Don’t Buy It Blog Featured on the Festival of Frugality

View the other cool blog posts with a baseball theme here. Best of the bunch from my perspective is 25 simple tricks to cut $100/month from your spending. Most of the tricks on this list, and other similar lists, we’re already doing and then some, but this one had a surprise for me. I had no idea that some mortgage banks charge $50-60 a month for the privilege of escrowing your money, and you can bet we’ll be checking to see what our bank charges for this service. For that kind of money we’re definitely able to save for our property taxes and insurance ourselves!

Don’t Buy It: Baby Strollers

Can someone please explain to me why anyone buys a baby stroller? If you have triplets or you run a daycare, OK, I understand (or I suppose more than two tots under the age of two in whatever combination). But for able-bodied people towing one baby, I simply don’t understand what use they serve. They are bulky and every bit as hard to drive as a shopping cart with a bum wheel. If you go anywhere and try to stop and do something you have to find a safe place to park them. (And then someone steals it!) They separate you from your cuddly baby, who then cries and complains at the loneliness of it all. And they decondition your toddler, who then screams and complains whenever s/he’s asked to use hir legs for the purpose God provided them. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on a baby stroller. Why?

Seriously, for babies too small to walk, allow me to introduce you to the Baby Bjorn, which is truly a marvel of modern engineering. Or a baby sling, which you can make yourself (although truthfully we had one, and we couldn’t really make ours work for us, but different strokes). Or, you know, you do have arms and shoulders.

Once they get big enough to walk, they can walk. We were amazed at how far toddler Floppy could walk, and how perfectly calibrated his abilities were to our stamina. When he was too tiny to walk at all, he was portable in a carrier. When he was big enough to walk a little, he was comfortable to carry on shoulders when he got tired. When he was big enough to be exhausting to carry, he could walk as far as we could with only a little encouragement. When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. For the millenia when human beings walked all day, every day, they didn’t have baby strollers.

Don’t Buy It: Wedding Bands

There are several reasons to “don’t buy it” when it comes to wedding rings. For women, their history includes the ancient Roman tradition wherein a man could claim you as property via the gift, and  for men, they are a delightful 20th century marketing invented need. And even if the history doesn’t trouble you, well, when it comes to diamonds and gold, as Racialicious says: exploitation is forever.

My husband and I were married in 1995. I was ambivalent about the symbolism of the whole situation: Well beyond the rings, I was reflecting on the reality that if he were female, there’d be no wedding at all. So the first don’t buy it approach we took to weddings rings was just…. don’t buy it. We didn’t have rings for the first 13 years of our marriage, and that worked out fine.

Sometime this year, though, we felt ourselves softening up towards them. But not softening up so much that we were willing to shell out that two months’ salary that the diamond shillers are always urging on you.

My husband and my mom came up with a don’t buy it solution to the problem of the blingy engagement ring. On Valentine’s Day, he gave me my grandmother’s wedding and engagement band set, which she had once upon a time had soldered together. We had the two rings separated and restored at a local  family-owned jeweler (for about $700), and now I have a gorgeous heirloom diamond ring for my engagement band, and my brother has the other ring to give on bended knee someday. The jeweler said that the rings — which were heirloom-quality to begin with — had quadrupled in value when the work was complete, so that $700 was worth the investment. If you are thinking of asking someone to marry you, you might consider asking both your folks and your future in-laws if there’s a family ring that you could hand down.

For the wedding bands themselves, we came up with another don’t buy it solution. We made them. Here they are (I made his; he made mine):

They are sterling silver, not gold. (We could have made them in 14k gold, for about $200-300 per ring, but I like the symbolism of a wedding ring that needs to be polished.)

I’d like to assure you that I have no talent whatsoever at handskills in general, and had never made jewelry before. We made these in one evening in a $35 class (yes, that included the price of the silver) offered by the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, but similar classes are offered in other places, by craft groups and independent jewelers. In Minneapolis, for example, you can do the same thing at Veberod’s Gem Gallery. (Please do comment if you know of other places in other cities.) I have heard that many small, independent jewelers — even if they don’t offer classes — may be willing to rent you studio and instruction time to make your own ring, so if you can’t find a class and want to do this it may be worth a call to explore the option.

Making your own rings qualifies as an intensely romantic, meaningful date, and you get a quality ring made from materials you choose. Having done it, I can’t imagine why anyone would buy them: they were easy and fun to make (with a teacher’s help and supervision), inexpensive, and they are deeply meaningful to us.

