Face Oil: my new best friend

I’m back for a bit because I couldn’t resist posting here again to let you all know about my latest discovery.

A while back I ordered some soap from Kama Soap Co. on Salt Spring Island. I was also looking for some moisturizing cream for my face. I’ve had dry skin since my mid-twenties and even with natural soaps my facial skin feels so tight and dry after washing. I was using an organic lotion but there are still a whole lot of ingredients in there I don’t recognize and I’d been wondering if there was something more pure and simple.

Well, Kama didn’t have any face cream but they had something called “Face Oil”. It’s a blend of essential oils formulated for “dry and mature skin”. I was a bit hesitant at the idea of putting oil on my skin: seemed antithetical to my experience as a teenager, when oiliness=pimples. I emailed Sharon, owner of Kama, and asked for more details. She replied that it doesn’t require using waxes and other ingredients to make a cream, and she found it worked very well. So I decided to give it a try.

I am really loving this product! The oil is absorbed very quickly into my skin and there is absolutely no oily feel. It works just as well as lotion to relieve the tight, dry feeling after washing. I have also noticed that my skin feels very soft these days. I love that it is such a simple product: just essential oils – no preservatives, waxes, gums, emollients, etc. I think it’s about as natural as you can get, and it definitely works!

 

On Hold for now…

I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about neglecting this blog, but the truth is life is just growing and expanding in so many ways it is hard for me to keep up with it. I also feel as though I have come a huge, long way this past year in my Simple Living journey and maybe I just need some time to sit back and digest it all and let things plateau for a bit.

We’ve begun the property searching but are likely going to hold off for 2 to 3 more months to see what the market is doing and to give our respective businesses (mine and my husband’s) a chance to prove themselves before taking the final plunge into Mortgage-hood. We’re not in a rush, but we have a clear and exciting vision of what we are looking for and everything is on track at this point.

Until then I’d like to thank all of you who have shared this journey with me, those who have just stopped by to get some information, and anybody else who finds their visit here to be worthwhile. It’s not Good-Bye just yet…and if you are interested in seeing what I’m up to on a more personal note please feel free to visit my other blog My Unconventional Life.

 

The Joy and Pain of Holiday Shopping

Yesterday my mother and I spent the day doing our Christmas shopping. As someone who rarely ever sets foot in a mall, does not participate in “recreational shopping”, and is trying to stick to a budget, I found the experience bewildering to say the least. At times I felt like I was an alien visiting from another world, seeing things through new eyes. Malls are filled with just such an enormous amount of things that nobody would ever truly need, such – in my eyes – inordinate wastes of money, it was hard to fathom. 

It’s not like I wasn’t your basic Western consumer up until a few years ago. But even before I discovered the concept of Simple Living I had figured out that when I didn’t go to malls, I didn’t buy much. Still now, after a year of resolve to rid myself of the influence of consumerism and marketing, I found myself tempted in the stores. I suppose that’s nothing to be ashamed of given how hard retailers have worked over the last few decades to study the psychology of your average shopper and design an entire environment – complete with sights, sounds, and smells – that is geared directly toward stimulating that impulse to acquire shiny, new Stuff.

But every time I passed a store whose windows were laden with overpriced clothing (most likely made by workers being paid a pittance), or sparkly baubles, or unimaginative plastic toys…all I could think of was how most people in this part of the world don’t even have a savings account (my province, British Columbia, actually has a negative savings rate). People complain about having no time and no money but look at what we choose to spend it on! And it made me rather sick to think about how much of the Earth’s resources had gone into this massive temple of mass production.

I had resolved to keep the gift spending down this year (more on my homemade gift baskets will be posted soon), yet even so with each swipe of the credit card I winced (and not because I was putting myself in debt: we are devout pay-off-the-balance-each-month folks, but it does make it easier to track extraneous spending). There were those one-or-two gifts that come more out of a sense of obligation than desire to do something special, and those are the kind that hurt the most at the checkout counter. At least most of my gifts this year will be more heartfelt.

