Psst! Wanna save money, improve health and fitness, and lower your carbon footprint—simultaneously?
Think about ways to make your daily life a little less efficient.
The idea: arrange your life to move more and rely less on power tools, appliances, and machines.
Living Inefficiently
A few tips:
- Put up a clothesline and hang the wash. Clothes dryers account for almost six percent of household electrical costs. Line-dried clothes and sheets smell great. No, your towels won’t turn out soft and fluffy, but they will replace all those expensive exfoliants.
- If you have an unheated basement that doesn’t freeze, keep your refrigerator and freezer down there. The cooler year-round temperature means the appliances will work less to do their job, saving money on utility bills. An exercise physiologist once helped me calculate that simply by running up and down stairs to fetch and put away my food burns the calorie equivalent of 10-13 pounds each year.
- For that matter, take the stairs wherever you go.
- Stash bedding, towels, pantry staples and other items on another floor or in a far corner of the house from where you’ll use them.
- For every errand of a mile or less, commit to walking or bicycling. You can carry quite a load in a sturdy backback. Biking or hiking just five miles a week when you’d ordinarily use your car will save around $40 a year in gas and burn the calorie equivalent of five to seven pounds.
- For city errands, park on a side street where you don’t have to feed a meter, and walk the extra blocks. I often hear people at my local YMCA trudging away on the treadmill, moaning that they couldn’t find a nearby parking space and had to park three blocks away.
- Consider selling your snowblower, power lawn mower, and/or leafblower and going back to the shovel, push mower, and/or rake. (Hint: check out the new-fashioned ergonomic models of shovels, rakes, and other hand tools.) If you’re out of shape, you can avoid back injuries with just a few core-strengthening exercises a day. Here’s a good three-minute routine (not just for the office).
- Learn (from a local expert) about wild-food foraging in your part of the world; then get out and forage. For a weekend adventure, take a few friends, then cook up a wild feast for dinner.
Other inefficiencies that can save money and foster family wellbeing include food gardening, composting, splitting and stacking firewood, and getting outside to hike/bike/explore with your kids.
Yep, you do deserve a break today. Instead of indulging in fast food for dinner, take 10 minutes to hang a load of wash, 15 to bike to the store for the newspaper and back, or 20 to rake part of the yard. Or do all three!
Any other ideas? Share them in the comments below!
Reader Comments
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Perhaps a rethink on shoveling is in order...
Lots of people suffer serious injury and even death from heart attack and stroke while shoveling every winter. Many even appear to be in good health. Further, the additional time outside that it takes to clear snow can result in frostbite, hypothermia, breathing difficulties and potential loss of consciousness. It happens every winter season, all around the world, to people of all ages and physical conditions. If you have a snowblower, use it, for goodness sake!
Living More Efficiently
I keep a bucket on or near my kitchen sink and one near my bathtub and use them when I run the water to get it warm. All that water going down the drain while waiting is wasteful. I then pour it into jugs for watering plants either inside or outside. I've started using soap nuts in my laundry, less chemicals in our water and using only vinegar and baking soda to clean toilets and sinks for the same reason. I soak my paint brushes in a small container of water to rinse them. I put a screen in the lid of a 5 gal. bucket, then a coffee filter and then pour the rinse water in to catch the paint. Later, I dump the water outside near poison ivy or away from the property and when dry, the coffee filter in the trash.
Excellent Article
I've been living this way for about 5 years now and I wouldn't go back to the way I lived before. Matter of fact, I've gone Tiny. I can't tell you how wonderfull it is to be FREE of STUFF. I would rather hang my clothes than to put them in a dryer. Not only do they smell better, but the last a lot longer. I cook my own meals from scratch and do my own baking. I don't have a vehicle, so I walk everywhere (and I'm 73 years old). My health is better now than it's ever been because I eat healthy food, no processed foods, grains, starches, sugar, or carbs. I live in a 5th wheel travel trailer, full time, the the mountains of Colorado, I do my own yard work and have just recently redone the skirting around my home and I'm now redoing the interior. After going tiny, I just do not understand why people think bigger is better when it's full of "stuff" they don't really need, rooms they don't use, and yards they don't take care of themselves. Oh, and it only takes me about 30 minutes to fully clean my home. Oh, and I don't use or have A/C. Hate it. Would rather have my windows and doors open and breath the clean fresh air. Anyone can do this, but only if they are willing to do so.
My Two Cents Worth
I appreciate the ideas shared, Since we live in Texas where there are basements some of the suggestions couldn't be executed. There's also an assumption that people are doing their own yard work (mowing, raking, etc.) We moved to the country from a neighborhood where almost everyone hired people to do those chores. I was proud to take care of those tasks myself and chalked them up to exercise. And now that we're in the country, the 1/4 mile walk to our mailbox daily is one of my favorite activities. - The store is 8 miles away but we do cut, split & stack our own wood. Another title for your article could have been, "Working Smarter vs Harder Isn't Necessarily the Best Choice for your Health".
Save Money, Get Fit: Live Inefficiently
I love the title. Today's efforts to do more in a shorter period of time has had the reverse effect on society as a whole. I would rather speak face to face, walk the extra steps and take the time to enjoy what I have. When using shortcuts to speed up what we are doing, we are in fact missing out on a variety of visual cues, processing the task at hand completely and most likely enjoying it. I am all for living ineffeciently and enjoying each moment.
"inefficiently"
I was reading your title and had to reread a few times and i am wondering if you really meant to use the word "inefficiently" which has a negative connotation such as incompetent and inefficient. please correct this or if you meant this word please help me understand how you see this word or what it is you are trying to convey. Also you use the term "less efficient" in the second paragraph of this article. I mean no offense just wondering. :-)Thanks Margaret. My name is Laverne Morse, my email sinseergrl@yahoo.com.
Laverne, the word is used
Laverne, the word is used correctly. What they mean is getting back to basics is good for us but it is not fast - takes longer to dry, to shovel the snow, etc. It is negative, but that's actually good :)