What have been your don’t buy it solutions to the come hither call of the wedding industry?

Don’t Buy It: Your Wish List

So I have this list. Kind of a dream list, or a bucket list. It has the things I’d ideally like to be doing with my life, the kind of place I’d like to live, things I’d like to have but cannot afford. Maybe you have a list like this, too.

I’ve been keeping the list for a couple of years now, and recently I noticed something interesting about it: Some of the things had crossed over from “wants” to “haves.” A place to go swimming and an ice-rink, for example — I always wanted those. Well, last summer I moved and bought a house that happens to have 75 feet of lakeshore and a sand beach. It came with a dock, a powerboat, and one of those swimming floats with a slide and diving board. Personal swimming hole: check. I now officially have nothing to complain about, right?

When winter came, my husband (bless his heart) shoveled off a regulation size hockey rink. Over and over again. (We live in New Hampshire. There is some snow.) My son was given hockey goals for Christmas.  Private ice rink: check.

You know where this is going, right?

So, guess how many times I went skating last winter? Zero. And how many times did I go swimming? Zero again.

The most luxurious house I have ever or likely will ever own, and I don’t even appreciate it. And yet here I am, looking for ways to tick off more things on my list. So today I sat down, looked at the list, and noticed this pattern. What I have been doing is working hard — very hard — to collect all the things (career, objects, work, people) on my list, obtaining some of them, and then feeling exactly no different (well, except more exhausted) than before.

I’m a scientist, and scientists use previously collected data to predict the future. And my future with this pattern of wishes fulfilled by hard work and achievement looked…. grim.

But what to do instead? If even my fondest wishes are steering me into misery and overconsumption, then what?

Well, today I looked at my list with a fresh eye. For each item on my list, I asked myself: what would you be doing that would be so much fun, if you had this thing in your life? In other words, I took all my wishes, and changed them from nouns into verbs.

For example, this was part of my old “wish list”:

• Hot tub
• sauna
• stone wood stove
• solar hot water
• geothermal/wood heat
• wind/solar electricity
• minimal utility use
• greater harvest canning/drying/preserving
• composting toilet with bidet seat
• big kitchen
• gold and white room
• a Japanese-style tea room/guesthouse
• a tree house
• a large dining yurt and indoor/outdoor kitchen with stone fireplace.

Can you imagine how much money or D-I-Y effort it would take to get all that? When I look at this list, I feel equal parts excited and hopeless. It seems so hard to get all of that. How could I ever be happy?

But look, here’s the same portion of the new list:

• Hot baths
• Hot baths with company
• Sitting in front of the fire
• Not harming the planet
• Canning food
• Drying food
• Preserving food
• Washing dishes
• Being washed by someone else
• Sitting down with others to prepare food
• Having a tea ceremony
• Climbing trees
• Sitting with a friend or a lover in the tree tops
• Being whimsical/fanciful
• Having guests
• Not having to clean much
• Having dinner parties indoors
• Having dinner parties outdoors
• Having tea and reading/writing in the trees
• Sleeping on the floor in a big room all together
• Sweating, then cooling off in the lake

When I finished this second list, this list of wish verbs, I felt excited, and liberated, and so free! Everything on the verb list sounds fun and satisfying to me, and everything on the list I could do right now. Most of it costs nothing, and could be done on any weekend or evening, just for the joy of it. My verb list has so much joy in it, in fact, I couldn’t wait to hang it up at home, for inspiration on some bored and listless day.

Both lists capture the kind of life I want to be living. But one list is effortless and light, and the other list is full of work, and maybe pain. And yet there’s only one difference between them:  One list captures my life in the things I could buy, if I only had enough. (Except, who ever has enough?)

The other captures my life as I live it — in verbs, in actions, in a thousand joyous moments, free for the choosing, free for the taking.

What happens when you convert your wishes from nouns into verbs?

Don’t Buy It Blog Featured in the Make It From Scratch Carnival

View the other cool blog posts in the carnival here. My favorite is the post about making your own eggs — homemade chickens is something we’d like to do here, someday.

Don’t Buy It: Frivolous Bedroom Accessories

Sometimes in this space I take on the big issues. Racism, global warming, parenting. Not today.

People buy a lot of trivial crap, so sometimes you need information about how not to buy a lot of trivial crap.

Guest room bedside water pitchers, for example. Talk about trivial crap. But I fervently wanted several of these for some time — the kind that come as a pretty glass carafe with a cup that goes over the top. They were pretty, they were practical in that way that only something wholly unnecessary could be “practical,” and besides that, the cat kept knocking over our water glasses in the night. Kind of a rude awakening.

