90 Percent Project - Weeks 29, 30, and 31

Now that the dust has settled from the holidays, it is time to catch up my weekly values for Weeks 29, 30, and 31 of the 90 Percent Project. Week 29 ran from December 14-20, Week 30—December 21-27, and Week 31—December 28-January 3. Meter readings taken in the mornings at roughly the same time each day.

Electricity used
Week 29: 16 kWh
Week 30: 46 kWh
Week 31: 13 kWh

Week 30 reflects a lot of carelessness. In one day, I used more than half the weekly total by forgetting to turn off the outside Christmas lights and the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve day through Christmas night. It added up incredibly fast. This past week (week 31) reflected normal daily life without holiday lights burning at all. The lad was home for 3 days out of the week and we still managed to hold the line. I think this coming week may be a bit more of a challenge (lots of laundry, dishwasher used once so far, and marathon Guitar Hero tournaments on the large television and Playstation2), but I’m very pleased with how Week 31 turned out.

The lad and I talked about it a bit last night. I don’t object to his friends coming over to play Guitar Hero. And I don’t mind that they want to watch movies. But, perhaps he could help offset some of that use by entertaining himself with his laptop more often. It uses next to no electricity and is perfectly good for watching DVDs when he is home alone. He agreed, so we’ll see how it plays out this week.

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Gasoline purchased
Week 29: 0 gallons
Week 30: 4.934 gallons (for 2 people)
Week 31: 4.113 gallons (for 2 people)

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Water
Week 29: 97.253 gallons (for 1 person)
Week 30: 261.835 gallons (for 2 people)
Week 31: 142.139 gallons (for 2 people)

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Natural Gas
Week 29: ?
Week 30: ?
Week 31: ?

The meter is still covered with ice and snow. I’m not that inclined to want to chop my way to it since I know that it’s still going to say 3 CCF. Slightly more with the lad home, though he’s been a really good sport about short and cooler showers than he’d like. Soon enough the monthly bill will tell the tale. I have racked my brain trying to figure out a way to get usage lower, but, without shutting the hot water heater off altogether, it’s not gonna happen. I’ve shut off as many pilot lights as I can. When spring arrives and the town water warms up, I presume that it’ll take much less energy to heat the water. Until then, I’m stuck.

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Trash
Week 29: 5.6 lbs (for 1 person)
Week 30: 8.2 lbs (for 2 people)
Week 31: 5.3 lbs (for 2 people)

Our Christmas clean-up trash was minimal this year. That’s reflected in Week 30. Most of what we gave each other came without packaging...or very little. And we mostly used re-useable gift bags, though we also used some newspaper with colored string. The newspaper was recycled back into the pile for starting fires in the wood stove. The string is always useful for something else over the course of the year. Not bad at all.

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Consumer Goods
Week 29: $60.00 - Oreck Manual Floor sweeper (the best $60 I’ve ever spent!)
Week 30: ?
Week 31: $0

In all of the hustle and bustle, I simply forgot to keep track of spending during Week 30. I’m going to guess that it was in the neighborhood of $200. That’s what I can piece together going through my checking account’s transactions. Much of it was for gifts and I’m just not sure what the rest was for. Actually some might have been for food, but I have no idea what the break-down was. I most definitely was not paying attention.

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Food
We are still eating a surprisingly large percentage of locally grown produce (root cellared, I presume) and locally manufactured food. At this time of year, of course, salad greens are from far away. I’ve compromised a little bit, at least, by incorporating organic baby spinach that is packaged just a few miles from here and a percentage of the proceeds go toward some really fine local charitable concerns. The spinach itself is grown in California, but at least the company that packages it does try to mitigate some of that damage through good works that help a lot of local kids. Their packaging is also minimal and recyclable. We haven’t had any other salad greens lately. Otherwise, still drinking local pasteurized 1% milk (the taste is rich and wonderful compared to regular grocery store milk) and local eggs and local meat (chicken and pork) and local cheeses and freshly made cottage industry breads, on occasion. I haven’t bought a commercially produced loaf of bread in weeks. I’ve also included local honey into the mix for winter. It’s a real treat that I’ve ignored for far too long. Our food is not as varied as in the summer, but we certainly aren’t suffering from lack of variety. The edges are rounded out by bulk items such as pasta—and grains that are at least regional, if not local. I am very pleased to say that I haven’t purchased a box of cereal in months. That’s a milestone in this household. The lad is a cereal addict, but finds oatmeal mixed with interesting things and bulk granola offered through the natural foods grocery to be more than adequate substitutes.