Week 30: The 2019 Voting with My Dollar Project
More than halfway through this year of trying to make conscientious choices with my dollar at every turn. Keyword: trying.
In 2018 I placed 113 orders with Amazon. Holy shit, you guys. That’s basically almost an order every 3 days. Joslyn!
So far in 2019 I have placed only 24 orders. That’s quite a bit less than an order a week. I am really working on using Amazon only when other options are either impossible or so wildly inconvenient it would be effectively unreasonable to use them. For instance, here are some of the things I’ve bought this year:
|
Item |
Rationale |
|
Popsicle molds |
I looked around and no one had the kind I wanted — the small ones, so I don’t have to spend 100 hours watching my kid absent-mindedly lick a popsicle as big as her face while slimy melted yogurt juice runs down her entire body. |
|
Legos |
Okay you can get Legos anywhere, including at the pharmacy, but I needed these specific Legos, you see. We are going on a trip next week, and I had a vision of getting each of the girls their own little travel kit of Legos they could use in the car. I know. Ridiculously bad idea. You know what else is a bad idea? Bored 4-year-olds. |
|
Bug spray with just enough DEET |
I am wary of DEET. I mean, it’s literal poison. The majority of the time, I spray my kids down with essential oil concoctions. But we live in serious tick country, and if there is a woods excursion happening — like the nature camp the girls attended earlier this summer — I believe in DEET. Just not a lot of DEET. My hours of research resulted in buying this particular brand of conventional bug spray that is “family safe,” and I can’t find it at Sam’s or anywhere else locally so far. |
Still, even as I’m writing this, I’m thinking, I can do better. I can be less of an uptight bourgie consumer. The year is still relatively young.
What I am doing that I feel pretty positive about: gardening.
Everyone who lives in the country or has a yard gardens. I am not some sort of renegade. But I am new to this, and I am still amazed that you can put a tiny dry seed into the ground and it will turn into THIS:
What I’m eating:
Cucumbers and cold brew (new memoir title?)
What I’m watching:
Finished Fleabag. So good.
What I’m reading:
Almost finished with Bel Canto. Breathtaking.
What I’m listening to:
This new song by the country “supergroup” The Highwomen: Redesigning Women
What I’m working on:
-
For Eventbrite: How to start a party planning business with little to no money
-
For Peltarion: The case for operational AI: Moving from research to reality for deep learning and AI