The nicest part of the day was getting to spend time with my Mum, and to wander through stores without young children in tow. We ended up having dinner together, warming up on an unusually cold evening with some spicy Szechuan cuisine. 

The downside was my aching feet, my growing stack of receipts (though we came away with not a single disposable bag, having brought sufficient reusable ones with us), and a cold, harsh look at a world I try to stay away from most of the time – teenagers strolling through the mall wearing too much makeup and showing too much skin, spending money without a thought to saving for the future, all in a desperate and misguided attempt to find themselves; middle-aged women trying to hide themselves (or, more accurately, hide their age) under layers of goopey makeup, with hair unnaturally dyed and coiffed, squeezed into clothes designed for a younger, tighter figure; men and women lining up at the cosmetic counter to spend ridiculous amounts of money on fancy bottles of smelly chemicals, potions, lotions, and cremes to hide their scent, their face, their colouring. So much escapism…so much fear of just being oneself. It was all really rather sad.

I wish I could say I’m done for the year but the one stop I was most looking forward to proved the most fruitless. We went out of our way to a natural toy store where I was hoping to find some quality, non-plastic, imaginative toys for my kids priced under $50. Fully half the store was devoted to dolls and their accessories (my girl has no interest in such things), another good chunk were puzzles (we have tons, and guess who has to pick up all the pieces), and the few toys I thought they might like were well over my price limit. And so I’ll have to venture out into that strange world once more before the season is over. Meanwhile, I’ll sit here and stare out the window at the falling snow and the winter wonderland that greeted us this morning. Now THAT is my idea of beauty!

 

Traffic Tales

Hello everybody, we are back from our vacation. It was a lovely drive through some pretty spectacular scenery. Other than the mosquitos our holiday was relaxing and enjoyable, but it was the drive there and back that gave me the most to think about.

Yesterday was Canada Day (our equivalent of July 4th) and so most people booked Monday off and made it a four day weekend. Many others would be expected to book off the Friday before-hand, extending their weekend to five days (as we did). Typically, the highways during holiday weekends are a busy affair – here in the Lower Mainland of BC there are only two major highways out of the city. Thus it was a bit of a shock to find that there were very few people on the roads.

Now, we did end up leaving on Thursday (Husband cut his work day short) but given we were heading into an extra-long weekend we didn’t expect the roads to be so bare. Last year it took us about 8 hours to get to our destination, but this time we made it in about 6.5. My SIL and her family travelled on Friday and reported that traffic was light that day, too. On the way back it was a similar experience, even though we’d all been debating who could wait a day to travel on Wednesday and avoid the rush. Turns out there was no rush. We encountered virtually no traffic until we entered the eastern-most border of the Lower Mainland and even then we were meeting the speed limit. In fact, we would have made it home in 6.5 hours – surprisingly fast given we were traveling on the last day of a long holiday weekend. I say “would have” because there was another telling traffic situation we encountered. 

Vancouver is a city of peninsulas and we depend heavily on bridges. My family lives on the North Shore, a stretch of waterfront mountainsides divided into three suburbs. There are only three ways you can reach the North Shore (without taking a detour of several hundred kms): two bridges and one passenger-only ferry. We live very close to the biggest of the two bridges and as we approached the city side we came to a complete standstill. Thankfully, Husband has a great sense of traffic and immediately suspected something was amiss. He turned on the traffic news just in time: the bridge had been closed for three hours already. We were able to exit the highway, recognizing that the next and last exit before the bridge would be where the police re-routed all that traffic. Knowing the city as we did it took us relatively little time to get to the other bridge using lesser-known routes. Meanwhile, the road off that last exit (which extends all the way across town to the other bridge) was at a near-total standstill. 

