Mommy Goes Green

31 Days: The No Spend Month {Day 1}

September 30, 2012 by Tiffany 6 Comments

2 years ago, I sorely needed a break from any commitments beyond my family. So I stopped writing on Mommy Goes Green, although I did not stop writing entirely.

This summer, I started toying with the idea of writing here again. But I wanted to change things up because I, as a person and a green mom, have changed in the last 2 years.

So while I may not be a regular, I will be back more regularly.

To kick off my reentry, I’m joining a project over at The Nester, encouraging 31 days of writing on a specific topic.

Mine? How to have a ‘No Spend Month’. I did not come up with the idea of a No Spend Month myself, I’m brilliant at times but not that brilliant. I got the idea from Rachel at Small Notebook.

We’ve been tackling our spending for two years, trying to whittle down our budget, line item by line item. And once in awhile, we just blow the budget.

We moved this summer and it’s been down hill since then: both cars needed new tires, we ate out a lot, groceries are more expensive in our new place and the list goes on.

So to stop our spending in its tracks, and save a few dollars for the Christmas gift coffer, we are paring our budget down to the essentials for the month of October. Cutting back wherever we can:

groceries
household needs
eating out and entertainment
gas
utilities
gifts
clothing
kids

Stick with me for the next 31 days to see where we end up. My hope is that it will inspire you to spend less and save more in areas you might have never thought of. And I hope to pick up ideas to save money from readers, too.

Below are the links to all the days (so far) in The No Spend Month, I hope you’ll follow along!

Day 2: Our Budget

Day 3: Eating From Our Pantry + Printables

Day 4: Meal Planning + Printables

Day 5: Saving $ on Groceries – Part 1

Day 6: Saving $ on Groceries – Part 2

Day 7: Week 1 Update

Day 8: 5 Ways to Eat Out for Free

Day 9: How to Spend $15/Month (or Less) on Personal Care

Day 10: Keeping Our Gas Costs Down

Day 11: A Halloween Party on the Cheap

Day 12: 20 Date Night Questions + Printable

Day 13: 10 Cheap Date Night Ideas

Day 14: Week 2 Update

Day 15: 5 Tips To Cut Laundry Expenses

Day 16: How I Score Books and Magazines for Free

Day 17: 25 Ways to Stay Busy During A No Spend Weekend

Filed Under: 31 Days

Recycle Your Old Blue Jeans at Gap

October 7, 2010 by Tiffany Leave a Comment

Need some new jeans? Take an old pair to Gap and get 30% off a new pair of Gap 1969 jeans. The Gapwill take your old jeans and use them to create eco-friendly insulation. If you have a Facebook account, “Like” Gap and get 40% off a new pair!

In March, Gap participated in this event recycling over 270,000 pairs of jeans. The jeans were recycled into insulation for 500 homes in under served communities and for special projects, including Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts.

It only runs through October 20! I’m all over this – I so need a new pair of jeans!

Filed Under: Apparel & Accessories

7 Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat More Veggies

September 29, 2010 by Tiffany Leave a Comment

1. Start early. Several years ago, I was reading an article about healthy snacks for kids where they mentioned hummus. Comments from parents ranged from “great idea” to “what kid eat hummus?” My first thought was “my kid eats hummus”. I fully attribute this to our early introduction of hummus, along with other foods that kids haven’t traditionally eaten like quinoa, lentils, couscous, and beans. We were just feeding our daughter (and now our son) what our family eats. We didn’t make separate meals for them. And for us, it worked. Both of our kids eat a lot of different healthy foods.

2. Be the example. If you aren’t eating veggies, your kids probably won’t either. Put them on the menu for every lunch and dinner. This point was recently proven to me when my daughter was playing house and said “I need a Coke. That’s what mommies drink.” Ugh. If you’ve been reading MGG for long, you know I have a love-hate addiction to Coke. Obviously it’s a bit on the “I love you so much, how do I survive without you?” side right now.

3. Sneak them in. When I was making pureed food for our infant, I thought it would be so easy to sneak those pureed fruits and veggies into our meals for added doses of healthiness. I’m not the genius who came up with this idea, there are plenty of cookbooks that have great suggestions on how to do this like Deceptively Delicious and The Sneaky Chef.

4. Prepare ahead. One of my personal goals for 2010 was to eat more veggies myself. I figured if they were easily available throughout the day, I would snack on them. So between buying pre-cut veggies and spending time cutting veggies into bite-sized chunks, I put them in glass storage so I would see them every time I opened the refrigerator. I did begin to eat more of them until I came up with #5 below.

5. Leave them out. Because our fruit is stored on the counter, it gets eaten quickly. I figured the same would happen with veggies so I started putting them in pretty glass dishes around the kitchen and living room. This is my current method of extra veggie consumption and it totally works. Both the kids and I are snacking on carrots and tomatoes many times a day.

