Frugally Green

Hey everyone,

I’m going to keep this short, real, and to the point.

After recently completing my annual review and taking a very hard look at opportunities I want to pursue in the coming year, I have come to the very difficult decision to stop writing scheduled updates for Frugally Green.

This was a hard decision to make, so I hope that you understand I made it with you in mind as much as myself. As much as I would like to keep Frugally Green up and running on a consistent schedule, I also want you to have the very best information about frugality and sustainability that this world has to offer.  I’ve realized that I will not be able to provide that at this time, so I must pursue other avenues where I feel I can provide great value.

Recently, I’ve written about doing what you love and never giving up. I have not forgotten my own advice.

This is not the end. In fact, it is really just the beginning of all that I have planned for the future.  While it is too early to divulge the details of my next adventure, suffice it to say that it is already in the works and it’s going to be my biggest undertaking yet.

Also, Frugally Green is not going anywhere. There are a lot of good resources here and I have no intention of shutting down the site.  If you ever want to reference an article, the site will be here for you to do so. Feel like leaving a comment to get a thought out of your head?  Go for it!  As long as I can keep the lights on at my home, the lights will stay on at Frugally Green.

I’ll occasionally be back to write when the muse strikes and I need an outlet for my environmental thoughts, but I won’t be committing to a schedule anymore and I cannot say when the next update will come.

Rather than blathering on, I will simply say thank you.  Thank you for being such an important piece of this site.  Thank you for inspiring me on a daily basis. And, thank you for understanding that I must now head a different direction.  Without you, I would still be very lost in the dark. So, it is you that I owe my newly found clarity.  I am eternally grateful.

Don’t think of this as “goodbye” so much as “see you around” and, in the words of the great Dr. Seuss, “Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”

Your friend,

Tyler

PS.  When I am ready to announce my next big plan, you can be sure that I’ll be updating here.  I am not disappearing!

This is a video update post.  If you are reading via email or feed reader and cannot see the video, please click here to go to the site to view it.

Happy New Years everyone! Party harty! This is another video update discussing some changes going on around Frugally Green for 2010.  I like doing these on holidays. Watch and enjoy.  If, for some reason, you’re not able to view the video, here are the highlights:

I’ve finally completed my annual review and, for the most part, have my life set for the next 365 days.  Hopefully you’ve got some big plans for 2010 as well.  Feel free to let us all know what they are in the comments.

As a result of my annual review, I’ve decided to make three significant changes to Frugally Green this year.  I’m excited.  I hope you are, too.

New Guest Contributor

Aldra from Consciously Frugal will now be a guest contributor here, posting monthly. If you don’t already know her from the comments section of the site where she’s an active participant, let me tell you she’s a pretty great person and an excellent writer with enough opinion to go around.  I’m really excited to have her on board and I know you’re going to love what she has to offer.

If you’re dying to get to know her right away, feel free to head on over to her site.

New Posting Schedule

I’m changing the posting schedule back to once per week.  I weighed a lot of options while considering this and it was a tough decision to make, but I am certain that it is what is best for you, me, and Frugally Green.

Though a little less frequent, the new schedule will allow me to write much deeper posts that are more valuable and actionable to you. Every time you read a Frugally Green article, I want you to have all the information you need to form a full opinion or implement a new idea in your life.  This schedule will help support that goal.

Frugally Green Now Accepting Guest Posts

In an effort to make Frugally Green a really great, community oriented site, I will start accepting guest post submissions.  Reading through all the comments of 2009, I realized that many readers are also bloggers and have some really awesome things to say (I love having smart readers!).

If you’d like an opportunity to share your wisdom here, I’d be happy to help facilitate that.  Just head to the contact page and get a hold of me however you like. Also, feel free to just leave a comment here if you’d prefer and I’ll get in touch with you.

Thanks for being such an important part of Frugally Green in 2009.  I really look forward to spending the next year with you.

~~~~~

If you’re planning to have an awesome 2010,  leave a comment and subscribe get free updates.

Connect with me on Twitter: @tylertervooren

This is a video update post.  If you are reading via email or feed reader and cannot see the video, please click here to go to the site to view it.

Merry Christmas, all!  This is just a quick video salutation (less than 1 min.) to say:

• Merry Christmas, duh!

• Presents are cool, but people are better.

• Don’t forget to recycle your wrapping paper.

• Stay tuned for an update next week about what Frugally Green will look like in 2010.

I hope you’re in a nice warm place with friends and family.  Wear out your voice singing Christmas carols if you must, but make sure there’s plenty of eggnog around to soothe the windpipes.

Merry Christmas.

