Easy Steps for Living a Zero Waste Lifestyle

This morning, as I was checking email and Facebook (like you do), I got sucked into a video on zero waste—which lead to another video on zero waste, and another. It got me thinking about how much trash (and recycling) I create in a given day.

What We Did to Save Money This Month: June

[Total savings: $423]

June was not a very successful saving month. We had a conference to attend, which meant a road trip and things are never as cheap as they could be on a road trip. Plus, I hurt my back, which meant I wasn't able to do as much of the cooking or home maintenance as usual.

This is also the month that we started eating even healthier (and more expensive) foods & while we may have saved money on the purchasing of those foods, they cost more in the first place, so it's questionable how much we actually saved on food over the previous month. All the same, we're giving this a shot in hopes it will improve our long term health, which some might argue is immeasurable.

Simple Buddha Bowl Recipe for Clean Eating

This month my wife and I started a new "diet." Although we've both been moderately active and have eaten quite healthily for the last decade, we've both been hit with cancer (me once, my wife twice within a period of 18 months).

Like most people who have been dealt a traumatic health blow, we tried to exert control where we could, and this meant our eating habits and immediate environment. We started reading labels of EVERYTHING—food, lotion, shampoos, medicines... everything. We stopped buying items with unhealthy ingredients—Parabens, preservatives such as BHT & BPA. We greatly lessened our intake of processed sugars and sweeteners. We started eating mostly vegetarian, mostly organic....

And still, we suffer from aging and health issues—bad knees, aching joints, pre-diabetes, failing eyesight, increasingly worse allergies. Basically, we're getting older and feeling it.

How We Saved $8,000 Last Year (On Mostly One Income)

Last year, I hit an employment snag. I went from two, steady, semi-well-paying jobs to none. We had just bought our house and were working on making improvements when the rug was pulled out from under us. A quick search of the Internet told me that this was a pretty common occurrence for a lot of people. I had lost both a contractor job that I'd had for 15 years and a teaching job I'd had for 4 years.

After some shock and a few choice words, we got our rears in gear & both started looking for freelance work (in addition to my wife's full-time day job)—me doing graphic design, and her doing freelance writing. I tightened our budget, started looking for ways to save on food & utilities and figured out that with a little work, most months we could subsist mostly on her paycheck alone. It wouldn't be pleasant, but we could do it.

Thankfully, I got two steady freelance clients that helped fill in the gaps fairly early on in the process, but I kept our budget as lean as I could.

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How To Make Your Own Cold Brew Coffee

There are lots of fancy cold brew contraptions out there, but honestly all you need is a mason jar, some cheesecloth, a rubber band, coffee, and water.

Limited Time Cash Back on Starbucks Coffee

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Right now, Checkout51* has $2 rebate on some light, medium, and dark roast Starbucks coffee, plus a bonus $1 cash back if you buy two 12 oz. packaged coffees or 10-16 count K-cups.

The Dietary Challenge: How to Eat Healthily and Not Blow Your Budget

This month provides a new challenge for us. We (me in particular) have been experiencing health issues that are mostly associated with getting older & we don't like it (who does, really?). So we're being more knowledgable and conscientious about what we eat and ways in which we can be physically active (without hurting ourselves).

Of course the added layer that complicates this is... the budget. How do we eat even more healthily while still trying to save money?