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It’s hard to listen to the news these days and not feel a certain sense of panic. Housing prices are falling. People are losing jobs. Banks fail everyday. I can’t even bring myself to look at my retirement accounts. Billion dollar bailouts don’t seem to make a dent in the financial bloodshed.
The economic situation is complex, and I don’t understand all the pieces of it. What I do know is that over the past few decades Americans have gone from savers to spenders. My parents were born in the Great Depression and grew up during World War II. My mom still has the ration books to prove it, and my dad can tell you about collecting tin cans for the effort. Neither of their parents did anything on credit. It just wasn’t an option, and it looks like we’re heading back to those days.
There are certainly cons to having to pay cash, but there are pros too. That’s why it was refreshing to log into my ING Direct account last week and be greeted with a manifesto for savers. You can find in online, but I also thought I’d share it here:

1. We will spend less than we earn. Saving a little out of every dollar we bring home is the foundation of independence. Without it, we can’t build equity in our home, we can’t invest for the future, and we can’t be ready for challenging times. We promise to pay ourselves first, always.
2. We will use our home as a savings account. Besides shelter and comfort for our family, the role of a house in our financial life is to build equity. We will have a healthy down payment when we buy. We’ll choose the mortgage that lets us pay down the principal fastest. And then we’ll leave that equity safe where it is instead of spending it on things that don’t last.
3. We will take care of our money. It’s not enough to have money in a bank. We will put it where it will grow. We’ll keep track of it. And we’ll check every account we have every year to protect ourselves against fraud or escheatment.
4. We will defend our credit worthiness. Good credit is going to be precious in the years to come. We will pay our bills on time. We’ll borrow only when we need to and in amounts we can comfortably pay back. And then we’ll do just that.
5. We will ignore unsolicited credit card marketing. We decide when we need a credit card, not some marketer. And mostly, we probably don’t need another one at all. We won’t even open those solicitations. We’ll shred them.
6. We will know the cost of borrowing. The interest lenders charge us is real money, too. When we buy a mortgage or finance a purchase, we’ll figure out what that interest is really going to cost in dollars, add it to the purchase price, and ask ourselves if it’s still worth it.
7. We will invest for the long term. Futures are built out of patience and prudence, not luck. We will not put off being a saver because we think there’s a lottery win in our future, in Vegas or on Wall Street.
8. We will take care of the things we have. We work hard for our money, and it’s disrespectful to waste it – or the planet – by treating our possessions as disposable.
9. We will remember what matters. We are not the things we own. If we have to spend and spend on bigger, more impressive things to keep up with our friends, then they are not our friends at all.
10. We will be heard. Our representatives in government and the corporations we deal with need to know that we are paying attention. If we’re silent, we’re accepting the status quo, and the business practices that got our country into this situation will continue. We are not going to accept that.

It’s a welcome change from having credit card applications pushed down my throat. I have no idea what the future will bring, but this fall I’m enjoying the last tomatoes of summer and enjoying the little things. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long winter.

I’ve been biking to work pretty regularly for the last two years or so and supplementing that with longer weekend rides. Last weekend I did a 20 mile ride on the not-yet-open Legacy Parkway with some friends. (Wish that road was bikes only all the time or at least on weekends!) Before the ride, we spotted a four-person pedal-powered vehicle close to the registration table. Turns out it was a demo and we got to test it out.

If you’re interested, you can order one online. It will only set you back $8,000. I’m probably going to hold out for an Xtracycle.
My last big ride was to the beach on Antelope Island. We shortened what would have been an 80 mile ride to a 40 mile ride by riding Frontrunner to Layton and biking from there. The roads were pretty pleasant. We took Gentile to Bluff to Antelope. If you want the full scoop, my friend Rachel wrote about it over on her blog.

Brian and I invested in a worm bin this last May. We took an organic gardening class earlier in the spring, and we decided to expand our composting options beyond just the regular old bin. Worm composting is one way to do that. There is a lot of information about getting started with worm composting online:

• Treehugger on Vermicomposting and Vermiculture: Worms, Bins and How To Get Started
• Wikipedia on Vermicomposting
• City Farmer on Composting With Red Wiggler Worms
• Worm Woman

We found the bin at a local green shop and bought a pound of worms from a local worm farmer. We got them started with shredded credit card statements and some alfalfa pellets. Since then, we’ve been feeding them veggie and fruit scraps once a week or so.
After three months, there were a lot more castings in the bin than there was bedding and the whole bin had more than doubled in weight. When I mentioned that we needed to clean out the bin and harvest the castings, my friend Sameera volunteered to help and a few other friends wanted to watch. I decided we might as well make an event of it and thus came the idea for a worm compost party.


