Plants that Absorb Formaldehyde

I love houseplants, and I have a lot of them. I am forever reading about all the benefits of various types of plants, particularly in relation to removing toxins from the air. Toxins like formaldehyde. But I never really felt I had a good grasp on whether or not these toxins really were things commonly found in the home until I read this article from The Daily Green.

Turns out formaldehyde commonly leaches out over time from things like plywood, particleboard, and fiberboard, often coming from the glue that holds the pieces together.

What plants are good for removing formaldehyde from the air (see the chart here and read this for more information)?

1. Spider plants
2. Corn plants
3. Heart leaf philodendron
4. Golden Pathos
5. Madag Dragon Tree
6. Waneckii
7. Chrysanthemum
8. Peace Lily

Incidentally, some of these plants are also extremely hardy and hard to kill, mainly spider plant, corn plant, heart leaf philodendron, and golden pathos. Interestingly, I have 7 out of the 8 plants listed (no Chrysanthemum), 2 of which came in a basket from a funeral home. Perhaps I need to spread them around my apartment more to up my formaldehyde protection in all areas.

What I do for the environment

Since I recently posted about what I see that harms the environment, I thought I'd list off some of the things I do to help the environment. Most of these are very easy to do.

1. Recycle - For me, this is ingrained. Growing up, my family always recycled. We had so many garbage cans that guests were often very confused - recycling, regular, burnables (okay, this may not be as environmentally friendly), and a bucket for veggie and fruit scraps. If curbside pickup is available, I can't imagine why someone wouldn't recycle. It's so easy!
2. Reusable bags - I've already posted about this. I have tons of bags and use them as often as I can remember to do so.
3. Walk (or bike) to work (and to the store) - Admittedly, I only do this when the weather is nice, but I have been walking to work as much as possible. Of course, walking to work is only an option for those who live relatively close - in my case, a little over a mile.
4. Carpool - In the winter or in bad weather, I carpool with my boyfriend. I'm not sure it's a huge savings, because there is a shorter route he could take to work. I think it's better than taking two cars though.
5. Reuse - My sugar jar is a former spaghetti sauce jar. We mix our own balsamic vinaigrette and our current jar used to be a jelly jar. Most of my furniture is second- (or third- or forth-) hand. I am a scrap paper fiend, even collecting it from the unclaimed printouts at work. Reusing is easy - and cheap!
6. Compost - I have just begun composting and will write more about this in a future post.
7. Grow your own vegetables - Another topic on which I have already posted.
8. CFLs - When bulbs burns out, we switch them to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).
9. Thermostat - To reduce our energy use, we set the thermostat to 67 in the winter (which is difficult for a freeze baby like me) and 80 in the summer. I'd love a programmable thermostat but we are in an apartment.
10. Reusable Water Bottles - I have very rarely bought bottled water. It just seems like such a waste and completely unnecessary. Tap water is monitored. I carry around a reusable water bottle, which is especially handy at work.

If you have any suggestions of things you do, let me know! I am always looking for more things that I should be doing, particularly if they are cheap and easy. :)

Grow Your Own Food

This spring marks my first attempt at growing vegetables. I grew up in a family of gardeners, and my grandparents always had a very large garden next to their house. Still do, in fact. I've done my fair share of weeding but never have I been fully responsible for planting, weeding, watering, staking, and harvesting. So far it's going reasonably well.

Container Gardening
Because I was unsure of the amount of sun I would have available in various yard locations, and because I do not know much about the soil at the apartment, I opted for container gardening. A picture of the most elaborate container structure is here. In that one, I have peas, lettuce, and green beans. The lettuce is probably at or very near the edible point, but I have yet to pick any. The peas are just now blooming, and the green beans, planted much more recently, have quite a ways to go. I also have containers for 2 tomato plants, which are happily producing tomatoes, although none have ripened yet. And cucumber, zucchini, and a second round of lettuce. Then I have small pots of parsley (the only thing I have eaten thus far), basil, oregano, cilantro, coriander, and nasturtium.

Saving Money?
I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I'm saving money. Between the containers, the seeds, and all the organic potting soil, I probably won't even break even. However, it feels good to play in the dirt, and to know exactly how my vegetables have been grown. Next year I will probably do better. First of all, I will be using the containers a second time. Secondly, I am currently composting kitchen scraps (more about this in a future post), which I will be able to use next year to cut down on the amount of soil I buy. Plus it's a hobby I really enjoy, so when you factor in the money I could be spending on some other hobby (okay, I'm reaching, I know), I'm really doing quite well.

