Going Green

I'm a supporter of the green movement.

I do my best to minimize my waste, I try to buy local organic foods, my vehicle is a gas sipper, and I try to take public transportation when possible.

That being said, I'm also a supporter of frugality.

I'm trying to be better with my money, I try to buy things that will last rather than something that will fall apart quickly, I try to repurpose and reuse things rather than throwing them out, and I try to maintain the basic skills out ancestors took for granted (cooking, sewing, gardening, etc...)

So, when I came across a post about inexpensive eco-friendly style, I jumped right in.

And I was disappointed :(

The shoes for the outfit in question were vintage, and the top and pants were sale items.

So what's the problem?

Well, I'm really wondering what we're encouraging by buying the stuff on sale. Don't beat me down with the frugal broom, please hear me out. Nearly everything we buy in North America is mass produced, and as such there are certain economies of scale that go along with it. Mass produced good are cheaper to make, because less of the production set up and cost is carried by each of the individual items. These economies can not be reproduced by small independent designers and retailers, but they still have to compete on the same playing field.

Compare an organic cotton t-shirt from a small manufacturer to a Gap t-shirt (just an example). The Gap t-shirt costs less than the organic one, and is the shirt that most people would end up buying. Most of us would wait until the organic one was on a clearance rack before we went for it, as is suggested in the post. In doing this, are we actually supporting a green movement? Nobody considers that the profit margin on the Gap shirt is much higher than the one from the small manufacturer, and by waiting for it to go on sale we're not really supporting the small manufacturer.

We've been fed a the fast food equivalent of clothing for long enough that our understanding of how much clothing costs has been skewed. Has anyone gone into a fabric store lately? The stuff isn't cheap. By constantly waiting until things have gone on sale, we're cutting into small business's abilities to grow, and I don't believe we're really supporting them that way.

I don't have all of the answers on how to mesh both movements together. By all means, they are most certainly complimentary. I'm wondering though, does anyone else see the problem with only buying certain things on sale?

Kinky (Back)

I think I pinched a nerve in my back :s

The Boy gave my neck a little massage while I was studying on the weekend, and for some reason as soon as he did it the muscles and nerves in my neck and upper back went berserk on me. It wasn't his fault, something had to have already been wrong for that to happen the way it did. Monday I was sore ALL day. It was honestly painful sitting at my desk at work, it was horrible. Tuesday I was faring a little better, but I was definitely still sore. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what happened.

Then I picked up my bag.

Something tells me purses aren't supposed to be this heavy.

I took it down to the gym before my midterm last night, and set it on the scale: 7.4kg (16.2lbs) not including lunch or the coffee mug I typically carry in that hand. Add that in and I'm probably sitting around 8.4kg (18.5lbs). Not the world's heaviest purse, but not the lightest either. Well above the recommended 10% body weight figure they say your purse shouldn't exceed! Actually, I think that number may actually be for backpacks; the eccentric loading caused by carrying my bag on one shoulder  actually makes it worse for me.

Did I really just write that my purse was causing eccentric loading? I did. Wow, my brain is still in midterm mode.

What's making the weight of my bag so bad is that I tend to run with it. Run for the bus, run for the train, run up and down the stairs to and from the university... I'm always in a hurry and my bag bounces along with me, swinging all over the place if I don't have a free arm/hand to hold it in place. That's a lot of stress to be asking my back to handle, and I think it caught up with me.

Time to clean it out. Unstuff and restuff. Here's a peak at what made it back in:

This is my bag. It's not pretty, but it's sturdy and it's put up with a lot out of me. It's been everywhere from Paris to oil field construction sites. It's beginning to show it's wear in the straps, but for the $25-$30 I paid for it, it's done quite well. I've considered getting something a little more structured for work, but until I find it this is my bag.

First things first, money. I bought one of the Coach coin purses while I was in University. I tend to over stuff the thing, but I find that if I don't let the receipts pile up and I don't stuff coins in there, it's actually big enough to hold all of my cards. Its not always the easiest to find them, but I'm not limited by a finite number of slots either. The little red bag above it was actually a wrapper for a gift card I received last summer; that's where I stash my coins. The little book below is for writing all of my spending in (Thanks again M).

