Day 1 of the Urge to Purge

How did I do today?



Vern looked shocked when I told him that we were going to be 300 items lighter by the end of the month. Even when I broke it down into 10 items per day, he still doubted that I could do it. (Little does he know that when I run out of "my" stuff, I'm heading over to "his" stuff.)





Purge:


3 books that I'm sending to Powells for credit on future purchase of books (they pay postage too!)

6 books for the garage sale

6 craft items for the garage sale

1 household item for the garage sale

4 game CDs for the garage sale

6 tubes of toothpaste for the food pantry box



26 items purged 5/1/08



26 total items purged for month of June


I'm ahead of the game!

Conserve:

This was a real eye opener for me today. The predictions aren't always right, so I definitely learned that I need to check out the actual cost if possible before I start something like laundry or the dishwasher. I was headed to do laundry around 9 p.m. when I noticed that the rates went over 15 cents per KWH. All I had to do was wait an hour and they dropped back down to about 3 cents per KWH. So simple to save a little money, but I just never thought to log in and check the actual rates.

Some other things I did to conserve today:

• Washed all laundry in cold water except towels and bedding.


• Stopped laundry when KWH cost went over 7.5 cents.


• Ran dishwasher at off peak time.


• Refused the plastic bag at the store and used my reusable bag instead.

As I said yesterday, reusable bags aren't very popular here in rural eastern Illinois. Even though the store actually sells reusable bags, I doubt that many people use them. The cashier acted like she didn't know what to do when I told her that I would use my own bag for the 6 items I purchased. She actually put them into the plastic bag and looked like she was going to hand it to me to put inside my bag.

I won't kill this blog with the boring details every day, but I will try to give an update from time to time on my purging totals and any major accomplishments in the conservation area.

Off to find more junk I don't need.