Yellow Mellow, Brown Down

Atlanta's water situation is making big news. Brown lawns no longer catch your eye and the car is covered in cat-prints for lack of a wash, but our household didn't feel that it was doing enough. It was time to Step It Up a notch.

Although we have the newer, less-wasteful toilets, we decided to follow the "Yellow Mellow, Brown Down" rule of flushing. Just because we grew up flushing after every use of the toilet doesn't mean we can still afford to waste fresh water.

At first, finding an unflushed toilet was a whack on the side of the head. Now, I'm enjoying the whack on the side of the head. We're giving ourselves a reminder -- several times a day -- that we're doing something about conserving fresh water.

We haven't had many discussions about what our guests can expect to find in our toilets, but the whack on the side of their head can be a good one. I think once we explain what the mellow yellow is all about, our guests may find they would like to go home and whack the side of their own heads.

Bottled Water is a Big Waste

God created Man in His image. He intended our brains to switch off when we're asleep, but not when it comes to bottled water.

If we lived in a part of the world that doesn't have access to safe water, that would be one thing, but most of my readers have safe water at the turn of a tap. Consider the expense we incur for the disposable convenience of a bottle of water:

• Meeting your recommended daily water intake would cost $1,400 if it were all bottled water. It costs 59 cents if you take it from the faucet. Who are you giving your money to?
  
• Bottling water is ironically, water-intensive. It takes 3 liters of water to bottle a single liter of water.
  
• To deliver our bottled water requires a weekly convoy of 37,800 18-wheelers and that rate is growing.
  
• Between the production and transport of the bottle, a quarter of a bottle of oil is consumed.
  
• Americans spent more on bottled water last year than iPods or movie tickets: $15 billion.
  
• An 18-wheeler cannot be filled with bottled water. It's too heavy. A shipment of bottled water requires the truck to leave empty space.
  
• On average, we pay far more for bottled water than gasoline, although you can find it for about the same cost as milk.
  

From an article posted on fastcompany.com:

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

God gave you a brain. Are you using it proudly?

Money or Your Life

I recently came across a post on the blog Cycler's Life called "The Despotism of the Image". It reminded me that many of our images of success serve interests outside our own. I'm writing about how I challenged my ideals of success.

I began to examine my relationships with money and time shortly after my first daughter was born. Responsibility for another human being changes how you see things and how you want to spend your time. Certainly money provided for my family, but was every bit of the money worth the lost time with my daughter?

The option to spend time with my daughter helped me realize my assumed path to success was hollow -- the path wasn't mine and didn't serve my needs.

At that time, I read a book that gave my re-evaluation some serious teeth. That was 1992, and the book was called "Your Money or Your Life". Even though the book is 15 years old, the message is timeless. Its hard-nosed and practical suggestions can still propel an evaluation of your relationship with time and money.

One of the most helpful concepts brought out by the book -- and re-inforced throughout the book by example after example -- is how to measure your expenditures in work-hours (your "Life Energy"). "Despotism of the Image" describes hours at the job required to pay for a car, for example. "Your Money or Your Life" takes this further.

To calculate your "Life Energy" for example, you should determine your "real" hourly wage by adding up all the time and expense incurred by working a particular job. This includes commute time, decompression activities, and clothes/makeup you wouldn't wear otherwise. The hours are added to the actual work hours and the costs are subtracted from your wages to determine your "real" hourly rate. This can then be used to make rational decisions about whether to drive an additonal 20 minutes each day for an additional $2/hour. It can also help you decide if you want to spend X hours to buy a new bike.

Once this basic concept is laid out, the book goes on to examine the cost of debt. Without this book I would never have known how much time I spend on the job each week to service my debt. In my case, it went from about 18 hours each week in 1992, down to about 6 hours each week today. By focusing on getting my debt in order, I was able to regain 12 hours per week of my life.

What I found most impressive was 1) how conscious you become of your purchases and 2) how completely in control you feel because you know exactly what you're trading in any given transaction. It was perfect for a Dad who wanted to spend time with his kids. Anyone who knows my daughters can say my wife and I have been amply rewarded for our decisions.

My story is about my kids. Others may want to write a book, see the world, or excel in some field of endeavor. No matter how you want to spend your time -- indeed, your life -- you won't know if it is worth it until you can measure how much time it takes to obtain that goal. This book gives you the map and compass for charting your own course.

The book is still in print. It can be ordered from the website http://www.yourmoneyoryourlife.org/.

How much does it cost to drive your car?

The cost of filling up the tank forms a significant portion of our impression of the cost of driving a car. There are several other less-visible out-of-pocket expenses such as maintenance, insurance, and the car payment itself, but there are also various hidden costs of driving. The site "What does Driving Really Cost" shows us some of the hidden costs and contains some startling facts:

• Driving a car is one of the most dangerous things we do. For people 2-24 years old, it is the most likely way you'll die.
  
• $50B of our defense budget is protecting shipping lanes and oil fields in the Middle East, Nigeria and Venezuela. This doesn't come from road use tolls or fuel taxes but from income and payroll taxes.
  
• Baby-boomers will have consumed 2/3 of all the petroleum there ever was in the US.
  
• 60% of our trade deficit comes from either oil or cars.
  
• One-third of expenses paid out under federal medical assistance programs are for injuries sustained in car crashes.
  

Cars are suicide, either financially and slowly or in 80 MPH collisions. Why doesn't this get the same attention as lowering cholesterol, the "War on Cancer", or even Viagra?

This site also calculates the average US citizen's expenditures per year for the priviledge of driving. The average is high enough that most people can buy a home for what is being spent on a car.