We made it to the North Shore in short time only to recognize that everybody on that side trying to get to the city was having to use one bridge – a three lane relic whose centre lane was open to suburb-bound traffic in an attempt to relieve congestion in the city. All major routes leading to the bridge were backed up for several kilometres and we watched in stunned silence as we made our way home. As we neared our side of the closed bridge we encountered the same lineups. Again our detailed knowledge of the area allowed us to bypass the worst of it. But we soon began to appreciate the enormity of the situation: while waiting in a long lineup for a red light the folks next to us called out with a friendly comment about traffic. Turns out they were American tourists heading for the bridge and downtown, unaware that it was closed. They asked if this had to do with the fact that it was a holiday – no, it was because there was a jumper on the bridge. These poor folks had very little knowledge of the streets and roadways and the route they’d have to take to get them back into town was going to cost them literally hours of wait time. Some impression we must have left on these visitors!

These tales bring me to a few important points. First, it is now patently obvious to us that the cost of fuel has affected peoples’ travels. I’ve never encountered such clear roads on a holiday weekend in all my memory. Second, the bridge closure and the chaos that resulted brought the cost of our car-dependent lifestyles right out into the open for all to see, hear, and breathe. Looking at the endless lineups of cars it was sickening to think of the smog being created (in fact, on that hot day it was visible as a yellowish smear across the horizon). It was also an in-your-face tribute to the dependence of our culture on cars.

Finally, I have to say that coming home from wide, empty spaces of incredible wilderness to the congestion and pollution of a traffic-snared city definitely strengthened my resolve to leave. I do love this city, the place of my birth and my childhood. But I am so done with crowds and congestion. I’ll be posting next with an update on how we’re doing with The Plan. 

 

Vacation

We’re heading off today for a week in Cariboo Country (between Williams Lake and Quesnel). Happy Canada Day (Tuesday) for all you Canucks, and I’ll write when I get back! 

 

the Bears are having a party, and we’re invited

One of the principles of Simple Living is managing your money wisely: consumer debt is a drain on your freedom, living within your means is a valuable skill, and managing your savings wisely allows you to plan on a secure future. For many people their biggest investment is a home, and recent upheavals in the real estate market are throwing them for a loop. Combine that with the rapidly rising fuel costs (we just paid $100 to fill our tank the other day) and things are looking bleak.

Here in Vancouver we’re at the peak of a five year housing boom that has seen prices double in a few short years. However, with things down South having gone south economically speaking, and things in Eastern Canada looking less than positive (Ontario as a “have not” province?) people here on the West Coast are asking “can it happen to us”?

For those of you who don’t frequent BC real estate blogs and discussion boards you may not be aware that there is “a party going on in the blogosphere” [recent comment left on a local housing market blog]. The number of active listings have been climbing precipitously in the past two months while sales have slowed, and this during a time of year when the market is usually most active. In cyberspace, champagne bottles were placed in the ice bucket when we surpassed 18,000 active listings and folks are getting ready to pop the corks when we hit 19,000 – predicted to happen before the end of June. So who are these twisted cyberpals ready to celebrate at what will likely be a very painful period of adjustment? They are the Bears, and they have been predicting that this bubble would come to a burst for the last couple of years now.

In reading through the discussions I have found that sentiments among the Bears are similar to those among the APpLeS. Tough times are ahead, and many people who have been living unsustainably – be that financially or environmentally – are going to suffer. However, those who have been preparing for this day will weather the storm and hopefully stand as an example. When we pick our selves up from the collective dust, many hope that values such as frugality, self-reliance, and “making do” will finally be embraced again and brought back into the collective consciousness.

A recent article in our local paper reported that Canadians are “up to their necks in debt“. Sadly, many are in this pickle because they bought into the real estate hype of “buy now or be priced out forever” and vastly overextended themselves to buy a home. Forty year amortizations coupled with low down payments and low interest rates leave little wiggle room for slowdowns in the economy. Home equity loans have proliferated like rabbits as housing assessments shot to the moon – what some people may not have appreciated is that you must repay those loans, even if the value of your home subsequently falls. And what did they take out these home equity loans for? Was it to feed the children? No, most of them went to home renovations, high priced consumer goods, and the purchase of second properties (vacation or investment). Frankly, I can’t understand the point of borrowing against one’s house – seems too much like robbing Peter to buy Paul a big-screen TV. It’s so bad that the government is suggesting they mandate saving (isn’t that what an RRSP is for?), and outlaw the 40 year amortization (a recent “consumer option” which is, IMHO, like handing out crack to babies).

