Update

Wow, it's been almost a month since I wrote anything here! I've been very busy at work, though, and I've had to work some in the evenings. Several little things to report:

The Geekdo/BGG team on CarbonRally isn't doing as well as I'd hoped. We've got six members, but I was hoping for more. Please join our team!

We got some dishwasher powder from Seventh Generation, and it's doing much better than Cascade, even. We've also changed the setting on our dishwasher, reducing the energy used both to wash and dry the dishes.

Gaiam is running a sale until mid-October where they're only charging 99 cents shipping on everything (unless extra shipping normally applies). They've also reduced the price of their Seventh Generation items permanently.

I don't remember if I've posted this before or not, but we've started saving on laundry by rewearing a shirt once if it's not dirty. We've noticeably cut the volume of laundry.

Someone has recently sold my address, and I'm getting at least ten new catalogs a week in the mail. I'm hitting Catalog Choice pretty hard, and they've stopped appearing -- and I'm not getting any repeats.

And finally, we're continuing the waste-free lunch. Once you get started, it's not that difficult to keep it going!

Seeing the Light

We've done several little things over the last week:

1) Bought energy saving light bulbs. They were on sale with a coupon for $4 off of a 2-pack, which made them 50 cents each. Now we just need to start switching them in for the incandescent bulbs.

2) Unpluging our cell phone chargers when not in use. Apparently these things draw power even when the phone isn't plugged in. I'm not sure how they do that, because I didn't think it was a closed circuit, but anyway... We're also unplugging the Dust Buster when not charging. I only use it about once a week, so not only is it drawing power to recharge a battery that's not empty, but it's also running through charge cycles on the battery, which will shorten its life.

3) I signed up for Catalog Choice. On your behalf, they contact companies that send you catalogs and request that they stop. My address has been sold (grrr), and so I was able to stop four catalogs that I don't want, and reduce the number of times per year I receive some that I do want.