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I answered some greasecar questions recently over e-mail and thought other people might enjoy reading the answers…

How has it been working out for you?
Well, I ended up selling my greasecar last year so my husband and I could share one car.  He can’t drive a stickshift and my VW was expensive to maintain so we kept his Mazda.  Generally the car was good but I had trouble finding the time/motivation to collect and filter grease.  My car also had a lot of maintenance issues unrelated to the greasecar part that were expensive (brakes, shocks, etc.).  I also think greasecars really only make sense for long drives and I just don’t take very many long drives.  We decided it was cheapest to keep his car and since it has pretty good mileage and we don’t drive very much, the environmental impact seemed acceptable.

I’ve heard there is a fried food smell.  Does it just come out the tailpipe, or can you smell it inside the car?
The smell just comes out the tailpipe.  If you have the windows down and are stopping a lot you can smell it in the car but I actually kinda liked it.

Is it difficult to find all of the oil you need for free?
Depends a lot on where you are.  I think the tricky part is trying to find relatively high quality oil so if you have some connections in restaurants and can talk a staff member into collecting it for you, that’s the best.  You don’t really want to be getting it out of big greasetraps.  In Bloomington, there was a bit of competition for oil but it also meant I could bum oil from other greasecar folks who had a stockpile.  I also knew a couple people who put together drum systems that restaurants could have out back for collecting oil that made everyone happy - it was clean and easy and the system worked well.

About what percentage of diesel do you end up using?
I used a lot more diesel than oil because I was lazy about getting oil and I did a lot of short drives that weren’t good for oil.  However, I had a friend who biked for short distances and used her car with vegetable oil for long distances and she probably used only 5-10% diesel.

When you filter the used oil, does the remaining junk have to be properly disposed of?
Yes, although I would feel comfortable putting it out with my regular trash.  It’s very gross but not really dangerous beyond being slightly flammable.  I did learn that vegetable oil will eat through rubber and asphalt if left to sit there long enough.  And it also is attractive to raccoons but gives them terrible diarrhea.  Really, filtering was probably my biggest challenge and one I never quite mastered although I think if I had been willing to put either more time or more money into development, I could have had a nice system that was easy to use.

Did you loose trunkspace for the additional tank?
Yes, I basically gave up my trunk because my tank lid did not seal quite right at first and it sprayed the trunk with a fine coat of oil.  If that hadn’t been the case, I still would have lost about a third of the trunk to fit in the tank.  I’ve seen some different systems that used a lot less space and were a lot cleaner.

Would you do it again?
Yeah, I think I would.  Like I said, I think it makes the most sense for people who take long drives (more than 10 minutes) on a regular basis and who are committed to setting up a good oil filtration system.  I know in Louisville there’s a business that does greasecar installations and also that sells filtered used oil to folks; if I had that around, I’d be way more tempted to get back into the greasecar groove.  Right now I’m transitioning into a job where I can work from home or bike to the office and so I’m not that worried about what car I use on the few occasions when I drive.  But if I ever start driving regularly again, I’ll have to reconsider.

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I just got addicted to Facebook last week and this was one of the random photos I uploaded.  As you might imagine, it was the one that got the most comments, mostly along the lines of “What the heck?”  Well, folks, this is an anatomically correct knit worm that was lovingly created by my friend Heather several years ago.  She was tickled by the idea of me starting a vermicomposting system and knitters are always looking for a new challenge…

As it happens, I also just received a request for an update on the worm composting bin that I put together last March.  Lets see.  I know last summer the worm bin got relegated to our back deck due to some fruit fly infestations but when we moved it into the new house I set it up in our mudroom.  I haven’t seen fruit flies lsince, probably because I’ve been more diligent about keeping a thick layer of bedding on top (which is easier now that we subscribe to the newspaper).  I am afraid I neglected the worms most of the winter and only remembered to feed them once or twice a month but they survived and even made babies.  Nature is pretty amazing.

It’s about time for me to conduct a “dump and sort” when I pull out as many healthy worms as I can, remove all the nice vermicompost to use on my plants, and put the worms back in their box with fresh bedding and whatever random chunks haven’t been broken down yet.  I’ve stopped putting in avocado pits but there are some other large seeds in there right now, I think from a pawpaw, and also some broccoli that I didn’t cut up very well.  I read about a prison vermicomposting system where they actually ran all the food scraps through a garbage disposal to make a slurry for the worms, which I’m sure they loved.  I’ve thought about looking for some sort of hand-cranked slicer/dicer/smusher but haven’t found one yet.

