Light bulbs

I called this blog 'Changing the light bulbs' because I'm trying to make changes in my life. Each change is a lightbulb. Changing regular lightbulbs to CFs makes a more efficient running household. Hopefully I'll slowly change my personal lightbulbs to CF types and make my own life run a little more efficiently.

I'm continually surprised at how much I can cut money and still live. I am very saddened by this too as I'm managing to pay bills on X when we used to have XXX. Where did all that extra money go? Some went into my 401K, which I've just had to cancel. Some went monthly to my IRA and I paid extra each month on the mortgage. I saved each month for Christmas and I sent money each month to my brother, the missionary, in Peru. The 2 little dogs were groomed each month. All of these things have been stopped for now. Still, there was a lot of money going out that should/could have been going into savings.

There has been no offers on the house yet and not even any lookers in the last 2 weeks. I did check into refinancing and have decided to wait. It would cost around $5500 to refinance and it would be wasted if the house should sell. I've decided to keep the house for sale during the winter after all. A couple of co-workers helped change my mind as they both purchased their houses during winter. Can't hurt. I've starting bringing stuff back from the storage place, a few boxes each day. My plan is to have it empty by the end of the month and that will save me $100 each month. That and canceling my 401K will pay the bills for now. Not a dime extra though.

I'm hoping that as I watch my budget during these very lean times that I will learn something. Savings first. It needs to be treated like a bill. Good advice but I've never taken it. I think I will this time though. Stopping the 401K really hurt. I'm getting closer to retirement age every day. Cutting out lunches, snacks, teas, and casual buying was extremely difficult at first. I managed to hang on to $12, which was all I had, for over 2 weeks until my payday. I was very pleased with myself. I can do this. I want to do this for other reasons as well.

I believe that we rich First World countries need to cut back, to reuse, recycle, renew. Cutting back on my usage of gas, water, electricity, garbage, and other purchases is something I have been working on. There is a group called Riot for Austerity (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/90PercentReduction/) on the internet that I subscribe to. Their challenge is to cut by 90% our own individual usage. Wow, 90%. I'm not even close. Tracking things I found that I was already very close on the garbage, waaay off on the gasoline usage (I have a long commute), and not too far off on the electricity. The plan allows for natural gas usage but my area is all electric so while my electricity figures are higher than some I have 0 for natural gas. I figure it balances out a bit. If my husband didn't sit at home and watch TV all day the figures might be a bit lower. Most of the house lights have already been changed to CFs. We heat during winter with wood as much as possible (we have an efficient woodstove and we like it) and pretty mild summers. We haven't used AC but once this summer. My husband turned it on and I turned it off as soon as I returned home from work. At this time I cannot change jobs but I'm working to consolidate car trips and eliminate unneeded trips to save gas. Cutting out casual shopping has made a big difference in car trips. No fun trips to the mall saves money and gas.

Eating locally is another change I'm working on. It's hard because until recently I ate pretty much out of boxes and cans. I went to buy some more of the fish I like so well and found it came from Honduras! Ack. I bought local trout instead. There is a small farm that sells off the farm not too far from me. I've already purchased blueberries and raspberries from them. Potatoes should be available in a month or so and I'll want them too. Onions, garlic, salad stuff. When I bought such things last week I went to the grocery store because I forgot about the farm. The farm costs more but is fresher and definitely local. I did manage to buy spinach from the general area at the store though. It wasn't a part of the spinach recall, thank heavens.

I want to learn to cook more from scratch. Eat less meat. Eat more veggies. I'm not very fond of all the good veggies, unfortunately. I'm doing pretty well on less meat though. I took a pack of 2 pork chops from the freezer and instead of eating them as 2 meals I made a delicious stew. It'll take me several meals to eat up the stew. I cooked some lentils that were tasty and will fix them again. I need to experiment on cooking to find out more things I like. I used to cook for the husband and now I'm cooking for me. It's a big difference. More lightbulbs.