Why do you eat?

I think a small mutiny is about to break out in the house over Honey Nut cheerios.
Seriously.

It's the third week of these cheerios, with only one small interval of corn flakes.

Corn flakes were cheaper so I tried switching us, only to find out that the box of corn flakes emptied far faster than the cheerios box so it really wasn't a savings. Plus it wasn't as filling. And when you're scrimping on things, filling is super helpful.

The kids however, are beginning to hate my cheerios. They want variety. They want to eat something different. And since cheerios are the only option, many a morning they try and skip breakfast altogether.

This is important to me, so read that again - Cheerios are the only option so since they don't like cheerios they try and skip breakfast altogether.

But, breakfast isn't about putting something in your mouth to taste.
It's about putting something in your stomach to survive.

Switching all of this over to spiritual terms, I got stuck on Exodus recently... I needed to read it to move through to the next book but, really um, wasn't enjoying myself too much and my heart certainly wasn't racing at the knowledge that Leviticus was next.

But you read to grow, to stay alive and vibrant in Christ, you cannot just skip from exciting story to story. What if you read about the battle of Jericho and Sampson, but didn't bother reading the Psalms because they bored you? What if you kept on reading the Psalms and Proverbs because you find them comforting, but skip the obscure books you might not think about usually like Ruth, or Jude? It's like living a constant life of eating cakes and hamburgers, but never the fiber and vegetables you need in order to be healthy.

Eating can be enjoyable, tasty, wonderful... but the reasons for eating should always be foremost in our minds. I'm reading, because I want to live, I want to be healthy. I do not want to be weak. So, even when the food looks a little bland - Numbers anyone?? - I eat, when it looks too complicated - Ezekiel?? - I eat anyway. When it looks too spicy - SoS, seriously, not for single readers - I eat.

Variety is wonderful, but it often leads to waste. When you hippity hop from preference to preference you miss out on some staples that your biblical diet absolutely needs.
So next time I'm tempted to turn my nose up at the cauliflower, I'll have to remember it's probably just the Deuteronomy of the food world. :)

Nitrogen tire inflation

Ok, completely off topic, but for those of you that listened to me hype up for hypermiling (a lifestyle that now has me getting 37 mpg with regularity and ease) I have a new trick for you.

Inflating your tires with nitrogen instead of plain ol' air.

I was introduced to this awesome new trend when I had to replace my tires this week.
The information I've heard on it is that it helps increase that gas mileage a little bit more. It helps your tire keep from wearing out quite so quickly and also since nitrogen doesn't expand and contract with the weather, it prevents the typical squish that has you topping up your tires occasionally.

At my local place Discount Tire and Brakes, if I spend 30 bucks, they'll suck the air out of my tires, refill me with nitrogen and then if I have a flat, I can haul it back to them, they'll fix the flat for free and refill me with my nitrogen. If I do find myself needing to add air, I can simply go to any gas station and put regular old air in, then stop back by my tire place and they'll suck out the air and refill me again with nitrogen. And supposedly the whole process just takes 15 minutes.

One of the customer service guys said he averaged about 1.5mpg, while another guy got about 2mpg better than what they were doing before. According to the calculator on the Get Nitrogen website that's a savings of about 58 bucks a year. At least for my stats anyways.

Get Nitrogen says: "With nitrogen tire inflation, improvements can be noted in a vehicle's handling, fuel efficiency and tire life through better tire pressure retention, improved fuel economy and cooler running tire temperatures."


For more information on the use of nitrogen in your tires, check out GetNitrogen.org, or Fox News.

Happy savings!

Lose your waste

I'll tell you right off the bat, this is a post that may only interest me.

I've worked diligently. And this is what I've got.

The blasted tv I bought, that jacked my electric bill up to $250, has been managed. The bill (which is an entire city bill including water, sewage, trash and electricity) was only $86 dollars and some change this month. The number one thing that helped was to begin to get consistent about unplugging the tv & dvd player not just turning it off. I've even done the same thing with my microwave. It only takes a moment, though I'm not as consistent about the microwave. It's a little harder to remember.

