TV Alert

So we bought that shiny new LCD HDTV yesterday. Holy crap those things cost a fortune–we had an emergency budget meeting right there on the sales floor while the girls watched B Movie in blu-ray surround sound theater seats. (I think we could have left them a couple hours before they noticed we were gone.) The 37-incher we bought was out of stock, so it should show up on Thursday. Guess I’ll have to wait another ten years to try our no-TV-family-for-a-year experiment.

Greening the budget

If you’re a regular bartblog reader, you know we’ve done some things over the years to try to lighten our footprint on Mother Nature around our house. You also know that we are pretty strict Dave Ramsey-ish budgeters around here. We craft a new plan every month and tell every dollar what to do ahead of time and on purpose.

Yesterday, while putting together our January household budget, we decided to create a new budget line called “Green Steps.” It was inspired by a heftier-than-ususal water bill for December. This month it will be replacing our shower heads with shiny new ones that use less than half as much water (now if Hope and I can both just learn to take shorter showers…), and a rechargeable battery set to fire up those AAs powering our Wii remotes and other nonsensical toys (inspired by my annual smoke detector battery replacement on New Years Day).

1/4/2009 UPDATE:

A note on those CFL bulbs (Listen up, Sis)–if you break one, be careful. But don’t panic. Here are some helpful links:

• Sierra Club: Don’t throw those CFL’s in the trash
• Popular Mechanics: Don’t lick your hand
• Treehugger: Not likely to hurt you or your family

Naughty and Nice Eats (plus expensive lattes)

The Nutrition Action Healthletter in Washington DC shares some insight into some popular foods that are really crappy for us (steer clear of the whole milk and whipped cream at starbucks!). They also share a list of “superfoods” (we love sweet potatoes at the Bartmann house!).

Food for thought: visit the website or  download the pdf.

Speaking of Starbucks…Here’s a nice little nugget for all you fellow Dave Ramsey budgeters out there. We all know gas is hurting our wallets (a 26% price jump in the last year). Bet you didn’t realize how bad those fabulous lattes are kicking your butt (and making it bigger if you get ‘em with whole milk and whipped cream). One of Dave’s fans (a math teacher) points out those lattes at Starbucks cost about 29 bucks a gallon!