One Small Step: Give Up One Tiny Luxury
October 7, 2008 by Jennifer
I’m serious about coffee – almost to an obsession. I always brew in the morning, and then usually at least once in the afternoon. (Yeah, not the healthiest habit, but this isn’t about that.) Anyhow, Friday night I was up late writing, and on Saturday when I got up I REALLY needed coffee. Much to my anti-delight, I woke up to a completely dead coffee maker. Mine is old, but to be broken first thing in the morning; that’s a crisis.
I tried to fix it. I tried to will the thing with my mind to work. Nothing. It was dead. I managed to get dressed sans coffee, and headed out to buy a new coffee maker. At the store, I was going to buy the same old coffee maker. Mine was nice, and had automtic brew, which is really nice when I have to be up and going early. However, the downside of an auto brew pot, is that you have to leave it plugged in. I unplug most everything when it’s not in use, but not my coffee pot.
At the store, I started thinking, do I really need auto brew? This may seem like a small question, but I sat there on the coffee maker isle for a good long while. I don’t really need it. If I don’t have it, I can unplug the coffee maker for most of the day. That saves energy. I’m nice and green in other ways though, do I really need to cut out the auto coffee?
In the end, I bought a non-auto pot; just a basic, brews your coffee deal. I figure what, it’ll cost me a few minutes on early mornings, but no big. Over time, I’ll save more resources. That’s the little luxury I gave up this week. Maybe you can give something up too. Some ideas:
- One magazine subscription
- Your home phone – if everyone in the family has a cell, do you really need a home phone?
- Packaged cookies – save packaging, make your own
- The newspaper M-Sat, try cutting down to Sunday only
- Part of your lawn – have a deck instead
- Use the same towel more than once – perfectly clean linens are overrated
- Buy one less pair of shoes this year
Find something that can save a little energy, or some resources; something that makes your life a wee bit better, but that you can live without, and give it up.
Or use a french press….
Funny thing.. the more I read here, the more I give up. That’s a good thing though! We gave up paper towels because of the paper towel challenge. Seriously reduce the amont of plastic bags coming into the house (I must admit though that some still come). We ditched the landline last month. So, as to what I will give up.. I am thinking I’ll ditch the flavored coffee creamer. I was using sugar-free until a read an article about the nasties in sugar-free products. So I switched back to regular. And I just really don’t need it. I’ll switch to just using cream.
But first I need to finish off the flavored creamer.
@Marye, I don’t know, I’ve never had one, can’t you only do one cup at a time?
Jodi – good. Giving up (stuff) is cool. I don’t like flavored creamers myself, but I could never give up coffee. It’s a terribly bad habit of mine.