But I could never justify the expense, and I never saw them on any kind of sale. But trust Martha Stewart to have a wonderful Don’t Buy It alternative: Turn an old-fashioned glass over a Collins glass filled with water. Instant, elegant, simple (cat-proof) pitcher and glass combo.

Not frivolous and trivial enough for you? Ms. Don’t Buy It has always wanted something else that practically defines useless extravagance. Sterling silver doorknobs: I wants them. However, I’ve never found any for sale, not even on Ebay, and even if I did,  well, I can just imagine what they would cost me. But if I can’t buy that, well at least I can make this:

As craft projects go, this wasn’t difficult. We removed the unbelievably cheap and crappy Home Depot brass doorknob from the door with a screwdriver, and attached buttons and charms and beads from the button box and craft stash with epoxy (after taking off the rings and backs with a wire snippers). My kindergartner got one doorknob for his own (vintage rhinestones, shiny gold and silver buttons) and I got the other (see above).  I still wouldn’t mind if someone gave me sterling silver doorknobs, but I have to say, our doorknobs do have a shiny fairytale gaudiness now that I much admire. And my son thought it was the coolest craft project ever.

What trivial things have you cleverly avoided buying?

Don’t Buy It: That Toy Your Kid Asked For

I got a request for a blog post about how you “don’t buy it” when you have a child who suddenly realizes that colorful plastic things on the store shelves can theoretically come home with you, if you’re just persuasive enough in your entreaties.

At first I thought I would just point to CNAD’s helpful resources on parenting in a commercial culture, but…. when I got home tonight I wanted a Coke.

Coke is a guilty pleasure for me. Coke has got to be the prototypical marketing-invented need. It has no nutritional value; it’s full of chemically refined, cheap, crappy ingredients; it’s expensive; it probably tastes so terrible that the only reason we drink it is because it’s been relentlessly branded and marketed and sold at us for so many decades now we just think it is wonderful. And yet, for about two years now, I’ve had a mad jones for it. Buying it has become a semi-regular thing in our family. And tonight, when I got home from my 12-hour day in the metaphorical salt mines where I toil, we were out. No Coke for me.

I made an unhappy face and went to take my bath, which is my other restorative evening action. A few minutes later my husband appeared with a glass full of layers of red, orange, and fizziness, a swizzle stick with fireworky foily things on top, a lime wedge, and two maraschino cherries. So, who wanted a Coke?

It reminded me of a weekend visit by a friend of mine and his three year old son, several years ago. We were enjoying waffles for breakfast, with chocolate milk. Until, that is, my son requested, and was served, the last glass of chocolate milk. “I want more chocolate milk, too,” said my friend’s son, in exactly the tone of voice the parents among you are already envisioning.

A look of panic started to spread over my friend’s face.

But genius took hold of me and saved us all. “Zane,” I said, “would you like a glass of pink milk instead?”

“Pink milk? Yes!”

And I stirred a tablespoon of grenadine into a glass of plain white milk. Which, it turns out, is both an attractive shade of pink, and delicious. Situation averted.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I know this, and yet in a wealthy, consumer culture I’m struck by how often we dull our inventiveness and our creativity by answering our needs and wants with money. The inventiveness is so satisfying — four years later, I still remember that moment with Zane fondly. And the work that generates the money is often so soul-numbingly dull.

It’s the same with kids. They don’t want toys, they want amusement, attention, opportunity. Every parent has had the experience of being begged for some shiny thing, giving in, and having the joy in it (and often, the thing itself) broken before the trip home is even finished.  I know that when my son asks for a toy on shelf, what he really wants is for something exciting and fun to happen to him. And yet I’m often so accustomed to dulling my inventiveness with a purchase that I don’t even stop to imagine …. what else could I offer? What could I say yes to that would be even better than this thing?

We recently took a vacation home to visit my parents. My son missed a week of school, so I told him we’d have to have “homeschool” for that week. Three hours a day, just like real kindergarten. Reading, writing, math, and something else. I didn’t have it all planned out, except that he would have to complete the journal his school sent home with him. I thought it would perhaps be a bit of a chore that we could enliven with field trips. When I got to my parents, I looked around and found my old Childcraft books, including one called Mathemagic! and another called Science Everywhere. I found some picture books my son could read to me, and a chapter book I could read to him. I found a math textbook my aunt wrote 30 years ago. This would be our curriculum. (God, doesn’t this sound boring?)

