I Used to Buy Bananas

...along with a few other things that are no longer on my shopping list.

While the economy has had many ups and downs in the last 2 years or so, the price of food has climbed and climbed. Have you noticed the impact on your budget? I doubt many of us have missed it. I hear rumblings that food (even chocolate) will continue to increase in cost, and I look at my shopping cart and wonder what else will not go in it in the coming year.

Bananas used to be a staple on my table. We ate them fresh, and when they started turning brown I used them to make banana bread or banana cake. Sometimes I would find a large bag, maybe ten pounds or more, marked $1.00. I would have a baking frenzy then, making loaf after loaf of banana bread for the freezer. Now, with the price at 55 cents a pound, bananas have joined the luxury list at my house. When you consider that you throw away almost a third of the weight with the peel, the price per pound becomes even more out of reach.

I suppose I should not fret over bananas; after all, they are one fruit that actually contains fat and I can do without that. And I suppose I can get the potassium bananas are so rich in from some other source. There is nothing that will replace those golden circles on top of my cereal, however, or the creamy smoothness of the first bite into a banana at perfect ripeness.

Being on a diet means not only are we losing weight, we're gaining money. The grocery list is shorter--no cheese, no bread, no pasta, a lot less butter and sugar and other things. Still I am appalled at the cost of even the small amount of food I buy, and I wonder how a family with small children manages the hit to their wallet each time they enter the store. Are they cutting back, not buying the little treats children love, going for the generic instead of the brand names? Or are people just sucking it up and closing their eyes as they swipe their debit card?

It will soon be garden time and some of the pressure of food prices will relax as we start eating our own produce. Last year more Americans than ever planted gardens, and some even ventured into backyard poultry. I wonder if this trend will continue, or if, tired of trying to do it themselves, Americans will lapse back into the convenience of ready-made and pre-packaged.

What's going on at your house? Are you still buying bananas or have they ended up on your do-not-buy list too? Have you cut back in other areas, and are you planning to grow a bigger garden this year, or maybe even your first garden? How is the increase at the grocery store affecting your life?

Moneysavers

New year, new resolutions, and for many of us the number one resolution is to find more ways to save, and to live a little greener in the process.

My list of things I already do includes the following:

Laundry: hanging it out saves on the electric bill--but we've talked about that before. My daughter-in-law claims that clothes last longer if they are air-dried: colors don't fade, and you know that lint in your dryer? That's part of the fabric in your clothing; the process of drying breaks the fibers that are woven together to form cloth, so a little bit of your favorite towel is lost each time it goes through the dryer.

Hair care: I decided to let my hair grow long again, quit blow-drying, moussing and messing with it. I cut it myself when it gets too long. It's not stylin' but it works for me (well, most of the time). Savings: hair products, hair cuts, blow dryer, curling iron, electricity, gas going to the hair dresser, and best of all--time.

Cloth napkins: They can be found for next to nothing at yard sales and resale places. They can be washed and re-used. They can be mixed and matched for variety. They're pretty!

Cloth kitchen towels instead of paper towels: I still buy paper towels occasionally (especially when grandkids come!), but this is a next-step for me as soon as I have enough linen kitchen towels and good rags for cleaning up spills.

Crocheted dishcloths: My sister Judy gave me one she made and I love it. I want more! This is so much better than anything else I've used to wash dishes.

Kitchen mops: Did you know you can buy wood-handled mops with spring-loaded clip heads that you can refill with rags or replaceable mopheads? We had them when I was a girl and I recently found them again. These are the best--no wringing out a big heavy mop or even worse buying expensive refills. Just use what you have on hand. These mops aren't pretty but they are sturdy and work well. Those Swiffers et al are expensive to upkeep, and don't do the job any better than the old standard cleaning tools. (am I sounding like an old fogey here?)

Wood floors instead of carpet: for all kinds of reasons. Wood will not wear out for years and years (it can wear out, though, as we proved when we were children in our big old house in Virginia. Those oak boards were worn thin!). Wood can be cleaned, refinished to look like new over and over. Carpet needs special tools for cleaning; it has to be replaced; and that's not even talking about the dirt and dust and whatever else seeps down through carpet into the pad and sneaks around firing up allergies in people like me.

Those are a few things that came immediately to mind as I started writing this post. I am sure you can add many other things to this list. The bottom line is re-use, recycle and recreate. I am often amused by ads that cry out to us to "Hurry in and save!" Guess what? If we don't hurry in, we'll save even more because we won't spend anything! It's not shopping and sales, it's thinking about what we buy, what we really need, and what we can re-use, and what we can do ourselves.

There is a new book called Save BIG: How to Cut Out Big Costs, by Elizabeth Leamy that I would like to read. I'm pretty good at saving in little ways: carry my own coffee to work, pack my lunch, grow a garden, can and preserve, hang out laundry, eat out rarely, and so on. But the big things? Like most people, I don't pay attention to them--and I should. I read her blog and found a few things I want to investigate further.

And I'll save even more--I'll get her book from the library!

Care to share? What new things are you trying this year to save money and/or go green? And what old-tried-and-true things are you still doing?