Anyway Project: November

Anyway Project

So we don’t plan in living in the ‘burbs forever. Yes, it’s nice to be closer to family and libraries and Trader Joe’s, but I have wanted to live on a working farm for a LONG time. I went to college for animal husbandry and I have lived and worked in a semi-rural area on a horse farm. But the reality is that this is where we are now. And there are so many things we could be doing/learning/reading here, in this place. Thus, “The Anyway Project”. No matter what your long-term or even short-term plans are, you could be changing something you need to change anyway right NOW. These little monthly goals help us break down lofty ideas into manageable steps. And if you’ve talked wonderful friends like Sheila and Darla into doing it with you, so much the better. So, here are the categories:

Domestic Infrastructure – these are the realities of home life, including making your home work better with less, getting organized, dealing with domestic life, etc…

Household Economy: Financial goals, making ends meet, saving, barter etc…

Resource Consumption : in which we use less of stuff, and strive to live in a way that has an actual future.

Cottage Industry and Subsistence:: The things we do that prevent us from needing to buy things, and the things we produce that go out into the world and provide for others. Not everyone will do both, but it is worth encouraging.

Family and Community: Pretty much what it sounds like. How do we enable those to take the place of collapsing infrastructure?

Outside Work: Finding a balance, doing good work, serving the larger community as much as we can, within our need to make a living.

Time and Happiness: Those things without which there’s really no point.

These are meant to be monthly goals, so even though we will have the new ones posted day after tomorrow, we actually have been doing these for the last few weeks. After a lovely discussion with the Geek-Husband, this is what we came up with:

Domestic Infrastructure
-Finish unpacking, sorting, tossing/donating/arranging stuff in house. This had been HUGE. We are like 80% done, both house and garage. And we need to mostly finish this week before the charity truck comes on Thursday and so we can decorate for Christmas. But not easy to do with a little Beanie underfoot. Or more likely, in arms. The sling hasn’t been cutting it.

-Plan weekly breakfast and lunches and stick to plan as much as possible. Works when we have done a good, well -planned shop. Getting used to less food money, so trying to spend our few dollars on nutrient rich foods that will give us the most bang for our buck. Our dinners are still being eaten at my parents’ house.

Household Economy
-Create a budget and see if we need 2 incomes. Ok, we still need to crunch the numbers, but I know with my new job the answer will be YES.

-Envelope system for cash purchases, use Mint to pay utilities and cards. Still need to do this. Now that we actually HAVE an income, not just savings and credit cards.

Resource Consumption
-Not use microwave for a month and see if we can live without it. We only pay for electric as a utility, so this is a savings. More importantly, I think, are the health benefits of not eating altered food. So far I only miss it the most to warm my heating pack (I have been using the toaster oven for 5 minutes). I do love how much more counter space we have now!

-Using less power overall-watching less TV, shutting off lights and fan. No TV during the day rule has been working out. I want to (find and) put a nightlight in the porch for when we get in at night and in our bedroom so I can ease my nightly is-he-breathing paranoia, even though he is RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

-Reduce/Reuse/Recycle! Reduce amount of disposable diapers we buy. We are getting back into cloth now that our washer is hooked up and haven’t bought the 7th Gen. dipes for a few weeks. We have also been doing part-time Elimination Communication and we are all getting the hang of it! Pees and poops! Hooray! We have been getting better at hanging up our clean clothes so we can re-wear them. We have been faithful about putting out our recycling every Tuesday!

Cottage Industry and Subsistence
-Make and using cloth wipes for us and Beanie. Stopped buying disposable wipes! We are currently using washcloths with tea tree oil spray for Beanie. Still have to find old flannel sheet for me to cut up for us.

-Make felt shoes for Beanie. Think about using pattern to sell. Still need to buy off of Etsy. Have lovely newly felted cashmere sweater to use, courtesy of a laundry mishap.

Family and Community:

-Keep eating dinner with my family. Yup, still at it.