For those of you who think it is beyond your abilities/patience
Deciding to grow your own vegetables can very quickly become overwhelming - what should you grow; where should you grow it; what do different plants require in terms of soil, maintenance, staking, sun, water, etc... the questions can go on forever. The best piece of advice I can give you is one I found in a book recommended by a coworker called You Grow Girl - best title ever, of course. Start small, do as little as you want, and don't get upset if things don't go as expected. An example from my experience:

On April 11, I bought a tomato plant called a Black Ethiopian at a student plant sale here on campus. Tomato plants are wimpy and cannot be placed outdoors until the weather is quite warm - late May in my area. This tomato plant grew at an alarming rate. Between April 11 and late May, it grew about 4 feet (apparently this variety gets as tall as 6 feet - who knew?) in the south-facing window in my bedroom. The plant is now outside and has approximately 3 feet in the middle where it looks utterly pathetic - all dead leaves. But - it's started to produce tomatoes. It may not produce very many, but that's okay. I tried, and I won't be buying a Black Ethiopian again. Patio tomatoes are much easier. :)

You Grow Girl also mentions that just about any vegetable can be grown in a container. Plus, many herbs can be brought indoors for use all winter long. So go ahead, give it a try.

Environmentally Unfriendly

I walk through a rather affluent area on my way to work. I love to look at the beautiful yards (far preferring ones where I know the tenants/homeowners manage the yards themselves), but I am forever noticing things that make me sad for the environment. Now, I recognize that there is always more I myself can do, but some of the things I see that disappoint me are:

1. This morning I saw a truck dropping bottled water off at a private residence. There are two things that bother me about this. First of all, there's the truck that's delivering this to someone's home - using gas, polluting, etc., all so someone can have bottled water delivered to his/her front door. Secondly, it's bottled water! All that wasted plastic! I hope it at least gets recycled. Tap water and a reusable bottle is so much better.

2. Endless garbage on trash day. What single residence (unless they have 20 kids) needs to produce 8+ huge garbage bags of trash? Weekly! And I can see through those bags - aluminum cans, plastic bottles, corrugated cardboard. It's so easy to recycle here - why don't they do it? Almost everything (and certainly the three I just listed) are all curbside pickup!

3. Yards with signs that say they've recently been treated with chemicals. Give me clover and crab grass any day, or at least go for organic treatments.

4. All the lawn care trucks. Yards aren't that big around here. I should think many of these people can do it themselves. Perhaps even with human-powered mowers (I really need to find out the technical term for those things), although admittedly those don't do the best job when you have lots of crab grass and clover....

There are probably more that I cannot think of right now. And perhaps I need to stop complaining and come up with some solutions - at the minimum, teach my upstairs neighbors (from another country where they perhaps do not recycle?) about recycling.

Reusable Bags

You've probably noticed those reusable cloth bags starting to crop up at grocery stores in your area. I know the Giant Eagles around here have them. While I'm not sure I would recommend buying them, I do recommend collecting some reusable cloth bags and bringing them to the stores with you. So far, I've managed to collect quite a few cloth bags from various library events and conferences I have attended. They work wonderfully as grocery bags. Some stores even give you a discount or a chance to enter a contest (e.g. Trader Joe's) if you bring your own bags.

Also, if you don't have cloth bags (or if you forget your cloth bags occasionally, as I do), remember to recycle plastic bags. Giant Eagle has bins for recycling plastic bags, and I bet other grocery stores do as well. You can also reuse plastic bags yourself. They are great for vacations - dirty clothes, wet swimsuits; for cleaning out litter boxes; for carting around dirty shoes; and much more.

Some countries are starting to take the effect of plastic bags on the environment very seriously. Back in January, China announced it would be banning stores from giving out free plastic bags as well as banning the production of ultra thin plastic bags (see the BBC article for more info) starting June of 2008. The ban has since gone into effect with varied response. While I can't speak to the ramifications for businesses or for customers who choose to purchase plastic bags, it seems like a step in the right direction. There are several other countries and cities who have banned plastic bags in some form or other. For a list see this Planet Ark article.

My 2008 Personal Finance Goals

Most of the personal finance blogs that I read include the blogger's financial goals. I assume it makes them more accountable, and also serves as a way to keep track and look back on how well (hopefully!) they've done. Back in January, I wrote out my goals on Adventures in Library Land. They were:

1. Pay my car off within 18 months.
2. Learn more about personal finance and investing. I quantified this one by saying I would keep up with the personal finance blogs I subscribe to (see the Finance section), as well as reading 2 books.