If you want to set up your own worm bin, I strongly suggest the book “Worms Eat My Garbage” by Mary Appelhof.  It has great detailed directions on how to construct and maintain a worm bin.  For a long time I wanted to build the worm bin coffee table featured in the book but right now I’m wanting to build a really small bin out of a styrofoam cooler so I can keep it in my kitchen under the sink.   My current worm bin is a pain in the butt to move and it’s set up in such a way I tend to stack junk on top and then it’s hard to open.  (Yes, I’m one of those people that puts piles on every horizontal surface.)

If you live close to Bloomington, I’d be happy to give you some starter worms.  Otherwise, check out your local bait shop, search for a regional worm farm, or just order them through the mail from someplace like organicwormcomposting.com.  The amount you need depends on your patience level; with a little time and TLC a handful of worms will turn into a bucketful but you won’t be able to put in a huge amount of food at first.

On the plus side, even with a fair amount of benign neglect, they’ll keep on trucking along.

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We are back from a much-needed 10 days of vacation (on the beach!) and are struggling to get back into the swing of things.  It was thunderstorming this morning which made it hard for me to motivate myself out of bed and even harder to get excited about riding the bus.  However, I gritted my teeth, grabbed my umbrella, and was rewarded with a free bus ride since it’s “Dump the Pump” day for Bloomington Transit.

And hey, the weekend’s almost here so hopefully next week will be all sunshine and roses.

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I don’t think we mentioned but back in January or February we had a major snowstorm that dumped a copious amount of snow on Bloomington. Oh, I think maybe we posted a couple of pictures of puppies cavorting. Anyway, the house came with a carport that was a quite nice aluminum frame covered with a heavy plastic tarp. It did great at keeping out the rain but unfortunately could not handle the weight of a foot of wet snow and collapsed, bending to fit the shape of my parents’ van that was stored under it.

The good news is, the van was okay. However, the carport tarp was badly torn and the frame was bent into a very odd shape so I decided this spring to use the frame in the garden. Taking it apart and putting it back together was a bit of a disaster, which I should have anticipated.  I couldn’t figure out how to connect the right bent pieces with each other so in the end I only managed to salvage about a third of the structure.  I’ve let go of my original vision, which was to wrap the whole thing in deer fencing to protect my precious plants,  but I’m still hopeful I can build some trellises for my tomatoes. (I got a rather late start this year so my tomatoes are still tiny seedlings.  The happy looking plants in the foreground are potatoes, which are quite delighted to live under my reign of benign neglect, and the large plants in the background are rhubarb, which are also quite independent.)

The carport frame does give a bit of a junky look to the garden but I don’t mind.  Between the carport and the strips of salvaged carpeting, it almost has a “garbage chic” kind of aesthetic.  My primary goal is to produce food so really I only get angsty about the fact that my plants aren’t growing fast enough and I don’t think I planted as densely as I should have.  But live and learn, right?

Right.

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There’s a lot of good advice out there about investing in the stock market. Reduce taxes by investing through an IRA or 401(k). Don’t put all your money into the stock market. Invest for the long term. Invest in what you know. Avoid fees as much as possible. Buy low-cost index funds.

But first, why invest in the stock market at all? It’s riskier than CDs, which are insured by the US government, and bonds, which get paid first in case of bankruptcy. If you invest in a company and it goes bankrupt (or gets nationalized), you get nothing. If you buy a company’s bonds and it goes bankrupt, you might only get pennies on the dollar, but you’ll get something.

The fiscal reason is that the stock market has much higher historical returns than CDs or bonds. If you diversify (perhaps by buying index funds), you can mitigate your risk and get double the returns of just a CD. Over time, you can even make money in a volatile market.

In addition to the potential monetary upside, buying stock gives you an in at the company. You get in-depth information about the company, you can help elect board members, and you can address other shareholders about any concerns that you have. Even just holding onto a stock encourages long term thinking.

There are three main strategies for buying stocks, each with different benefits and drawbacks. The most prevalent for beginning investors is buying index funds. Index funds are collections of stocks tracking an “index” like the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500. Since they don’t require much management, fees are very low (generally less than 0.5% per year). They also offer instant diversification, which makes them a good choice if you think the stock market will improve but don’t want to take risks with individual companies. Unfortunately, index funds are only as good as the underlying indices, generally including unsustainable or immoral companies like Exxon and Philip Morris (insert your own bias here if you think those two examples are okay). Most are also “market cap-adjusted,” which means that they own more stock the larger a company is, reducing diversification. Owning an index fund also means that you don’t get some of the benefits of stock ownership like voting rights and easy access to quarterly statements.