-Meeting up with Homebirth club at least once a month. Saw each other for Uma’s party!

Outside Work:

-Get job(s). Me: YES! Yay! Dan: Working on freelance submissions. And resume.

Time and Happiness:

Are now able to spend as much time with Beanie as possible = happiness!!!

Salutations from the river!

Hi! How do you do? My name is Jen, this is my husband Dan, and that wee fishie over there is Malcolm. We make up Suburban Salmon, our new blog about living in the shadow of (arguably) the coolest city in the world, the Big Apple. We recently moved to Bergen County NJ (where I grew up) from the countryside of Bucks County, PA (where Dan grew up). We love being closer to family and having sidewalks again. We DON’T love the crazy consumerism that permeates the culture here. 5 malls within 15 minutes of us and each other? Check. “Big box” stores aplenty? Check. Fast food conglomerates in every town? Check.

When I lived here before, it wasn’t a problem. In fact, I reveled in it! After I moved away, I missed being able to drive to all the GAPs up and down Route 17 to find that sweater in my size. And if we didn’t have it here, it was a quick car or bus ride over to NYC. But a few things have happened in the meantime. I lived on my own and had some pretty low-paying jobs. My husband and I started saving for a wedding we paid for in cash. Then we started saving for a baby we paid for in cash. (We chose a homebirth with midwives.) We started to live more healthfully for said baby. Baby Mal was born and we were poorer (yet happier!) than ever. Over about 10 years’ time, our cumulative choices have been mostly leading us down a path of purposeful simplicity. And then we decided to move here?!? I figured if we were meant to be living here, then maybe this was some kind of test; to see if we could live up to our values in a place where they would be tried pretty much every day. I hope this blog will record more successes than failures and encourage others in similar situations that, yes, you too can resist “going with the flow” of consumerism!

So what is consumerism? My personal take is that it is anything that reduces me, my family or any other creature on this Earth to a dollar sign. Fast-food is consumerism, but those organic Chilean strawberries in January can also be consumerism. Things that on the surface are cheap: makeup, clothing, housewares that are unhealthy and unfair to the people that made them, or to the planet. Classes or books that say I don’t know how to teach my son to enjoy music or read without their “expertise”. Spending on what you don’t really have to have, as opposed to what you truly want.

Our personal philosophy of purposeful simplicity (say THAT three times fast!) involves a few basic priorities:

Family first- The time we spend with little Mal, both individually and together, is our most valued “possession”. We practice natural/attached/gentle parenting and we want to raise him at home, with us, like the majority of parents did up until the last century. So, while he needs us most, we have made the decision to make our work commitments revolve around him and equally-share our parenting and work (and household!) duties as much as possible. Which leads us to …

Income & Spending- Since we don’t have the “typical” dual income household, we need to live frugally. Fortunately, we (presumably) have more personal time to offset this. Ergo, time = money. If you have the time to cook/walk/make presents, then you don’t need as much money in order to afford fast food/car gas/shopping.

Living Quarters- Smaller has turned out to be better. Our new (rented) digs in a 2 family home has been a great decision. We have a lovely king-sized family bed, so we only needed a one-bedroom place, making things cheaper. We sorted and donated bags full of clothes, toys, just stuff we didn’t want to make room for what we love and need. Now everything in the house has a one year expiration date – if we don’t use it by then, off to Goodwill it goes! The biggest plus is that cleaning takes so little time and effort, giving us the chance to do other things. (Like, say, start a blog.)

Ethical Concerns- Our best choices reflect our desire for global social justice and to be good stewards of our planet’s inhabitants and resources. Fortunately, there are increasing numbers of people, organizations and venues to help us make good decisions. However, we should also be aware that greenwashing is on the rise. We give ourselves permission to make mistakes and realize that we are probably never going to attain some ideal of perfectly green, frugal and simple living (whatever that may be). We’re here to do the best we can over the long haul. Thanks for sharing our journey!