alive. To make peace with this, we need to remember both sides of that coin with every purchase: what, and who.

This is the only way we’re going to like the way our world looks when the dust settles.

-TWM

A Free Education and Year of Entertainment in One Hour

I am a different kind of person when I’m reading a good book. No line at the grocery store, hour in a waiting room, or evening spent watching my husband channel surf is wasted, or begrudged- I have my book, and need nothing else.

The problem is, I don’t always have that good book, and so live in a state of mild discontent and wasted time until someone comes along with a good recommendation, or suddenly reach a breaking point where I grab my keys and my wallet and drive to Barnes and Noble, sanctimoniously turning down their offer to become a “member” for $25 extra for the third time this month because I “never come here.”

There is a better way, and it takes less than an hour and can cost nothing.

We just need a plan.

There is a free, fabulous education out there that will turn us into the best-read person we know and fill every minute of down-time in our lives with life-changing wisdom and entertainment. And all we need to do to get it is spend the next hour doing the following steps:

1. Gather up all the used paperbacks in our house, and put them in a box or paper grocery bag.

2. Locate a used book store in our city

3. Create a LIST of all the books we’d like to read, and print it out. The older the book, the more likely we’ll find it.

Here are some lists I’ve found:

For all those books we should have read in school but didn’t:

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/23628.html

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

Or just to catch up on Oprah’s book club:

http://bestsellers.about.com/od/oprahsbookclub/a/oprah_book_list.htm

If we’d like to get our children in on the action:

http://kids.nypl.org/reading/recommended2.cfm?ListID=61

http://www.teachersfirst.com/100books.cfm


4. Now take our trade-ins to the used bookstore, open an account, and while they’re sorting through our books, hit the aisles with that list! Don’t be surprised when they give some books back- just find a place to donate them later.


Now…we should have an amazing stack of hours and hours of reading sitting by our beds, ready to be grabbed. When we get through it, we’ll go back to the bookstore, trade them in, and start all over.

Of course, the library is always there, too.

Now what else do we need to get us through the next year? Just a good cup of coffee or glass of wine, depending on the time of day, and we’re golden.
-TWM

A New Life for Old Toys

I’m in that dangerous mode again…clean out mode. It happens a few times a year. While others may hoard, my illness is the need to go on “purging” rampages where no child’s drawing, high school yearbook, or family heirloom is safe from the circular file.

Don’t get me wrong- what can be recycled or donated will be. But I do tend to get rid of things very quickly, and sometimes have regretted my quick trigger finger.

But this year, I’m trying something different. The clutter in my house has GOT TO GO, but instead of immediately giving away my kids’ unused, under-appreciated, or just-too-complicated-and-messy-to-bother-with toys, I am putting them away into what I’m calling, “the summer toy box.” In this box will contain toys, activities, and crafts to be taken out... one at a time.. to be done with me.

With the creation of this box (or closet, depending on how much stuff I find), I hope to do a few things: 1) find new life for good toys that never got their day in the sun, 2) allow my kids to occasionally feel like they’re getting a new treat (without my spending anything), 3) force myself to actually sit down and play with my kids, and 4) give myself an instant answer to the question, “Mom, what can we doooo?”

The best candidates for this box are toys and activities that require some parental guidance and set-up. Those are the toys in my house that tend to sit unused, or get immediately and irrevocably scattered, because I didn’t have the time/energy/focus/patience to sit down properly with my kids to show them how to do it. But now that they’re locked safely away, I can bring them out at my convenience, when we actually have the right amount of time to devote to them.

The only purchase I’ve made to aid me in this endeavor is something I usually don’t buy- Ziploc bags. With one package of gallon-sized bags (that can be reused many times!) I can create single craft projects as I slowly clean the house. I can ensure that every last piece of the puzzle will stay together. I can grab just one bag to throw into the car for swim meets, baseball games, or picnics.

So, in this summer of fewer camps, babysitters, and vacations than in years past, hopefully finding a new life for old toys will help us actually slow down and play with our kids and avoid the watch something/buy something/eat something trap of desperation parenting.

-TWM

Eating Organic on a Budget

We are all looking desperately for ways to cut the monthly budget, and like many of you, the first place my eye goes is to the grocery bill. I mean, we could survive off Ramen noodles for the next month (I did in college, didn’t I?), so this can be a tempting gold mine of cost savings in desperate times.