But it wasn’t boring. We made a field kit (go on, click the links for super cool science craft goodness) and went exploring in the woods I’d never been brave enough to visit as a child. We did puzzles with toothpicks and playing cards and secret math codes. We made glue. We did experiments with concoctions and paper clips and goo. We learned about the scientific method and Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall and Marie Curie. We made an abacus. He read his uncle’s favorite book to me, all by himself. For both of us, it was the most fun — the most quality time — we’d spent in maybe a year. And all we bought — all week — was a box of colored pencils, a new notebook, a cheap plastic bug net, and a can of orange juice for our experiments.

I agree with Dickon’s mom that “th’ two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way–or always to have it.” Sometimes a child really needs a boughten treat. But when children, or adults, long for things, sometimes what they really want is something good to happen. Something inventive, and exciting, and much newer and shinier than any plastic toy.

Don’t Buy (As Much Of) It: Electricity (Part 1)

With people all over the planet, we celebrated Earth Hour on March 28th, from 8 to 9 p.m, by turning off all of our lights, computers, power strips, etc. for that one hour. We spent the time sitting in front of the woodstove (which yes, uses energy and emits carbon, but which is also our main — and where we live, sustainable — source of heat in winter and early spring), singing songs, telling stories, and cuddling. We were honestly astonished at how incredibly nice this small event — which cost nothing and involved no preparation or effort — was for our family, how much we enjoyed just being together in firelight, relaxing and doing things people have done at their leisure since the beginning of time.

So we made it a nightly event. We shortened it to 30 minutes, so that from 8:30 to 9, most nights, we shut off all of the lights and the computer, sit together in candlelight or firelight or under the stars outdoors, depending on the weather, and sing, cuddle, talk, or read stories. Then we get ready for bed. It doesn’t happen absolutely every night, or for all 30 minutes every night – sometimes the time gets away from us — but it has enormous advantages as a daily part of our routine. It punctuates our day and reminds us to slow down and enjoy each other and the beauty of our home and natural surroundings. It reminds us to go to bed in time, so that we are not exhausted when morning comes. And, it’s simply enjoyable.

Also, as my brother said when I mentioned it to him, it’s a very small gesture that could be multiplied into a huge impact. If everyone, everywhere, practiced “Earth Hour” for 30 minutes daily, think how much electricity, energy, and environmental cost could be saved.

So that is my challenge to you is to try it for one week and report back: Did you like it? Was it difficult? How could we convince others to do the same?

Don’t Buy It: Caramel Rolls

The most decadent, and also absurdly easy, thing you can do with No Knead Bread is to make caramel rolls out of it. Caramel rolls have now moved into the category of easy weekend breakfast — these caramel rolls are just as easy to make as the kind that come in a can at the grocery store, only you get an entire 13X9″ pan out of them, and they taste better, like the most decadent bakery rolls. I got a request for specific instructions for how to do them, and here is how:

No Knead Caramel Rolls:

• 1 recipe No Knead Bread dough, finished with its nap and ready to bake.
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar, divided
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1/4 cup corn syrup, any color
• 3/4 cup walnut or pecan halves, optional
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Heat 1 cup brown sugar and 1/2 c butter to boiling, stirring constantly; remove from heat. Stir in corn syrup. Pour into ungreased 13X9 inch cake pan; sprinkle with nuts if you are using them. Flour a cutting board and with hands or rolling pin stretch and roll the dough into about a 15X10 inch rectangle (the dough may resist growing to or staying at this size; don’t worry about it, just get as close as you can and an approximate rectangle shape). Spread with 2 tablespoons butter, softened in the microwave if necessary. Mix the remaining brown sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle evenly over the dough. Roll up tightly lengthwise; pinch dough into roll to seal. Lightly flour the roll and slice one inch slices with a serrated knife; place evenly in the pan so they fit with small spaces between. Let rise in a very warm place, such as next to a woodstove or on a raised trivet on top of it, or inside your oven with the pilot light, for about 30 minutes or until the spaces are gone and the dough is about double in size (NKbread dough varies and sometimes takes a bit longer to rise fully;  the length of this step isn’t critical, but if you let them rise all the way double the rolls will be lighter and flakier). Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees or until golden brown. Immediately invert on a cookie sheet. Leave the pan to stand on top of the rolls for 1 minute, so the caramel can drizzle down. Remove pan and serve.

Most delicious, most easy, caramel rolls you will ever eat, I promise.

Don’t Buy It: Cleaning Supplies (+ free stuff!)