How am I doing on my goals?
1. I have paid off my car already. In 6 months instead of 18. The title came in the mail the other week, and it was entirely too exciting. I now own my car. What a good feeling. Goal 1 accomplished.
2. I have read two personal finance books. I would highly recommend Random Walk Guide to Investing, which I reviewed on Rage in the Page. The Ultimate Cheapskate's Roadmap to True Riches is also a great read, both entertaining and quick. It contains lots of good advice on how to keep your expenses low, although I doubt many would desire to be quite that cheap. (Note: Book title hyperlinks will take you into WorldCat where you can type in your zip code and see if a library near you has the book. It's cheaper than buying it, and I'm a librarian - I like to support libraries). I also do a relatively decent job of keeping up with the personal finance blogs I subscribe to.

Since I basically met the goals I set earlier, I am setting additional ones:
3. Open a Roth IRA (I've been intending to do this for the past 6 months, and I need to finally do it!)
4. Read 3 more personal finance books, and continue to keep up with the blogs I subscribe to.

Save Money on Gas

If you are like me, you've been inundated with tips on how to save money on gas. I read a number of personal finance blogs, and it is an often discussed topic. Then there are those emails that go around with advice, some of it useful, some of it definitely not. For a good list of tips all in one place, check out Christian PF's 75 Gas Saving Tips. He lists the most effective tips first (based on an actual study by Edmunds.com), and then adds ones related to driving economically, planning car trips, seasonal tips, maintenance ideas, and more. At the very end of the post he lists some other web sites to check out if you are interested in more tips.

And, of course, using less gas is not only good for the wallet but also the environment.

Money Can Buy Happiness

As long as you are giving it to someone else, anyway - as a gift to a friend, donation to a charity, etc. - according to an article from a Harvard Business School Newsletter. The researchers asked people to spend their money in various ways and found that those who spent it on someone else reported an increased feeling of happiness.

How much money does one need to spend on someone else to notice this increase? As little as $5. Their research also showed that even when people knew about the relationship between spending money on someone else and happiness, the effects still existed.

What does this mean for personal finance? Even if you don't have a lot of extra money, it may be worthwhile to budget in the occasional gift or donation to charity. Not only will it likely make you happy, but it will probably make the recipient happy as well.

Based on my personal experience I would agree with their findings. I love giving the occasional random small unexpected gift to friends and family. It makes me feel happy, and I can tell by their reactions that it makes the recipients feel happy, too. I also enjoy participating in those volunteer/giving efforts to buy Christmas presents for needy children as well as donating to various charities including the China earthquake relief funds and Partners in Health (the latter inspired by reading the great book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder).

Why Growing Green Cents?

I have been debating for quite a while whether or not I should start a new blog. I already write Adventures in Library Land and am a contributor to Rage in the Page. I can barely keep up with those, so why add yet another?

I am absolutely fascinated by personal finance and by the Green movement. I have posted a few personal finance posts on Adventures, but that made me feel guilty. Not that I have many readers, but Adventures was started with the intent of writing primarily about libraries, and I have finally decided that it is best to keep it that way (perhaps my readership will even increase once I focus that one a bit more).

But should I really start another blog? I am, and have always been, a writer. I have kept way too many journals over the past 15 years (give or take), I always studied by writing things down, I keep pages and pages of ideas all over the place (finally trying to confine them to a single folder at work, at least). I just write. A lot.

Additionally, while my fascination with these topics naturally makes me feel others should find them interesting, I would also argue that sharing what I know, what I am discovering, and what methods I have tried is worthwhile for other reasons. Personal finance is something that is never taught in any formalized setting yet each of us needs to manage his/her own finances. Additionally, the Green movement is garnering more and more attention given the concern over global warming, high oil prices, rising food costs... the list is endless.

Thus the decision to bite the bullet and start a new blog.

Which led to the great blog title debate. What to call it? How to find a title that reflects both personal finance and Green (two topics which honestly do overlap a considerable amount, as I hope this blog will demonstrate). And the more difficult, how to find one that isn't already taken! On Friday, after a very late night brainstorming session, I came up with Green Cents, which covers both parts, and is also a fun play on words: cents/sense, "green" = the Green movement and the slang term for US money (which is becoming a slight misnomer - the new $5 incorporates some lovely purple).

But alas, it was taken on Blogger - by someone who has never even used it, no less! Plus, there was the Google Search worry that this title was also being taken by a rather more prominent set of blogs (one I'd never heard of, but would assume has decent readership).

Not willing to give up the Green Cents idea entirely, I schemed ways to keep it with a minor addition. Thus, Growing Green Cents was born. A Google search yields zero results for those three words as an exact phrase (wow. Either I'm really lucky or my title makes no sense...). Plus, it allows me to tie in yet another love - growing plants (which, admittedly, I was going to sneak in under the "green" thing anyway, because most plants are green, after all, right? It can also be a cheap hobby and good for the environment).

So I give you Growing Green Cents. For all things personal finance-, Green-, and plant-related.