CVS Sale Item of the Week Award (plus some info on filtering your water)

The CVS Sale Item of the Week Award goes to Pur water filtration items which are 20% off.

Getting a water filtration system can be pricey to start, and the refills are often expensive. I try to buy my refills at a wholesale club like BJs when I go home to NY. But if you don't have wholesale as an option, your best bet is to try to catch them on sale at CVS. We use Brita, but Pur goes on sale at CVS and Brita rarely does. So, i'd go with Pur.

Pur items deserve the award because it's important to filter your water. Check out these articles about what can be found in tap water. I mean, obviously Pur wants to scare you into buying their product, but what they're reporting is true. There's bad stuff in tap water and it's probably better (especially for children) to avoid drinking it all the time. It's not too hard, or really too expensive, to get a filter.

If you are worried about the cost of a filter system and refills, think about how much you spend on bottled water. Now, pay $20 for stainless steel water bottle, and pay about $30 for your filtration system. That's $50. If you buy a bottle of water a day this will pay for itself in a month. And you save bottles from landfills. And you don't drink plastic chemicals. And you don't drink other crap from your tap.

So, that's all! I hope I motivated you to start toting your own bottle filled with fresh, filtered water from home. It's good for you, and good for the earth.

Stainless steel water bottles

So I just came across an ad on the blog about stainless steel water bottles and I figured I'd try to motivate some of you to make the switch. The SIGG bottles we have here cost about $22 at Whole Foods, not exactly scrimpy. However, we managed to get ours at Crate and Barrel for $9 a piece, thank god. From what I can tell, you can also find them on ebay and other places online cheaper. Whole Foods also makes their own brand, but to me they seem uncomfortable to drink from.

Anyways, these bottles somehow make the water taste cleaner and colder, and alleviate any fears you have about what's leaching out of the plastic you drink from. They're great on the go, too, because they're extremely light weight. They'll pay for themselves in a few months (or weeks, or days, depending on how much of a bottled water fiend you are) and, in my opinion, are totally worth the expense. Buying them had been on my to do list for so long, and I'm so happy I finally have them! An added benefit is their eco-friendliness. We drink from them for our health (let's be honest), but saving all those bottles from landfills can't hurt either.

Plus, you'll look like all the cool kids with your sleek stainless steel bottle. Now, how can you pass THAT up, my friends?

Ooh! About a year ago we switched from delivered bottled water (which has who knows what in it anyways) to a Brita faucet attachment. Those are great investments, but the refills are SO expensive...my advice, buy them at BJs or another wholesale club. You save half off what you would pay at CVS.

Just a few ideas on clean water I wanted to share with all of you! I'll be back with a more interesting post later!

What we do to "green" our lifestyle

When I noticed that I don't write too much about the "greening" of our lifestyle, I asked Mike (my fiance) to help me compile a list of all the things we do to be kinder to the earth. Here's the list (I'm going to go all out with bullets and everything). I really intended for this blog to include techniques to live a "greener" lifestyle, and I think that goal has gotten lost a bit. I will write posts individually fleshing out some of these little things, but here's a quick list:

• Buying everything we can possibly afford organic (that includes Dylan's clothes at H & M)
• Using Dr. Bronner's organic castile soap for everything except the dishes
• Using Method natural dish soap
• We unplug every single electric appliance we have in our house (except for the fridge and alarm clock) to reduce our energy use
• When I forget our reusable bag, I save our paper bags and use them for gift wrap and other crafts
• I reuse all nice sized glass containers (like applesauce sized- before I started making it myself) to hold things that come in plastic (raisins, flax seeds)
• Recycle paper, glass, and aluminum
• I make my own paper baby wipes which I only use for Dylan's number twos
• I cut up an old pair of terry cloth sweat pants into squares and created a reusable wipe system for Dylan's pee pee diapers
• I use organic vegetable shortening on Dylan's booty instead of diaper cream with chemicals
• I use all natural cleaning supplies that I make myself
• We walk everywhere we possibly can and avoid taking the train
• We hardly use paper towels, we use dishtowels and I clean with a microfiber cloth that can be washed and rinsed and used forever
• We only use the dishwasher on the weekends
• I only use the dryer for half of my laundry. The rest I hand on a rack to air dry
• Always try to use the reusable canvas shopping bags
• I make everything I can myself. This helps me be green because I'm not using up all the packaging that comes with bread, yogurt, cookies, cakes, rolls, beans, etc...
• Our lights are on dimmers and we keep them off during the day and only on low when it's dark
• Use California baby on Dylan - it's all natural organic lotion
  

Green things I'm planning on doing in the near future:

• Container gardening organic lettuce inside
• Container gardening organic tomatoes and basil outside on my fire escape
• Using all natural, earth friendly laundry powder
• Use green dishwasher detergent
• Buy more organics
• I plan to visit the bulk bins at Harvest market in Cambridge to avoid packaging. I just have to check out the prices and etc...That's a trip for the springtime I think
• I want to find an all natural/affordable hair conditioner
• Make my own soaps and lotions
• I have a lot of containers saved (like the ones breadcrumbs come in) and I hope to be able to make Dylan some toys out of them
  

So that's a nice list of simple things you can easily do to green your lifestyle. I strongly believe that even if something is cheap or free, you should still use only what you need. The earth is everyone's home and we want to keep it going as long as possible! Of course, there's only so far you can cut back without living in the woods, but seriously, it's not too hard to only take and use what you absolutely need. It'll help the environment, and your bank account!

