Think you’re frugal?

If you think you are frugal you will feel humbled by this super couple of thrift:

On paper, my wife and I are poor. How poor? In 2005 we made $4,303.84 combined; in 2004 we made half that. We’re in such a low tax bracket that I have trouble convincing the government of our tax return’s accuracy; they simply can’t believe Americans can live on that kind of money.

Yet in many ways, we’re better off than a Wall Street banker: We’ve saved enough money to buy land without a mortgage, we have no credit cards or monthly bills, I work 20 flexible hours a week from home, and my daughter has two stay-at-home parents.

Simply put, we never want for anything, and we have a lot of fun.

Read the rest of his Mother Earth News article

for 75 money saving tips

Saving Money As A Vegan

The urban vegan published this great article
explaining 25 money-saving kitchen tips for frugal vegans

Alan Lakein whose 1962 book started time management as we know it, coined the 80/20 Rule which states:

80% of the value comes from 20% of the tasks. Out of a list of 10 items 80% of the value will likely come from doing just 2 items on that list.

In other words, don’t knock yourself trying to incorporate every useful suggestion on a large list of tips. Pick out the highest yielding activities, only. Not only will you get more done, you will feel less overwhelmed from information overload.

Saving money on a vegan diet in my opinion, isn’t any different from saving money on any other kind of diet. The same problems exist for all diets and the same solutions will work for all diets.

There are many helpful tips for eating more frugally, but I think the most value comes from these just these three tips:

1. Eat out less.

2. Make more food from scratch and use less prepared foods.

3. Stay aware of the prices of the things you buy at the stores in your area.

In regards to : make your own salad dressings, sauces and soups. Most of these items can be made quickly at home for a fraction of the cost.

Make a large pot of soup when you feel like staying home on a weekend. Lattle it out into single serving containers and freeze it.

Get a copy of this fantastic book that will show you how to make a huge variety of vegan sauces and dressings:

Global Climate Change

I’ve collected some links on global climate change. I haven’t read them all yet, but I thought I would post them to avoid losing them. Some of them look especially good for talking back to the “Joe Six Pack” critics who want to believe that it does not exist.

First, I recommend that everyone sees “An Inconvenient Truth”. It can be rented from any video venue. One of the things that struck me about the documentary is that it already addressed many of the common criticisms made of the documentary. In other words, people criticized what was said in the documentary without watching it first.

Okay, here are the links:

Gore responds to the critics
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9072307

How To Talk To A Global Climate Change Skeptic
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Consensus
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming

Climate Change: A Guide For The Perplexed
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/

Union Of Concerned Scientists Global Climate Change FAQ
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/global-warming-faq

Scientific Opinion On Global Climate Change
( wikipeda……anyone can author an article…take with a grain of salt )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change