Zero Waste Kitchen Ideas - Paper Towels, Microwave Mat

A big way to cut down on kitchen waste is to stop or limit the use of paper towels. Since they are  a one use item, I can go through a roll of those really fast. So what I did was to purchase enough dish towels and bar mops for each day of the week so there are always fresh ones. That way they can be washed and reused. I delagated my paper towel roll to the cupboard under my sink so it isn’t the first choice anyone grabs to clean up a spill or dry something off. I haven’t needed to buy a new roll in over a year! That’s a real money saver. I love to get something off of my shopping list! 

Paper napkins are a real waste of money and trees. We use cloth napkins at my house. I am not above cracking out paper plates and napkins for a party though. I used to use paper plates quite a lot in the microwave but I bought a silicone mat that you can put food directly on, eliminating the need for that.

Here’s some on Amazon:

Zero Waste Ideas: Reducing Waste in the Kitchen With Reusable Coffee Filters

Continuing my series about reducing kitchen waste, I would like to address the concept of single use items. That is items that are only intended to be used once and thrown away. I will be talking about a lot of these things we use every day without giving it a thought. Replacing single use items with reusable ones greatly reduces the amount of garbage we create. 

So today let’s talk about coffee filters. If you are using paper ones that are intended for single use, we can reduce waste by purchasing a washable, reusable one. Even if you are composting your used filters, they still come in a box usually with a plastic window that has to be ripped off and put into the trash in order to recycle that box. Basically a reusable coffee filter eliminates the need to continually buy disposable ones, thus saving money. 

You can obviously still compost the grounds. I like to dump the grounds directly in my house plant pots as it feeds nutrients to the soil. I also occasionally put them down my garbage disposal with some lemon wedges to give them a good clean.

Here’s the one I am using with my Mr. Coffee and the link to Amazon.

Save Money on Christmas This Year

I have challenged myself to spend as little on Christmas as possible and here are a few of my tricks. Here's How I saved a huge amount of money on mailing:

1. reusing padded envelopes that I saved from when I bought various mail order items during the year. I just put blank name tag stickers over the old addresses and stuff and wrote over them. So they look funky? My family all know that I am an Oregon dwelling, recycling, composting, unapologetic, tree hugger!

2. I didn't send anything heavy like hard back books or anything glass.

3. The biggest savings on mailing was to mail early so I could use the good old US Postal service regular mail. I sent my last envelope yesterday, so no worries about it getting there on time and it cost way less than rushed delivery or UPS or Fed  Ex.

Getting my mailed gifts out of the way first saved me money and has really lowered my stress level already. It make sense to get this out of the way first because I can shop for the immediate family anytime watching for sales as I go. If you haven't mailed your gifts yet, put it on the top of your to do list and you will feel the stress lift!

Tomorrow: Saving money buying gifts.

Banning Plastic Bags - Let's Get Started!

I am starting to do some research about how to think globally and act locally in regard to banning plastic bags. I have emailed our local Office of City Commissioner Sam Adams.

I have also done some more research and have found that there is a global movement to ban plastic bags. It's not just a "Portland Hippy Thing." So please join me and contact your local city officials. These movements seem to start there. iKea has all but stopped using them. They started charging a nominal fee for the bags and reduced plastic bag use by 90%. Details are here:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3701

This is significant as iKea is a global retailer. Hats off to them! I will continue to inform my readers about what we can do to force this change in our own cities. Until then, you can at least reduce your consumption by using cloth bags to shop, reuse bags for produce, and use biodegradable dog and cat waste bags, available at Urban Lease and Treat.

Minimalist Ways to Bank and Pay Bills

Using On Line Banking:

When it comes to making managing your money as easy as possible, on line banking is a huge help. Once it is set up, you can enter all of your bills just once and then pay them with a few clicks as they come in. If you aren’t so great about balancing your statement, don't worry, it deducts the money right away. So, if you only use your on line banking to pay bills, and your debit card for purchases, you’ll always know how much money is in your account. No more checks floating around out there to throw you off!

Some people prefer to have their bills automatically deducted. The only problem with that is that if something changes in your bill or a mistake has been made, the money has already taken out. It’s much easier to negotiate with a company when they’re trying to get you to pay them than after they’ve over billed you! And just in case you think that never happens, we had our mortgage escrow account recalculated with an error of over $6,000.00! Luckily I read the “New Escrow Estimation” letter they sent and refused to pay them a cent until it was resolved. It took a month of phone calls, emails, and threatening to turn it over to my attorney to get them to fix it. Unfortunately, I that mortgage set up to auto deduct so I had to pay the bank a $20.00 fee to cancel it. I’ll never use auto deduct again.

Any checks that you can have processed through direct deposit to your bank , however,will save you time. I had this at my last job and it was always nice to get my statement at work as good reminder of why I was working so hard!

So if you’ve been following my last few posts, soon you’ll have less junk mail to deal with, less bills in your mailbox because some of your bills are being e-mailed to you, and you’ll always know how much money is in your account by using on line banking, bill pay, and a debit card. No more checks! Now you’re in control!

Minimalist Kitchen - Cooking from Scratch

Many of the so called convenience foods we buy aren’t really that convenient and they cost a lot more. Having basic ingredients on hand saves time shopping, rinsing, sorting, and recycling bottles and boxes of ready mades.

Here’s an example: salad dressing. Why do we buy vinaigrette when all it is is 3/4ths olive oil and 1/4th vinegar? The variations on this theme are virtually endless. Play around with these two ingredients by using different types of vinegars such as basalmic, apple cider, rice etc. You can also try adding different flavors like garlic, honey and mustard, salt and pepper, etc. The idea is you can whisk it up whenever you need it instead of wondering when you first opened that crusty salad dressing bottle you have sitting on the shelf in your fridge!

If you are used to buying convenience foods, try to learn how to make just one item from scratch. You can learn how to make just about anything on the Food Network web site. Minimalist tip: I donated all of my cookbooks because I can easily find anything on this site!