I started blogging for a variety of personal, practical, and philosophical reasons.  On the practical side, I thought that if I had a way to keep track of what I was doing, I would be able to see some trends and better reflect on how not buying anything new was affecting my life.  I also thought that having readers would help me stay accountable and give me additional ideas.   Furthermore, I felt that my particular circumstances weren't represented by the voices I was finding out there.  I had the (largely unfounded) perception that most of the people doing non-consumerist experiments were either really extreme peak oil/freegan/activist people or rural families who had nothing better to do.  I wanted to try a moderate experiment without the benefit of a book deal or partner supporting me.  What would not-buying do to the life of a struggling artist and day-job worker who lived alone in New York City?

Not a lot - and a whole lot, as it turns out.  The largest impact it's had on my life is becoming aware of all the people out there doing personal environmental experiments, who both write a lot or absolutely nothing about it.  I googled something about junk mail in February 2007, trying to figure out how to still the incessant Anthropologie and J. Crew catalogs.  One of the first things that came up was Colin Beavan's blog, which I was delighted to find right as he started to write.  He did a bunch of media appearances around that time and suddenly thousands of people were reading his blog, making comments, and connecting to each other.  It was pretty amazing to witness - and be a part of.  I was introduced to tons and tons of approaches and voices - and quickly got overwhelmed by the cacophony.  Every blog I went to had a million links and a million commenters - and everyone is so nice and helpful!

A few voices have stood out from the rest.  I'm sensitive to self-importance, extremism, and a lack of perspective on the fact that all of this "personal environmental action" is ultimately a privilege.  The following writers - and yes, they're almost all women, definitely a subject for more investigation - largely avoid these traps.  I've really enjoyed these bloggers' stories and insights, and I hope you will too.

Single Chixx

Arduous stopped buying stuff in August 2007 and is now moving to London, where she'll continue her ambitious green adventures.  She's around my age, funny, realistic, and has great taste!

Green as a Thistle - I caught on to the Green as a Thistle craze kinda late in the game.  Vanessa in Toronto made one lower-impact change every day over the course of a year, from March 2007 to March 2008.  It's really fun to see her go from completely uninformed to low-impact expert as her experiment continues.  The funny, low-key writer isn't single anymore, but since she (mostly) stopped writing when the year was done, I'm including the Single Green Female here.

Moms

Gee whiz there are a ton of "green moms" out there but the best is Crunchy Chicken, who seems to have limitless reserves of energy and good ideas.  She's raunchy, irreverent, and clearly passionate about everything she does.  She doesn't actually write about her kids that much, which might be one of the reasons I've stayed a consistent reader.

I've also been really impressed by burbanmom's humor and generosity - she recently started an online group for suburban moms wanting to make consuming/environmental changes, hosting challenges and putting people in touch with each other.  I'll confess I haven't read a ton of her posts, but I read a lot of her comments and like her down-to-earth style.

Wackos (affectionately)

Beth from Fake Plastic Fish goes in this category because anyone swearing off plastic is nuts.  It's so hard to do, and so time consuming (I imagine) - and I tend to think the end of plastic will happen anyway, as petroleum becomes more and more scarce.  But Beth's getting the party started early, with letters to every company imaginable and her awesome Take Back the Filter campaign. 

Greenpa - Finally a dude! I know very little about this guy but his comments on other blogs are funny and on point, and I really appreciate the perspective of someone who actually gave up the work-to-spend wheel for real and doesn't pretend his farm is utopia.   His view is a total one, including rants about finance and the media with posts about dogs and chickens and hay equipment - which are, of course, related.

New Voices (I haven't been reading them for very long but I'm liking them so far!)

La Marguerite - great analysis!

Greeen Sheeep - she's just started blogging, and I think it will be fun to listen to her views develop.

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I hope you enjoy looking around and I look forward to when real "other" voices emerge in the green blogosphere.  (If it ever happens!)

A few months back I wrote about a friend of mine who is teaching an eight-week lifestyle redesign course in California, aiming to help people "green" their lives in sustainable ways.  I asked for readers' eight tips, and while I didn't get many responses, I thought I'd share my own thoughts anyway.  What would you recommend to someone trying to make her lifestyle more sustainable in eight steps?