Beyond that, hypermiling is really working. I regularly got between 27 & 33mpg before, and now I'm getting between 39 and the highest I've gotten is 42.5 (a number I get more often as I get better at the techniques). It certainly helps that the gas prices have gone down. :) I paid less than 20 bucks for gas this week (the whole week). It made me happy. :)

Lights don't stay on in my house unless there is a need for it. In the daytime, I don't typically have them on unless I'm trying to read and it just isn't bright enough.
And now I'm researching switching to cell phone only and ditching my home phone.
That's the one that makes me a little sad, I like having a regular line, but I'm pretty sure I will get used to it. Once I stop frowning at it.

This whole thing isn't about depriving myself. But, if you look at your life, there's a lot of excess. If you have a cell phone, where someone can reach you all the time, do you really need a home phone? I'm not saying you do or you don't, I'm just bringing the question out for you to think about. I currently have internet, and phone with Verizon for about $90, and my cell phone is a pay as you go thing (which is ok since I rarely use it) and I usually have to "top up" which costs 32.50 every 2-3 mos. So lets call that $100 for phone/internet.
I researched T-Mobile and found a $50 plan that was right for me (am I sounding like a commercial) and if I switch my internet to Suddenlink, it can get a monthly rate of $20. Which is $70 + tax for my phone.

A savings of approximately $30. A total of $360 per year.

These little things are making a difference in my finances. It's fun to watch. And the main thing I hope to really take away from all this is just a simple awareness. I don't want to waste. And when you really start looking at it, you realize that you waste a lot, a lot. And in some cases, that waste costs you money. I don't want to waste stuff, I don't want to waste money.

I would call it being a good steward, but that sounds phony. It sounds like trying to make things sound religious, or putting a spiritual spin on something just... normal. So the goal, is nothing more special than just seeing how much stuff I can not waste. It's most easily measured by seeing the bills lower, or dividing the number of miles driven by the amount of gas purchased.

There are a lot of other things you can do to save money, and a ton of great articles about it. But one of the things I've learned is to not get wrapped up trying to do all of the suggestions. But to fiddle around until you find the ones that you can live with doing.

Long story short, all of your resources are gifts from God. I've been thinking about the parable of the talents, and I know the symbolism and I get the "heavenly meaning" in the "earthly story" but, at the same time I wondered what would happen if the master gave us talents to invest... would he return years later to find that we'd not only spent his talent, but used the income to qualify for a house too expensive for us, and a credit card with a $50,000 limit?

I don't know. And I don't want to condemn myself and just writhe underneath that burden. But I do want to do better. God is good to teach me.

Indoor Clothes Drying.

There it is. A real life look at what indoor clothes lines look like. Ain't it.. well, not pretty, but economical. :)

I've finally gotten two lines up, and the laundry is hanging. Karen Grassle certainly earned her money on the show just in the time she spent hanging laundry on those pesky lines. It takes awhile. Certainly longer than it took to toss the clothes from the washer to the dryer.

BUT, for the next two hours electricity won't be used to dry them.

Just because of space issues, it's hung between the window frame on the right side, to the door frame on the left. I used simple eyehooks, and got the clothes line from Home Depot. I've got 100' of line, and that's going to be enough for 4 lines. I've only got two up right now though.

I bought some links, they're like chain links only they screw open. The idea is that if I tie the line to the chain links, and then link the link (am I saying "link" enough?) to the eye screw, then it would be simple to take the line down in between uses. At the moment to take it down I need to untie and retie for every use. That's not hard, but it can wear out the ends of my rope.

Unfortunately, the links that I bought weren't wide enough to fit over the eye screw, so I need to exchange them for wider ones. When I redo this, hopefully I'll get some more of the slack out before I tie it up again.

It's not much. It isn't much at all.

But all this isn't about 'much'. It's about just being conscious. God doesn't work on the barter system. So, my way into Heaven doesn't become somehow more sure because I'm making some more changes. It's not like making my house less wasteful will somehow purchase for me a miracle, or signs or wonders. That's not what this is about - it's simply about something that's bugged me for a long time.

But change isn't easy.

Change looks weird. Changing things that I'm thinking about changing, those things change a way of life.

These things are beginning to grab me, and my thoughts have slowly begun twisting from blithe ignorance and thoughtless usage of 'stuff', to thinking about how much water I use, how much gas I use, how much stuff I throw away that might have had some other use.

Unfortunately, too often these things are only thoughts and never actions.

It's "normal" to say it, it's strange to 'do' it. So, turn your thought process around and do what you say.

... meanwhile, I sure hope my towel is dry by morning.