Adventures in (not) spending.

So.  Here I am on day 6 of my super budget May. Today, I walked past many bottles of nail polish and hand lotion in Bartell Drugs without buying any of them.  I did plunk down a small amount of money for a birthday card, and a small fortune for my prescriptions. (Though the cost of one prescription has gone down monthly from $141 to $76 so far this year--health insurance, I just don't understand ye.)  But I escaped without any foo-foo beauty crap, or chocolate.  Praises be.

I know I could have made a birthday card.  I am, in fact, halfway through the process of making some very sweet and very amateurish Mother's Day cards for my mother and the other mother-like figures in my life.  They don't look store-bought, that's for sure--but it is the thought that counts, right???

See, I made a tulip out of dried, pressed tulip petals!

Still, I think I've blown my artsy mojo on the mums' cards this week, so I decided to dip into some of my precious frivolous spending money for the birthday card.  In addition to the card, last night I met up with my book group and I bought a beer.  These two items totaled $8.00.

Then I went to get my hair done today.  The good news is that I bought a Groupon last month for my haircut and color, and it was a steal! The bad news is that Groupons don't include tip and that "Groupon customers tip on the full amount of the pre-discounted services."  Of course they do.  Good news for my colorist and stylist today: I'm a good tipper.  So that was $25.00 in tips.  Ouch.

*A pause for the Hair Report! The good news is the color looks great--my colorist is awesome!  The bad news is the cut... well, it isn't awful.

I know, it isn't that bad.  It isn't red either, as the lighting here suggests.

The stylist (not my regular gal) was nice and she was competent with the shears.  But you know how when you describe what you want (an inch shorter in the back, longer in the front, more of an angle, less poofy, lighter...), a stylist will sometimes really latch on to one or two parts of that and kind of forget the rest of that? Yeah, let's just say it's lighter and probably not so poofy, but I don't know where she heard "layering."  The lesson: you get what you pay for. End of Hair Report.*

But it DOES have a bit of a "she-mullet" feel, right? Stupid choppy layers.

Okay, back to money matters: so in six days, I've managed to blow... $32 of my 132 frivolous spending budget.  Eek!  Oh, and I'm going to New York on Wednesday.  Guess who IS NOT going to be going to any Broadway shows this time around?

This not-spending thing is not easy, yo.

In other news, I biked to my office all week.  And it was lovely, except for yesterday, when I was positive that every person or car I saw on the street was trying to make my ride more hellish.  I had some MAJOR bike rage.  Really, I was yelling the f-word like a crazy lady.  I got to thinking that maybe I need a specific outlet for my bike rage, somewhere to air it where I don't run the risk of getting hit by an angry driver. So, I have this silly twitter feed, and from here on out, that's where I'll be putting my bike rage. If you use the twitter, follow me! I will try to keep it rated PG-13, and I also use it to notify folks of new blog posts here! FYI, I have haiku aspirations for the future tweets...

In other OTHER news, I'm running a 10K this Sunday morning.  May my new biking muscles and regular running routine power my booty across the finish line faster than my race companion, CW, who has gone on a total of TWO training runs! Wish me luck!

Low Gas Wrap

Cherry blossom avenue: so, so pretty!

I’m a little amazed at how rapidly April flew by.  For Low Gas Consumption Month, I’d meant to write a commentary about Earth Day and the environment, but time got away from me, and here we are on, the first of May. 

Ahh, spring, you sure took your sweet time arriving this year!

I drove up to Shoreline to volunteer three times this month.  Other than that, I didn't get in my car--driving approximately 40 miles for the whole month.  When I was driving to Shoreline last Saturday morning, I felt like I was dreaming because it felt so foreign to me after a two-week break.  Then I realized I better snap out of it, because driving in that kind of mental state is dangerous! 

If only I-5 were always so unoccupied.

