It’a Thrift Green Thursday time at Green Baby Guide. They want to know what we’ve done to be thrifty and green, and I figure that fits my life just about perfectly. So what have we done? It’s been an evolving process for us over the years. I was raised to be very thrifty, and pretty green (I remember my mother carting van-loads of stuff to the recycle center long before recycling was cool – there was no curbside pickup of recycling back then). But I’ve come a long way since the days of Rave hairspray and glittery green eye shadow.
My husband and I bought our house in 2003. It’s about 1300 square feet, and we intended it to be a starter house. Once we got settled, we found that we really liked it, and didn’t want to move. We didn’t want a bigger mortgage, and we didn’t want to waste energy heating and cooling a larger place. So we did a little remodeling and made it work. We’re now a family of three, and still in our “starter house” – where we plan to stay. Not quite as impressive as Derek and his family, but it’s better than moving up to a 2200 square foot house.
Little by little, we’ve eliminated chemicals from our life. I use baking soda and vinegar to clean pretty much everything in our house, including the cloth diapers we use for our son (plus a tiny bit of eco-friendly detergent). I brush my teeth and wash my hair with baking soda, and use vinegar as conditioner. Baking soda is a lot cheaper than toothpaste and shampoo, and there’s no worries about what chemicals I’m sending into the water system.
We don’t use our dryer at all anymore. I have four clothes drying racks, and we just got a retractable clothesline at a garage sale for $1.50 last week. In the winter, I dry stuff on racks in the house – in the summer I set the racks outside. Cheaper, better for the world, and better for our clothes. Nuff said.
We also use the sun to cook our food – we bough a solar oven earlier this summer, and have used it almost every day since then. My husband makes our oatmeal in it every morning, and he’s also baked some amazingly good bread in it.
We just set up a hydroponic garden in our crawl space. Might not seem thrifty at first, since it was a bit expensive to get going. But we should break even within about 8 months, and after that we’ll be in the black. As far as being green, it’s a winner for sure. Homegrown veggies year-round, all organic, much less water usage than outdoor gardens, no transportation impact… it’s hard to beat.
I’m breastfeeding our son, and will continue until he’s at least a year old. Once he starts eating solids, we’ll be pureeing vegetables for him in our blender, and grinding up whatever we’re eating in a little portable food grinder. No baby food in tiny wasteful jars – it’s gotta be un-green to buy anything where the packaging takes up as much space as the contents of the container!! And it costs almost nothing to puree some veggies, freeze them in ice cube trays, and defrost at meal time.
My husband and I used to mountain bike several times a week, but that involved driving 30 minutes each way to get to the mountains. Now that we have our son, we’ve started trail biking instead. There are trails that start right behind our house – no driving involved. We strap our son’s car seat into the bike trailer and off we go. Great exercise, great price (free), great fun, and zero environmental impact. Not quite as thrilling as single track trails in the mountains, but we’re thrilled by different things these days. Like our son learning to laugh. And we both really like the fact that we’re no longer driving anywhere for our entertainment.
More and more we’re focused on our impact on the environment, and we’re actively trying to minimize that impact. We want our son to grow up with a great respect for nature and the world around us, and we also want him to be part of a family with a solid financial foundation. We’re working every day to mesh these two goals – and we find that more often than not, the green option is also the frugal option (solar panels are one exception we’ve come across lately, but we’re hoping that by the time we have enough money saved to buy them, the price will have come down a bit). You don’t have to make huge changes to be green, or to be frugal. Bike to work. Take shorter showers. Turn down your hot water heater. Use a drying rack. Keep the house a little warmer in the summer and a little cooler in the winter. Eat less meat. There are lots of little things that you can do that make a difference, both for the world and for your budget. Once you get started, you might find that you keep wanting to do more. That’s what happened with us, and we couldn’t be happier about it.
Jessica says
Are you vegetarians? If so, what did you do that was natural and healthy to prepare for having a baby? Are there any websites that sell more natural baby products than others?You’ve inspired me to start the green drinks and I’m sure that really helps to boost your folate. Great Blog!
Greenbaby says
I love the fact that you are a frugal family with an environmental slant. There is so much to learn in just this one post! I’m going to try to try the baking soda instead of shampoo tonight. Thanks so much for enriching Thrifty Green Thursday with your green, frugal wisdom!
