green & frugal living

Photo by Mike Bitzenhofer

Expecting parents know the gauntlet of baby gear pushed and prodded their way through the store’s aisles. Modern-day culture all but convinces the average parent-to-be that they may very well fail at their upcoming task without the shiny new products begging for purchase. Never mind that men and women have parented children for eons without most of these things.

I have recently walked the “expecting parent” route, having two preschool children, and I registered for gifts with both. But my lists were small, because we really didn’t want to have stuff for the sake of stuff.  We only wanted things that would enhance our home and our new life with a baby.

Here are a few items I opted not to get - and did just fine without.

More Than One Stroller

Instead of going with multiple sizes of strollers (or even more cumbersome, a “travel system,”) we bought a well-made, rather glorified umbrella stroller. We made sure it was a stroller that both of us could easily push (my husband and I are a foot apart in height), and that it was well-made with sturdy wheels. Two kids, almost four years, a bajillion airports, and who knows how many countries later, it’s still in use.

Shopping Cart Cover

I’m just not a germophobe. Never have been. My mother never covered the shopping cart seat before sitting me in, and I’m fine and healthy today. So I figured I didn’t really need to do that with my kids - and as of yet, both very rarely get ill. The over-sanitizing of our culture is another topic altogether, but I believe that, within reason, everyday items like shopping carts are perfectly safe for my kids.

Baby Wipe Warmers

On the rare occasion I felt like I needed a slightly warmer wipe, I rubbed it in my hands for a few seconds. Walla - a much warmer wipe, without the extra cost or clutter.

Full-Size Highchair

We were given one for free with our second child, and I can honestly say that having a big highchair with its own tray is pretty much the same as having a portable highchair strapped to a regular chair pushed up to the dining table. Plus, they take up so much less room, and the baby can eat right next to the rest of the family.

Diaper Pail

We had a Diaper Champ with our daughter, but with our son, we just have a standard trash can that you open with a foot lever. We keep it outside on our balcony, and I think this simple method has kept our home much less smelly than an indoor diaper pail.

Baby Detergent

I know there are some special cases when certain babies have ultra-sensitive skin. But since day one, I’ve washed my babies’ clothing alongside the rest of the families’ with the same laundry soap - and we’ve had no issues.

Changing Table

With our oldest, my husband made a nifty catch-all type piece of furniture with shelves and a dowel for hanging baby dresses (it didn’t hurt that he was a carpenter). We put a changing pad on top, and used that as our changing table. With our son, we simply put a changing pad on top of his dresser. There’s no need to take up valuable square footage with a piece of furniture that does just one thing.

Glider

I’ve never been a fan of the aesthetics of a typical glider, but the main reason we didn’t get one is because of price. Nevertheless, the wooden rocking chair I inherited from my grandmother worked just as well with my daughter, and with my son, we just rock our body back and forth while we snuggle. Amazingly enough, he doesn’t seem to mind.

Baby Lotion

I still have some from our almost four-year-old daughter. Babies have the softest, sweetest-smelling skin on their own, and I can’t think of any lotion that would enhance it.

To see some of my ideas of what is truly useful, check out my baby registry recommendations on Wishpot. And if you are expecting, I recommend making your registry there - you can include anything on the internet in your list. No longer do you have to stick to just one store.

What do you think on these items - were any of them a valuable help for you during the baby days? What would you add to the list? What would you take away? Let’s dispel the myth that you need a ton of stuff for the newest, tiniest members of a family.

I completely admit that I am not a green expert. Our family does what we can, but we’ve got plenty more to learn. I’m slightly more qualified to call myself a Frugal Mama than a Green Mama, but the cool thing is, those tendencies tend to go hand-in-hand.

Who wouldn’t want to make everyday life less expensive?

Here are a few ways we make everyday home life a bit more frugal, inevitably coloring our home a slightly greener hue.

