One Size Fits All

I am writing my thoughts down so I can look back and see my state of mind as it is right now.

By next December my husband and I plan on moving from Philadelphia. Where to? We’re not sure yet. Why are we moving? So my husband can go to medical school and get an MD. Also I am a bit sick of this city for a variety of reasons. The goal is to pay of all our existing debt before we move, so we’re planning on living entirely on my salary next year which will be $1400 net/month. Besides funding out respective Roth IRAs and a little bit left over for savings, almost all of husband’s salary will be thrown at his (and then my) debts.

What is the criteria for next living location? Low cost of living (NYC, SF, LA is out) and walkability. It also shouldn’t be too boring (I would like a nice library, ethnic grocery store and farmer’s market and preferably no big box stores taking up the personality of the place). If there isn’t a giant highway cutting the city/town in two that would be absolutely wonderful. I also am not too crazy about living in the midwest (Dakotas, Iowa), although the Great Lakes region is fine. Dust Bowl area is most certainly out. I am also paranoid about living along the Pacific Ring of Fire, especially because of the active volcanoes. Laughable maybe, but I also refused to visit a friend in New Orleans because I read about the possible dangers of flooding (this was before Hurricane Katrina). I would like to live in a place where there isn’t a ghetto every 10 blocks. There should be some sort of bicycle culture in the form of bike paths, bicycle clubs (Portland, OR, Madison, WI, and Burlington, VT and others fit this criteria). The town/city should also have a medical school and isn’t outrageously expensive for non-residents. The plan is to pay for most of the cost out of pocket. There should be job opportunities and more than one large employer. I am seriously thinking about starting my own business (bookkeeping, tax services)…but am too afraid for various reasons. Maybe I can start out small. I also wouldn’t like to live in some sort of disaster zone (like Galveston, TX that has the cheapest med school but is always hit my floods/hurricanes, etc). The place should also be feasible for us to settle down for at least 10 years. I am in love with the idea of living in New England for some reason even though I’ve never been north of CT. The town/city should also have an Amtrak station or a station that can connect with Amtrak.

I currently have a spreadsheet of every med school in the country and am filling it up with data on costs, demographics, cost of living (my estimate) and other stuff. Since the application process will begin next summer, we hope to have made up our mind by then.

Ever since I had the idea to use bathwater to flush the toilet I am bothered by the fact that millions of people use drinkable water to flush their sh*t. This is very troubling because I think I read that we are having a water problem. I was motivated by this idea on two fronts finances (water bill too high for my liking) and the rioting (Riot 4 Austerity project) goals.

I joined the Riot for Austerity mailing list sometime this past summer. I posted my baseline and then proceeded to figure out where I should begin.

Thinking that the goals were impossible to reach, I decided to try anyway and I am glad I did because my progress in three areas are fantastic! They are: electricity, transportation and garbage output.

Electricity: We switched to using wind powered energy in August. Although there are highs and lows in how much electricity we use, we average about 300 kwh per month. Because we use wind energy, we get a “payback”, so we use 75 kwh per month which is below the riot’s goal. I would still like to reduce our usage, because I think for two people who are barely home, 10 kwh per day is a bit high. I suspect most of the wattage comes from our two luxury items: our desktop computers. I would like to eventually move to a laptop, but since our desktops work well I’ve been delaying the purchase. Using a laptop will also allow us to live in a small space because we have these two giant machines taking up so much room. Another watt sucker is probably our fridge. Since we rent, and have always been renters to date none of our landlords have had incentives to get energy efficient refrigerators. I’ve been playing around with the idea of turning off the power on one day per week when it gets really cold.

Transportation: Since we are car free, we rely on public transit to get to work. We use our legs or bicycles to get around else where (such as to get food, or meet friends). My usage is 40.32 gallons per year. My husband’s is even lower at 21.75 gallons per year. My commute is longer than his. Besides getting to work, we almost never use public transit. Riot’s goal is 50 gallons per year. Yesterday I finally figured out what 1 barrel of oil was. Its 158 (and a bit extra) litres. I am happy with our transportation usage and don’t have any plans on changing anything.

Garbage: I cheated a little bit here and used our more current garbage (past month) output rather than our average in order to figure out where I stand with the riot’s goals. Its now about 1lb per week which is less than the riot’s goal of 3.15 lbs per week. This drop has mainly come about after we began composting. We also have completely eliminated processed and packaged food so everything we eat is cooked from scratch. This has been especially nice because it means I can warm up in the kitchen since I am freezing my buns. I eventually want to produce zero waste so we’re working on that.

