Self-reliance revisited

Reduce-reuse-recycle, that has long been the catch phrase for saving our planet. I think that if you consider it to be a catch-phrase for saving your cash you can take it further. There are many different ways we as Americans can reduce the amount of crap we buy and subsequently throw away if we do a little creative thinking but since I know that we are not all creative thinkers, I have found a few resources that are jam-packed with great ideas. http://www.facebook.com/ModernPioneer is a page for facebook users that can show us how to reduce by growing our own food sans packaging, www.motherearthnews.com/ is a great little website that gets more involved in all three aspects of the phrase and they produce a printed magazine, if you are more interested in producing your own power as a way to reduce your spending take a look at www.proudgreenhome.com/ or www.thenakedscientists.com. According to Waste Management the average individual in my state is responsible for approximately 10 lbs. of trash daily, if we could prevent 1 lb of trash from being generated per person per week in my state alone that would be 52 lbs/year/person and 990,992,184 lbs/year for the state...in case numbers are not your thing that is almost 991 million pounds of trash if each person in Florida prevents one pound of trash per week. Remember that every time you unnecessarily spend your hard earned money on something you ultimately throw all or part of away, you are reducing your personal economy and throwing your cash away.

Reduce spending-reuse instead of rebuying-and recycle the money you have already spent.

-TODD

Victory and self-reliance

Self-reliance or the ability and desire to do things yourself seems to have gone the way of the black and white T.V. The result seems to be that we buy everything, and often those things are imported. As an exercise to increase the self-reliant tendancies in the younger generation of my family, as well as decrease the shopping bills, we have put together a victory garden. No, there is no material difference between a vegetable garden and a victory garden, we thought it appropriate however to remind our youth of the historic importance of being self-reliant. Just as it helped in WWII so it helps now. Home gardening also has the added benefit of filling downtime with something other than T.V. something that gives a sense of accomplishment and helps our family eat healthier and grow stronger.

A well fed American is a stronger American

-TODD