I confess, I do enjoy driving.  But I also enjoy walking and biking (especially when it isn’t raining!), and I find the practice of riding the bus to be beneficial.  (The loss of control over when you leave and when you arrive offers good practice in patience and adaptation for much more serious loss-of-control situations.  And, for a writer, there is always someone of intrigue on the bus.) 

Anyway, now that my low gasoline consumption is winding down, I intend to continue using alternate forms of transportation more than I did before.  The price in gas hasn’t exactly dropped; CO2 emissions still aren’t good for the environment; and the weather is still continuing to improve (fingers crossed).  I’m setting a loose goal for myself here and now: I am going to try to consume no more than one tank of gas a month.  Of course, things do come up (multiple airport runs, vacations), and I won’t punish myself for that.  But I would like to incline my mind to consider other options before driving.

Goal: more biking around Greenlake this summer.

Not that you need any more pushing than the price at the pump, but I really want to encourage you all to try driving less.  We all have excuses of why we need to drive.  It does take some mental and logistical rearranging to bike or carpool or bus, and there are times in life when that kind of thought is in much shorter demand than cash for gas.  For those of you with young children, I know it is often impractical to impossible to ditch the car.  But there are also the undeniable benefits of biking and walking with kids: it doesn’t just promote physical activity, but the world outside our homes offers an endless learning lab. 

Walk learning opportunity #23: is it a feral cat or not?

For those of you in Seattle, Friday, May 20 is the official 2011 Bike to Work Day.  If you’ve got yourself a pair of wheels, give a bike commute a try on this one day.

Anyway, Operation Consumption Liberation now moves onto my second month of curbing my frivolous spending, the Goods and Services edition.

Adventures in Cycling

I had Lasik three months ago.  This means my vision has been fluctuating a bit.  It is fairly stable at this point, but certain things on certain days make my eyes extra tired and thus, my vision a bit blurrier than I'd like it to be post-expensive-scary surgery.  Among the bad eyesight triggers: focusing on my smartphone's screen too much and for too long; not getting enough sleep; and cold/windy conditions which dry my eyes out.  So on Thursday, I biked to my optometrist's office in my 3-month, post-surgery check up.

It was a rainy, cold, breezy morning--which I'll say more about later.  Anyway, biking in, my eyes got all dried out from the wind and cold, and needless to say, my eyes did not "perform" so well when I did the eye tests.  The eye doctor saw quite a few patches of dryness and recommended I start using the gunky night drops again.  (Blech.  They give me itty bitty styes, which are harmless, really, but frigging annoying. But if the doctor says...)  He also advised I visit with his buddy in the glasses department for some spiffy goggles for biking.

As much as I'd love to drop $60 on some fancy goggles, I can't afford that right now, so I walked three blocks to Big 5 Sports and investigated their offerings. They didn't have any biking goggles, per se, but they did have protective eye wear for racquetball and also for sharp shooting.  I went with the youth/women's sized sharp shooting glasses, for the handy benefit of UV protection.  Check 'em out!

So that's what I'm biking around wearing.  I feel pretty bad ass.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Thursday (April 7) was a cold, wet, breezy morning.  Thursday, like pretty much every day in April up to that point, was also a cold, wet, breezy day.  Remember my post two weeks ago where I discussed typical April weather in Seattle?  I had this cute little chart, remember, that showed an average of ~2 inches of rain for the entire month of April and average high/low temperatures of 58 and 43 degrees F?  I was, like, "oh sure, it rains in April, but not like constantly, it's much better than March."  Okay, yes, it is better than March.  But "much better"?  That's a gross overstatement, given the weather during the first week of April this year.  GROSS.

This is a La Nina year.  Now I'm one of those people who gets El Nino and La Nina confused, and thinks that the two weather phenomena only happen on leap years or something, not whenever the water temperature in the Pacific does X or Y.  Let's face it, if La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, then I'm the La Nina of a meteorologist. My approach to weather forecast is: well, it did this last year.  I'm sure there really are insights I could gain from last year's weather, but assuming that this year's weather will be just like last year's weather is not the insight I should be taking home.  Last April, it was warmish and fairly dry and lovely.  And then right around Mother's Day, it started to dump rain and didn't stop until the 4th of July.  So if that was El Nino and this is La Nina, then it should be a fantastic late spring and early summer, right???  Oh, good gawd, it's time to stop this erroneous speculating!