Cloth Napkins

We keep a very small pack of paper napkins for the occasional situation when we have tons of people over at once, but other than that, we always use cloth napkins. They’re mismatched (except that they’re all red in some form), they’re sometimes wrinkled, and none of them are fancy - perfect for a home with very small kids.

We also reuse them if the napkins didn’t get too dirty during the last meal - to make sure the same person uses his or hers, we designate a napkin ring for each person. I know many families use a variety of mismatched napkin rings for this purpose, but we’ve made a simple craft out of ours. Our art cabinet has a plethora of toilet paper tubes, so we cut one into thirds and decorated a ring for each person.

Cloth Rags

Instead of paper towels, we have an abundance of cloth rags. These are simply old t-shirts, stained towels, and well-worn fabric cut into squares - and because we have enough, we don’t run out.  It doesn’t create more laundry, because the rags are so small, they’re easily tossed into a load we’d do anyway.

Scratch Paper

Nothing revolutionary here. We make a point to use both sides of paper when we’re printing stuff that’s simply for our reference at home, or we donate the blank side of the paper to our daughter’s coloring ventures.

No Pre-Rinsing

We noticed that pre-rinsing our dishes before loading them in the dishwasher did absolutely nothing. So we stopped, and our dishes were still clean. It saves water, and it’s easier and faster this way.

Turn Off The Water

It’s a habit for us now, and thankfully, our daughter doesn’t know any other lifestyle. When we brush our teeth, we turn off the water. When we’re soaping up our hands, we turn off the water. When we didn’t have hot water for a good chunk of time this summer, we took “military-style” showers - used the water to get wet, turned it off while soaping up, then turned it back on to rinse off.

Turn Off the Lights

We make a point to turn off lights when we’re not in the room - and sometimes when we are in the room, if there’s enough natural light. Many times we don’t flip a light switch until after lunch.

Plenty of Real Dishes

We love to entertain, and we often have large groups of friends over for dinner. We almost never use paper plates or cups. Because we have enough, it’s just as easy to use the real stuff over and over again. Plus, it feels a smidge classier.

Swap Clothes

Our children share clothes with most of our friends’ children - we pass down, swap, exchange, and trade clothes between us. Just write your initials on the tag, and you’ll be surprised how little you’ll need to spend on kids’ clothes.

Buy Secondhand

But when we do buy kid’s clothes, we almost never buy new. Kids grow so fast, it’s rare they wear out clothing before they outgrow it. There are plenty of sweet secondhand stores all over the place.

Cook From Scratch

We have very little trash because we usually cook from scratch instead of boxed prepackaged food - on average, we fill one small plastic grocery bag with trash daily. For us, it’s also cheaper to buy local produce.

Photo by Riekie

Open Windows

It gets hot where we live, but most people here don’t have air conditioners. When they do, they only use them when it’s really hot, and not all day. It’s been quite an adjustment coming from the southern US, where we air-conditioned our home 24 hours a day from April to October, but we’re slowly getting used to it. In the meantime, we know it saves energy and money on the electric bill.

Reuse Plastic Bags

As I mentioned earlier, plastic grocery bags are our garbage bags. We also do what we can to use reusable shopping bags. If I’m visiting a local produce vendor in our neighborhood, the bottom basket of our stroller works perfectly - no bag needed at all.

Other ways we’ve gone more frugal by going greener are making our own cleaners, composting, not having a car and using public transportation, paying all bills online, making our own baby food, eating more meatless meals, telecommuting, and of course, recycling.

Here are some good resources:

• The Story of Stuff - an interesting 20-minute documentary (though I don’t completely agree with her definition of the government’s job)
• 50 Ways to Help the Planet
• 100 Ideas For Your Green Family
• Calculate Your Carbon Footprint - in the US
• Calculate Your Carbon Footprint - in Europe
• My Delicious bookmarks tagged “green” - I’ll add more as I find them

How about you - how do you make greener choices simply by being more frugal? What are your favorite green and frugal blogs? Share your resources and ideas! I’m still quite - well, green, at this.