One Size Fits All

These are some of my favorite posts on The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, who says:

I’m working on a book, THE HAPPINESS PROJECT–a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t. On this daily blog, I recount some of my adventures and insights as I grapple with the challenge of being happier.

* Seven tips for making someone like you
* Blocked? Frustrated? Procrastinating? Put yourself in Creativity Boot Camp - “You tackle your project in an intense, concentrated way, and push yourself far harder than usual.”
* One big tip for changing the way you think
* Seven tips for making yourself happier IN THE NEXT HOUR
* As promised from last week, I tackle the question: “what is happiness?”

A little learning is a dangerous thing
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring [216]
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
- Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism

This past weekend, my husband and I visited Greensgrow Farms for the first time. We rode our bikes there and it was a really nice ride. It was my first time on farm of any sort so I was especially excited. We purchased an eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes, red peppers, cucumbers, peaches, apples, grapes, seitan and bison meat. And a water melon. Since it was my idea to purchase the watermelon, I offered to carry it. Almost cracked my spine riding with that thing (I really should purchase panniers)

Later that night I made baba ghanouj and broiled the bison meat (which had been marinating in a mixture of garam masala, salt and olive oil) and served it with some left over stuff grape leaves, pita bread and olives. A most excellent meal.

Classes begin today. Blogging will be light from now onward.

The Worsted Witch is one of my favorite blogs. The author, Jasmine, combines more interests of mine together on one blog than any other blog I know of such: knitting, the environment, eating locally and voluntary simplicity along with many other topics. Here are some of my favorite posts that I’ve saved:

* Zhena’s Gypsy Tea - “Not only is Zhena’s a woman-owned business—she started out pedaling from a cart—but its teas are also organic- and fair-trade certified. The Ojai, Calif.-based company buys wind power through the purchase of green tags to offset its carbon footprint. And the reusable, refillable, and recyclable tins, which are made in a fair-trade facility in China, are absolutely luscious to behold.”

* Yahoo’s Green House - “Yahoo, which recently went carbon neutral, has a pretty nifty interactive walkthrough of an eco-friendly abode on its Earth Day mini-site. The tips are concise, as well as instructive without being too technical—nothing that will have you screaming for the hills, raging about those damn dirty hippies, anyway.”

* The Deadly Chemicals in Cotton

* Hub’s Guest Review: Larry’s Beans - “All of Larry’s Beans coffee is shade-grown and certified organic (or transitional organic); 97 percent is fair trade, while the remaining 3 percent is the company’s Kauai Blend from Hawaii, where it says there is no need for fair trade.” ” We also dug the fact that the bags (with designs that rocked my illustration-loving socks off) were resealable—a minor, oft-overlooked detail, but one that enables the packaging to be reused, even long after the last cup of coffee has been drained.”

* A Greener Delivery - “Sometimes we can’t help but order something online, especially when we can’t get something we need in a nearby bricks-and-mortar store. But rather than encourage excessive waste and nonbiodegradable, polluting packing materials such as styrofoam peanuts—plus your inclusion on catalog and junk-mail lists—you can make yourself heard by including a note with your online order”

* Fight Grime, Twist and Shout - “Twist, a new eco-friendly household products company, might be onto something, although it’s not without its shortfalls. The Boulder, Colo.-based outfit has sent out into the marketplace a 100 percent all-natural and biodegradable Loofah Sponge ($4.99 for a pack of two) that is part cellulose-cotton sponge and part Loofah plant fiber. (The cellulose comprises tree fibers from renewable-tree farms.)”

* New at Tenth and Grant - “six new notebooks […] printed with soy inks on recycled paper and chipboard.”

* Tips for the Frugal, Luxurious Life - “Someone asked me if Frugal Luxuries, which I quoted from earlier, trod the same ground as Your Money or Your Life—it almost seemed that way in the beginning, but as Tracey McBride began to neatly (and maternally) check off the different aspects of frugal living—from finances to food to your wardrobe—while drawing from her family’s experiences, it became clear that hers was more reminiscent of the housekeeping manuals of the past, updated for our post-Susan B. Anthony era, of course. “

When I am not too busy with school one of my favorite activities is to bike along the Schuykill River Bike trail that goes all the way to Valley Forge. We usually bike to Norristown and back (total of 40 miles) and have a pitstop in Norristown at an excellent Mexican restaurant with $8.00 vegetarian burritos. Tasty!

Image from lizzylizinator

In addition to the frugal habits I mentioned before, here are some additional habits I follow. These ones are fairly new (less than a year old).

1. Don’t buy trash bags. We use grocery bags from the groceries we buy. But since we use our own cloth bags in bagging groceries we usually get bags from other places that are heading for the landfill.

2. We compost. We’ve been composting since June, 2007 so that cuts down on trash.

3. We don’t drink soda. We mainly drink water, coffee, tea, beer and wine. Alcohol is budgeted for. Juices are very rarely purchased mainly because of the bulky containers they usually come in. We’re saving up to buy beer making supplies so that will be a smaller expense soon.

