The Green Frugal

• Tweet
• Share
• no comments yet

We hear a lot about global warming and how driving is one of the major factors contributing to it. Cars & driving are deeply entrenched in American life, whether it’s anticipating your first driver’s license, summertime driving through back roads with the windows down & music blaring, or simply getting to and from work.

But, all of our driving adds up. According to the Environmental Defense study, The Climate Impact of America’s Automobiles, personal vehicles in the US emit roughly 10% of the global CO2 emissions that come from fossil fuels. In 2004, this came out to 314 million metric tons. That much carbon could fill a coal train 55,000 miles long; that’s enough to circle the Earth twice. Ah, nothing like a frightening statistic.

There are lots of ways to cut back on driving, from carpooling to using public transportation. However there are times that life is hard without a car. Activities like moving, taking a weekend trip, or simply grocery shopping often require the use of a car.

A movement that’s been gaining momentum recently is car sharing. Companies such as ZipCar, U Car Share, HourCar, and others have made it possible to ditch one (or perhaps all) of your cars, and only use one when you really need it. Zipcar.com includes some interesting tidbits on the impact of car sharing:

• “Every Zipcar takes 15-20 personally-owned vehicles off the road.”
• “After joining Zipcar, 90% of members drove 5,500 miles or less per year.”
• “More than 32 million gallons of crude oil left in the ground total—or 219 gallons are saved per Member.”

The impact of car sharing isn’t just positive for the environment. Zipcar also claims that their members can save over $500 per month by sharing instead of owning a car. When you consider that maintenance, insurance, and even gas are included in the membership, this may not be too far off. Don’t believe it? Try out their calculator to test the theory yourself.

Car sharing companies and co-ops are popping up in urban centers all over the country, and most have the basics in common:

1. Reserve your car online
2. Unlock the car with your personal card or key (or phone!)
3. Drive away
4. Return to a specified car-share location before your reservation time expires
5. Leave car as clean as you found it

Pretty simple, huh? Do your kindergarten teacher proud and give sharing a chance.

• Tweet
• Share
• no comments yet

Goodnight Moon. The Bernstein Bears. Love You Forever. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Many of these titles evoke a sense of nostalgia and warm memories of our childhood. Today, however, countless children do not have access to books outside of the classroom.

Last weekend, several Cash4Books employees donated their time and book-cleaning skills to support the mission of The Children’s Book Bank – a local non-profit which strives to improve the literacy skills of low-income children by giving them books of their own before they reach kindergarten. Their goal? To help break the cycle of poor literacy which often plagues low-income families, generation after generation.

Over the course of several hours, Cash4Books employees worked to prepare books for preschoolers. Scribbles were erased, inscriptions were covered, spines were reinforced, torn pages were taped, and covers were wiped with organic cleaners. There was also a bit of reminiscing over our childhood favorites, too!

According to The Children’s Book Bank website:

• In homes in middle income neighborhoods, the ratio of books to children is 13 books for every child.
• In low income neighborhoods the ratio is 1 book for every 300 children.

The Children’s Book Bank also notes that “research shows that children with books at home who are read to at an early age become better readers and do better in school.”

For more information on the Children’s Book Bank or how to get involved, please visit their website at:

www.childrensbookbank.org

• Tweet
• Share
• 2 comments.

That’s the most frequent question we hear from our customers looking to sell used books at Cash4Books.net.  It would be nice to have an easy answer, but the truth is there are almost as many answers as there are books.  Let me explain just a few of the universal truths of used book buying.

Universal #1:  Ye olde basic law of supply and demand.

Blame Adam Smith.  While Smith wasn’t the first one to come up with the idea, he was the first to popularize the “Law of supply and demand.”  In the used book world, this means we base much of our decision to purchase a book on how well it is currently selling and how many copies we have on hand.

At Cash4Books, we consider this decision as both an art and a science.  The science comes from data we accumulate from our own sales history and current online marketplaces.  Skilled and experienced bookselling professionals who review of our buying list provide the art.  Our current buying list includes over 280,000 unique ISBNs.  And, yes, it really does change daily.  Here’s our example list of some that we’ve bought recently.

Universal #2:  Condition, condition, condition.

Just like “location, location, location” are the three most important things in real estate, “condition, condition, condition” is what sells a used book.   Cash4Books loves books and knows that you do too.  However,   some books have been ‘loved a little too much’ to appeal to another reader.  We try our best to let sellers know what we expect on our Condition Requirements page .   So, if your book isn’t in a condition that the next reader will love too, we can’t purchase it.

