Riot for Austerity: October Totals

I ought to have updated our Riot totals sooner than today. It’s the middle of the month after all. Somethings are good, others not so great. I have to remind myself that this is a constant process.

We left town twice in October–once on an emergency and the second time on vacation which can really skew the numbers in terms of gasoline usage which is usually pretty low in our household. Fortunately, we’ve no intention of leaving again. Of course, now that I’ve written that Karma will kick my ass.

You can view our September totals here.

Gasoline: 80 Gallons in October

On Track to Meet Our Goal: No!
Average Household of Our Size: 1500 gallons per year
Goal: 150 gallons
YTD Usage: 89 gallons
Discussion: As I’d said, we really took a hit on gasoline usage this month with all the flying.  This is one area that I really thought we’d have under control–meeting the 90% reduction goal without a problem but now I’m not so sure.

Electricity: 1143 kwh in October
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: No!
Average Household: 11,000 kwh per year
Goal: 4,400 (which includes 1,100 times 4 since we purchase wind power)
YTD Usage: 2,410 kwh
Discussion: To our credit, our monthly KWH usage was actually lower in October than it was in September, and it was considerably lower than last years.  Still it’s tough to reduce it much further when we live in an old condo where everything runs on electricity.

I think I may reduce the days we turn our oven on to once or twice per week rather than the customary three or four as that may help with reducing our energy consumption.  Cooking with our crockpot–something we’ve been lax on–will also help since it requires less energy to prepare a meal than the stove or oven. Also, we’ll be wrapping our windows soon which should help with heat loss.

Heating and Cooking Energy: 3 Therms in October
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: Yes!
Average Household: 1000 therms per year
Goal: 100 therms
YTD Usage: 9.6 Therms (estimated)
Discussion: We’re not billed for natural gas since everything in our little condo runs on electricity. So this is an estimate.  Our greatest help in reducing this total is that the Little Dude is potty-trained so we haven’t much need to run laundry to the dryer as often as we did before.  Additionally, we dry quite a bit on drying racks within the home.  Line drying, unfortunately, is out of the question according to condo covenants.

Garbage Headed for the Landfill: 30 lbs in October
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: Yes!
Average Household of Our Size: 4,928 lbs per year
Goal: 468 lbs
YTD Total: 60 lbs
Discussion: I did not measure all our waste this month, so this total is an estimate based on the weight of the bags I did measure and our total last month.  We really don’t generate to much stuff that heads to the landfill.  Reducing in other areas such as consumer goods or industrial, processed foods will reduce waste output automatically.  Any waste beyond that usually gets recycled or composted, leaving us with not that much in general.  Still, there’s always room for improvement.  In our case, we have 30 lbs to go.

Water: 960 gallons in October
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: No!
Average Household of Our Size: 109,500 gallons per year
Goal: 10,950 gallons this year
YTD Usage: 2,100 gallons (estimated)
Discussion: Yuck.  I need to stop bathing at night and I need to start doing the dishes by hand both of which would also help with our enormous electricity bill.  See how these things are connected?  Reducing in one area automatically reduces another.

On the subject of hand washing dishes–I realize this is an area for debate.  In our case, I’ve calculated that hand washing the dishes in a sink of soapy water would save at least 5 gallons per load of dishes.  If we used less than a sink full of water, we’d save even more.  You see, our dishwasher was built in the early 1980s and uses a lot of water anyway.  Couple that with the fact that everything must be pretty clean before you put it in the washer means that we’re already using water to hand wash anyway we may as well make dishes a single step rather than a double one.

Consumer Goods: $47 in October
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: No!
Average Household: $10,000
Goal: $1,000 this year (with used good calculated at 1/10 of value)
Our September Usage: $259.50
Discussion: So though we only spent $47 this month (remember, used goods are calculated at 1/10 of their value), we’re still not on track to meet the goal because we’re still reeling from September’s purchase of a new pressure canner.  The bulk of what we bought in October was used from consignment shops and Ebay, but I did have to get some new underwear so there you have it.

Food: Local, Bulk and Other
On Track to Meeting Our Goal: Yes!
Average Household: Most food comes from 1500 miles away
Goals: 70% is Local and Sustainable, 25% is Bulk Organic and 5% is Other
Our September Totals: Though the winter is coming and the farmers market is closed for the season, the bulk of our food still comes from farms and ranches close to our home.  Even our Sunday dinner tonight should be 100% local which is promising.  Only a very small portion of food comes from beyond Colorado’s borders.  I’m giving up chocolate and sweets, so our “other” category will fall even further.

So, there it is: those two trips really blew us off track but we’re back and ready to keep fighting the good fight.  How’s it going for you?

November 18th, 2007