It’s pretty embarrassing when we need the government to save us from our own ignorance. Why can’t they just teach this stuff in school?

For our family, a downturn in the market is just what we need. Our savings has grown signficantly this year due to our efforts to be frugal and forgo extraneous purchases, and we are a few months away from being completely debt free. At this rate our dream acreage will likely come at a big discount. Environmentally speaking we’re taking steps towards self-sufficiency and we’re in a good position to weather the current fuel crisis: Husband enjoys a short commute to work by transit and everything we need is relatively close to home. With no day job for me and no school for the kids we have choices as to how often we use our car.

But alot of other people are definitely going to get hurt. Those who stretched their budget to the limit so they could buy a house in the ‘burbs are already suffering at the pumps (I can’t even imagine how much this is costing folks who commute an hour each way to work every day). If the value of their home drops some may find themselves in an upside down mortgage – unable to sell because they owe more than they will get for their home (even with the kitchen reno and home theatre they bought on credit to “increase the value of their home”).

In terms of our society as a whole, however, I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe people will learn a lesson from all this. Then again, maybe not. The Great Depression and two World Wars happened to people who already understood the value of a penny saved, who could make do for themselves, and who appreciated the slippery slope of debt. The pending economic storm (which some in the US are wading hip-deep in already) is going to rain down on a generation of folks like myself (not too long ago), who weigh all purchases in terms of the monthly payment and want it all Now. If any good comes of this – and I think it will – here’s hoping the lesson lasts this time.

 

Bookworm Challenge

Another month (well, almost) and another cool challenge. This one is put out by Green Bean Dreams, and is something I can definitely Get Behind (anybody remember that album by William Shatner, and the song “I can’t get behind that”?). Anyways, it’s called Be a Bookworm May 08 and this challenge is going to be easy-peasy for me since I am an avid reader. I’ve been pouring through relevent books on sustainable living, simple living, and related topics since we came up with The Dream and The Plan. You might wonder how a full-time mum to two young homeschooled kids and part-time businesswoman finds time to read anything. Well, I am a fast reader. And I am currently working a job contract that has me commuting 1.5 hours each way, twice a week, by public transit and I have a bad habit of staying up way too late reading in bed after everybody else has fallen asleep.

I maintain a Book List on this blog. Whenever I hear about a book I think I should read, I add it to the On Hold list at my library and when I’m done I review it and add it to my List. There are so many books that have profoundly moved me, but as far as this Simple Living thing goes I’d have to credit Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma as being the first to inspire me to significant change and action. The next was David Wann’s Affluenza and from there it was just a snowball effect for me.

I’ll see which of the big ‘On Hold’ books (listed on my sidebar) come in first and that will be my Bookworm Challenge novel. Currently I’m voraciously devouring The 100 Mile Diet, which is a particularly wonderful read since I live within the same one hundred miles that the authors relied on for their sustenance. The tidbits of local history have been especially poignant. I’ve also got The World Without Us by Alan Weisman which, coincidentally, features a photo of my city’s skyline on the front cover (though the author himself does not live here, nor is from here). I’m looking forward to participating in Green Bean’s Challenge and perhaps discovering some more great reads to add to my list. Happy Reading everyone!

 

Simple Living Smarts: financial literacy

Simple Living is about identifying priorities in Life, and then planning your life around those priorities. Few people hold “work 40+ hours per week until I die” as a life priority. Instead, they’ll offer such things as time with family, volunteering, getting involved in community, travel, physical and mental health, and favorite hobbies. And yet many people’s lives do not reflect this ordering of priorities. Why not? I think two major culprits are consumerism and financial illiteracy. The former leads us to believe we need far more Stuff than we really do, and the second allows us to become so burdened with debt that we become slaves to our wages while being unable to save for a different future.