I am currently working on reducing how much water we use (by reusing bath water for flushing the toilet). Our gas bill is still around $40/month because we use it to heat water (for hot showers and washing dishes). We do our laundry with cold water and use a line dryer to dry our clothes. So there isn’t any more reduction to be had on the gas front (hee!). As for how much consumer goods we spent money on this year, I haven’t got the numbers. I stopped tracking our money when I got severely stressed at school for several months. Most of the electronic goods (crockpot, lamp) were purchased used. The soy milk maker, sheep skin slippers, and a few other items were not. Next year I plan on doing a lot of tracking. I plan on tracking income and expenses, food usage (such as pounds of flour) and cost, and any other metrics I can think of.

I received an email recently regarding the Winter Buying club and the email contained this little snippet:

Sam Consylman, our ever-curious forager and grower of interesting vegetables (google Sam!) is offering to three and only three Winter Harvest members a root cluster of Jerusalem artichokes (a corruption of girasole: It. sunflower) as they come out of the ground, sans dirt. Quite a conversation piece and edible to boot. First come first serve.

I am interested in the art of foraging but am scared to do anything about it. When my husband and I go on long bike rides during the summer, he is always picking and eating berries we find along the way. I am always nervous wondering if I will be a widow at the end of the trip, but the idea of foraging fascinates me. I eventually did eat some berries last summer, and I didn’t die, so now my faith and confidence has soared. So I googled Sam Consylman and found a fun to read and informative article. An excerpt:

Ten years ago, Mr. Consylman had been diagnosed with colon cancer. After months of chemotherapy and three operations, one that left him living with a colostomy bag, a student doctor in Philadelphia performed an OMP (osteopathic manipulative procedure), a hands-on procedure that successfully revived Mr. Consylman’s intestines, precluding the need for any more surgeries.
The stress of the chemotherapy and previous operations, however, had left Mr. Consylman’s insides permanently weakened. He was given six months to live and instructed to do the things he loves - hunt, fish, work on cars. Mr. Consylman lived far longer than projected, his daily activities causing five hernias in the process, however, eventually leading doctors to tell him to take it easy: Mr. Consylman was going to live.
“You can’t take anything away from God,” says this cancer survivor, “but I like to think because I was eating the way I was, my body was more prepared to fight this stuff.” Raised by his grandparents, Mr. Consylman ate mostly foods grown locally or found in the wild - dandelion, poke, morels. “This stuff hasn’t been messed around with at all,” he said. “It’s not hybridized; it’s not modified.”

So I am freezing my buns (its actually my toes, my buns are always warm), in more or less freezing wonder and perhaps one or two of you are wondering if I actually am freezing.

Well yes. But for about 3 days in the early part of the evening a few weeks back - I didn’t. I had a fever and a cold and sore throat, and didn’t feel like heating my hot water bottle and was in a grumpy mood in general. So I turned on the heat to about 65 degrees for a few hours to warm the house. This was for a few hours after work. I turned the heat off before going to bed, and the heated rooms were almost stuffy. I also used the dryer for the first time since the summer to dry some heavy items like our towels. Since we purchased the line dryer over the summer, we haven’t used the dryer in months.

So how did it feel turning on the heat and using the dryer? Well it was nice, but it also bumped my gas bill by $30!! So there is no way on earth I am ever turning on the heat again. If a few hours of heating a house can increase my heating bill by $30, I can imagine the heart attack I will get if I turn on the heat permanently.

Santa is coming! And after getting tired of his complaining reindeer, he is now delivering gifts on a motorbike.

I just made kim chee. The chinese cabbage, carrots, garlic and daikon radish are local. Additionally, we can use kim chee to make kim chee chigae which is a meat based soup and very, very tasty. One of the reasons I love making kim chee is, because its extremely easy to make, very inexpensive and can be made in parts which is perfect for someone lazy like me.

Since the end of tomato season and after we ran out of the last jar of home made tomato/pizza sauce, I’ve been really craving pizza. So I made pizza this week.

I wanted to eat tomatoes that were local when picked and hopefully preserved and turned into pizza sauce. I went to the Fair Food Farmstand and had no luck, but did purchase some local spelt flour. I then stopped by Kauffman’s Lancaster County Produce and almost was disappointed until I spied the stewed tomatoes. It had a vinegar as an ingredient that made me pause, but I purchased it. I was not disappointed. The toppings for the pizza were a herbed local cheese and a local feta cheese. It was most excellent.

I spent some time with the old folks yesterday. It had been a while since I’ve been in a car so I was more or less terrified of traveling along the street that is home to some of the deadliest intersections in the country. But, I survived and live to tell the tale…

For one, I was amazed at the conversation. I know I mentioned that I had nothing in common with them, but I spent three hours listening to conversations about driving: driving on this street to avoid traffic cameras (which save lives), driving on that street to avoid the traffic, driving on this other street because people who turn left on this intersection are faster than people who turn left on this other intersection. That was the topic: driving. Mind numbing doesn’t even begin to describe the conversation. Of course, when I agreed to hang out with the old folks, I was not thinking clearly. I had finals, papers, and was losing hair due to stress. Next year, I am opting out of this craziness.

