Green Spring Cleaning

My house needs a THOROUGH cleaning. Things have been very busy with my jobs and all the regular things we do from day to day (notice my lack of blogging) that I've fallen behind on the housecleaning.

I know I'm bit behind the March Spring Cleaners, but I have a late Spring Break this year. So after Easter, I'm going to start deep cleaning, room by room. Real Simple magazine had a nice article on homemade cleaners that got me thinking, and I found the Hip Organic Mama's blog, which has tons of recipes for cleaners and great information about cleaning products that are healthy for you and the environment.

So early next week, I'll give you an update on my cleaning and the recipes I tried.

I Went To Aldi's!

So I finally made it to Aldi's. It's taken me awhile because it's almost a half an hour away in a direction we don't usually travel.

So, imagine my excitement when I got a mystery shopping job to do at Aldi's! So now I had a little more incentive to get there. The mystery shop pay was not as good as the other grocery stores, but at least it was a chance for me to check out Aldi's at last.

I thought it was a really nice, clean store and the people who worked there were friendly. And those of you who recommended Aldi's to me were right, the prices are good.

The downside was that they didn't have a wide selection of foods my family eats. We don't buy everything organic, but we do always use organic milk, which they did not have. In fact, I didn't see any organic products (I could have missed them). They did have a line of foods called "light and fit" and I bought some of that kind of yogurt and rice cakes. A lot of their foods were processed and had lots of sodium (which we need to avoid for my husband's high blood pressure).

So in a nutshell, here are the pro's and con's
PRO:
-inexpensive prices

CON:
-25 minutes away
-can't use coupons
-not a large variety of healthy/organic food

I think if I lived closer to Aldi's I might stop in for some basics, because I DID actually like the store, it just didn't meet my needs. I have to say though, many of the prices were comparable to Target's, which is 5 minutes away instead of 25- and I CAN use coupons at Target, which also has a larger selection of healthier foods. As far as veggies go, our local farmer's market starts soon, so I can get fresh organic local vegetables there.

So What's New with the Grocery Dilemma?

If you read in an earlier post, my grocery store (which doubled 99c coupons to 1.98) closed. I am a die-hard couponer, so this hurt. Other stores around here double 50c coupons, but that's it. I've been looking for a new grocery store.

While I haven't found one single store to shop at, I have found a way to help lessen the grocery bill. I've been mystery shopping! (If you are interested in mystery shopping, check out Volition's website.)

For those of you who haven't heard about mystery shopping, it's basically evaluating a store without revealing that you're doing so. When I've done mystery grocery shops, I've had to go to a number of departments in the grocery store and ask questions, evaluate service, etc. etc.

Mystery shopping does not rake in the big bucks. Far from it...but it does help a little with my groceries. You see, the company I shop for pays around $10 reimbursement for the groceries I buy when performing the shop. This is great for me because:

1) I'm already out there grocery shopping. No extra driving (good for the environment and $$).

2) I am looking around for a new grocery store anyway and get to see some I may not have known about (I have an Aldi's shop soon, so I am eager to check it out!)

3) I get $10-12 free groceries for my evaluations

4) The "reimbursement" payment for the groceries is not taxable. If they paid me a fee for the evaluations, it would be taxed.

So this has been one way I've been putting a dent in the grocery bill. Pretty soon our local farmer's market will be up and running, so that will help too!

Long time, no blog!

Wow, I just realized it's been way over a month since I've blogged!

I'll spare you the details, but I've been way busy with my teaching jobs and haven't had a lot of time for blogging, but our Spring Break is coming up soon so I should be catching up with a few of the things I've been thinking about, so check back soon :)

Cheap and Green Dilemma!

One way I save money is by shopping at a grocery store that is very close (saves gas/less pollution) that doubles coupons that are 99c up to 1.98. Occassionally they'll even have triple coupons. And best of all...they take my expired coupons. Now, they've never said they take expired coupons, but I've never had one rejected so I have continued to use them until someone tells me they don't accept them!

The closeness of the store and their coupon policy has helped me save A LOT of money. Mind you, they are not the cheapest grocery store, but when you combine a sale item with a doubled (or tripled) coupon, you can get stuff very cheap and sometimes free.

So, you ask, what's the dilemma? Well, I have heard they are closing that location! The next closest location is 20 miles away. Yes, there are other grocery stores in the area, but none as close and with the same coupon policies. What to do?

One idea I have is to stop by a branch close to my work maybe once a month and stock up, but with sales changing each week, it may be hard to match up the coupons with the deals.

I can, of course, go to one of the other big grocery stores that offer 50c coupons doubled, I just won't be able to get quite as good savings.

My last idea is to visit the Aldi's store...it's not very close, but it's not too far, either, and I've heard they have some good prices there (although no coupons, I think).

Any suggestions for me?

Teaching Green

Workbook pages, dittos, xerox copies...paper, paper, paper!

Anyone who has a child in school knows about the deluge of paper sent home EVERY DAY. Honestly, much of it is needless. I'm not just saying that as the parent recipient of all this stuff, but as a teacher myself.

From the teacher's standpoint, we have all this great information to share. We don't want our students to miss a bit of it! I could honestly make a textbook sized handout of all the good info I find for my students. No one wants to shortchange education for green, so what do we do?

I teach at a high school and I try to reduce all the paper by emailing my students their homework as attachments. They type their answers on the homework and send it back to me- no paper! I also have a website with all the documents they can download and save. Added bonus for the teacher: your bag previously full of papers to grade is remarkably lighter and easier to carry (those of you who teach know about those heavy end-of-quarter bags full of papers!)

I would love it if my son's school would send the PTA letter by email, and post other information on their website. Hopefully, with continued nudging, this will be the case eventually. But in the meantime, we empty our backpacks right over the recycling bin.

Biodegradable trash bags

In the past year, we've really reduced our waste by composting, recycling, and making purchases that don't have excessive or non-recyclable packaging. I'd like to say we were like the writer for BBC News that tried her best not to buy ANYTHING plastic or packaged in plastic for a month...it's much harder to do than you think! But, in reality, we do still have some trash that can't be recycled. We've always used the generic white kitchen trash bags, so I thought I'd look into biodegradable trash bags.

First, I found biobag dog waste bags. They're around $5-6 for a box of 50. Kind of expensive, but I didn't want to put something biodegradable like dog poop in a plastic bag that wouldn't biodegrade. So I lucked out and bought some from drugstore.com when they had a sale. I'm pretty happy with them. I thought about the biobag trash bags, but it seemed pointless when the stuff in the kitchen trash is stuff that won't biodegrade anyway...so I bagged the idea (ha ha).

And then, when I was cleaning out the litter box (into a white trash bag), it occurred to me that I could use the biobags for this job. We use feline pine litter (love it!) and we have a fair amount of used litter each week, so I bought some kitchen sized biobags for the job. It makes sense since the pine litter will biodegrade. Overall, I am pretty happy with them, with the exception of their expense (again, wait for the sales) and they can puncture more easily than regular bags.

Hopefully these kinds of trash bags will catch on and eventually cost less, but in the meantime we'll continue to use them for our pet clean-ups. Do any of you have tips when it comes to biodegradable bags, or know of any other good brands?