The No Heat Challenge ended on November 1st, and we are now embracing the full use of our lovely, lovely furnace. Because Portland, Oregon has been wet, rainy and cold.
Did I mention the rain?
However, don’t start thinking that the end of the No Heat Challenge saw uscranking up the furnace to 70° all the while prancing around in [...]
The following is a reprint of a previously published column. Enjoy!
As the Non-Consumer Advocate, I usually recommend for people to buy used or not buy at all. (I follow The Compact, a buy nothing new movement.) But I am going to break from my normal stance and suggest a new purchase:
LED Christmas lights.
LED lights use a fraction of [...]
The No Heat Challenge ended on November 1st, and we are now embracing the full use of our lovely, lovely furnace. Because Portland, Oregon has been wet, rainy and cold.
Did I mention the rain?
However, don’t start thinking that the end of the No Heat Challenge saw us cranking up the furnace to 70° all the [...]
Despite having worked today, I feel like I put in a full day of Non-Consumer activity. This is because soon after getting home, I commandeered one of my kids and went out to run a couple of errands.
First on the agenda was a quick stop into the Belmont branch library, where I picked up a [...]
The following is a reprint of a previously published column. Enjoy!
I’ve noticed that there is a definite simple living paradox.
The simple living choices are often . . . well, kind of a pain in the tuchus.
A good example is how I buy lettuce for salads. The simplest solution would be to throw a bag-o-salad in the [...]
Last Sunday’s Parade Magazine featured an article titled, “How The Economic Crisis Changed Us.” I was expecting a narrative piece, but it was mostly a series of very interesting statistics, such as:
“Many Americans have made significant financial adjustments in their daily lives. Eighty percent say that they’ve been “forced to do more with less,” 73% [...]
I am loving all the comments in response to the recent column titled, “Coupons — Are They Worth The Trouble?” It does seem that many people are finding ways to make coupons work for them, despite an aversion to Hamburger Helper and other packaged food.
A number of readers shared websites that they use to [...]
When my friend Glenn sent me a link to a Good Morning America/ Huffington Post piece about a woman who feeds her family of six on $4 per week. My first thought was:
Wow, that’s a lot of lentils!
But no, the women is one of those coupon fanatics who’s able to combine sales, coupons and [...]
The recent column titled, “Shh . . . it’s the Secretly Frugal” garnered the most amazing and inspiring comments.
Here are just a few, although I would highly recommend reading the entirety. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to share your thoughts and stories in the comments section.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, [...]
Frugality is everywhere. It’s on TV, in the papers and certainly on the internet.
It’s inescapable.
But that doesn’t mean that frugal folk stand out any more than your average American. Often, frugality is completely behind closed doors.
I come across a wide cross section of society in the course of my job as a hospital nurse. I [...]