4. I cut my husband’s hair (have been doing it for 7 years we’ve known each other. By “cut” I mean I use a buzzer). I also began cutting (trimming) my own hair recently which used to be a $20 yearly expense previously and somewhat inconvenient (the closest Super Cuts is a pain to get to). I have long hair that I don’t do anything fancy with so its pretty easy.

5. Do my own manicure. Usually I don’t do anything with my nails but sometimes I like to be a little girly.

6. Don’t use fancy pants cleaning supplies. We use vinegar, baking soda, a good scrubber/brush and elbow grease for all cleaning needs.

7. New stuff is purchased at Ross Stores (an off-price retailer where all merchandise is 20 - 60% below regular department and specialty store prices). For example I recently purchased a box set of perfume which came with a mini size perfume + body lotion + body scrub for less than $30. The perfume itself from the manufacturer’s store is over $30).

8. Only use a cell phone (we have no landline) with prepaid minutes. We pay an average of $10/month.

9. Have introverted friends like ourselves. So a good time means meaningful conversation + good meal usually at someone’s home. Not clubbing or drinking binges.

10. Use public transit/bicycle to get around. My employer subsidizes the entire cost of a transit card so my transportation expense is $0.00. Everyone at my job should be taking the bus or train to get to work because it costs them nothing, but few do. An additional bonus to taking the transit, I get a lot of reading done while sitting on the bus and subway train.

Why are we doing all this? What is the end goal? To date we did these things so that we could live within our means while we’ve been in school. But after graduation it will be so we can have more options - on where to live or how to live or retire early and so on.

I enrolled in Peco’s Wind Energy Program. Below is an excerpt from the confirmation email I received. I hope this decision doesn’t kill too many migratory birds that aren’t pigeons.

Thank you for choosing PECO WIND energy!
Your commitment to purchase PECO WIND energy will help create a healthier environment by reducing the need for electricity produced from other sources. As more people sign up, more wind farms will be built in Pennsylvania. This means cleaner air and water, and a more secure energy future for everyone!

PECO WIND energy is a product of PECO and is supplied by Community Energy, Inc.

This e-mail serves as our receipt of your enrollment request. We will send an official confirmation of your enrollment by U.S. Mail within ten business days.

Thanks again for your interest and we look forward to your participation in the PECO WIND program! If you have any questions about the program, please call us at 1-866-WIND-321 or visit us on the Web at www.pecowind.com.

Sincerely,

PECO and Community Energy

Here is a smart 16 year old. I wish her well and completely understand her point of view. An excerpt:

The hostility I’ve encountered on the streets of Toronto as a cyclist is astonishing. Once, biking home from the beach a car sped by so closely that its side-view mirror actually brushed my thigh! If this idiot had pulled any closer to me, I would have been knocked off my bike. And for what? So he could be the first to wait at the red light 100 metres away?

Here are my favorite posts from No Impact Man.

* Making bread (includes his recipe for making bread which I haven’t had a chance to try yet)
* Stopping the junk mail tree killers (I’ve tried many of the suggestions and they’ve worked. I have not tried subscribing to Green Dimes. I do compost some of Wall Street Journals. My worms appear to like them.)
* How we avoid making trash
* Slimy pets to eat your garbage and entertain your kids
* On not letting eco-dogma start the next war

Since I love reading, I love attending book readings. Its free and you get to be part of a (usually intimate) audience that is really into reading.

Earlier this evening my husband and I attended a reading by William Gibson. My husband is a fan of his and I’ve enjoyed his short stories from Burning Chrome such as Johnny Mnemonic and Fragments of a Hologram Rose. I am more of a Alfred Bester fan. But he’s dead so no readings there.

Anyway, attending readings is free, enjoyable and fun. And its one of the many frugal activities that I try to do as often as possible.

I began my undergraduate degree in the Fall of 1999. My parents paid the first semester’s tuition bill by taking on debt. The next three semesters (and two summer sessions) were paid with parents taking on debt, me getting a scholarship and me paying tuition with a credit card.

I then quit college for two years.

When I returned to college in 2003, I switched majors and essentially started from scratch. But this time I was paying the tuition bills out of pocket.

The first semester I could only afford one class. I was making $28,000 (salary). The second semester I was able to afford one class again. But from then on, as my salary went up (all the way to $40,000 in 2006) I took as many classes as I was able to afford. In the spring of 2006, I was a full time student and full time employee.

Since my job had nothing to do with my major, I quit (along with some other reasons), and obtained an internship in my field. Working part time, I was back to taking on one class per semester. I then decided to take on some student loans so I could finish up and get my degree.

Earlier this year, I decided to go into debt and took out loans. Earlier this year, I also found another internship with an organization where one of the perks was tuition reimbursement (up to four classes per fiscal year). So I was able to avoid taking on 4 classes worth of debt.