 

The little clear makeup bag I actually bought around 8 years ago to hold my float when I was waiting tables. It took quite a while before I actually used it as a makeup bag. It's a good size though, with the exception of the pill bottle to the left, it fits everything else in the picture. It actually fits the bottle as well, but it's over stuffed then. This is what I'm currently carrying:

Nail Clippers

Nail File

Swiss Army Knife

Safety Pins

Dental Floss

Tampon

Hair Elastics

Bobby Pins

Comb

Givenchy Perfume Sample

Tarte Waterproof Mascara

Chanel Waterproof Eyeliner

MAC Paint Pot Eye Shadow

Chapstick Lip Balm

Blistex Lip Balm

Christian Dior Lip Balm

Lancome Juicy Tubes Lip Gloss

La Mer Moisturizer

This is actually more makeup than I wear on a daily basis, but having the eyeliner and lip gloss in there I can go from work to play in a pinch. You might notice that there is no foundation, concealer or blush in there, and there is an excessive number of lip balm products. Long story short, I can't wear most makeup. Regular, hypoallergenic, mineral, whatever... I react to it all. For the sake of my skin, I just stopped trying to find one that worked. Ditto with my lips, they tend to react to everything as well (hence all the balms). I'd love to wear lipstick and lip gloss, but I can't. I can get away with wearing the one above on an occasional basis if I layer lip balm under it, but that's about it. The moisturizer is actually in a sample container that I decant my main jar into for on the go use, the main jar is kinda heavy.

Being in university, I need to have a couple essentials on me. The paper and pencils are technically all I need to take notes, but my profs don't write on the board. They do everything on powerpoint, and either print out the note packages for you, or expect you to do it yourself. All that paper gets very heavy after a while, and has now well exceeded the weight of my laptop and charger (which fits in the portfolio that carries my papers). The calculator comes back and forth between the university and work with me. The only thing missing from this picture is my cell phone, which I'm using to take the pictures. It serves as my phone, day planner, address book, iPod player, note pad, and many other functions. The headphones go with the phone.

That right there is what's going back into my purse. Hopefully this makes a difference? I'd rather take stuff out of my purse than have to pay out the nose in chiropractic bills. There is some seasonal stuff, like antihistamines, which will have to be put in my purse later, but most things I can stash in my desk at work. I don't always need to carry them on me. This may still be adjusted a bit, but not much.

What do you carry in your purse?

*slide*

And now, for last month's slips. Needless to say, it was a little rough for me this month, especially around the middle. I'm not going to beat around this one, I slipped into an old, very bad, habit this month. I used shopping to beat stress.

I seriously deserve a beat down for this one.

After what was the hardest day I've had at work in well over a year, I went shopping. I didn't use cash. I did set myself a limit, I wasn't allowed to spend any more than 50% of my extra payments this month. That way by the end of the month I was still digging myself out, it was just slower than anticipated. Still, it's a habit I need to break.

After reading on Hi That's My Bike that the jeans I had been after were on sale at Anthropologie, I trotted down there and picked a pair up. Originally almost $220, they were marked down to $80.  While I was there I noticed the sweater I had been fawning over the weeks leading up to Christmas was marked down to $40 from $120, so I picked up the last one in my size as well. Tack on a couple small gifts for people, and a tube of mascara to replace mine (it was time), and I was done. Part of what limited the shopping (other than the fact that the mall was closing), wasn't so much the fact that it would mean my debt would take longer to pay off, but the fact that I'd have to write about it on here. Let's face it, admitting to this stuff is embarassing. So, thank you all.
Credit Card Damage: $184.64

I love music. I know what I should do here is delete my credit card information off iTunes, go out and buy an iTunes gift card with cash, and then use that. As of yet I haven't done it. Chalk this up to laziness, I'll buy one next time I'm out getting groceries.
Credit Card Damage: $3.57

As many of you probably saw earlier in the month, I signed up for the Ride to Conquer Cancer. Unfortunately there was a sizable registration cost associated with signing up for it.

That's right, I paid money to raise money for someone else.