~~~~~

If you haven’t passed out from too much eggnog yet, leave a comment, or subscribe get free updates.

Connect with me on Twitter: @tylertervooren

Sorry, no Eco-Links this week.  Here’s something WAY BETTER.

Howdy folks.  Another week’s gone by and I can hardly wait to spend the weekend catching up on projects I’ve let slide a bit.

Last week I wrote out what I’ve decided to call my “Christmas List” -  a list of things I want to complete by Christmas.

One of the itemson this list to check off is “declutter.” It’s more of an ongoing process for me, but I wanted to really make a go of it before the holidays are in full swing.

Jessie and I have been on a minimalism kick lately, and it’s driven us to purge a lot of things from our lives.  It feels great to pare down my belongings to the things I truly value and use regularly.

However, a lot of things I’ve been getting rid of aren’t junk, they’re pretty useful.  I just don’t have a place for them anymore.

I’m happy to give the things I don’t use any more to charities like Goodwill that can do great things with them, but since it’s the season of giving, I thought I’d extend a little of the same to you.

I’ve chosen a few items that I feel like Frugally Green readers would really enjoy and decided to give them away. I call it the Frugally Green Garage Sale Giveaway. That’s the cheesiest name I could come up with.

What you’ll win

I scratched my head for a few minutes, shuffled some things around on the floor and then organized everything into 4 prize packages:

Grand Prize (1 Winner): A “green home” package consisting of 5 great home design books to help you plan for a new home, a remodel, or just a redecoration to create great living in small spaces:

• The Not So Big House Collection (2 books) by architect Sarah Susanka
• Not So Big Solutions for Your Home by Sarah Susanka
• Green by Design: Creating a Home for Sustainable Living by Angela M. Dean
• PreFabHome by Michael Buchanan

Second Prize (1 Winner): Two excellent books to help you make the green changes in your life that matter most to you:

• It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth Friendly Living by Chrissy Trask
• Sleeping Naked is Green: How an Eco-cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days by Vanessa Farquharson

Third Prize (1 Winner): A DVD copy of Wal*Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (Caution: causes extreme beard stroking and furled brows)

Fourth Prize (4 Winners): A cute little (brand new) cotton tote bag for carting your groceries home from the store

How to win

Ok, now that you’re all excited and ready to wet your pants, here’s what you need to do to enter yourself in the great Frugally Green Garage Sale Giveaway:

Leave a comment on this post letting everyone know what you think is the best way to save (or make) money while improving the world.

That’s it.  That’s all you have to do, but I want your best stuff because you can only be entered once.

I’ll eventually compile your responses into a full post to highlight the mind blowing intelligence of all my readers.

Second chance entries

If you’re just dying for a second chance to win, I’ve come up with two more ways for you to get your name in the hat:

• Leave a thoughtful response to someone else’s comment.  I want to know what you liked (or didn’t like) about their comment and why. No “great point” or “you suck” type of responses.  Get that hamster wheel spinning for a second before posting.

• Retweet this post on Twitter. Now, that’s simple, isn’t it?  Make sure you include “Frugally Green” or “@FrugallyGreen” in the tweet so that I can make sure you’re counted.

The details

So really you have 3 chances to win and I hope you use all of them.  This little promotion will run until this time next week.  On Friday, December 11, I ‘ll assign each entry a number and use a random generator to select the winners.

If you’ve won, I’ll contact you over the weekend to let you know.  All you have to do is give me your address and I’ll take care of the rest.

