Our Journey to Green

This post is a submission to December’s APLS Blog Carnival. Read about the journeys others have taken and are currently taking at The Conscious Shopper, one of my favorite green blogs, on December 18.

We’re deep into goal setting for 2010 around here so the topic for December’s APLS Carnival fit into our ongoing discussions perfectly. Below is an overview of the main vehicles that led us to begin making changes to live a greener life. I’ll be reviewing our progress towards our 2009 goals and laying out our goals for 2010 in a future post.

Our journey began more than ten years ago with finances as the impetus. As I wrote on our sister site, Family Profits, when we met both Rich and I were carrying significant student loan and credit card debt. The total when we finally added it up (it took us a couple of years to work up the nerve) was more than $180,000 worth of debt. That’s right, we were $180,000 in the hole even after making payments for several years. Not a good place to be.

We knew we wanted to pay off all our debt. Since we worked mainly in nonprofit organizations, we weren’t bringing home the Big Bucks so had to learn how to be super frugal. One of the unanticipated benefits of living frugally was that it was also a green lifestyle. We didn’t buy much of anything and the few things we did buy were often used. We were all over Reduce and Reuse because those actions saved us tons of money but we began to love the difference it made to our impact on the environment as well.

The next leg of our journey was spurred by medical issues. A week before our wedding, a driver ran a red light and T-boned my car, narrowly missing a direct hit to the driver’s side door. My car was totaled and I was injured pretty badly. My recovery took more than a year and led us to explore complementary and alternative medicine. Rich gave it a try as well and soon discovered that his back pain, for which surgery had been recommended, completely disappeared when MSG was removed from his diet.

We began to pay close attention to the food we consumed and as a result made many changes to our diet. We switched first to less processed foods, then to whole foods, then to locally grown organic options. Our spending on food remained fairly constant during these switches, in large part because we traded “convenience” for healthier options. A host of green living topics were revealed to us through these changes and we’re now huge proponents of organic farming, local food options such as CSAs, and the Slow Food movement.

The decision to become parents sparked the next shift. There is nothing like being completely responsible for the health and welfare of another living creature to get one’s attention! The more we learned about fetal and child development, the more concerned we became about items that had alwasy seemed innocuous. From baby lotion to sippy cups, there were serious matters to consider at every turn. While scientists argued about potential long-term effects and “safe” levels of exposure to various chemicals and compounds, it was clear to us that our first job as parents was to protect our children and so evoked the Precautionary Principle whenever we weren’t sure what to do.

New changes, like storing food in glass containers and making our own cleaning supplies, were implemented. And it became clear that the journey to a greener life was one that could last our whole lives.

Now that our daughters are a little older, the lives lived by other families is becoming the driver of change for us. We want all children, human and animal, to have the chance to grow up healthy and strong. We’re talking a lot this month about what we can do to help make that a reality but I can already see that more alterations will be coming to our lives soon. And I can’t wait.

Go Green and Save Money or Save Money and Go Green?

This post is part of August’s APLS Blog Carnival. Learn how to go green and save money by visiting Going Green Mama on August 19 to read all the submissions.

I appreciated the opportunity to write about this month’s APLS topic “Green on the Cheap,” in large part because it has given me the opportunity to make a public confession. I didn’t begin my green journey because I was troubled about the plight of polar bears or was appalled at the size of my carbon footprint. Nope, my initial reasons for going green had nothing to do with living an eco-friendly life. I simply wanted to get out of debt. Read more

Business Review: TerraBurger

My family’s summer just got better. This week TerraBurger opened its second location in northwest Austin at 10611 Research Blvd, right by Costco. Now we have a healthy option for a quick meal at a family-friendly restaurant – what a treat!

When we saw TerraBurger’s sign go up several months ago, we were curious but frankly more than a little skeptical. Lots of businesses have jumped on the green bandwagon for marketing and little else. We wondered how green Terra Burger’s operations would really be. We checked them out online and were impressed with what we saw.

From their website:

At TerraBurger, Rule #1 is “all natural”–we won’t serve anything that contains artificial ingredients, period. No artificial colors or flavors. No flavor enhancers. No trans fats. Nothing highly processed. No artificial additives. In fact, we have an extensive list of banned ingredients that don’t make the cut. For more detailed information on the practical meaning of “all natural”, go here: http://www.naturalingredient.org/naturalingredients.htm. Read more

Make Your Summer Easier and Cheaper with Rechargeable Batteries

With the official start of the summer just past, many are looking to simplify their lives and their spending. One easy way to do both is to buy rechargeable batteries.

Vacations and warmer weather can increase the amount of time various battery operated devices, such as video games, cameras, and electric shavers, are used. Rather than blowing through batteries, which are expensive and can leak their toxic contents (including lead, cadmium, and acid) if not disposed properly, check out rechargeable batteries. Since experts report that 180,000 tons – more than 15 billion batteries – are discarded in American annually, this small change can make a big difference. Read more

Recycling Vision

During the holidays, many parents will be thrilled as they watch the eyes of their child light up with the wonder of the season. But for some parents, looking into their child’s eyes is a painful reminder of vision problems they cannot afford to address. If you have old eyeglasses or sunglasses sitting in a drawer, there are several organizations who would love to help you pass them along to someone who needs them. Read more

Shopping at Thrift Stores – Good for the World, Good for the Wallet

I posted earlier about our back-to-school shopping trip but wanted to go into more detail about the benefits of thrift store shopping. When we initially considered shopping at thrift stores, my first thought was, “Ick!” In case that is also your reaction, here are some reasons to consider it.  Read more

A Good Home for Used Books

As our children have become older, they have outgrown not just their clothes but also their books. Now I know exactly where we should send the books that no longer fit – to the Reader to Reader program.

Profiled in today’s The Christian Science Monitor, this organization collects gently used and new books for children and teens and then distributes them, free of charge, to school and public libraries in the countries’ poorest communities. When I learned Reader to Reader also sponsors mentoring programs to help young people learn to love reading, I was completely hooked. Read more