Shopping LUREs

So, all of the previous changes had a very big ripple effect on one particular area of my life. When it comes to the normal weekly grocery shopping trips, it is really hard to compare my current state to the previous. There are a couple of big differences, though, that I'll talk about here.

Because I, as the Mom, am buying less personal care products for me, the amount of time spent in the H&BA section has dropped significantly. My shampoo needs were - of course - about 5 times that of HTH and D2 so the baking soda/ACV thing makes a HUGE difference. And I'm not buying face wash and moisturizers. And I'm not buying body wash. You can see where this is going. There is really no need for me to go into that section for months at a time. A couple of tubes of toothpaste, some deodorant , and shampoo for my guys about once a quarter and I'm out of there! It isn't quite that streamlined yet, but I'm pretty close. I've found that not spending time in this section of the store means that I'm not exposed to all of those needs that I never knew I had - like 8000 kinds of hair product and specialized flossing tools and age defying lipstick and.... NOT having "information" on all of these products makes me feel a touch less crazy, so I'm good with this change!

I'm also working on feeding us with more fresh stuff. This change means less bulky boxes and packages in my cart. It means more foods bought from our local natural food store or any of our farmer's markets. Again, a change that is good for us!

But the thing that possibly changed my shopping the most was using my own bags. I've been taking my own bags and using the self check out line - I'm just not willing to deal with the cashiers on this in most of the big stores yet - for a while now. When I use my own bags, I buy less and I'm more thoughtful about my purchases. I'm not sure that this is a strict cause and effect relationship or if I just switched to taking my own bags because I was already in that thoughtful place. Either way, this has been the biggest change so far.

I don't have enough data to say this will be true over time, but right now I'm looking at a 20%-25% reduction in our grocery shopping bill when shopping with my own bags. So it really does all add up, you see. And the ripples go everywhere. And sometimes the most obvious Lighten Up impact comes from the bounce in my step when I see that receipt!

Personal Care Product LUREs

Sorry for the delay, everyone. I got hit by a fast moving sinus infection. No worries, though - I have saline!

Before we were so rudely interrupted, I was planning to talk about personal care products. Let me start with the obvious disclaimer. We are all impacted, in one way or another, by the cult of youth and beauty that is supported in the Western world by "marketing" or "advertising".

(And before you argue with my use of the word cult here, you should check this Merriam Webster definition for cult:

1: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator cults>
5 a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad b: the object of such devotion c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
If I define religion carefully, you know I could make a case....)

How we each deal with that is an indication of various factors in our lives - what we're willing to make a fuss over, what we want others to believe about us, where we want to fit in, etc. There are some things about the consumer cosmetics cult that I used to hold in high disregard but spent the last several years exploring - along with, not too surprisingly, the components of "appropriate business behavior". So, a lot of these changes merely represent a return to and then a natural progression from my previous views. YMMV, as they say. And I did this all in baby steps, which I HIGHLY recommend.

So, the quick rundown of personal care changes are really based on just a few ideas.
1. Petroleum products - that stuff is EVERYWHERE. And if I say I have a problem with our oil policies but then do nothing about my personal consumption, then I'm really not helping.
2. Garbage in = garbage out - the stupid packaging decisions. GAH!
3. I bet I can do things better for myself then those silly corporations can....

So, with that in mind, here are a few of the changes:

1. Hair - I wash with baking soda every other day and rinse with a dilute ACV rinse. According to my blog, I started this before January 24th! I had no idea! This works very well with one exception. When I traveled to foreign countries for business, I took a shampoo bar. This is primarily due to the suspicion that customs agents might feel when inspecting my bag and finding a container of white powder.

2. Face - I've been using a mixture of essential oils as face wash since before February 18. My skin is actually clearer and happier. In fact, using hotel face wash in Singapore (no luggage meant no face wash) and then transitioning back made it even more obvious that the crap in most face wash products does not do well with my skin. Blick. I am still using a moisturizer, but that is mostly for the sun protection. If I'm not planning to be out in the middle of the day (a common survival technique for desert dwellers), then I don't even use that.

3. Eyes - I still am exclusively using my own concoctions for this. I can report significant reduction in darkness around my eyes for the first time in my life. Yeah, it was that easy for me to come up with, and yet it was impossible for me to find in commercial stuff. Weird, huh?

3. Body - I've been trying various soaps. There are a few out there that will let me get away with no lotion - even in this desert city. I'm particularly fond of some of the olive oil based stuff from these folks for that purpose. Of course, I still have lotion - and some of the soaps that I bought still require lotion, so that is all working out nicely.

Just as an overall side note: It is all an experiment, you know, so I have actually bought things that really don't work the way I planned. I have one more bar of the "wow, this is gonna be great" soap to get through before I can get back to the lovely olive oil stuff that actually IS great. C'est la vie....

4. Deodorant - one of my last resistance points fell by the way side on the Singapore trip. I had refused to use the rock thing for deodorant. But that is what was in my emergency "you lost your luggage" kit, so I tried it. And it actually worked! So, once again, I am trying to convince myself to use up my remaining supply of the other yucky chemically stuff before moving on to just crystal stuff. This may or may not happen.

