Green Goddess’s Tips for Tough Times

 

top 10 reasons why being online saves you money

(and saves the planet)

 

 

# 10    You can stay home. You don’t have to leave the house every day.  You pay for internet service 24 7 already on high speed. It costs less than gas. In fact it costs me about the same to use internet in a month as what I pay to fill up once a week. So to get real value you really should be online as much as possible.  By only filling up once a month, savings

 $150.

 

# 9      When you work from home on your computer you save on the regular accumulated costs of a Timmies or worse, Starbucks. A conservative estimate of $3/day/5days amounts to the same amount I pay for a cell phone.

$60.

 

# 8        Staying home more eliminates the need to pay for that cell phone.

$60.

 

# 7       Why get dressed when you work from home? Computer work is not exactly aerobic exercise. If you can put the same casual loungewear on every day you save enormously on the cost of laundry, soap, dryer sheets, water and electricity.

$10 Estimated savings.

 

# 6       Who cares if you are having a bad hair day. When you wash your hair less, it will recover from the regular damage done by over shampooing to strip the variety of products back out of it. You can cut your shampoo, conditioner and other hair products costs by 75% by letting it go.

$40 Savings

 

# 5       No one will know if you don’t shave every day. Men haven’t you always wondered about growing a beard? Ladies, count the additional savings of reducing your hormone replacement therapy. Savings $20 in shaving crème and blades. Cost of the opportunity to get in touch with the wild man/woman inside: priceless.

$20

 

# 4      Do you really need to shower every day?

$10

 

# 3      Being online also saves on your long distance bill. Any of your friends with a computer can talk to you live online and if you have a webcam, it’s even better than the phone. (not recommended for those following the advice in #5, #6 and possibly #4)

$10

 

# 2      Don’t worry about your social life suffering. Your new online friends will never know how much you weigh or how out of shape you are by being on the computer all day. You can stop going to the gym. And don’t worry about your new online love discovering your true image. 1)They are lying too. 2)They already know. 3)They’re never going to leave their homes either to meet you live.

$99. Savings

 

The Number One Reason why being online saves you money..   

Cyber dating is cheap. Expensive dates are eliminated. It is understood that the select Bordeaux you are sipping is really soggy cereal because you didn’t pry yourself away from the keyboard to cook. Savings on overpriced pantyhose, wine, dinner, movie, contraceptive etc $200. And refills are free.

 $200

 

 Total savings per month  $659.00, 

 

$7908.00/year just by working online!

 

My Destiny is Forgiveness

 

              I have been examining my destiny. When one is unsure of what that looks like, even with the full understanding that we are all the creators of our destinies, stillness helps. I swing between the push pull of busy-ness as a way of producing a sense of progress but it is clear to me that is not going to provide me all I seek. On my door hangs a sign. “Life is not about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself”. If I buy that, and intellectually I do, than it would seem all possibility is available. I may begin again. This is, of course, available to us all day, any day, to begin anew. But let’s face it, it is usually an ending of some poignancy that marks the need for a beginning. In my case, the end of a marriage. It is also the end of a way of being. To say I want to reinvent myself insults the parts of my being that still remain valuable. But the intent, I think is to revisit the parts weedy and weathered with neglect that were once fulfilling. The question is, is it possible to reclaim territory left abandoned? Possible, yes, in the realm of all possibility. But something stands in the way. Forgiveness is needed. We need to ask forgiveness of ourselves for casting aside such precious gifts, gracelessly. It is only when forgiveness is granted to ourselves can we pick up and embrace our selves. In fact, it feels less like territory and more like something with a human face, perhaps many. The land does forgive in time. People may not. The faces of the abandoned hopeful are haunting and each ghost must be allowed it’s say. Each death honoured. Each soul be allowed to pass peacefully. As I write I envision it like the embrace of former selves who  are collapsed possibilities. I see them as they are embraced folding into me and reintegrating.

So there is worthiness in visiting the past. But only by assessing the present can we know what’s missing, what we long for. It is in the stillness. Although there is the push pull of busy-ness calling, it cannot bring forth all I need. It requires the balance provided by quiet being. I wondered if it was drifting but it is not. All else is drifting by on the turning world but I remain still, watching the world mirror me back, listening to hear my voice.  It is from here I dream my future self, a sparkling mosaic.

 

Marriage as a reno project

If a marriage was thought of as a room where you live, and it had a broken window, you’d fix it. If it had fallen into disrepair, and brought you down, you might roll up your sleeves, invest some time, energy, care, and creativity and redecorate. Perhaps it might even need some structural support. However, often in a disposable, consumer society, it is easier to simply move to another room. Or another house. There was a time when that wasn’t so easy. When we had invested years in the growth of perhaps a fruit grove, built the small cottage with our hands and hearts and had roots of our own to the land, a responsibility to be good steward to it for our children. But that is not our lives now.

Suckered by consumerism in a green hat

The Editor of my local newspaper wrote in frustration of how scammed he felt by the new energy efficient bulb conversion. They cost more, but save money on the electric bill and will last 5-7 years. His are burning out in a year and he’s mad. I feel his pain. First I have spent an unprecedented amount of money on new LED Christmas lights, each string costing sometimes 2-3 times the amount I could find mini lights on sale. Let’s ignore the disappointment I felt at the quality of light, pretty like a jewel that is visible in the dark, but casting no practical light to see by. I also ignored the fact the first white lights were to my artist’s eye unmistakably blue. After my $200.00 conversion the company came out with new “whites”. The bitter pill I can’t swallow is the “Long lasting” selling point. In the 4 years I have been using them I have replaced 80% of them. I look longingly at my old mini-lights but the green goddess inside me disapproves.  “Shame” she says. “But I can’t afford Christmas spirit, Festival of lights participation AND green consciousness,” I whine. Energy consumption, peak oil, and human habit are regular topics with a friend. He believed a carbon tax was the only way to cattle prod people into doing the right thing because they would act from their wallets as they always do. I am more an idealist. I gave up central air 3 years ago, turn out lights and installed new windows but I too am feeling scammed.  The hidden energy cost to keep replacing energy efficient bulbs is considerable. I still have the mini lights from my parents’ tree 45 years ago and they work. I wonder what net impact they would have had if my consumerism hadn’t demanded newer, better and more. Perhaps I’ll light lanterns and candles this year if we have enough local bees left to make them.  I make jewellery from the burned out bulbs. Want to buy a nice pair of earrings?

Lianne Snow