1. Do you really need that?

Seriously.  New makeup, a little tchotchke for the house, new shoes - on sale!  More space, a new car?  Sometimes the answer is yes.  Most of the time it is no.

2. Ride a bike.

Or rollerskate.  Guaranteed to make you exercise and laugh, even if you can't switch to commuting to work by bike.  And maybe if you fall in love with biking, you'll consider getting a little closer to the office on your next move.

3.  Refuse the bag.

Probably one in ten times we actually need the bag: not enough space in the purse/backpack/etc, it is raining, whatever.  Just carry your purchase around in your hand or throw it on the seat of your car - whatever it is, it's likely packaged enough already.

4. Spend some time with your trash.

Some good, quality time.  Get to know what your city recycles and what it doesn't.  And if there is a place you can take your scraps to compost.  There really is no "out" or "away" when you throw something in the garbage - it's just going in someone else's backyard.  And it basically NEVER decomposes in the landfill, no matter what it is.

5. Examine your food.

In my opinion, the US food system is one of the scariest environmental and security time-bombs we have ticking.  So I do my best with the farmer's market and organic options.  Read some labels and ask, like Michael Pollan, if your grandmother would recognize the freaky stuff they're selling as food.

6. Take a look at the big picture.

I've recommended some books that provide background for the environmental "religion," written from various points of view.  If you don't like my list, you can check out the reviews over at The Blogging Bookworm.  I've also suggested some movies in the body of this blog, and another blogger recently compiled a great selection.  You'll be motivated, disgusted, inspired, and you'll have some context for why people are all hot on a variety of environmental topics.

7. Get real.

Take a hard look at what you can manage given your time constraints, financial situation, living conditions, etc.  Biting off more than you can chew only makes you frustrated and resentful.  And not everyone loves canning.  Or composting.  Or cooking their own meals.  Let the pros do what you hate and figure out how you can make the best use of your time and energy.

8. Do something.

Something you really love.  Not necessarily an environmental something.  If you spend time doing something you're passionate about, you'll care about this world and the people in it.  And you'll feel more motivated and optimistic.

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And check out this link from my dad, who uses the wisdom of the ancients to keep his life simple.

I just spent a long time paging through Colin's blog, looking for a graph he drew with a bell curve, representing something like consuming vs. happy.  He shows optimal points of happiness and resource consumption, demonstrating that you can take the consumption down a lot but at a certain point too much reduction becomes deprivation and the happiness dwindles. 

Anyway.  I couldn't find the picture but want to use the same idea to talk about resource consumption vs. resource production, which is something I experienced acutely this last (freegan) month and at various points during the Fix year.  Not buying anything in July (supposedly) meant that I was not consuming but rather producing.  Generally I see a ton of shows - dance, theatre, visual art - but last month I cut that out almost completely.  Going on errands, which are usually to buy things, are time-consuming and distracting.  I didn't do much of that last month, which gave me time to be producing.  Producing dinner, of course, but also entertainment, ideas, and creative solutions.  And art, which is of particular importance to me.   And I think I've identified this - producing - as one of they key ways to transform our culture.

Most people I know don't produce anything in their jobs; mostly they just push paper around.  Somewhere down the line maybe something gets produced but often that's not the case.  And I've noticed, among green bloggers and others, that when people produce things they're happy about - food from their gardens, clothes from recycled materials, tangible ways of helping others - they feel more satisfied and less desirous of things.  Of course economists note that Americans don't produce much these days, and it might signal a big problem for the future.  I'd like to think that if we become more productive - not in the modernist, perfectionist sort of way, but rather in an imperfect, grassroots kind of way - we might be less dependent on consumption.  Consumption of things like tv, and gossip, and convenience products.  Which, incidentally, have been known to be harmful to the environment and society.

