Greening is Easy AND Can Make You A Profit – Garage Sale Sustainability

  

Here it is – a giant fallacy about living a sustainable lifestyle: that you need to spend a lot of time and money to make it happen.

Many times I have heard my friends say, “I refuse to do anything about being green – I mean, c’mon who can live like that?” What they are referring to is the ridiculous amount of money you have to pay for a bamboo-blend outfit which can cost over $100 and is supposedly “green”. Worse yet, the exorbitant costs of organic juice drinks, which can sometimes exceed $6.00 seems outlandish. This might be “green” to some people, but it is not the type of practical green living I am talking about for every day living.

Being green, definitively, is living life with more awareness of where all your stuff comes from and where all your stuff goes to. For instance, when you are done with your kitchen waste, do you just throw it in the landfill to become someone else’s problem, or do you compost it to keep it out of the landfill and to use it in your garden?

It is all about simple choices that are better for you because they save money – and even earn money. Sometimes they are choices that are simply healthier for both you and the earth.

For example, if your kids out grow their clothes, what do you do with them? Do you throw them out? Do you give them away? In this economy a simple and very easy way to reduce, reuse, and recycle is to have a garage sale. It EARNS you money.

Faced with my oldest daughter leaving for college this fall, the family decided to have a “Get My Kid To College Garage Sale.” Each of the family members contributed. Soon we had old toys, clothes, books, and even sold fresh veggies from the front lawn veggie garden I built this year. You can see in the above photos we made homemade signs and sold our hearts out.

In the top photo you can see what my youngest daughter and I did not expect – -RAIN! In the end, we were rained out (notice the soaking wet hair and clothes). All was not lost, we worked together as a family and earned a little money which helped my oldest daughter get started with her college career. It was fun!

Use Garage Sale Sustainability ideas wherever you can to make your life greener – remember – it’s all about using simple common sense.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Comments

[Kylee from Our Little Acre]

So much of living "green" involves common sense, doesn't it? We just need to THINK a little bit and stop letting others do it for us. We do garage sales and they are a LOT of work! But when sale day gets here, it's a LOT of FUN! Sorry you had rain, and hope you made enough to at least buy a few books, which I've heard are now available for rent instead of buying. Still expensive, but not as much so.

[Shawna Coronado]

Thanks for the good wishes! Driving her to the school tomorrow. :-)

Shawna

[babs m]

Ha! That zucchini collection looks like mine! We found the best marinade to grill veggies ever... who needs steak?! Good luck to the college bound miss!!!