Simplifying

A post unrelated to birth...

I recently came across this blog about downsizing and simplifying, called Changing Rhythm. I liked their pledge, especially the rules about buying things (or rather, trying not to unless really necessary!). I sat down with my husband last night and talked about adopting some of these into our own life.

Here are some lifestyle & financial guidelines we wrote down. Some are shamelessly borrowed from the blog. Now, many of these things we already do to some extent, but I wanted to articulate them so we can be more consistent.

• Buy everything (barring food, medication, and health related products such as soap, toothpaste, etc.) used if at all possible.
• Only buy a product that replaces something we already own that has worn out.
• Anything that does not meet the previous two criteria, will require both our approval and a mandatory 2-week waiting period (to ensure need versus want).
• Purge our home of all unused, unwanted, or extraneous clutter.
• Cook one meal per week using items from food storage (we have a 1 year's supply of food stored in our basement).
• Spend under $200/month on groceries.
• Only grocery shop from a list.
• Invest money regularly for retirement.
• Each of us receives $10/month of “mad money” for frivolous expenditures (snacks, clothes, etc). These do not need approval from the other person.
• Keep a list of necessary upcoming expenditures.
• Eat out no more than once every month.

Last spring we converted our VW diesel Golf to run on used vegetable oil, which we get free from our local Chinese restaurant. We bought the conversion kit from Greasecar. The Golf already gets around 50 mpg, and now it's carbon-neutral, since plants use more CO2 to grow than is released when their oil is burned. We love our Greasemobile!

We live in a small town of 5,000 people, so we only drive to go to church (20 miles away) or big shopping trips. My husband works at a liberal arts college that is 4 blocks from our house. Our library, post office, grocery store, hardware store, thrift store, bike path, community hospital, etc are all within easy walking distance. (Okay, I admit that I drive to the grocery store when it's cold out.) Sometimes our town is a bit too sedate, but it's a good place for daily life.