Thanks for being part of Frugally Green.  Good luck!

~~~~~

Want to get even more out of Frugally Green? Share this post with your friends, leave a comment, or get free updates.

Connect with me on Twitter: @FrugallyGreen

Garage sale image by sfllaw.

This is a video update.  If you are reading via email and cannot view the video, please click here to go to the site.  A short text summary is also included below. Enjoy!

Happy (early) Thanksgiving

Happy early Thanksgiving everyone. I hope wherever you end up tomorrow, it’s with people you love.  Don’t forget to take a second between bites to think about all you have to be thankful for.

I know what I’m thankful for: readers like you.  There are days when I come home tired and don’t want to work on the site, but remembering that you’re out there reading reminds me that I have nothing to complain about and everything to be grateful for.

So, thank you. You are what keeps me going day in and day out.

A Thanksgiving Guest Post

I did, in fact, write a full post for today. It is a guest post that is up right now at Get Rich Slowly, another blog that I am very thankful for.  It’s titled Giving to Receive: What Legacy Will You Leave? and discusses the idea of social responsibility and how you can succeed by helping others.  Feel free to leave your comments there, or come back here to leave them if you’d prefer.

Whatever you do, I hope you read it and take a moment to consider the message.  I think it’s important.

Thanks again for being part of Frugally Green.  I wouldn’t be here without you.

What do you have to be thankful for this year?

~~~~~

Want to get even more out of Frugally Green? Share this post with your friends, leave a comment, or get free updates.

Connect with me on Twitter: @FrugallyGreen

Hey all you FGers,

This is just a quick little update to let you know that a guest post that I wrote for Alan Schram over at Saving for Serenity is now posted.  Alan writes a great little blog about the philosophy of finding happiness and financial independence.

The post is titled Fail to Plan or Plan to Fail?: Why We Avoid Important Decisions and discusses the tough choices that we all know we have to make, but often avoid because they make us uncomfortable.

I hope you make it over to Saving for Serenity and check it out. I’ll see you all on Wednesday with a new article about my really fun, frugal, and green weekend.

In the meantime, here’s a funny eco video:

Hey all!  I’m a slow learner when it comes to this interwebz stuff, but I have been working hard lately to update Frugally Green, adding features to improve your experience here.  And I won’t stop until this is the best environmentally focused money blog (money focused environmental blog?) on the web!  Just so you know what’s changed recently:

• I’ve added a subscribe section to the sidebar so that you’re never but one click away from getting all the latest Frugally Green updates (like this one!).

• If you look to the top right of the site, you’ll notice there is now an archives page where you can find any post no longer held in the “Recent Posts” section of the sidebar.

• Right next to that archives link you will also find a contact link.  I can’t believe it took me so long to add it, but now you can feel free to buzz me with any questions, concerns, or story ideas you might like to share. I also accept fashion tips, Thai food recipes and pictures of cute, furry animals.

• In the event that you feel one of my posts is worth sharing, you may now click on the little green button that says “Share This Post” at the bottom of each article to submit it to your favorite social bookmarking site.  Spread the word! Drink the kool-aid! Or just spread the word.

• Finally, I’ve added a section to the sidebar to link to current blog carnivals that Frugally Green articles are featured in.  Check ‘em out.  There are tons of great writers out there just waiting for you to find them. These carnivals will help you find them faster.

That’s all for now folks. In the coming weeks you may stumble upon (like how I did that?) a whole new look to the site as well as a freshly designed logo. The current theme that’s been around for about two months (longer than most of my ex-girlfriends) is just not going to work out in the long run (recurring theme!?).  Like I said, though, I’m a slow learner with this cyber-geek stuff.

Cheers!

This post isn’t going to be pretty, but it is going to be! Welcome to the world of Frugally Green. My intention for this blog is to meld two personal values held near and dear to my heart. I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a blog for some time, but it is today, April 22, and not so coincidentally Earth Day, 2009, that it will finally come to fruition.

I will be the first to admit that I am neither an expert in frugality nor sustainability and, while I hope to provide you with valuable and relevant information about both, I also hope to do just as much learning as I document my quest to become more proficient in the subjects and finding the valuable connections between them.

As Frugally Green develops, I would hope that you feel compelled, at least from time to time, to contribute your reactions in the form of a comment. Disagree with something I said? Find yourself wanting more information on a specific topic? Maybe you’d even like to author a guest post. Let me know! The success of Frugally Green lies in its ability to create a community of like minded folks interested in seeking and sharing knowledge. Without you, there is no Frugally Green. So don’t be shy!

Since I am brand new to this scary world of blogging and currently working a fairly demanding full time job, expect about 1 post per week as Frugally Green finds its bearings. My intention, of course, is to pick up steam as I become more familiar with the practice and gain more control of the subject, so please feel free to check back often.

That said, I hope you made it a great Earth Day. Did you do something nice for your Mother Nature? I hope you didn’t spend too much doing it, she would never have that.