However, more and more research is coming out about how bad all the “cheap” food is for us (be sure to catch “The Unhealthy Truth” coming out in May by Robyn McCord O’Brien and go to www.allergykids.com for more information on this). We’re actually already spending less of our income on food than at any other time in history, and by choosing the cheap fillers of corn syrup, soy, and GMO’s, our children are paying the price. Childhood cases of food allergies, ADHD, Autism, and Asthma are through the roof, and tons of research (that I firmly believe) links it to the JUNK that’s in our food.

Another horrifying statistic is that just 100 years ago, Americans ate less sugar in an entire year than we now eat in a single day. It’s not that we’re loading up on desserts- this sugar is in our meals and “healthy” snacks!

So, how do we balance these two forces that are crashing down around our heads: the need to buy more expensive food AND the need to spend less money? Here are a few things that I’ve found that will at least help you get started on both eating more healthily AND cutting your food budget:

Buy frozen: Research has shown that frozen fruits and vegetables can be even healthier than fresh ones (often picked unripe and shipped long distances). Obviously, local, organic, and fresh is best, but frozen isn’t as bad as you think.

Start with just the essential organics: The most important things to buy organic are milk, eggs, chicken, and beef. If you can’t swallow the price of organic meat, at least go “all natural” with no antibiotics or hormones.

Eliminate corn syrup: Double-check your bread, granola bars, peanut butter, crackers, and kid snacks, and cut this ingredient out. This one step will do wonders for your kids health.

When you can, DO buy organic: strawberries, Chilean grapes (tons of pesticides!), peppers, spinach, cherries, peaches, Mexican Cantaloupe, celery, apples, apricots, green beans, and cucumbers.

Don’t bother buying organic: avocadoes, corn, onions, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, non-Chilean grapes, bananas, plums, green onions, watermelon, or broccoli.

Buy Organic, Free Trade Coffee but brew it yourself. After your morning is over, turn off your coffee maker with just a little coffee left in it, and when you need a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, don’t buy a chemical-laden Diet Coke- make a cold iced coffee (with real sugar, not sweetened chemicals).

Eat Less. Yes, I said it. We Americans try to lose weight and save money by finding the cheapest low-calorie “health” food we can buy, and then eating tons of it. Instead, let’s eat something real and authentic, enjoy it, and then stop eating.

Let’s start with just this. There are plenty more things we can do to be more healthy and save more money- and we’ll get to those in good time- but starting with these simple steps is a good start for both our bodies and our budget.

-TWM

Always choose Outdoors over Indoors

Spring is taking its own sweet time in arriving in Virginia this year, but we are getting just enough pretty days to make us start craving the outdoors again.

The few beautiful, warm days we have had have driven home a strong point to me- that the great outdoors is the greatest economic equalizer in our society. No matter how much money we have, or don’t have, all of us living in the same city feel the same temperature and see the same amount of sunlight as everyone else. Same with the beautiful trees, flowers, birds…they are there for all of us.

The great outdoors also has another gift for us- saving money. I’m realizing that by making one simple choice at every opportunity- choosing outdoors rather than indoors – almost anything can be made more affordable, meaningful, and enjoyable:

Entertaining: Now’s the time of year for us all to come out of our winter cocoons and get together, but it doesn’t have to be in your home! You can always host a casual get-together in your backyard, but even simpler is to organize a gathering in a park or public garden. Taking it outside relieves the stress on you to be the “hostess” responsible for providing the beauty of the surroundings (Mother Nature will now take care of that), and helps make the event be about the simple act of getting together, not showing off your house.

Entertainment: I’m always amazed at the price of an indoor concert ticket compared to the quality of the bands you can get at free outdoor concerts. Another fabulous quality of an outdoor venue is that you can walk away with a screaming baby. If you keep a basket filled with hats, sunscreen, balls, bubbles, a few snacks, and a blanket near your front door or in your car, you’ll instantly be ready to head for a quick escape outside OR stretch out an otherwise just-fun-for-adults outdoor event…rather than heading for the nearest ice cream shop, Target store, or remote control when boredom hits.

