My friend Carrie over at NMTR has a blog and podcast that addresses natural mothering. Recently she posted that she would now be including some talk of money on her blog and asked for reader opinions. Does the subject of money management and frugality detract from the natural mom message? I say no.
For me, green living is a huge part of natural mothering and green living and a life of frugality go together like peanut butter and jelly. Think about it. What are some of the key areas of green and natural living? Recycling, repurposing, reusing, reducing, make smarter choices….are not these many of the same things that help us live frugally?
Now of course there are always exceptions. Green is the coolest thing to be nowadays and for many that might just mean hip dinner conversation, a few eco-friendly gadgets, and some new light bulbs. Remember my post on green consumerism? BUT this is not the case with the majority.
Reducing, reusing, recycling, composting, and minimizing our consumption are great ways to help the planet AND save money. When we give up paper towels to reduce our waste we are saving money. When we make our own planet friendly cleaners we are saving money. When we put old milk jugs in the toilet to conserve water we are saving money. The same action serves two purposes.
I think it goes to follow that since these two things go togther so well it would be a shame if we didn’t give them both the attention they deserve.
For more on living green AND frugal see my cheapskate series below:
Comfort and Style on a Cheapskates Budget
You Expectant Cheapskate
You Beautiful Cheapskate
Mommy Zabs:
There is an organic (vegetables and fruits) farm based out of Illinois called Angelic Farms, that is a co-op farm type of situation. One pays up-front for a years worth of organic produce and when the seasonal items spring up, they get delivered to your doorstep. Alas they have a waiting list too, this is becoming more and more popular as folks want to eat healthier and also for eco reasons.
Tiffany:
Frugality and living a more eco-centric life ideally should go hand in hand. But i think that some folks also are going green consumer happy. There was an article i read somewhere that basically stated that one of the best things one can do for the environment is to buy less, shop less, consume less, etc. I have done this kind of semi-consciously with just re-using alot. One of my fave sites on recycling and re-using is http://www.make-stuff.com/recycling
Have a good day, ladies.
Great post. I believe that any time you are making a decision to live life in a way that causes you to be discriminate to the products in your culture you are naturally making a choice to live more frugle. My spending habits drastically changed after I banned China as much as possible. What a great side-effect huh?! It’s so counter culture. It really just instills a healthy evaluation process we should have regarding the way we spend money anyway.
Question… have you ever written on shared farming? Not even sure if that is what it is technically called. But basically you have a farmer not far from you that does not take government subsidies and you by a subscription or time share of sorts for the season and they notify you when things are ready for pick up. I am thinking of doing this for the first time next year (the farm near me is on waiting list). I love the idea because it is so very hard to tell where our food is coming from at the store b/c of bad label laws. If this is something you know a lot about I would love for you to consider a guest post on not china made about it. I don’t feel expert enough to write well about it, but will If i can’t find someone else too :)
Great post!
If the economics don’t work, recycling efforts won’t either.
As our little contribution to make this economics of recycling more appealing,http://LivePaths.com blogs about people and companies that make money selling recycled or reused items, provide green services or help us reduce our dependency on non renewable resources.