For me, the production vs. consumption spectrum can get too productive and then somewhat destructive for me personally.  When I have to come up with alternatives for every consumer product, and run all over town looking for some lower impact solution, my happiness also gets compromised.  Everything feels hard.  Which definitely isn't the point.  And I'd like to leave room for the idea that not everyone wants to be a producer.  It's difficult for me to watch wasters and haters let everyone else do the work for them, but I think there's something oppressive and wrong about assuming that everyone wants to be cheerfully tending a garden or making their own clothes.  It's sad that personal trauma, bad luck, or simply a bad attitude keeps people from finding something they're passionate about making or doing, but I think it's a reality that active, involved people have to swallow, without getting too smug.   So I'm not sure how a balance can be achieved, and for now I'm going to keep believing that one of the key ways of addressing our current environmental and social problems will be by transforming ourselves from greedy consumers into prolific producers - of ideas, art, magic, local goods, and positive, no-stuff solutions.

So there were some big winners and some big losers in July's Pseudo-Freegan Challenge...to begin with, Arduous totally kicked my ass (unless she's holding out on some undisclosed $400 purchase, which I doubt)!  But despite spending $760 in a month where I was trying to spend nothing, I don't think I did all that badly.  I spent a lot less than I did the previous month, and if I strip out the two events planned in advance, the birthday trip and the bridal shower, I end up with $241.52, way less than my usual set of expenses. 

Like Arduous, I ended up feeling a little ambivalent about freeganism.  I like the concept of reducing waste, especially food waste, but I also found myself in a weird bind in which I was trying to live as cheaply as possible.  This precludes the habits I've cultivated since Fix ended, which require that I spend a little more on my day-to-day expenses, as with organic and farmer's market food, for example.  In other words, cost became the only criterion for purchasing, which is the mindset I was trying to overcome with Fix -- I think we buy so much crap because it is too cheap.  My preference for socializing over principles also became clear again: I would rather buy brunch with old friends than be the weirdo just having a coffee (which I buy all the time, btw); I barely gave these instances a second thought.

Still, the current economy and my financial goals might encourage me to continue for another couple of months, though there are some things I've already bought - a couple of nice dinners, some gifts, a reference book, etc.  I will try to remain vigilant against needless spending and remember the winners and losers in this experiment:

The Winners

1.  The bike/MTA

I've already raved about biking to work more often: it puts me in a good mood, I get more exercise in an average week, and I spend more time in the sunshine.   I would like to continue riding my bike and figure out how to get the right combination of Metrocard and riding so I save even more money in the future.

2.  The fridge/freezer

I made a serious effort to empty my fridge/freezer: I got rid of a bunch of stuff by trying new recipes and making some weird meals.  Because I end up eating the same things all the time, I don't ever touch the special/wacky ingredients I've socked away in the freezer and cabinets.  At month's end, my freezer has a lot more room, I have some homemade veggie burgers for quick meals, and I've discovered a yummy pasta and bread crumbs recipe that will help me get rid of the million pounds of crumbs still in there.

3. Laundry

Same issue with laundry.  We all know I like wearing the same thing over and over, which means I do the laundry a lot.  But if I actually wear all of the clothes I have, I really don't have to do laundry very often.  And then my clothes would last longer.  Bummer it's not more of a savings - I only saved $10 by waiting until Aug to do the wash.

4. Cigarettes

I didn't buy any in July.  I also didn't beg the bodega for singles.  'Nuff said.

The Losers

1. The bike/MTA

Despite the benefits of riding my bike almost every day, it didn't end up being such a money saver...in fact, I saved a grand total of $2.80! I rode the subway more often than I thought I would and I spent my MTA dollars really inefficiently - I would buy cards with single rides because I decided to take the subway/bus at the last minute. I imagine with more practice I might figure out how to do this better.  Or I could just stay home more often, which probably won't happen.

2. The fridge/freezer

Yes, I am so lucky to get food and leftovers from work.  Between those and working on the fridge/freezer, I ended up in great shape for food last month.  But I could go for even another month on the random things that are clogging up my kitchen.  I'll lay off the leftovers and try to continue to be creative.

3. Homemade toothpaste

It's messy and tastes gross.  I'll use up what I made and probably go back to Tom's.  I gave it a good shot, but I'm afraid it's not a keeper.