Transportation: Before you grab your car keys, take an instant to ask yourself if you could possibly get there on bike or foot. This has probably been my most life-changing habit in terms of my wallet, body, and carbon imprint. Traveling this way makes it almost impossible to overbuy (you have to carry it home) or impulse buy (you’d have to walk there); it burns calories, saves gas money, and cuts down on “down time”- your transportation is your workout.

But choosing the outdoors over the indoors is more than just trying to live cheaply. We are actually doing something pretty profound- we are choosing the world’s beauty over our own. Living indoors requires us to fully decorate and control our environment- with our vision, our taste, our possessions, and our energy. Everything just reflects ourselves. To live outdoors is to be about something bigger, and to relinquish control over every sound, temperature, view, and living creature allowed access to our lives.

So let’s get out there, and take a break from trying to create the perfect world within our imperfect possessions. To do otherwise is such a waste of this beautiful gift of Spring!

-TWM

Your philosophy as your style

It’s hard not to envy other people’s homes. At least it is for me. I couldn’t care less about fancy cars, designer clothing, or country club memberships, but if someone has a fantastic house, perfectly decorated in my kind of style, with pieces I’ve drooled over in magazines, then I may need to give myself a little mommy timeout while I get over myself.

When others have more than we do, and that thing they have costs money that we don’t have, it’s hard not to fixate on the fact that what we have as…well, less. Less of something good. Less than they do.

This is when it is so important to have a philosophy behind your spending habits. For me, “saving money” never counted as a legitimate philosophy. It felt too self-centered and empty, lacking any focus or higher cause. It’s also too tied to career success, indicating that you should ideally need your philosophy less and less as time goes on, rather than engaging in a lifelong pursuit of its perfection.

This is why the green movement and the current economy are so complimentary…one hand washes the other. Green living gives a higher cause to habits that otherwise could be viewed as nothing more than “doing without,” and the lack of disposable income curbs our appetite for thoughtless waste and consumption.

Now is the time for us to spread the message of Wastelessness…while people are looking for ways to feel better about not having a lot of money. The dots to be connected between our spending habits and our impact on the Earth have never been closer together.

As long as I keep my philosophy in mind, I can see my possessions, or lack thereof, in the light of their true beauty. My garage-sale finds are beacons of sustainability, not cheap imitations of my neighbor’s new designer pieces. My home’s smaller square footage clearly translates into a smaller carbon footprint. Every worn piece of furniture still gracing my living room is an empty space in a landfill.

In this light, my home and my style are so much more. Just as the dieter doesn’t feel down on herself because she didn’t eat the huge piece of chocolate cake, I do not feel less of anything.

I wouldn’t feel this great if I was just doing it for a higher number in my bank account.

-TWM

A Wasteless, Authentic Decorating Style

The predominant decorating style in my town is ornate silk upon silk.  In so many of the beautiful homes of my friends, the windows and furniture are flowing with gorgeous silk, tasseled, printing material.

So, I decided I wanted to do the same.  That is, until I found out how much silk curtains cost.  Literally ten times what I'd been expecting.

So, do I buy silk curtains and try to replicate the look as best I can? Fill my home with ornate budget-priced items that kind of look nice and rich?

Not a good idea.

The look my friends have was recognizable and authentic.  I did not want to have the house that was the cheap imitation of their style.

My decorating aspirations were not doomed, however.  They simply needed to go in a different direction.  There were tons of other styles out there...I just needed to find one that authentically matched my budget and taste.

I found my answer near the arctic circle...Scandinavian design.  I don't mean IKEA (I do love that store for certain pieces, but not for my whole house) but the clean lines, lack of clutter, and celebration of "negative space": intentionally bare walls, floors, and windows.

What's so great about this style is that even if it's not your ideal style, you can use it as a "step one" in decorating, and then add to it later when you have the money and opportunity.  It looks so much better than buying a bunch of cheap stuff just to fill the space...or, of course, going into debt buying furnishings you can't afford.

What also works well with this style is working backwards...a "reverse makeover," if you will.  If you can't stand the style you have now, you can give your home (or even just one troublesome room) a clean new look by simply getting rid of things and not replacing them.  