So instead, let me just inform you that, in the first week of April, Seattle got 2.01 inches of rain.  That's the monthly average!  And let me also tell you that the average low for the first week of April 2011 was 39.6 F and the average high for the first week of April 2011 was 49 F. A little colder than usual, but not revolutionary, especially for early in the month--but that wind chill has been horrible!

This less-than-desirable weather has not made an easy introduction to my month of low gas consumption.  I expressed my fear of riding my bike in the rain in this previous post.  Now that I've been doing it for a week, I'm less afraid of wiping out.  Instead, I'm afraid of freezing my arse off.  And then sweating like a pig for a bit and then freezing more because I'm wet from sweat.  But it is improving.  It's a balmy 55 degrees F right now, and Friday was a gorgeous sunshine explosion.

Jumping on your bike is easier when it looks like this out your front door.

Still, I am doing it, the whole no-driving-my-car thing (except for when I volunteer--what a glorious drive to Shoreline that is!).  And biking up hills is getting easier (muscles adapt faster than you think!), and I'm better tolerating cars and faster cyclists zipping past me with looks of annoyance on their faces. 

I have a lot of different objectives in this year of consuming less.  One objective is to push myself outside my comfort zone.  While I did have some uncomfortable sugar cravings in January, and had to do some extra cooking in February, and decline wine in March, none of those monthly challenges REALLY pushed me to do something I was afraid to do.  This month has already pushed me to face several fears, and there have been days when I've wondered if succeeding in this particular challenge is worth my heightened level of anxiety.  Right now, I think it is. I need to push through anxiety about a whole lot of things in my life, so I can just DO them.  I'm building muscles with this month's challenge so that I can go forth and conquer in other aspects of my life.  Definitely worth it.

Tough.

ACK! Welcome to Low Gas Consumption Month!

Hello there.

I've just spent the last several hours pouring through boxes of old photos, looking for a picture of me on a bike.  And I didn't find a single one.  Apparently, those are in one of my parents' custody, because I know they're out there.  I also was looking for some pictures of me in a doing a high ropes course to prove to CW that my arse looks enormous in a harness, thus I don't want to go rock climbing with him.  Couldn't find those either.  I did however find a picture of my brother on a bike, several pictures of friends as awkward children to scan and post on Facebook, and one photo of a staged Barbie orgy.  What can I say, I was a messed-up little kid.

Needless to say, as this is a more public platform than even Facebook, I won't be posting any of those here.  So here is a photo of my bike, and my ex-boyfriend's bike.  Mine is the one on the left, the one that's mostly not in the picture, versus the blue one that is mostly in the picture.

I got new tires shortly after this photo was taken.  My bike subsequently lost four pounds.

So this bike... Well, can I just tell you that I've had it since the late 80s?  I've had it since I was 12-1/2 years old.  Seriously, I have been pedaling the same cycle for TWENTY-TWO years.  And yeah, sometimes I think, "maybe biking would be easier if I had a newer flashier bike."  But hey, it's still working.  It has 18 speeds or gears or whatever you call them.  It has a bike rack.  And as of tonight, it now has a red flashing back light and a fancy-pants spot headlight.  Nevermind the fact that I've had my bike lock for about... TWENTY-TWO years, or that I bought my helmet at Fred Meyer for $20.  The bike is pimped out and I'm ready to dive into April, my month of low gasoline consumption for Operation Consumption Liberation!

I will also not be driving any Gators this month.  FYI.

