The Goal and #1

I have been thinking about starting this blog for a while. If I get anyone to read it, great, but mostly it's for me to motivate myself and make a record. I know that saving the environment is a very trendy thing right now. Although I normally am an anti-trendy person, I think this is great because people are thinking about it. Just this year my husband and I have made a lot of changes in our lives as to how we think about the environment and money. We were enlightened starting with a book called, "Money, It's Not Just for Rich People." From there we went on to read the frugal zealot's books, "The Tightwad Gazettes." We have always cared about the environment, but never realized how easy it was to make a difference while saving money at the same time. This doesn't come from the need to be frugal so much (we didn't do these things while my husband was a student, but are doing them now as he has a full time good job.) But it certainly does help us to put more in savings, pay down school debt, and have money to put needed improvements into our home.

So, to start out my goal is to come up with 100 things that we are doing, have done, or will do to save the environment. Almost all of these will be money-saving as well. Some are big things and some are little simple things. I'm ready to start now!
So #1 is..... drum roll please.... only having one car! Having no cars would be great, however that's complicated with 3 children. So Russ rides his bike to work. All year round. Rain or snow, heat or ice. And yes, we live in the Northwest where it rains about half of the time. There is nothing better to motivate him to do it than not having another form of transportation. I would do the same if I were the one going off by myself every day. On the rare occasions that he is home with the kids and I have somewhere to go, I will bike. And occasionally we will go on bikes as a family, like to the concert at the lake last week. Our 6 year old can ride himself, the 3 year old in the bike trailer, and the baby in the bike baby seat.
The benefits: Only one car to register, insure, make payments on (although our car is paid off), less gas to buy, less pollution, excercise, and being outdoors