More sustainable are managed funds like the New Alternatives Fund (Maggie owns this, but this isn’t a recommendation, just an example). These funds pick a narrower field, like alternative energy, and trade actively in an attempt to beat the market. This makes it more likely that the underlying companies are good, sustainable ones but reduces diversification, making the investment riskier. Managed funds also have higher expense ratios (usually over 1%) so you have to earn more just to break even. You also have the same insulative problem as index funds where you are less active in the underlying companies.

Finally, there’s buying stocks individually. A lot of very smart people don’t think that most people should buy individual stocks. They’re probably right. If you don’t have a high tolerance for risk, a willingness to hold onto stocks despite short-term problems, and the time and inclination to spend some significant time researching companies, individual stocks aren’t for you. On the other hand, individual stocks are the cheapest way to invest in the market. Instead of paying a set percentage every year, you pay a flat fee up front (usually around $13). For a $1,000 investment, that’s only 1.3%, or about what you’d pay to keep an index fund for three years. For a long-term investor, that’s a deal! In addition, the increased risk brings with it an increased potential. Even in the poor market of the past year, there are stocks that have doubled in value.

More importantly, holding stock in an individual company gives you a piece of ownership. You have an obligation to pay attention to your company and you have a voice should it do anything inappropriate. There’s even a sense of satisfaction from being a small part of a company doing great things.

If you do decide to invest in individual stocks, make sure that you invest in companies that you understand. Without understanding, you won’t be able to reasonably evaluate the company, which makes it more likely that they’ll successfully hide any wrongdoing. You should also make sure to compare your picks against an appropriate yardstick. It’s great if your stock goes up 5%, but if the market went up 10% over that same period, you probably need to reevaluate your strategy.

Before buying a single share, start thinking about companies that you respect and admire as well as companies that you think just need a little nudge to approach greatness. Watch these companies for a while and find out all you can about them. It’s easy to find their financials online, which will help you decide if they’re in it for the long haul or if they’re having real trouble.

Even if you want to put your retirement savings in super-safe CDs, I recommend going through the process of picking and buying a stock. It gives real insight into our economic system, helps you understand a lot of hoopla that would otherwise be a mystery, and will help you decide if you have the temperament for further investment.

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I love shopping the bulk bins at our local co-op grocery but I hate using the plastic bags they provide.  Sometimes I’ll take in jars or tupperware containers to fill up but it gets a little bulky and it can be challenging to find appropriate sized containers for things like flour or rice that I like to stock up on.  So I was very excited when my best friend gave me some reusable bulk food bags for Christmas, although it took me awhile to remember to actually *take* them with me to the grocery store.

Pretty cute, eh?  They’re sold on etsy.com through the seller kootsac based out of the Kootenays in British Columbia.  (I had to look it up but it turns out that the Kootenays are a section of the Rocky Mountains that comprises the watershed of the Kootenay River, named after an indigenous people also known as the Ktunaxa.)  The sacks I have are made out of nylon and are machine washable, which is awesome.  Kootsac also sells sacks made out of natural silk for about the same price.  Nylon is not the most natural substance in the world but I think it makes a great plastic substitute.  The only drawback I’ve noticed so far is that these sacks breathe a little more than plastic does so my granola is getting a little less crisp than I like it.  However, I probably ought to put it in a glass container anyway so I can then reuse the bag to buy more bulk stuff.

I love finding cool solutions like these to every day eco-problems, although I sometimes worry I’ll focus too much on buying cool eco-products instead of just living simply.  But I think these are a worthwhile addition to my home kitchen and hope to see some more great suggestions at ecoetsy.  Ooh, I like these flannel sandwich holders that can be used to replace ziplock baggies and these snazzy moonpads and perhaps I need a wallet made out of lawn chair webbing…

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As I write this, it’s thundering ominously outside. It’s been raining all day, ranging from a drizzle to a downpour. Saffron hasn’t gotten as much exercise as she’s used to, so she’s been bouncing off the walls. Right now, though, she’s taking a nap, which makes her a welcome warmth next to me. Since the markets are now closed, I check my stocks. They’re down 5% today, which puts me down 26% overall since I started my retirement investments. Self-doubt grips me. What am I doing telling people how to invest sustainably?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Partly, I’ve been really busy. In addition to working at my company, I taught two classes at IU this semester. It was (mostly) fun and gratifying to pass on some of my hard-earned knowledge, but prepping for classes and grading took way more time than I expected, especially towards the end of the semester.

