Riot for Austerity Update

 

It's the start of December and time to calculate my riot for austerity totals for November.

Target is 10% for each category.

Transportation fuel - I've used 7% of the US national average - last month it was 14%.
Electricity - 7% of the US national average - last month it was 5%
Gas/Kero for cooking and heating - 13% of the US national average - last month it was 21%
Rubbish - 4% of the US national average - last month it was 3%
Water - 16% of the US national average - last month it was 15%
Consumer Goods - 35% or 8% depending on what I count
Food - I'm aiming for 75% local sustainable/homegrown produce, and now we're on 67%
          - Aiming for 25% bulk/dry goods, all organic, and we bought 9%
          - Aiming for just 5% "wet goods" ie meat, milk, processed food, conventional produce, and we bought 24%.

Now for some comments on each category...

Transport - I bought a bike trailer which has eliminated a few car trips already. I also caught the train a few times when I would ordinarily have driven, and I've been working on replacing all my local trips to bike trips as much as possible. I'm definitely getting fitter and less afraid of travelling that bit further on my bike.

Electricity - Our usage is up slightly because our composting toilet is working again, and also because we have changed to solar (I counted 50% of our usage as solar whereas last time it was all wind) and Riot rules value wind over solar. Still - we're way under target and I'm happy. I haven't been using the washing machine or dishwasher - instead doing all by hand, and have ditched 3 appliances that used to run 24/7.

Gas/Kero - The cooking we've done on our rocket stove has been great with reducing our gas use. Also due to incredible heat wave we've had far fewer baths as it's just too hot to sit in our loft in that weather!

Rubbish - Our rubbish use is still low but up slightly because Paula has been cleaning out a shed and ditching lots of stuff.

Water - I can't believe we're as low as 16% considering how much water my garden has been drinking. Our tank ran out and I had to water with mains water. But this has been offset by a) all the hand clothes and dish washing I've been doing which saves heaps of water and b) the fact that we've had a week of rain which has refilled the tank and means I haven't had to water the garden. If we didn't count garden water I think our usage might even be on target, or close. Water use for December should be low as our tank is full again.

Consumer goods - with the change of season we bought Jesse a few clothes. I also bought a few things to aid the riot like the bike trailer, some bits to help me make the solar oven, the camp oven so we can roast on the rocket stove, and some bike-safety equiment (including a new bike light as mine was stolen.. grr). According to riot rules we don't need to count health purchases, in which case we can disregard the sun-protection swim top I bought Jesse (I wouldn't have bought it if not for health reasons). If you don't count the riot purchases or sun top, our expenditure is 8% which I'm very happy with. The riot purchases are mostly one offs and since I'm just getting started I'm expecting a few more of these, and once I've changed enough systems they'll probably taper off. I'm doing my best to get everything second hand if possible, or make items myself if I can.

Food - not much has changed since last month, numbers-wise, but we are definitely shifting towards more local food and eating. 22% came from my garden/neighbourhood which I'm very pleased with - the numbers are creeping up. If Paula hadn't gone to Vic Market and bought up rather bigger than I would have, then we'd be much closer to target. Oh well.. we'll keep trying. BTW "local" for us means within Victoria but as much as possible we buy stuff from very close to home.

Here's what I've done this month:
Made a rocket stove
Made some candles
Made a solar oven that doesn't really work well enough to use
Set up cloth toilet paper (for wees only) system that is working well
Got a rack for Jesse's bike, bike safety vest for me, made one for Jesse, and panniers for Paula's bike
Done all my clothes washing by hand (takes an hour once a week - and weirdly I don't even mind doing it)
Washed many loads of dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher
Made dishcloths from my old socks
Cut squares of newspaper and suspended from a string in the kitchen to use to wipe grease off things so I don't use kitchen paper
Preserved some food for winter - dried apples, dried mulberries, mulberry jam, bottled cherries, vinegar...

I failed at the no plastic bags in the fridge mission. Paula wasn't having a bar of it. I've given up on that one for now.

For December I am not planning too many more big changes as a) I am getting back to work and will have a lot less time, and b) I'm pretty satisfied with where we are at right now and want to focus on maintaining these new habits. Basically I consider we are "there" riot-wise in all categories but food and gas, and both of those categories are close. However, this is what I'm working on:

Experiment with storing food out of the fridge - I've got a box of damp sand with vegies in it right now, to see how well they keep. I tried greens in a glass jar but Paula was unhappy with their progress and banished them back to the fridge. I've got this idea that we could turn off our back fridge and just use the tiny bar fridge we have in the house. We don't really need to for the riot as our electricity use is under target, but I would really like to know how to live without a fridge and it would give me such a sense of freedom if we could manage it.

Work on building a root cellar - I've done some swapping with Paula to get her help with this one as she is the digger in our household...

Look into double glazing for our windows in preparation for winter that uses much less kero than we used to.  

Also in the same vein investigate the possibility of a homemade indoor rocket stove/oven that we could use in winter to cook and heat the house in one go. I've seen a design but am not sure I can build it and don't know where to put it - our house is tiny.

Organise everything for our new enormous water tank so it's ready to install at the start of January. While David is here installing it, I'll get him to make some changes to our plumbing so the washing machine and dishwasher water can be put on our garden too - we only use very gentle detergents.

Try making bleach and my own laundry soap - if I get time. I can make these, apparently, with ashes from the rocket stove and fat we scrape off food that we'd normally discard.

Other than that, it's more of the same: keep dishwashing and clothes washing by hand, keep buying local food and learning to do without out-of-season produce, keep up with my garden, keep on riding everywhere I possibly can and stay out of the car, and make all Christmas gifts in a way that doesn't involve any buying.

And for those of you reading this post, what are you doing? Please leave me a comment with your latest.. :)

Comments

[Ozrainbowfamilies.wordpress.com]

What a great blog! I am going to think over what I am doing. I did think we were doing quite well but you set a high standard...

[Deb]

Hi Asphy.. I have just been reading through your blog and it's absolutely amazing. Thankyou so much for your continued effort in keeping your blog updated with such wonderful writing. I've been reading your blog for the past hour totally enthralled with your activities - I've never seen someone with so much drive and good intention. A pleasure!