Jotas Go Green

These past few weeks, I've had mini heart attacks every time I spied the prices at the Arco station on Pico and 4th, the cheapest gas station in Santa Monica. Their gas is $4.55/gallon. It's $4.79 at the place on Santa Monica and Lincoln. Seeing as I'm bopping around town in a Ford Escape that barely gets 13 miles/gallon, this is becoming a bit of an issue with my wallet. This time last year, I was spending $40 each visit to the pump, twice a month. That's $80 a month on gas, and let's add an additional $20 to make a round $100. Not too shabby. Of course it helps that my office is five miles from home and I pretty much refuse to drive anywhere on the weekends.

Flash forward a year, and thanks to Mint.com, I can see my petrol spending is now up to $150 a month. Combine that with an increase in the price of flour, fruit, veggies, and pretty much everything beside fish, because fishies don't eat grains, making them more affordable, however there's that whole high in mercury problem, so you shouldn't eat it more than once a week, and hello, my three percent raise in January is doing nothing to cover these increases, and who cares about the ten percent bonus at the end of the year, because that shit is not helping me now. Thank God for rent control.

So in a effort to save some green (meaning money and the environment), Jota and I spent some time this weekend discussing the little changes we can make. Taking a cue from little miss Ashley, here's our plan:

• Biking everywhere we can on weekends. My little wheels were all over town on Saturday. Helping the Barker's move, going to chill on Main St. Note to self, even though legs are the motor, it might be best to not bike while completely and totally sloshed. Accidents do happen.
• Buy Jota a basket for his bike so we can run more household errands.
• Reusable grocery bags. We have two from Albertson's, however we rarely use them. We do at least re-use the paper bags to collect our recycling in.
• Smaller, more frequent grocery trips. I'll admit it, we waste food. I'll forget that we have squash or berries, and I find them all moldy in the fridge when I go to unpack the new groceries. We're going to try shopping for one meal at a time, and stock all the essential staples.
• Farmer's Market! We need to start going to the Venice Market as well as visiting local shops like Winward Farms.
• Stop buying non-recyclable plastic. Bolthouse Farms, I heart your carrot juice, but you're out.
• Use biodegradable soaps. I already have these for the dishwasher (bad, but we don't run it everyday), I need to look into dish and body soap.
• Eat vege. This will be a toughie. I grew up on a cattle farm, and love me some beef. And bacon. And chicken. I am going to try and find other protein options to supplement our diet.

We shall see how this goes!