Another part of it is that I’ve had a mental block on writing the last of my posts on investing sustainably. Talking about CDs or bonds is one thing. People either know about them already, in which case I’m doing no harm, or they don’t know much, in which case I’m helping introduce a subject. Stocks are a little different, though. It’s more complicated and more people know the basics, which makes me worried that I’ll give just enough advice to be dangerous. That’s doubly troubling to me given the recent market crash, which underscores the perils of investing in the stock market, especially as you near retirement age.

I’ll post more specific stock advice on Friday, but I want to use this post as my apology (in the philosophical sense). Who am I to give stock advice?

First off, let’s talk about what I’m not: a professional. I do a lot of reading and research, but stock market analysis is just a hobby. I also haven’t been doing it all that long. I first started putting retirement money aside just two years ago (yep, just in time to buy high). In that time, I’ve heard a lot of conflicting advice. Index funds, active funds, hot stock tips, commodities, gold. It seems like everyone has a favorite strategy but they rarely talk about their assumptions and biases, which makes it difficult to figure out if the advice is applicable to your situation.

I do all of my investing through a Roth IRA. At my income level (and most people’s), this allows you to put $5,000 into a special account (in my case through Charles Schwab). I’ve already paid taxes on that money, so I can buy and sell within my Roth without triggering any capital gains taxes. I’ll also be able to remove money tax free when I hit retirement age. A traditional IRA is similar except that you pay taxes at the end instead of the beginning. You still don’t have to pay capital gains taxes as you buy and sell within the IRA, which is good.

Following most people’s advice for beginners, I put my money into two different index funds, both tied to the S&P 500 (one with some bond exposure, not that I really understood that at the time). Since then, I’ve become disillusioned with index funds so I now buy more individual stocks. Every month, I set aside some money and, when I feel like I have enough that the transaction fee won’t be too high, I buy another stock to increase my asset diversity. At the moment, I own three index funds and five individual stocks across a variety of industries and in a variety of sizes.

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that my portfolio is down 26% over the two years that I’ve had it. That sounds bad (and is certainly a little depressing), but the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 34% over the same period and the S&P 500 is down even more. That means that I’ve done about 8-10 percentage points better than the market as a whole, which is pretty good.

At this point, it’s almost certainly as much about luck as it is about any particular insight. The past year has been remarkable for stock buyers, with some incredible volatility. I tend to think that many stocks are currently underpriced but that it will take a long time for the market as a whole to recover. On the other hand, I think that some sectors will grow very quickly, which makes this a good time to buy in. Since your assumptions might be different (and your values almost certainly are), use my advice as a starting point rather than the be-all and end-all.

While I’ve written this, the rain has stopped. This seems like a good opportunity to stop reading (and writing) about underpriced companies and take the dog for a walk. Don’t let market problems keep you from enjoying the good things in life because they’re more important anyway!

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When life gets stressful, certain things start to become undone around our house.  The blog is certainly one example but another prime example is dishes.  Somewhere in the dim past I offered to be the official dishwasher if Will would take responsibility for putting dishes away, an act of self-sacrifice that I regret every time I look at our kitchen counter piled with dirty plates and pots.  Needless to say, the fact that we’ve both been working long hours and been pulled in lots of different directions has not helped the situation any.

So we came to the conclusion that we need a dishwasher.  Of the machine sort.  It seems like an anti-green thing to do but apparently there are some dishwashers now that use less water than most handwashers do (and no, I’m not comparing them to someone who washes the dishes by letting the water run constantly).  However, our kitchen was not designed for a dishwasher so we’d have to do some finagling to take out a cabinet and add in an electrical line and probably pull off our countertop and replace it again if we want a traditional built-in dishwasher.

After I did a 30-second assessment and decided the project is well beyond my handywoman skills, I began lobbying for a portable dishwasher.  They do the same thing but have to be wheeled into place and attached to the kitchen faucet every time they’re run.  It doesn’t sound like too much of a challenge to me but Will went off in search of an even better alternative and discovered the countertop dishwasher. It only fits about half as many dishes as a portable dishwasher but it uses very little water, can be attached to the garbage disposal (rather than the faucet), and can even be installed under the sink to save countertop space.

The challenge?  Neither of us have ever seen one in person and no store in Bloomington appears to sell them.  We’re both reluctant to plunk down $200 and wait for the UPS delivery but on the other hand, we’re running out of clean dishes.

Have any of you seen or used a countertop dishwasher?  What do you suggest?

