People confuse me. Americans confuse me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m confused. Easily confused.
Why am I bringing this up you ask, Dear Reader? Well, because I’ve long thought about how FIRE and lowering one’s carbon footprint go (or at least can or should go) hand in hand. That’s because the money-saving side of the ledger (as opposed to the money-making side) on the FIRE journey almost by necessity entails lowering one’s carbon footprint. Because that results in money savings and a lower cost of living.
This is where my confusion comes in. Specifically, as to people who are reflexively against any type of “environmentalism.” Why wouldn’t someone want a big heap of saving money, with a side of lowering one’s degradation of the planet, I always think?
My confusion peaked several years ago, when a bunch of knuckleheads ranted and raved about the U.S. government all but prohibiting incandescent light bulbs. Now, I get not wanting to be bossed around by the federales. To a point. But when it comes to light bulbs?! And when the tradeoff is replacing a light bulb with one that’s multiples more energy efficient and lasts longer?! What the flute!? Where’s the problem?! I can think of other things about which to get righteously indignant.
Anyway, I’ve always been conscious of my carbon footprint (tho I’m the first to admit that I could be way better). But pursuing FIRE and living a FIRE life has upped my game. Here are just a few changes I made as a result of discovering FIRE.
Clothesline tackle
Pre-discovery of FIRE, we washed all our clothes in a drying machine and dried them in the dryer. Period. End of sentence. Because of course, right?
Then I read this blog post about using a clothes drying rack/clothesline. And felt like an absolute idiot. Yes, why do clothes have to go in the dryer when mother nature will do the job for you?! For free!
We’ve since used the clothes dryer sparingly. Maybe 1% of our former usage. Having in the meantime moved to the Mountain West, a bonus we’ve realized has been much drier air, which finishes the job far quicker than in the Midwest.
Less energy used; less money spent.
I like to ride my bicycle
I’ve always ridden my bike more than the av-er-age bear. But after discovering FIRE blogs, many of which are authored by folks who bike far more than I did, I became more intentional about what mode of transportation I’d take each time I needed to get somewhere.
Today, I bike and walk far more than I used to. Sure, many of these trips would have in the past been taken via public transportation, which I’ve used for decades. But those would have cost money (the fare for the ride). And anyway, some of the trips would have been done via car. Mostly because I was lazy. The Missus also takes more trips via bike rather than car now, too.
I’m not sure how much our car usage has decreased. But it’s not negligible. I estimate we drive at least several hundred miles fewer each year than we would have. Maybe even more than 1,000 miles fewer.
Less life-killing emissions spewed; more life-extending exercise had.
Plant my flag
When I moved out on my own after college, I was . . . uuummm . . . desperately poor not well off. But ya’ gotta eat. I ended up rediscovering tofu, a cheap protein source I’d tried but rarely ate. Turned out that I was totally cool with tofu in my older age. This and other food-related changes we’ve made in large part to save money resulted in my diet becoming far more plant-based. Even since becoming better off financially, we’ve become more intentional about keeping (and even upping) our largely plant-based diets. In part to save money. But also because of ethical and environmental reasons.
Side note: A few years ago, after discovering a health issue I have, I’ve started consuming lentils exponentially more than I used to. Mostly in roasted/crunchy form as a replacement for less healthy crunchy snacks. Turns out that this isn’t just good for my body and a cheaper alternative to the snacks I used to consume, but also a net positive for Mother Earth.
Less environment-degrading animal product consumption; more healthy body.
Degrees of difference
Your humble blogger runs hot. Heck, I start sweating when the temperature gets to 32.1 degrees. Fahrenheit, not Celsius to be clear. So, I’ve always kept my home’s thermostat at a lower temperature in the winter than most people I know. But after learning of the substantial heating bill cost savings that come from setting a thermostat even one degree lower and that, you know, you can put on a sweater or sweatshirt inside the house to keep warmer, I thought to myself, “You dolt! Do that!” And so I did. The Missus and Thing One (The Elder) run a little cold, so there’s usually pushback. But our average thermostat setting in winters definitely is lower than it’d have been had I not made this change.
As for air conditioning, I’ve become far more adept at cooling our homes for free via shutting blinds and opening/closing windows at strategic times of the day. In our current home, we also have an evaporative cooling system, which just might be one of the greatest things ever invented. It cools the house, pumps moisture into our dry Mountain West air in the house, and uses a fraction of the energy that a conventional air conditioning system does. I’m smitten with it.
Lower expensive power consumption; more comfort.
The phantom menace
Something I’d heard about but never acted on was that anything plugged into an outlet uses power while plugged in, even if the item is turned off. So called phantom load.
After being reminded about this when I discovered FIRE, I took action as part of my initial blizzard of cost-saving changes. Today, I don’t unplug everything in the house when not in use, but I do unplug a lot. I suspect the cost-savings I’ve realized from this is fairly low. But then again, the effort required is all but nothing. It’s about the easiest carbon footprint-lowering measure that one can take.
Low effort; lower power bills.
Buy nothing, not that
A catch-all category of our carbon footprint-lowering is that we just buy less stuff overall. Not that we were spendypants before. Just that we’ve made changes on the margin that have resulted in less consumption than otherwise would’ve been the case. Relatedly, we’ve always bought used goods, but I think we’ve made progress on this front, too. Of those goods we do buy, more are bought used—as opposed to new—than probably would’ve been the case pre-discovery of FIRE.
Less manufacturing-related energy used; fewer dollars spent.
And in the end . . .
All this said, while we’ve definitely made progress on lowering our carbon footprint, I know that we could lower it even more. That’ll take intentionality and work. I’m committed to it tho, because mere performative gestures are just a joke.