Just a few ideas, try a couple and you'll feel more green instantly :).

Organic and conventional can coexist!

While writing my CVS sale circular post I realized that this blog may contradict itself a bit. While I enjoy doing things as naturally and green as possible, I also understand that not everyone can afford to do that. That is why I will alert my readers when something goes on a great sale, green or not. Because of this, I feel like my blog doesn't fall into the "green" category, which sucks, because I don't think being green is an all or nothing endeavor. Furthermore, I think that people living a completely "green" lifestyle often scare everyday people away, because people think you have to transform your whole way of life. I try to strike a perfect balance between natural and cheap. Usually the two can coexist peacefully with a little work, but occassionally, I'm making the non-organic tuna noodle casserole with the Campbell's soup, ok? Even a little arsenic won't kill you, so I'm assuming that my family will be okay.

More of my life would be greened had it not been for me stocking up on amazing sales, but for now, I have plenty of laundry soap left and I'm not just going to throw it out to buy some environmentally friendly product. What I will do, however, is buy a different brand (or make my own) once that runs out. I just did the same thing with my $.99 Palmolive dish soap. I waited until all the soap I had ran out, and then went to Whole Foods and purchased a Method product (there's a cheaper one there for $3.39 for 25 oz.). I purchased the Method because I had a coupon from this season's Whole Foods circular and it came to a total of $3.49. I paid the extra $.10 because the Method one had a vitamin E type of thing in it to hopefully help my hands (even though I'm not such a believer in that kind of stuff).

I also encourage buying everything you can possibly afford organic, but for us it's just not 100% possible. However, I am working towards that goal every shopping trip. In fact, last week, I had my first entirely organic shopping trip. I spend a total of $32.23 (actually it was $29.23, I had a $5 coupon from my neighbor...so I added that because I know you don't have that coupon) and got:

- A gallon of organic whole milk (for yogurt making - costs half the price of buying organic yogurt) ($5.99)
- 2 half gallons of organic 365 soy milk (one vanilla and one plain) ($3.39 each)
- one pound of organic 265 black beans ($1.99)
- one 12 oz. bag of frozen organic 365 spinach ($2.19)
- one dozen organic eggs (used my coupon from the circular to save $1) ($3.49)
- 24 oz bag of organic pacific rim blend coffee (lasts us about 2 1/2 weeks - we DRINK coffee...a lot of it - this would probably last someone normal a month) ($9.99)

So, I walk home from the store - spring in my step - feeling pretty good about myself. I get home, and what do I realize? THE MILK ISN'T ORGANIC. It's plain Garelick (antibiotic and hormone free at least) and it was a DOLLAR more expensive than it is downstairs at CVS (to add insult to injury). Anyways, I amended my list for you to reflect what the price WOULD have been had I not been an IDIOT. What makes this even worse is that last week, Mike (my fiance) left our SIX DOLLAR GALLON OF MILK in the stroller and forgot about it. I still made yogurt out of it when I found it the next day because I couldn't stand to waste it, and it didn't make me sick, but it also didn't make me look forward to eating that yogurt. Ehh...

My point is that I'm not judging you! Buy what you can organic, and make the rest of your food from scratch with fresh ingredients when you can. Either way, eating carrots (organic or not) is better than eating baked Lay's. Fact.

When a deal is too good to pass up, I will let you guys know, and if you're already using a more natural, green product, and you can afford it, than of course that's always best. But since I created this blog to help all of us living on a tiny budget, I think it's important that everyone be aware of the sales going on! I know not everyone can afford to be totally green, all we can do is our best, right?

The good news is that since we've made the switch to more organic grocery shopping, I've noticed a change in our consumption. First of all, we buy less because it's more expensive. Second of all, because we buy less, we usually wind up using it all, and not letting any go to waste. When I would spend $20 on conventional produce, you could be sure I'd waste about $5-$7 of it, but when I spend $15 on organics I am sure to use them all. This has caused our grocery bills to remain close to where they were before we purchased anything organic.

And, overall, when I dread paying organic prices, I think of what I am actually paying for. I'm paying for food that has not been genetically modified, that has not been sprayed with poisons, that tastes better, and that is healthier and more nutritious for me, my family, and the earth. That helps, too.