In spite of the ick factor – or maybe because of it – it was a lot of fun, and now we have a giant bucket of worm compost that’s going to be some great tomato fertilizer.

We ate some delicious food in China. Many of the dishes were things that we’d never seen before. One favorite was a deep-fried eggplant dish that we ate at the Great Wall. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to replicate that at home, but I did find a recipe for green beans and pepper, another favorite that was on the menu most of the places where we ate.

I adapted my own recipe from the szechuan green bean recipe listed on About.com.

• A pound or two of green beans
• Several cloves of chopped garlic
• Some diced ginger
• A diced small onion
• Two or three crushed dried chilis
• Canola oil for stir frying
• Soy sauce and sesame oil to taste

Wash and trim the green beans. Cut them into 1-2 inch long pieces. Stick them in the microwave for 30-45 seconds to get them softened. Heat a tablespoon or two of oil in a pan. Add the beans and saute them until they turn brown and begin to dry out. Once they’ve browned, set them aside in a colander.
Pour some more oil into the pan, and add the garlic, ginger, and onion. After the onion has softened, add the chilis. Add some sesame oil and soy sauce and mix. Add the green beans and heat for a few minutes. Serve over rice.
This is a great way to eat green beans. I’m swamped with them from my CSA. If you aren’t lucky enough to have some through a CSA or farmers market, they are one of the easiest veggies to grow. Toss some seeds in the grown today, and you’d have some beans by the end of the August.

This July and August, Apartment Therapy is asking for reader submissions on ways to be green around the house. I submitted a bit about my house and decided to cross post it here:

This tip isn’t going to be revolutionary to anyone in New York or San Francisco, but I live in Salt Lake City… land of sprawl and strip malls. When I decided to buy a house here a few years ago, I wanted to buy a smaller home closer to where I work downtown. I found a perfect 720 square foot cottage with a little yard two miles away from where I work. It seemed perfect for my significant other, me, and our three dogs. A lot of people thought I was making a bad decision because it’s so small by Salt Lake standards, and it’s in a gentrifying area. But I went ahead with the purchase, and it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Because the house is small and has new double-paned windows, it’s very cheap to heat and cool. The small size also meant that I didn’t need to buy more furniture to fill the space. I actually ended up passing along a few nice pieces that I’d had in my rental to friends who needed them.
But the best part is the location. Most of the places that I need to go are a short walk or bike ride away. I can bike to work, the library, the farmers’ market, Whole Foods, the best gelatto place in town, the independent movie theater, etc. I can walk to coffee, the park, and some amazing Thai and Lebanese food. When the weather’s bad, there’s a bus line around the corner. It’s gotten to the point that I drive my car so infrequently that the battery has died a few times, and I’m planning on selling it.
My significant other Brian would probably say that the best part about the house is the yard. we pulled out the lawn the first summer we were in the house. We composted it over the winter and used it to create raised beds for growing veggies. It uses a fraction of the water that the lawn did, but we feast on organic tomatoes, pesto, eggplant, and spinach any night of the week all summer long. And when we’re done we throw the scraps in the compost pile or feed it to the worms, so that it will be help out next year’s harvest.

If you’ve done something to make your home more environmentally friendly, you can submit it on Apartment Therapy.

Over the last few years, Boo has slowed down a lot. In Seattle, we did long walks through Seward Park. In Boston, we went on 20 mile training walks through the Emerald Necklace. Today we’re lucky if we make it around the block. Because of some damage to his lower back and thyroid problems, Boo drags his back feet and tires out really quickly. The problem is that he still always wants to go on walks, and it’s hard to tell him no, especially when you have to step over him to get out the door. Since Brian and I have been biking a lot lately, I hit up my sister Katy for her old bike trailer. I picked it up this weekend, and we took it for a spin today.

Boo wasn’t too sure about the trailer, but it seemed to grow on him.

I think he’ll enjoy it more next time.
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Take Two

Later in the afternoon, we let Izzy join in. When we got home from a quick ride around the block, neither of them wanted to get out.