To avoid making the room look bare, look for examples of Scandinavian style for inspiration.  Here are some of my very cheap and easy tricks that can help give an otherwise bare-looking room the intentional look of Scandinavian minimalism:

-Go monochromatic:  the things you leave in the room should be of neutral, similar color

-Bring in some nature: a glass bowl filled with pine cones, sticks in a vase,  a green plant.  Brown and green on beige is a classic Scandinavian color scheme.

-Get some "modern art".   This is fun.  I've seen three looks that do well with this style: black and white photographs in black frames,  funky splashes of color in light wood frames (have any kid's art laying around in drawers?), and neutral-colored abstract paintings on canvas frames (my friend Molly captured this look in her home years ago when she simply painted 5 canvases in a single color, then a 6th in a contrasting color, hanging them all over a large wall in 2 rows of 3...fantastic).  

I encourage you to at least give this style a try if you're itching for a new look in your home.  It's cheap, easy, low-risk, and green.  Even if you just have one room to play with, creating one beautiful space that celebrates simplicity, nature, peace, and clarity can help remind us of the needs to duplicate those values in other aspects of our lives.

Wasteless Decorating: Add To, don't Take Away

I love old homes, and have never lived in a house that was built later than 1936. I don’t think I’ll ever trade the character, charm, and quality of construction found in older homes (and neighborhoods) for the convenience and freshness of a new house, no matter how tempting those giant closets and standard kitchen/family room combos get.

Upon inheriting an older home, however, you also inherit something else: the taste and style of the previous owner. Some of these things are easily correctible with paint and some wallpaper-removing tools. It took me less than 3 days upon house closing to get rid of the peach walls in my dining room.

Other things are not so simple. The white wall tile and powder blue countertops (and matching striped walls!) in my kitchen are my best (and worst) examples. These 80’s-inspired decorating choices were going to require a costly renovation, a blind eye, or some major creativity on my part.

The first two choices were not an option for me when we bought our house, so I was left with the third. I found my inspiration and salvation in the wise words of designer Christopher Lowell: Add to, don’t take away.

This sounds counter-intuitive to saving money and waste, but actually works like a charm. If you have something you don’t like, don’t tear it out or replace it, just add to it.

Take my white tiles. By adding pictures and other painted tiles on top of them, the eye now goes directly to my additions, not to the plain tiles themselves. And my blue countertops and striped walls? I added a chocolate brown coat of paint below the chair rail, and now my dated color scheme is instantly modern.

I carried this practice through to the furnishings in my house, too. The off-white walls and light blue comforter in the master bedroom that before were so plain looked fabulous when I added 2 brown throw pillows and brown curtains. My ancient wooden couch got a new life when I took the whole frame outside one afternoon and painted it with a matte black. I even recovered the worn pink cushions myself with a sturdy taupe fabric…all for $40. Is it my dream couch now? No, but I’m proud of it, and with a few more pillows, it’ll be great. Someone even asked me if I got it at Restoration Hardware.

The plain mantelpiece we felt needed replacing looked fine once we added a $0.99 candleholder from Pier 1. The old worn carpet in the basement? Completely rejuvenated with a few old throw-rugs leftover from the kids’ old rooms.

So many things could avoid filling landfills if we just add a finishing touch of paint, hardware, fabric, or wood trim to it. Just think of all the time, energy, and money you’ll save, too, if you spend an extra few minutes trying to turn something ugly into something else before you just toss it and replace it.

-TWM

Wasteless Birthday Parties for Kids

My daughter brought up the subject of her upcoming 4th birthday on the very day that my husband was laid off from work. Perfect. Now, as I was desperately trying to scrape together a revised, even-more-stripped-down-than-usual budget, I had to add “fantastic birthday party” to the extra column of our budget spreadsheet dangerously labeled “miscellaneous”?

How could I pull this off without letting someone down: my stressed-out husband, my trusting daughter, or my own conscience that rebels against the abhorrent waste that surrounds the mega-business of the party industry?

My salvation came from 2 unexpected sources: my grandmother’s estate, and my daughter’s words.

First, my daughter. Far from being immune to the Great Marketing Machine, my daughter wanted a “Barbie Rapunzel Birthday” with all the little girls in her preschool class. Here we go- the plates, the dream castle, the plastic and goodie bags and themed games and on and on and on…right?