Niall Ferguson, a Harvard historian and author, believes it is “a well-established fact that a substantial proportion of the general public in the English-speaking world is ignorant of finance”, as reported in this week’s Economist. His upcoming book will produce a long list of evidence to support his claim. For example, one survey last year showed that 40% of American credit card holders do not pay off their balance each month, and one-third had no idea what interest rate they were being charged.

The subprime mortgage disasters that hit America and are now being felt across the pond in Britain have been held up as further evidence of this illiteracy. But who do we blame?

I think it’s safe to say that none of us learned about financial responsibility in school. Perhaps the last generation to truly grasp the importance of saving and not borrowing were those who lived through the Great Depression. These days a life of debt is considered a given. People don’t ask “how much?” they ask “what’s the monthly payment?”. They look at debt in terms of the percentage of monthly income, without considering the period of amortization: for how long do you have to maintain that level of income (40 year amortization? You’re going to work full time until you are 75?). The other fault we have is blind optimism: people honestly believe that when income goes up, or bonuses come in, that they will have the will-power to devote the difference to debt repayment. The sad reality is that many do not. They’ll keep their minimum monthly payments and discover several “needs” for that new money.

What role should regulators play in protecting consumers? In his new book Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness author Richard Thaler, a behavioural economist, explains that “Being human, we all are susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes make us poorer and less healthy; we often make bad decisions involving education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, the family, and even the planet itself.” He argues that policymakers should therefore establish guidelines that “nudge” us in the right direction without restricting freedom. I do believe that government should limit the extent to which lenders can profit from the poor spending habits of consumers, particularly the predatory lending tactics used against the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

So what can we do? First, educate yourself. Then educate your children. Here’s a list of resources and ideas:

1) If you are carrying consumer debt, plan to get out of it. Dave Ramsey offers simple, common-sense advice and practical information for changing your financial picture. He’s a bit of an evangelist, and he does sprinkle his Christian perspective throughout his work, but his advice is sound and easy-to-follow.

2) If you are carrying a mortgage, evaluate its effects on your family’s finances. Are you struggling to pay household related expenses like taxes and maintenance on top of your monthly mortgage? Do you have a hope in hell of ever paying it off in your lifetime? Do you have a plan for paying it off early? Do you forsee a time when you will not be a slave to your current wages, thus freeing up time for other pursuits? Do you really need “this much house”? Can you weather a substantial change in interest rates? Take a look at the TRUE cost of your mortgage – how much interest are you paying? What will you have paid by the time it’s all said and done? What could you have done with that interest had you invested it instead?

3) If you are renting and hope to buy some day, start budgeting now. Take time to save a responsible downpayment. Do not fall victim to “homeownership hysteria”: owning a home that robs you of a future is nothing to feel proud of. While it’s true that prices always go up over the long term (20+ years), in the short term prices fluctuate – there will always be dips in the market, however transient. Wait for those dips to maximize the value of your hard-earned savings. Study mortgage amortization charts until you are blue in the face. Take out a calculator and figure out how much interest you pay in the first three years of mortgage-payments, then ask yourself what that interest could earn for you if invested properly: perhaps waiting three years to buy will give you a bigger downpayment and save you significant interest money compared to buying now.

4) If your children are in school, get involved with promoting financial literacy programs. The Jump$tart program, which promotes financial literacy through child and youth education programs, offers downloadable lesson ideas for teachers and parents. Aflatoun is an international agency that originally sought to provide financial literacy to young children in the developing world, but soon realized that the need exists in the developed world as well. Operation HOPE offers programs for disadvantaged youth and children living with poverty.

5) Get your children involved in the family’s finances. Lewis Mandell, a US economist and educator, believes that financial literacy courses are not enough: he says learning these skills in the absense of any real life practical experience, such as buying a car or managing real income and expenses, is not enough. Hold regular family meetings, encourage the kids to participate in discussions about where money will be spent, how much will be saved, and towards what goals those savings are being accrued. Involving kids in the family budget can help develop habits that will still be ingrained when they are out on their own.