I discussed my biking fears and the current economics of gasoline last time, so without further adieu, here are the guidelines I'll be adhering to this month:

1. No driving the car except (A.)for when I'm volunteering as an ElderFriend--I got to be able to visit and transport my friend who lives in Shoreline; and (B.) for emergencies.  That's it.

Acceptable mode of transportation #1: kayaking.

2.  I  will not be going on a road trip or flying in an airplane this month.  Who can afford that anyway?

Acceptable mode of transportation #2: riding a horse.

3.  I will accept rides with friends to carpool to outings IF IT MAKES SENSE.  In other words, if I'm going out to eat with my friend ES, it is totally cool to ride together because she lives less than two miles away.  But if I'm going out to eat with my friend SW, the only way she's driving from White Center-abouts to pick me up is if we're going out to eat in my hood, or North of here, and I'm not going to suggest that.  Better I bike or take the bus to meet her somewhere halfway.

Acceptable mode of transportation #3: swimming.

Acceptable mode of transportation #4: ride a flamingo.

4.  Speaking of the bus, I will be limiting my bus use.  Sure, the bus consumes less gas and pollutes less than all of its passengers in their own cars, but the bus is also EXPENSIVE.  SO here's how I'll be limiting my bus use: (1.) I'll be putting approximately the current cost of one tank of gas in my car onto my Orca card.  (2.)  When I run out of bus money, that's it for the month.

Photo by Andy Nystrom

So, for the record, here's the bus money math: The price of regular unleaded in Seattle is $3.795 right now.  My gas tank probably holds more than 12 gallons, but for this purpose, that's what it holds.  So a tank would cost me $45.54, so I've put $45 on my Orca card for April.  If I ride the bus only during Peak hours (1-zone peak fare=$2.50 w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 18 rides for the month.  If I ride the bus only during Non-Peak hours (1-zone non-peak fare=$2.25  w/ transfers for 2 hours), that gives me 20 rides total for the month.

 Mind you, this last month, I burned through four bus fares in one day easy ($9.50 worth)--all I did was go to the office, come home to change, whereupon I went out with friends for dinner and a movie, and then came home.  I think I'm going to want to be careful about how I use those bus fares, because I'm going to want to meet up with friends and there will be late nights when I will want to get home and I won't feel safe or energetic enough to bike.  Not to mention really RAINY days.  This is Seattle after all.

Which means (5.) I will be riding my bike or walking as much as possible all month long.  Or running.  And I'm not opposed to rollerskates--I had a dream I was wearing these hella cool skates the other night--they were funky brown leather knee high boots on wheels, totally awesome.  If you know where I can get skates that rad, let me know.

Oh yes, I need to add something to my life to compensate for my removal of car and gas.  Something BESIDES more biking, which is grand, but is also work.  Hmmm, I'm open to suggestions.  Though I'm leaning towards dark chocolate, or flowers....

Chocolate doesn't get realer than this.

Poppies, Poppies, everywhere!

Almost Pedal Time... (!)

http://atom.smasher.org/gas-station/

My challenge for the month of April is a biggie.  In fact, while I’ve been a little intimidated by all of my previous challenges, I have to confess, I’m nervous as hell about this next one.  Because April is the month I’ve chosen to cut back my consumption of gasoline.

Now, anyone who drives a car or pays any attention to the news knows that, recently, the price of gasoline has been increasing faster than you can say Exxon.  GasBuddy.com has this feature where you can chart out the historical gas retail price averages for many North American markets over different time periods, ranging from one month to six years.  According to the chart I pulled up for Seattle, average gas prices for regular unleaded have gone up 60 cents per gallon since Christmas Day, and half of that price increase has been in the last month.  That's a 1-cent increase per day.  As I’m writing this, the average price of gas per gallon in Seattle is $3.748, $0.206 cents higher than the national average. 