No. When questioned further, my precious 4-year-old-to-be clarified that a Barbie Rapunzel Birthday meant that you had a Barbie candle on your cake.

Seriously? That’s it? CAN DO, sweetie. One Barbie candle. Check.

The second lifeline came from something I initially begrudged: my inherited “demitasse set” from my late grandmother’s estate- you know, those tiny, tiny little fragile teacups you never see anymore. Too nice to give away, too fancy for my usual style, too small for my monstrous caffeine requirements.

But quality. And fancy. And completely useless unless used. Even if it’s by clumsy little hands that may break one or two in the process, these cups were meant to be used, and now they will be, in my daughter’s Barbie Rapunzel - Fancy Dress Birthday Tea Party. It’ll be fabulous, fancy, and completely free of waste. And free of destructive boys.

My daughter’s true wishes revealed and the gift from my grandmother provided me two lessons about how to avoid wasteful spending, energy, and consumption in children’s parties: 1) Our children’s wishes are simpler than we think, and 2) the best inspiration for a party can come out of desire to use something great you already have.

What do you have at your disposal that would make for a great party? A huge sandbox in your backyard for a beach party? A chef’s kitchen perfect for a cooking party? A large garden for aspiring gardeners? A trunk full of flowered hats? A collection of old 45’s for a sock hop?
Give your possessions a new life rather than condemn a bunch of paper and plastic to an instant eternity in a landfill. The only person that will notice the lack of costly disposable extras will be you

Living Off Winter's Harvest

We're in the midst of an "economic winter"- there's no denying it. There are no blantant opportunties blooming around us. No low-lying fruit to effortlessly pick off. No abundant harvest to reap.

It's winter, and we're all feeling it. As with all animals, it's time to bunker down, conserve, and ride it out in the faith that spring will come. And some of us are facing a much harsher climate than others.

However, nature has a way of providing animals a way to survive this season. For some, it's excess fat. Others: a stash of acorns. Still others, a long sleep.

Yes, it's winter for us, but we what many of us are forgetting is that we have also just came off a large harvest. While our money stash may no longer be there, we probably all still have a lot of STUFF that we've built up and never used. Stuff we've ignored, wasted, underappreciated, or squandered.

So now's the time to find that stash in your home and not just survive on it, but enjoy it. If you're anything like me, you'll be shocked at the amount of stuff you have hidden in your home that will carry you for a long time, in many different ways:

• Food: Start here. Go through your freezer, pantry, and frig and make a list of all the ingredients you have. Then try to plan an entire month's worth of meals from it. With the exception of a few quick trips to the store for a very few items, I bet you can do it. If you need help, http://www.cookinglight.com/ has a feature where you can enter an ingredient you already have, and get a list of recipes using it. And remember, none of us facing bankruptcy or forclosure is too good for cheap coffee, frozen vegetables, or domestic beer!

• Toiletries: Inventory the half-used bottles of shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, hairspray, etc. and put them all in one place. Then use them. And they don't have to be your favorite brand.

• Clothes: Now is the time to discover the other 90% of your closet. Spend an indulgent afternoon trying on absolutely everything you own, but, contrary to former advice, not with the purpose of getting rid of what you don't like, but in order to like what you already have. Make it work. And if some things seem out of date, try just changing the shoes and the belt- that can instantly update the whole look.

• Entertainment: This is probably a gold mine for you. Remember all the classic novels you bought and never read? The unfinished crafts in your basement? That huge pile of old music CD's? Pull them out and make yourself a pile, vowing to get through them before you go "consume" anything else. I will never, ever get through the great books I thought I couldn't live without...and never opened.

• Kids' Activities: Kids are even worse than we are about ignoring the abundance of toys and treasure around them, so they will need our help in this. It's all about the presentation. I went around my house and gathered up all the overlooked toys, books, coloring books, and crafts, and put them away in a closet. Now, every time my kids express boredom or criminal deprivation over not having something new, Voila! They appreciate the "new" toy (even if they recognize it) more than ever before. A good lesson for all of us.

Have fun with this. How wonderful that all of those purchases that seemed so important at the time are finally getting their day in the sun! And never overlook the positive environmental impact you are making by using what you already have.

In the words of Sheryl Crowe, "It's not getting want you want, it's wanting what you've got."

-The Wasteless Mom