5. One pre-lighten up change that I should note here. But first, this warning: ALL MEN SHOULD SKIP THIS SECTION SINCE THIS TOPIC WILL MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. There is a supply of tampons under my side of the sink that I will never use up. That is because I switched to the Diva Cup for a business trip last year. I don't ever intend to go back to any other style of period management. Ever. My personal experience of those few days a month has so vastly improved that I will go to extraordinary measures to make that the case. Plus - no packaging to speak of, and wow! talk about garbage in=garb ae out!

6. Mineral makeup - this is a fairly straight forward one. I use powdered forms of everything now. Less petroleum products and the added bonus of not having to check my luggage just for the makeup that won't fit in the dang ziploc.

So, that is the personal care recap. Again, just a few simple ideas that, bit by bit, have changed my life!

Consumerism LUREs

If you had asked me, I would've said that I was not a typical American consumer. Because I grew up overseas in a very different culture, I did have a few residual habits that were non-standard. But, for the most part, I had definitely moved well into the normal range on this one. And the LUREs have definitely modified that. This will be my attempt to sort out the cause/effect situation for my new shopping habits.

Garbage In
Paying attention to the household garbage was one of the early recommendations from the green blogs out there. I've seen a bit of how it is to live - quite literally - with garbage (part of the "different culture" thing that I mentioned), so this seemed like a sensible idea. Just by keeping a rough gauge on our garbage, I came to a few quick conclusions as to the sources.

• We ate a lot of convenience foods - and they all have a lot of packaging.
• Packaging! Good GRIEF! Do we really need plastic wrap around a cardboard holder around a sealed plastic package around what I actually want to buy?!?!
  

The traditional way to track garbage production is to weigh it. But that is WAY too much work for a Lighten Up mindset. Instead, I just set out to do a few things differently. And here is where the Ripples start.

Fewer convenience foods means more "home made" food. That means I need decent starting materials - like the kind of produce that hasn't been bred to withstand industrial harvesting machines and days on the road. That meant learning about local produce options - like farmer's markets!

I confess to having sporadic success on this front. While I have gotten better at this, there are weeks that it just doesn't happen. On the good weeks, I make it to at least 1 of the actual Farmer's Markets in town. On a bad week, I buy all of my produce at "natural foods" store that buys more locally - but still not from the local farmers that I see at the markets. I suspect that PL has the best approach on this. She has joined a CSA so she gets local veggies delivered to her door every week. I admit to being a wimp about this - not wanting to deal with learning to cook seasonally during all of this chaos - but I think that will be the best route now that I have a bit more time.

To address the convenience issue, I also do a bit of proactive cooking. I try to have something that even teenage boys would consider yummy in the fridge. My current favorite plan is throw some chicken into the crock pot with BBQ or teriyaki sauce on the weekend. (Which, by the way, is my next trick this morning!) I then shred it and put it in a glass container on the top shelf of the fridge. Sandwiches always ensue.

Of course, as with any double income family with kids, convenience foods will happen. I've begun using packaging as a convenience food decision factor. If my guys are equally likely to eat either thing, the one with less trash for me to deal with is the one that I buy!

Which leads me to the packaging discussion. Here is the thing. We were already pretty good about actual trash production. That is, in large part, because we have municipally supported recycling here - they pick up the recycling bin and send it off for us. (Probably to a place like this, just for the record, which is pretty cool.) But, longterm, improved recycling habits is not where I want to go. The key, in my opinion, to fixing the Garbage In, Garbage Out equation is to actually reduce Garbage In - even if that "garbage" mostly ends up in the recycling bin.

So, I had to make some decisions about what I consider to be useful packaging. This is, like almost everything else I've discussed here, based on personal values and beliefs. (I'll tell you a funny story about that when talking about "Personal Care" items tomorrow!) What I do, in other words, will probably NOT make sense for you! But here are a few things from my list.

• Buy items from the "bulk bins" at the local natural food store. Take ziplocs for items that must have a bag. For me, these include
  
• Honey Mustard Pretzels
• Rice
• Beans
• Spinach
• Mushrooms
• Granola
  
• For the first several weeks, be prepared to explain to every cashier that the store doesn't sell spinach/granola/rice pre-packaged in ziplocs - you just brought those in yourself. Repeat with staff turnover.

• Don't put your produce in those conveniently provided little plastic bags. Bring your own little bags if you like, or just let them run around loose.
  
• This one took some doing for me! But I'm going to wash it all when I get home anyway, and the checkout conveyor belt is probably no dirtier than the display. So why am I grabbing garbage that I will only use for 30 minutes? Talk about short life cycle items!

• Change a few habits to make a big difference. Again, these were personal choices for me - in some cases not even choices that I enforce with my own guys!
  
• Personal care items are notorious for packaging. We'll talk about most of this tomorrow, but just one quick one. Take a look at bar soap instead of those lovely body washes. Unless you can refill that body wash bottle, it is trash every few months.
  
• If you have the storage space, larger sized items usually improve the stuff - to - packaging ratio.
• For me, just looking at this packaging craziness was more useful than any suggestion that I read. Shopping is family specific. As they say, YMMV.

So, our family garbage production actually made me think about CSAs and have a few interesting conversations at the grocery store check out line. Do you see what I mean? The ripples are everywhere. Tomorrow, I'll try to trace how I got into personal care items research.