Being a yuppie homesteader isn’t necessarily easy. Sure, it’s way easier than regular homesteading. I mean, wayyyyy easier. But it’s still a little more difficult than regular life.
First, we focus a lot on recycling, reducing and reusing what we have. Waste just fills landfills. Pretty soon, the whole world will be one big landfill. So, if we can eliminate what we throw out, we can help reduce waste. Additionally, if we limit what we throw out, we can also eliminate some of the new we have to buy. So, if it’s a little bit more difficult on the front end, at least you don’t have to make more money to buy new replacement stuff.
One of the things my husband is very particular about is food waste. First, he absolutely hates it. Nothing sets him more on edge than wasting food. But secondly, he’s very particular that if we do have to waste food, we make sure we compost it, not throw it in the trash. We have a large – and soon-to-be growing compost system at our house. Currently, there are two bins. One is the “cooking bin” to which we are adding scraps. And everything goes in there. Meat scraps, veggie scraps, spoiled food, some yard clippings. Everything.
Then there’s the “ready to use bin” which is the compost that has fully decomposed and is ready to make our garden grown. That bin typically is a rich, dark, almost black compost that gets used in nearly every part of the garden. Since the bins are about four feet by six feet wide, there’s typically plenty of compost for a year.
Now, the composting bins are slated to grow this year or next. What he’d like is three bins: an “adding to” bin, “cooking” bin and “ready to use” bin. This would mean that there would be compost every year, not every other year.
Other than composting, we also separate out all of our trash – and I don’t just mean plastics and paper. While we separate out those, we also separate out metal recycling including soup and tuna cans as well as wires from old lamps, etc. Additionally, plastic bags are either reused or returned to the store to be recycled (though I typically use canvas bags at the store). All paper gets recycled as well. I mean even scraps of paper, small pieces of cardboard, etc. We save egg cartons to give to people who have chickens and for our own future chickens. Any large bottles get saved to store old coffee grounds for the tomato plants and empty yogurt containers make great storage for ground up egg shells.
In the end, we wind up with about one small grocery bag of actual garbage per week and if my husband had his way, even that would be reduced.
Outside, we try to make use of what Mother Nature provides. We hate wasting anything grown in the garden – that much is obvious. But we also use the apples for apple sauce and if a tree falls down, we make use of it by cutting and trimming it up for firewood and kindling. Grass clippings and fallen leaves become mulch for the garden. Old deck boards provided the siding for our hand-crafted wood shed.
Inside, we reduce and reuse as much as possible. As we all know, I love to hang out clothes to reduce the electricity we use (and also because I just love the fresh smell of line-dried clothes.) But, we use vinegar on both stinky clothes and windows. It’s a great natural solvent that won’t hurt either our septic system or the environment. I use cloth napkins because they’re durable and washable. I’ve had some of these napkins for at least 10 years. I have a good set for Thanksgiving and then multiple everyday napkins. I can’t imagine how much money I’ve saved over paper napkins all of these years.
The geothermal gives us essentially “free” air conditioning in summer because we use the waste heat to heat our hot water tank at less cost than simply heating the hot water tank with electricity. And every appliance that we have is either energy efficient and/or used in the most energy efficient manner. We have both solar electric generation and passive solar, which means light streaming through windows, glass doors and a skylight light up the house, reducing the need for electric lamps. And in winter, these windows and doors all get covered with energy efficient window coverings to keep the heat in.
Being a yuppie homesteader means a few extra steps everyday to do the most simple of tasks. Scraping plates into the compost bucket, sorting the mail into it’s recyclable items, washing a load of napkins and kitchen towels. But, being energy conscious has its rewards. It’s not an easier life, for certain. But it’s a much more simple life.
And I think that’s what I enjoy most of all. I now look at items and say, “How can I reuse this?” vs. simply throwing things out. It means buying less and focusing more on the quality of what I buy so I don’t have to replace it. It means focusing on multiple uses of a single item.
It will never be easier to live this way. It will always be fulfilling.
The Yuppie Homesteader 