So, can you imagine a worse bzzagent than someone whose blog is called “Don’t Buy It”? But the irony must be lost on them, because they do send us products to test. The latest receipt was a giant box of Nature’s Source cleaners by S.C. Johnson, including toilet bowl cleaner, window cleaner, Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, and all purpose surface cleaner, all packed into the biggest Ziploc bag the world has ever known. Now, I have problems seeing S.C. Johnson as an environmentally responsible company. They make things like plastic bags, air freshener and bug killers — items with questionable value and clear environmental costs. But apparently they have a long record of being more environmentally responsible than other companies that make the same crap. I’m glad they disclose their ingredients and have voluntarily removed the ones that are actually known to be poisonous, but I’m not sure that counts for much.

The ingredients in this new line of cleaners are “green” in the most tone-deaf way. The window cleaner contains “corn-based ethanol.” OK, granted, ethanol is a natural product. But I don’t really want to clean my home with gasoline all the same. Both the toilet bowl cleaner and the bathroom cleaner are labeled as eye irritants, and state that they cannot be mixed with bleach without creating hazardous fumes (even though they contain no ammonia). All products state “keep out of reach of children and pets.” They contain synthetic dyes and fragrances. This is green? I believe that they are genuinely more environmentally friendly than other synthetic alternatives, but after all that, who cares?

In general we’ve found that cleaning “products” are unbelievably expensive and unnecessary. Homemade alternatives are much cheaper and work just as well. Here’s what we use for general household cleaning:

• Furniture polish: One part olive oil and one part lemon juice, stored in the refrigerator, shaken vigorously before use to polish wood furniture with a dry cloth. Mayo also works. Use either sparingly. A plain dry cloth and/or damp cloth works for other dusting.
• Linoleum or tile floors: Weekly sweeping and mopping with equal parts baking soda and white vinegar diluted in warm water. Can add a drop or two of lavender essential oil for antibacterial and enjoyment properties, but it isn’t necessary.
• Carpet cleaner: Weekly vacuuming. Occasional cleaning with a dusting powder made of baking soda scented with a few drops of essential oil (sprinkle it on, vacuum it up). Stains treated with hydrogen peroxide and a scrub brush. I hate carpet and wish we didn’t have any. Who needs a floor surface that requires an electric appliance for care and *never* gets really clean?
• Wood and marble floors: Weekly vacuuming. Occasional dusting. Damp cloth for spot cleaning as needed.
• Toilet: Daily swish and scrub with a toilet brush and a squirt of cleaning solution made by mixing about one part dish soap and/or shampoo with water. Occasional scrub with a pumice stone for mineral deposits.
• All purpose and glass cleaner: Plain white vinegar with whole spices (cinnamon, star anise, cloves) in the bottle for scent if you like. Plain white vinegar will leave streaks the first few times you use it, if you’ve been using commercial glass cleaner, because commercial glass cleaner has surfactants and other crap added to it. If it bothers you, a drop of detergent in your spray bottle with the vinegar will stop it. But I prefer to just stop the whole vicious cycle and live with the initial streaks when I move to new house. I clean the bathroom surfaces and mirror daily, and all other glass in the house once a week.

Mostly, it’s not the product that causes the cleaning, it’s the cleaning that causes the cleaning. If you do it daily and weekly, you don’t have to use anything harsher than water most of the time. On the other hand, I haven’t yet found good alternatives to Comet scouring powder for bathtub and shower cleaning (I’m too lazy for daily shower cleaning, but if I wasn’t vinegar would probably work) or dish detergent (M.F.K. Fisher famously washed her dishes in hot water alone). I also haven’t found a good alternative to silver polish: the nontoxic alternatives just don’t work as well, though I keep trying, because silver polish is nasty stuff.

In terms of how these alternatives stack up to Nature’s Source: well, you can see for yourself:

Nature's Source Window Cleaner vs. Vinegar

The mirror panel on the left is cleaned with Nature’s Source and a terry cloth rag. The mirror panel in the middle is cleaned with vinegar and spices on a terry cloth rag. I can’t tell the difference after they’re dry. But when I use Nature’s Source, a streaky, chemically film shows up on the glass, and when I use vinegar, I don’t freak out when I get some on my hands or up my nose.

Green cleaner or not: My vote is for vinegar.

But, you can try the comparison and vote for yourself. The first eight people (not spambots) to comment on this post and include an email addy so I can contact you will get a coupon for a free Nature’s Source cleaner of your choice. Bonus points if you come back and post your own cleaning comparison photo.