I hope to graduate toward the end of the year with about $8,320 in student loan debt of which $5,500 will be subsidized student loans.

One reason I decided to take on debt, in addition to wanting to graduate this year was because I was having trouble impressing potential employers with my debt free lifestyle. I assumed that as an accounting major, the fact that I was paying for tuition out of pocket would be impressive to people. But it wasn’t. I interview fairly regularly as I think its a good habit, and finding that no one single potential employee was impressed with my ability to avoid debt was very much of a downer.

If I had to do it all over again and I magically had good circumstances surrounding me, would I change anything?

Probably not. As I think the lessons I’ve learned about money to date will serve me well for the rest of my life.

I am reading a phenomenal book: The Party’s Over. Here is an excerpt about transportation. Specifically the car. Which I have a strong distaste for. I will go as far as to say that I have strong feelings in my hatred towards the car than I do for anything else on the planet:

Henry Ford, America’s most prominent automotive industrialist, proposed making cars so cheap so that anyone could own one. Ford made sure to pay his factory workers enough so that they could afford to buy a coupe or sedan for themselves. However, as inexpensive as the Model T was by today’s standards, it still represented a cash outlay beyond the means of most American families.

Automated, fuel-fed mass production was proving capable of turning out goods in such high quantity as to overwhelm the existing demand. Until this time, the average family owned few manufactured goods other than small items such as cutlery, plates, bowls, window glass, and hand tools. Virtually none had motorized machines, which were simply too expensive for the typical family budget. The industrialists’ solutions to this problem were advertising and credit. More than any other product, the automobile led to the dramatic expansion, during the 1920s, of both the advertising industry and consumer debt.

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the finances and the concept of happiness for most of my adult life. I am always thinking about these two issues and spent alot of time thinking about it during the past few years’ housing bubble. Why were people so obsessed with the idea of “owing” four walls and a roof? What does owning a house really do to one’s self worth?

My husband recently sent me an article entitled “The Psychology of Subprime Mortgages.” Here is an excerpt:

The best evidence for this idea comes from the lab of Jonathan Cohen. Cohen’s clever experiment went like this: he stuck people in an fMRI machine and made them decide between a small Amazon gift certificate that they could have right away, or a larger gift certificate that they’d receive in 2 to 4 weeks. Contrary to rational models of decision-making, the two options activated very different neural systems. When subjects contemplated gift certificates in the distant future, brain areas associated with rational planning (the Promethean circuits of the prefrontal cortex) were more active. These cortical regions urge us to be patient, to wait a few extra weeks for the bigger gift certificate.

On the other hand, when subjects started thinking about getting a gift certificate right away, brain areas associated with emotion - like the midbrain dopamine system and NAcc - were turned on. These are the cells that tell us to take out a mortgage we can’t afford, or run up credit card debt when we should be saving for retirement. They are our impulsive pleasure seekers, the hedonists inside our head.

By manipulating the amount of money on offer in each situation, Cohen and his collaborators could watch this neural tug of war unfold. They saw the fierce argument between reason and feeling, as our mind was pulled in contradictory directions. Our ultimate decision–to save for the future or to indulge in the present–was determined by whichever region showed greater activation. More emotions meant more impulsivity.

And then Jim Kunstler pontificated a bit more:

At the other end of the storyline are the many sad people who were the initial dupes in the racket: the poor shlubs who signed “creative” mortgage contracts to become notional home-owners and thus achieve their spot on the first landing of the American Dream staircase. I say “notional” home-owners because somebody who “buys” a “product” such as chipboard-and-vinyl McHouse with no money down is not really an owner of anything but rather a kind of glorified renter stuck with the additional burdens of paying property tax and maintenance costs for something really owned by another party (a notional landlord). And, of course, we all know by now that the payment terms for these loan contracts were slippery sliding indexes which uniformly tended to slide upward as interest rates re-set above the ludicrously low levels of 2003 - 2006.

I like it when people put into words what I’m thinking, in a much better way than I ever could.

I save many posts from the many blogs I read because I think they are worth re-reading.

Here are some of my favorites from zen habits:
* Refresh Your Focus Every Week to Achieve More
* A Guide to Cultivating Compassion in Your Life, With 7 Practices
* 8 Practical Tips to Cure Your Internet ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder)
* Optimize Your Productivity with Daily, Weekly Routines
* 73 Great Debt Elimination Tips
* A Simple Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Life Goals
* The 12-Step Get-Out-of-Debt Program
* 80 Awesome Weight Loss Tips
* How to Actually Execute Your To-Do List: or, Why Writing It Down Doesn’t Actually Get It Done
* 18 Practical Tips for Living the Golden Rule
* Zen To Slim: A Simple, 5-Step Weight Loss Plan
* A 3-Step Cure for Digital Packrats, and How to Know If You’re One of Them