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This is what I’d like to be doing right now.  It’s a photo from my bridal shower - the clothespins were for a party game and this is the only picture not featuring the oh-so-sexy oatmeal face mask.  The face mask felt great but in the photographs it kinda looks, well, really gross.

On a different note, here are some updates on our recent activities.

Will and I walked the Louisville Mini Marathon this Saturday, completing 13.1 miles in 3 hours and 28 minutes.  Yay us!  My three aunts and one 13-year-old cousin all beat us but hey, we finished with our best personal time ever.  And we can still walk!

My rhubarb is coming up strong and sending out seed stalks like crazy, which it turns out need to be pulled so the plant will keep producing stems to eat.  I used them to make rhubarb-ade (rhubarb + boiling water + sugar), which was actually quite tasty.  It makes me think I should create a business selling beverages made from local ingredients - sumac or rhubarb “lemonade”, sassafras tea, lemon balm honey tea, etc.

Actually, my latest million dollar idea is to create a CSA- type business where people sign up to receive plant starts for their garden every other week during the growing season, starting with the really cold-hardy stuff in the spring and transitioning into robust tomato and eggplant starts after the last frost.  Alas, I don’t feel like implementing it so if any of y’all feel motivated, run with it.

Will has had some pretty decent million dollar ideas as well but of course the ones that stick with me are the ridiculous ones.  This evening he declared that he could eat all the samoas (girl scout cookies) ever and I told him that it was a bad idea and that he would get ridiculously fat.  He said the key is to eat them so fast that he burns as many calories as he consumes.  Speed eating or “speating.”  I told him I think it would make a best seller.

We’re still debating what kinds of home improvement projects to invest in.  Things keep popping up to sway our priorities, like Saffron  digging out under our fence today so she could go… well, she came back wet so I’m assuming she found a pool or something.  Constructing a new fence seems like kind of a lame home improvement project but it is making its way steadily to the top of our priority list.

For now, both of us are trying hard to make it through the next couple of weeks so we can then relax a little when the grading (Will) and field trips (Maggie) are over for the season.  Wish us luck!

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It’s Earth Week in Bloomington and there are tons of activities going on in Bloomington.  Yesterday, Will and I went to see the new film “What’s the Economy For, Anyway?” with filmmaker John DeGraaf.  We both thought the title of the film was kind of weird (can you imagine a film “What’s Physics For, Anyway?”) but his major point was that we need to acknowledge that a strong economy doesn’t necessarily mean a healthy community.  His larger vision is to create a society where people spend more time doing the things that make them happy (caring for family, volunteering, recreating) and less time working long hours to buy useless stuff.  I love that idea but the film was more of a rambling treatise on why GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is not a good thing to be harping on about.

Today I tabled for Sycamore Land Trust at a little informational event in People’s Park.  (Will refuses to classify it as a park since it’s only about 4000 square feet, mostly concrete, but it’s right downtown and gets a lot of foot traffic.)  The concept of the event was excellent but alas, it’s April in Bloomington so the weather was cold and rainy and windy.  Most of us had our tabling material either soaked or blown away and the foot traffic was pretty sparse.  The Parks & Rec Department apparently has been celebrating Earth Day in June for the last few years in order to increase the probability of decent weather.  Maybe April weather is nicer in California where Earth Day began.

This evening, I spoke on a panel about how to get healthier food to low income communities.  There was a lot of good discussion from a nice diverse panel of speakers representing a variety of groups (IU, Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, Local Growers Guild, Center for Sustainable Living, Latino Cultural Center).  I noticed that we were all women but didn’t think a lot about it since I seem to frequently be on panels with other women.  However, one of the audience members asked why there are so many women leading the local food movement and we all through around ideas about women being traditionally the nurturing type and responsible for food purchases in the family while trying to also emphasize that it’s the 21st century and by golly, women can do anything they want!  That was the awkward part of the discussion; the rest was a lively discussion about how we can restructure our food supply to make everyone well-fed.

Tomorrow there is a Green Drinks event, an informal evening of sustainable social networking.  This will be the third one in Bloomington and I keep meaning to go but I am not a big fan of networking events.  Stephanie has told me that I’m too well-connected in Bloomington to say that I’m not a networker but I think I can still safely say that I hate going to parties and introducing myself to strangers.  I am also feeling like my schedule is way too full and I need some breathers between activities.  You know, for things like eating dinner.

What are you doing for Earth Day?  (And I won’t be offended in the slightest if your answer is “Not a damn thing; every day is earth day.”)

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