 

Who needs Toys ‘R Us?

How coincidental that I was just reading Theresa’s post about her latest thrift store finds…we’ve just returned home from a thrift store visit ourselves.

We woke up to snow this morning. Yes, snow. We are on the West Coast and it is very rare to get snow at the end of March! So I was tidying up around the house trying to decide what to do with the kids today when I came across a couple piles of stuff for donation. So I decided we’d go to the thrift store (Value Village).

The kids were very excited, and I think that in itself is pretty cool. It’s a very different shopping experience at VV compared to the usual retail store. For one thing my kids spend ages in the toy section and they can handle everything. Few items are packaged, most are already showing signs of wear and tear. They are also allowed to each choose 1 or 2 items. It cracks me up watching them going over everything so carefully and trying to decide what to pick, when I know that the grand total of their booty will be less than $5.

And while they are perusing the toys I look around for kids’ clothes or other stuff. I actually have enough clothes for them right now so this time I hit the kitchen and household stuff. I almost bought a sparkling clean oven roasting rack for $10 but I realized that I very rarely use one and, since we are renting, I could totally see myself leaving it behind with the house, forgetting that I bought it myself and assuming it came with the oven. Now, ten bucks is possibly a very good price but being the frugal person that I am (aspiring to be) I weighed my decision carefully, asking myself if I really needed this or not. I really didn’t.

I did however find the Patricia Cornwell novel that is missing from my (now complete) collection. That was my big find today. They only had it in hardcover, but it was still only $3.99. The original $26 price tag was still visible.

Daughter came away with a plastic case filled with little trinkets – this is exactly the sort of thing she’ll obsess over for hours and it cost me $2.99. She also got a Sesame Street doctor’s kit, which came in very handy when we hit the supermarket a couple hours later – she took her brother’s temperature, listened to his heart, etc. all while I wheeled them through the store. That was $1.99 well spent for a half-hour of shopping peace. Son picked out a nice, new, in the package rubber ducky that came with a soft football and some bicycle handle streamers, all for $1.99. He hasn’t let go of the ducky since. I also got them a travel games set, still in the original wrapping, for $3.99.

As we left the store and the kids were all excited to play with their new toys, I felt very satisfied with myself. It makes me happy that my children could be so thrilled about a bunch of used, inexpensive toys. They’ve been to Toys ‘R Us on occasion when we’ve had to buy a birthday gift. They’ve glimpsed the toy section at Wal Mart (which they both pronounced “boring”). And yet going to Value Village is considered a treat to them because they get to play with all the toys and then pick their favorites to take home with them. They also love that you never know what you are going to find!

I hope they will feel this way for a long time. I hope that by doing this at such a young age they will feel comfortable in thrift stores and see them as the eco-friendly, budget-friendly, fun places that they are. I look forward to many more trips, and many more fun finds.

 

Our stay-home days

Our usual weekday schedule involves some obligations on my part, community centre classes for the kids, and one or two homelearner group activities. And at least once or twice a week we have a “stay home day”. Husband may have needed to take the car to work, the weather may be cold and grey, I may have lots of housework to catch up on. Or, like yesterday, I might wake up to a house that is acceptably tidy and a kitchen that is clean and beckoning me to bake…

Whole wheat pancakes (this recipe, with some flaxmeal thrown in).

Banana-walnut muffins (from this recipe).

And homemade whole wheat bread (using my breadmaker and recipe book).

That afternoon Daughter asked me to show her how to knit. Alas, her little 5.5 year old hands are not dexterous enough to handle the needles. We then tried crocheting, which she couldn’t do herself for the same reason, but together we made a chain of slip knots. When the sun made a brief appearance we went out on the large, south-facing deck and played a game of catch with our velcro ball and paddles set.

I love these stay-home days. But finding the right balance is important. Too many such days and I start to feel restless and irritable. I get cabin-fever. Too few and I start to feel stressed, rushed, as though I were being swept along by forces beyond my control. Simple Living isn’t always that simple.