YEARLY

 

Monthly
Goal

 

Areas

Average U.S.

90%

April 2008

Gasoline (per person) - in gallons

42

4

-

Electricity (kwh) (household)

917

90

82.5

Heat +Cooking: Natural Gas (therms) (household)

83

1

32.5

Heat +Cooking: Oil (gallons) (household)

626

5

0

Heat +Cooking: Wood (unsustainable) (household)

10

8

 -

Garbage (lbs/year) (per person)

136.9

27.38

??

Water (gallons/year) (per person)

3,042

507

11.22

Consumer Goods (in dollars) (per household)

$10,000.00

$83.33

$129

Food: Local

 

70%

50%

Food Bulk

 

25%

0

Food Wet Goods

50%

5%

2%

 

Here are my April 2008 Riot 4 Austerity numbers.

Gasoline: I am not tracking my public transit usage since I am well below the 90% guidelines. I use public transit to get to work and walk or ride my bike everywhere else. Also thought I’d mention that I rarely car pool. (the last time I was in a car was in January 2008)

Electricity: This is wind powered electricity so I get a payback per the 90% guidelines. My bill averages at around $60. The electricity hogs are the fridge and our desktop computers. I am hoping to purchase laptops in the next few months.

Gas: This dropped from March’s 91.25 even though I’ve been showering more often that usual.

Garbage: I forgot to track garbage output. It isn’t any more than usual. We now put out a few full grocery bags every two weeks (ever since I began composting, I haven’t purchased garbage bags…we are now in the phase where we pick up grocery bags from the street and use it for our garbage), so in a way we’ve reduced how much garbage we put out. Our recycling bin was alot more than usual however. I’ve been recycling our beer bottles. Our garbage usually contains the following: random bits of plastic I cannot recycle, stuff tossed in our backyard by our kind neighbors, other junk.

Water: After I posted my March riot numbers, Karina wondered how my water consumption was so low since each person is expected to drink at least 15 gallons per month (based on the 8 glasses per day rule). Well I responded that both husband and I drank most of our water while at work. But the question did get me thinking. I do use the wash water to flush the toilet and do shower infrequently…but it still is a bit low. My reasoning now is that there is some flaw in the Water Dept.’s billing system. And I am not going to be the one alerting them to the fact that they might be underbilling me. So everyone shush about my water habits.

Consumer Goods: It was the sandals I purchased. It an expensive pair. If I were an outside observer observing my spending patterns I’d think that I love to spend a helluva lot of money on stuff that is otherwise inexpensive. Well I’m going to be keep plugging away at keeping my moral and ethics and other feel-goody emotions intact.

Food: The percentages are based on how much I spend on the food as this way of measuring made more sense to me. The food numbers are a bit off since I didn’t breakdown the grocery bill in April. For some reason April was a very busy month and I didn’t noodle around in Quicken as much I wanted to. May is a new month however.