So my upcoming month of limited gasoline consumption is certainly timely from a budget perspective.  Of course, when I decided to embark on my Operation Consumption Liberation in late December, back in the days when the Seattle average gas price was $3.18 (and I thought that was high!), the current wave of political unrest in the Middle East had just begun to heat up.  I had no idea how much of a good idea an April gas vacay would be.  Instead, I chose April for the following reasons:

1. Earth Day is in April, so I wanted to do something good for the environment.
2. April is a 30-day month, not a 31-day month, like May.
3. The weather is warmer in April than in, say, super-short February, which is important given that I’ll be walking more, biking more, and waiting for buses more.  (I’ll be going into all of this in my next post.)
4. Seattle is amazingly beautiful in the springtime—last year, I was training heavily for a half marathon during April and May, and I really enjoyed running around so much and seeing all the different flowers blooming.
5. In fact, I heart Seattle so much in the spring that I don’t want to miss a moment of it, so I don’t really want to leave town.  A low-gas consumption month kind of requires no trips on the airplane, right?

Spring=pretty flowering dogwoods on my street

 Of course, while April is warmer than February, it isn’t typically a warm month.  And April isn’t the driest month of the year in Seattle either.  Here’s a little chart to illustrate Seattle’s average monthly high and low temperatures and average monthly precipitation from www.usclimatedata.com:
 

Source: U.S. Climate Data

 Actually, that ~2-inch average April rainfall looks pretty sweet compared to the soggy >5-inch fall and winter months.  Still, those 2 inches of rain are behind most of my anxiety about going car-free this coming month. I'm not keen on biking in the rain.  It isn't just the inconvenience of getting soaked between home and the office; I am afraid.  I'm scared I will wipe out while riding downhill on a wet road, breaking my collarbone and totaling my bike.  For the record, other bicycle-riding worries include: getting hit by a car, going too slow for an impatient driver and getting yelled at, and getting laughed at and passed by other bicyclists while I have to walk my bike up another one of Seattle's big-arse hills.

A little hill--I can bike up this one.  Barely.

Thus, it isn't surprising that I've been thinking a lot lately about how I can avoid biking during low-gas month.  For example: I can take the bus!  However, given my desire to cut both my overall gas consumption (buses run on gas, yo.) and my spending ($2.25 non-peak/$2.50 peak bus fare with 2-hour transfer), I've decided to limit my bus usage for the month too.

"Well," thinks bike-fearing Jess, "if I can't bus all the time, I can walk!"  Sure, I can walk to the grocery store and the pharmacy and the library, but walking takes time.  On Tuesday, I decided to find out just how long it takes to walk home from my writing office.  +45 minutes.  One way.  It was a lovely day for a walk, but I can't spend 90 minutes walking to the office every day.  Maybe one way, once a week.

"Then perhaps I won't go to the office very much all month..."  Umm, speaking of wasting money...  I pay rent, I better use it.  Carpool?  Don't know anyone else in the building, everyone has their own weird hours, no.  There's just no way around it.  If I'm going to dump the car and limit the bus, I'm going to need to get on the bike.

Look, I live near an official bike route!

 So, yesterday, a gorgeous sunny day, I pulled my bike out of storage, dusted it off, and put air in the tires.  I put on my helmet, and consulted Google Maps on my smartphone for bike route advice to the office.  Then I biked it.  And yes, I got a smarmy look from one or two drivers who had to drive around my slow self, and yes, there were some painful hills, including one where I had it got steep so quick that I had to hop off and push my bike up the hill.  But I made it there and back.  And it only took 20 minutes each way. Of course, yesterday was fair weather biking.  Sooner or later, I'm going to have to face my fear of wet road conditions. 

Anyway, I just wanted to write about my pre-April planning and some of my concerns.  Also, do you have any great rainy-biking advise for me? Please, send it my way, along with any good luck wishes, prayers if you prefer....  I'll be laying out my rules for low-gas April early next week.

(Oh, yeah, I'm doing fine with no alcohol March.  As I mentioned in my last post, I'm doing a spring-cleaning week of no sweets to get my sugar consumption under control again--four days in and feeling sane still!)