I don't feel too bad about the cost of the registration because they feed us and provide us with a place to sleep that weekend. I'm basically paying for a weekend out now rather than in June. They only took either credit card or cheque for the registration costs, and I didn't have any cheques on me, so it ended up going on my credit card. That's the problem with having your card number memorized, its still usable even when it's frozen in a block of ice. My only saving grace on that is that while I have the loooooong number on the front memorized, the short one on the back I don't. That means I usually can't use it online. I put extra money on my card the following payday, but it would have been nice if that money went towards paying the balance down rather than just maintaining it.
Credit Card Damage: $75

That's $263.21 in non-cash spending during the month of February.

*facepalm*

That sucks.

Amazingly enough though I didn't use my debit card all month, other than to take money out of the bank machine every payday. I did however write down and track my spending all month, which was one of my other goals for February. I'll post the results of that tomorrow :)

Darn It

Over the course of about a week I realized that I had not only weak spots in both of my good pairs of jeans,  but I had holes in both of them as well.

*growl*

I had never heard the term "chub rub" until I saw Daisy over at Add Vodka write it in a recent post. I laughed pretty hard at that one, and it's exactly the cause of the wear in both pairs of jeans. I'm not really ready to let these jeans hit the curb just yet, so I dug out my grandmother's jar of assorted needles and thread colours. She gave it to me before she passed away years ago, and since then I've been able to colour match every item of clothing that has needed repair.

Repairing clothing to make it last longer - frugal.

Repairing jeans that you spent $200+ a pair on? .... Errrr, I'm having a hard time calling that frugal just due to the starting price. Call it bringing things a little closer to reality?

That being said, the one pair is almost 4 years old and is well below the $0.50 per wear point. I'd buy them again given the choice.

Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only person out there to run into this problem before. I've never been a fan of fabric patches on my clothes, and I certainly don't need to be putting a decorative patch near my butt to camouflage a wear hole. I just want to preserve the fabric so it stays in one piece and looks as close to the rest of the denim as possible.

The first thing I did was pick a thread colour to match the colour of the denim. I'm not a fan of contrast, especially for patch jobs. After figuring out how far the weak spot went in the denim, I back stitched a border around the entire area. This was to serve as a rip stop incase the area let go on me while I was wearing it. It also gave me a defined area to work within.

After encompassing the weak area, I used the same stitch to go back and forth across the hole. You know those threads that are left holding the fabric together in one direction only? I'm stitching them back into a fabric. If your hole looks like the picture to the left, you'd be stitching up and down across the threads. Denim fabric has a rib in it, and I used the existing fabric to space my stitches. Every 2 or 3 ribs I'd do another row of stitching until I'd worked myself from one end of the encompassed area to the other. After that I worked on a diagonal and reinforced some of the really weak areas. The fabric should hold up for a few more months at a minimum. Was it time consuming? Sure it was, but so is working to earn enough money to replace the jeans. 

I got one of the pairs done last night, the other pair will have to wait for another night.

Still Under Budget!

I'm back from my long weekend, and I didn't blow my budget! I went down to Calgary, ate junk food on the road, went for a nice sushi dinner, hung out with my cousins, picked up some styling cream for my hair and went skiing... all for under $200. Score. I didn't budget smooth this pay period persay, but I didn't blow it either.

I've been thinking a lot about why I don't feel like I have anything to wear to work. It's not that I don't have clothes (I have a ton of them), I just realized that I don't have the right ones. For example, I'm currently missing:

1. A Suit
2. Black Pants
3. White Collared Shirt
4. Plain Black Pumps (mine are now all either stretched out or broken)
5. Jeans I can tuck into boots (so they don't get soaking wet when the snow flies)
6. Sweaters in between the paper thin and bundle up at home thicknesses
7. A Purse for work that's in acceptable shape

Not included in the list is the annual pair of ballet flats that I've walked my way through. I say annual because I wear them out and they never last longer than a year. It's no wonder I feel like I'm scrambling even though I have a pile of clothes. I used to have all of the items on the list. Sadly I either didn't spend the money on them and they didn't last, or I wore them to death. I'm trying to figure out how to remedy this without back tracking on my progress. I'm thinking that Boxing Day sales are going to be used for part of this.