It happened one week after we moved to New Mexico.  It happened on my husband’s birthday.  It happened…out of nowhere.  We were hit by an uninsured driver.

What does this have to do with Zero Waste?  Our new driving philosophy now meshes quite nicely with our desire to use less energy.

Being a stay-at-home-mom I take pride in my ability to save money at the grocery store.  I try to treat it like my J-O-B.  The hubs is good at saving money on big-ticket items, like, “No, we can’t get a $30,000 minivan.”  Sad face.  But I rock at saving money on the little things like apples, chicken thighs and toilet paper.  Buy dry goods here, diapers from there and produce and meat over at this other place that happens to be near the doughnut shop.

So it took a long, late night, kids in bed, “sit down with Jesus” at the kitchen table, AND a serious tweak to habitual thinking to come to our present day arrangement.

We now limit our grocery shopping to a mile and a half radius from our home.  

Some initial findings:

But here’s where we are saving:  gas, wear and tear and exposure.  We calculated the cost per mile of using our car at something like 50 cents/mile.  But the real cost comes from exposure to drivers whether it be in busy parking lots or frustrated commuters on the highway coming home.  I’ve also started relying on my cloth diapers more which is nice since I’ve got a blog called Zero Waste Mommy.  And guess what – I don’t let those $1.29/lb bananas go to waste anymore.  Dark spots just mean muffins/bread/smoothies are imminent.

And an added bonus is I can walk to the store like millions of other humans across the globe.  One less gym membership in the world.  Which we all know is a definite Zero Waste victory.