Movingonup! says
Wow! You do a lot more than I do to keep things simple. I like reading websites like yours because although I don’t make all the changes to be frugal and green, I do make a few.
FrugalBabe says
Jessica – I was a vegetarian years ago, but started eating some meat after I moved in with my husband. He now eats meat about three times a week, but I don’t eat it at all anymore – I went back to being vegetarian about two months ago.
We started preparing ourselves for a baby about six months before we started trying to conceive. Kristin’s Raw has tons of great posts about the things you can do to get your body ready for a baby:
http://www.kristensraw.blogspot.com/
The green smoothies were something I came up with midway through my pregnancy, although I’ll be making them forever now that I know how great they make me feel and how much more produce we consume because of them.
As far as green baby products, I’ve found that less is more. For example, we haven’t used baby sunscreen all summer… we just make sure we keep our baby covered up with a thin blanket whenever we’re outside. And every other time we bathe him, we skip the soap all together. He still gets clean with a washcloth and water – it’s green, and very frugal. We made our own cloth diapers, and we use washcloths as wipes. We keep a little container of water by his changing table, and use that to wet the washcloths. Works great, we know it’s green since there’s nothing to throw away and no chemicals involved. The 18 pack of washcloths cost about as much as one container of wipes, and it will last until he’s out of diapers. Small things like that have made it so that so far we haven’t really had to go searching for baby products at all.
The furniture in his room came from other areas of our house (except the crib – my parents bought it used and called the manufacturer to make sure that it still met code… they fixed the things that didn’t). Most of his clothes were hand me downs – reusing is a great way to be green, and of course it’s frugal too. If you don’t go into places like Babies R Us, you won’t know what you don’t have, and you’ll probably be just fine without it.
Frugal Trenches says
Best post you’ve ever written! I’d love to know what mix/ratio you use with baking soda for shampoo and toothpaste, I’d love to make the switch too!
FrugalBabe says
Thanks FT!! For toothpase, I just wet by toothbrush and dunk it in a bowl full of baking soda.
For shampoo, I keep a container of dry baking soda in the shower. I get my hair really wet, and then scoop out a handful of baking soda and use it to scrub the top of my head. Then I get another handful and use it to clean the ends of my hair. I probably use about 1/3 cup total to wash my hair – they’re small handfuls. Once I rinse out all the baking soda, I spray my hair with vinegar that I keep in a spray bottle. Rinse that out, and I’m ready to greet the world. My hair no longer smells like shampoo – it doesn’t have any smell at all, which I like – since all those fragrances in shampoo are just chemicals anyway. Have fun with it!
FrugalBabe says
Green Me – I tried just dumping the vinegar too, but it used way too much… most of it just ran down my back. Spraying is a lot easier, and you don’t waste any. I started using vinegar as a conditioner a long time ago, with a regular shampoo. Now that I have the baking soda trick, I don’t have to buy any hair products at all. I learned this idea from Mrs. Accountability: http://www.outofdebtagain.com/
Green Me says
Great blog — I’ll add you my rss feed — we are working hard right now on cutting expenses and saving more! Thanks for the details on hair washing with baking soda. I tried a vinegar only challenge earlier this year, but didn’t like the results. Maybe the baking soda vinegar mix will work. Spray bottle is also a great idea, as I just poured vinegar on my head, and man does that burn your eyes!!!
Moneymonk says
1300 square feet- is not bad for a family of 3
I think you jump into a bigger house when a family is over 5
Clothes diapers is very cheap, because you always can reuse them
I also use baking soda not because of the price, simply because it gets the job done.
Baking soda can also be used as a deodorant
Moneymonk says
1300 square feet- is not bad for a family of 3
I think you jump into bigger house when a family is over 5
Clothes diapers is very cheap, because you always can reuse them
I also use baking soda not because of the price, simply because it gets the job done
baking soda also can be used as a deodorant
Christy @ Chrysler Creek says
We did the same thing with the cloth diapers and washclothes. I had received one of those baby wipe warmers though and so I filled that with plain water and then dipped the washcloth in it to use. Then the wipe was nice and warm.
I have gotten away from most of the chemicals by making so much of our stuff myself though. Then I know what is in it and that it truly is natural.
Karen says
Thanks for commenting! I’ve been enjoying your blog for a while now, so it’s nice to finally be part of the conversation!