I should add to my growing list of pet peeves that if there is anything I really despise as a conversation topic its anything related to driving. Or parking.

After the event I took the bus home and along the stretch of Roosevelt Blvd, its nothing short of butt ugly. Actually, its uglier. There are car dealerships, strip malls, wide streets that are uncrossable on foot, parking lots, strip malls, parking lots. And everything has been made flat. Bulldozed into some sort of conformity that is just disgusting to look at. And the worst part is that its within the city limits, its not the suburbs.

So in the moments when I am struck by such ugliness I started reflecting on the fact that I live in a bubble. In my bubble everyone eats organic food, more or less in season and buys fair trade coffee and rides their bicycle. In the old folks’ world, organic food is a scam to get one to spend more money on food. I’ve come to the conclusion that if I don’t spend money on food what else should I spend it on? Consumer goods? I’m sure consumer goods will cure diseases one day. Not the healthy food.

I purchased a whole chicken (and some extra breast meat) a few months ago and it cost about $30. The person selling it looked nervous when I asked the price. I thought it was a fair price. First there was the cost of the egg, then the feeding and caring, then the killing of the bird, cleaning up the mess, removing the feathers and inner organs. That is time. Isn’t time money? I read a long article yesterday that asks these sort of questions and provides some answers.

I remember feeling all happy and positive about the state of the world over the last few trips to the farmers’ market, but now I am wondering if we’re all doomed. DOOMED!!!

I found a farm subsidy database that tracks who gets how much money in farm subsidies. To understand the history of the farm subsidy bill, a reading of the Agricultural Adjustment Act will be necessary. It was originally part of FDR’s New Deal package that was reformulated after it was ruled unconstitutional and then repackaged again during Nixon’s reign because of a wheat deal with Russia. I’ve read a lot about this through the New York Times which recently opened its archives from 1851 to 1980 to the public.

Answer: Hanging out with old people with whom you have absolutely nothing in common. In other words, they dislike their spouses, think “organic food” is a giant con to get one to spend alot of money, are very religious (in the sense that they think that there is a heaven and hell and satan), eat lotso processed and crappy food. I really don’t know if I can stand talking about BS for several hours…I guess I will manage as I have always done.

Today I made a budget that makes me happy. It has my new salary (now that I’m working full time) and my husband’s salary divided proportionately between all our little categories. Since I will finally have some wiggle room, I can have categories such as “recreation” and “charity”. While the budget will go into effect on Jan 1, 2008, the ultimate goal is to pay $0 in taxes.

The most I’ve paid in taxes was 6 something percent of gross salary in 2005, and it really upset me for a variety of reasons. Since then, I read up on ways I can legally reduce my taxes without feeling deprived. My favorite initial resource was the DON Method (Don’t Owe Nothin’). Last year I paid 1.23% of gross income in taxes. This year I am expecting to pay $0 in taxes nor get a large refund. I might get a bit of a refund for education credits. I used the IRS withholding calculator to aid me with adjusting my withholdings. Since I can have a Roth IRA in conjunction with a regular retirement account, I plan on funding it as much as possible with the goal being the limit of $4,000. But first I need to open one. To date I’ve been contributing toward retirement just enough to get matching contributions from my employer. I plan on opening a roth IRA account as I would like to max it out every year from now onward.

Of course I should admit that doing my taxes is one of my favorite annual activities. And I can’t wait to do my 2007 taxes. Nor can I wait to implement my 2008 budget.

Now that I have my new soy milk maker and nigari (a coagulant), I have begun making tofu. Its easy to make, saves money and removes the plastic packaging that tofu comes in (which cannot be reused easily). Below is a howto on making tofu (with pictures!). 1. First make soy milk 2. Heat soy milk 3. Prepare the nigari solution (dissolve a tablespoon or so in warm water) 4. Prepare tofu mould 5. Pour nigari solution into heated soy milk and stir. 6. When soy milk curdles, pour into mould 7. Cover the mould and place heavy object on the mould to drain water. I used a bottle of honey 6. Tofu!

Its in the mid 30s this afternoon. I am sitting in my warm sheep skin slippers with my hot water bottle on my lap knitting my second pair of socks for my husband. The pattern is interesting enough that it isn’t boring me, and it looks really nice. I’m really enjoying the fact that I can just knit without having to worry about homework or papers or any other nonsense regarding school.