6. Grow your own. With your own backyard garden, kids are bound to be curious. My daughter (and friends) love to comb the garden to see what they can pick fresh off the vine. Your garden can be as simple as a tomato plant in a container – that is how I started several years ago. Each summer, I try to plant something new so we can practice our gardening skills and expand our taste buds.

7. Get creative. When I was a child, I would often come home from school to a message on the counter spelling out ‘I Love You’ in chocolate chips. Of course, we swallowed them as fast as we could. Although she used chocolate, the theory could apply to veggies, too. Here are some great ideas resembling Sesame Street characters with veggies like corn, radish, peas, spinach, tomatoes and carrots.

How do YOU sneak more veggies into your family’s diet?

Filed Under: Food and Drink

Turning Cardboard Boxes Into Your Child’s Dream Playhouse

September 20, 2010 by Tiffany 1 Comment

When I was a kid, my mom threw me a 50’s themed birthday party complete with a jukebox made out of an old refrigerator box. Once the party was over, it stuck around the house for a month or two while we continued to play with it. Quite a bit of use for an old refrigerator box that was otherwise bound for the recycling bin.

Now that I have my own kids, I can see how busy a simple cardboard box can keep them. Here’s a few products that help turn a cardboard box into anything your child can imagine.

Mr. McGroovy’s Rivets :I love these tools to make building something out of a cardboard box a little easier and more sturdy. You can download plans with step-by-step instructions to build projects like a firetruck, castle, space ship or lemonade stand. All you need is a few free cardboard boxes, Mr. McGroovy’s Rivets and markers or paint. For more inspiration, check out the photo gallery where people have shared their project photos.

Makedo : I picked up a Makedo spacepod kit at a garage sale and my 5 year old loved it! It came with instructions, stickers for decorating and over 60 connectors to make the space pod. All I had to do was provide the cardboard. Each construction kit comes with similar items to build projects such as a shark, rally car or elephant.

My Very Own House : If building from scratch isn’t your thing, My Very Own House has about a dozen different preprinted designs. This cottage is over 4 feet tall and well loved by toddlers and preschoolers. The outside and inside are white so they can both be decorated. Made from biodegradable, formaldehyde-free cardboard. Include 8 markers.

Box Creations : Another preprinted design but they are more adventurous with pirate ships, space shuttles, carriages and castles. Made in the USA with recycled materials and includes 4 markers.

The Cardboard Box Book : This book would make a fun gift coupled with a few cardboard boxes and some paints or markers.

Filed Under: Baby and Kids

What is Phenoxyethanol?

August 31, 2010 by Tiffany 10 Comments

I’ve seen the preservative, phenoxyethanol, on many cosmetic bottles so I finally took the time to find out what it is. According to Wikipedia, it is an organic chemical compound, a glycol ether often used in cosmetics, vaccines, and pharmaceuticals.

Chemical of the Day says that phenoxyethanol is commonly used as a fragrance ingredient so if you don’t see ‘phenoxyethanol’ in the ingredient list but you do see ‘fragrance’, it could be in there anyway. The Green Beauty Guide says these are ‘nicknames’ for phenoxyethanol:

Dowanol

Arosol

Emery 6705

Phenoxetol

Rose ether (sounds really organic!!!)

Phenoxyethyl alcohol

Glycol monophenyl ether

Beta-hydroxyethyl phenyl ether

IS IT SAFE?

Skin Deep considers phenoxyethanol a ‘4’ or ‘moderate risk’.

Numerous studies have shown it to be a skin irritant and the FDA warned consumers not use a nipple cream for breastfeeding mothers because the phenoxyethanol in it “can depress the central nervous system and may cause vomiting and diarrhea, which can lead to dehydration in infants.”

The Environmental Medical Division at Oregon Health Sciences University reported 3 cases of phenoxyethanol neurotoxicity:

2-Phenoxyethanol, used as an anesthetic for handling small fish at a salmon hatchery, caused three women to experience headache and symptoms of intoxication during use, followed by diminished sensation and strength of hands and fingers, worse in the preferred hand. Persistent neuropathy did not develop in any of them. After 1 to 2 years of exposure, the women manifested gradual onset of symptoms of cognitive impairment with an inability to work. Neuropsychologic testing verified that all three had focal cognitive impairments that persisted. One also had documented labyrinthine hypofunction, which originated during this exposure.

Phenoxyethanol is considered a “safer preservative” so I bet if you look at many of the skin care products labeled ‘natural’, you’ll find phenoxyethanol as an ingredient. I’m constantly looking at the ingredients on products at the store so I see it all the time. Up until this point, I haven’t specifically avoided it but I probably will going forward, as much as I can.

Do you read ingredient lists on cosmetics? What chemicals do you specifically look for to avoid?

Filed Under: Misc Tagged With: phenoxyethanol

31 Days: The No Spend Month {Day 1}

Recycle Your Old Blue Jeans at Gap

7 Ways to Get Your Kids to Eat More Veggies

Turning Cardboard Boxes Into Your Child’s Dream Playhouse

What is Phenoxyethanol?

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