Our Wedding

It's been a while - pregnancy has its distractions - but today I thought I would share how we managed to have a nice, simple wedding without borrowing any money, or even being under any financial stress!

Entertainment

Sustainability doesn't mean constant work or that you never get to have fun. There are also plenty of ways to have a blast on a tight budget. Rather than eating out, you can have some friends or family over and all cook a nice dinner together. And instead of going to the matinee, take turns hosting movie nights with friends with pizza and popcorn. There are tons of things to do if you just think a little outside the box.

Home Made Cleaners

You can save a lot of money and reduce the amount of bad chemicals your family is exposed to by making your own cleaning solutions at home. It's really easy and many say that they work as well or better than commercial cleaners. With the following simple recipes, you will have virtually everything you need to keep your home spic and span.

Birthdays and Holidays, All Those Gift Days

In the same spirit of Buy Nothing Christmas, I am posting on my birthday to let you know that birthdays and holidays do not equate to lavish gifts wrapped or bagged in the appropriate season's paper. In fact, for us, celebrations do not entail purchased gifts at all, but deeper, more meaningful expressions of appreciation for loved ones.

Affordable Organic Mattress Alternative

If you've ever looked at options for mattresses that don't off-gas harmful chemicals (as conventional mattresses do) you've found that they are outrageously expensive, nearly $300 for a baby crib mattress. Organic latex mattresses are even more expensive. But last year I found an interesting alternative.

Housing

Where you live is important, but should not be a financial burden. It should be affordable for you so that your housing is not a negative in your life. There are a lot of options for saving money on housing and I hope that you take the time to explore some of them.

Food

There is hardly a necessity in life more intimate than your food. It's what you eat, it's what sustains you. It provides you with energy to do work and nutrients to stay healthy. But we have become estranged from the food that we so depend on. Working on a farm, I find that many people do not even know how to identify staple vegetables when they are still in the ground. People are even becoming unfamiliar with how to prepare specific vegetables or what parts of them are to be eaten. Many Americans will sadly take whatever is handed to them over the counter at a fast food joint and put it into their bodies without having knowledge of what it is that they are actually consuming. So what can we do to reverse this process?

Consumerism

You've heard it a thousand times, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," but you may not have considered the applications of the motto. Modifying purchasing, usage and disposal practices is a great first step to sustainability. Today I will cover some very basic things that you should try to keep in mind (if you aren't already) about consumerism in general and reducing, reusing and recycling.

Expectations

If you are new to sustainability, you might not know what to expect. There are some concerns you can be relieved of and some adjustments you should be prepared for.