Universal #3:  Survival of the fittest

In the world of books this could be rephrased as “survival of the best fitting packaging.”  Modern postal and freight transportation systems are efficient, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your book package will be treated with tender loving care from the time it leaves your door until the time it arrives at ours.  Your book will be handled, bundled, conveyor belted, sorted and resorted countless times between points A and B.  Unless your books are carefully packed in sturdy boxes using strong tape, they may arrive at Cash4Books looking like this:

If you don’t want your books to arrive looking like these we suggest following these simple steps:

• Use a sturdy box. Don’t use thin cardboard boxes (such as cereal boxes or shoe boxes), as those will not protect the books in shipment.

• If necessary, cut the box down to fit your books  and  use bubble wrap, wadded plastic grocery bags, or wadded newspaper to fill any remaining empty space after cutting the box down.  Don’t use styrofoam peanuts, as they crumble and get between pages.
• Affix your  shipping label with clear packing tape on  the top of the box.

• Use plenty of packing tape — the reinforced kind, if possible – and wrap it all the way around the box in several places.

• Keep the weight of each box under 40 pounds. While there is a weight limit of 70 pounds per box, but we advise going no more than 40 pounds per box.  Boxes over 40 pounds often result in boxes falling apart and damaged and/or lost books!

• Tweet
• Share
• 2 comments.

Ah, summer. There is no better time to get out of the house and get to know nature a little better. The best way to do this is to go camping! I know what you are thinking: “I want to experience nature from my air conditioned hotel room in Waikiki!” Well this is frugal blog, darnit, so let’s compare the two trips.

• Travel Expense
  • Flight from Portland, OR to Honolulu round trip for a family of four:
    • $1680 (double that for you East Coasters)
  • 200 mile round trip drive to favorite campground:
    • <$60 (assuming you aren’t an H2 driver…)
• Hotel Expense
  • 3 star hotel in Waikiki:
    • $130 per night
  • Campsite fee:
    • <$30 per night
• Fun Expense
  • Waikiki
    • Snorkeling with the fishes
      • $60 each
    • Taking a helicoptor tour of a mountain
      • $120 each
    • Touring a pineapple plantation
      • $12 each plus pineapple-y souvineers
  • Camping
    • Going fishing
      • $14 each (and in many states, kids under 14 can fish for free) 
    • Taking a hike up a mountain
      • Free! (Just make sure to bring plenty of water and snacks)
    • Touring a pinecone “plantation”
      • Free!
• Food Expense
  • Waikiki
    • Breakfast – Banana crêpe with coconut syrup and fresh ground Kona coffee
      • $14
    • Lunch – Glass of POG juice, deep fried mahi-mahi, and a mango shave ice
      • $9
    • Dinner – Succulent pork roasted on a spit, by a master chef, over a bed of fire heated lava rocks
      • $24
  • Camping
    • Breakfast – Burned pancake with a slightly squished banana and a glass of watery coffee crystals
      • $3
    • Lunch - cup of Kool-Aid, pan fried lake trout, and a couple of ice cubes found at the bottom of your cooler
      • $0.50
    • Dinner – Succulent hotdog roasted on a stick, by your 10 year old son, over a bed of random things you decided to burn (YUM!)
      • $1.25

As you can see, a camping trip is clearly a great option for those who want an adventure on a budget.  I recommend looking at these great resources to help plan a camping trip:

• For camp ground research and reservations: ReserveAmerica.com
• How to go camping while respecting the environment: TreadLightly.org
• Want to find out about State and National Parks in your area?: U.S. National Park Service
• Easy camping menus that sound better than the one above: JoyOfCamping.com
• A great list to make sure you don’t leave anything at home: FamilyCampingGear.com

Do you have any great camping stories? Tell us about them in the comment box below.

• Tweet
• Share
• no comments yet

I recently received a Google Alert on “ways to save money”. A series of articles on helium.com titled Easy ways to save money by going green caught my attention right away. That’s what the Green Frugal is all about!

You can certainly read the full articles, but for your convenience I’ve condensed it down to three things that I thought were of particular interest.  Here they are:

“Instead of buying all sorts of fancy dusting sprays, use Murphy’s Oil soap and dilute it with some water and put it in a spray bottle. That will last you a long time, remove dust easily, be safe on any surface and not fill your air with a ton of chemicals in the process. “

“A great way to conserve water in your bathrooms is to put a 2 quart soda bottle filled with water inside of the toilet tank.  This will save on the amount of water that is used each time the toilet is flushed.” (I just did this today, in my house. Tip: put a few rocks in the soda bottle, or else you may have a floatation device. A 2 quart soda bottle is equivalent to 64 ounces.  If this seems a bit large to you, then you can always start with a 20 ounce… or maybe two 20′s.)

“Look at the way things are packaged – You may not have noticed, but things that are packaged in fancy packaging and/or boxes tend to cost more than things you can buy in plain bags. Some manufacturers even make a point of using plastic food bags that are made from recycled materials. “