Saving Time and Gas with Merging and Roundabouts

A friend's blog reminded me of how frustrated I get with a couple of traffic issues. I hope he isn't upset that I ripped off his topic. First, merging from an ending left lane. Second, the proper way to use roundabouts.

Merging from an ending lane can be really unpleasant. That is mostly because the people in the right lane can get really huffy, as if you are cutting in front of them at the grocery store or something. Some even pull in front of you so you can't get in front of them. The thing that they don't understand is that the wait wouldn't be as long for anyone if they would just move over into the left lane and/or allow everyone to merge like a zipper when they reach the merge zone. This is not just my opinion, but the laws of physics and MNDOT agree.  When the right lane is full and the left lane is not, people entering the freeway cannot merge into the right lane easily. This slows the right lane down. If half of the traffic would move into the left lane, traffic would not slow down as much. Then, if at the merge point people took turns politely, there would still be no slowing down.

Roundabouts have been popping up all over the metro area. I have to say that I love them. They save on gas and keep us from having to stop when there is no on coming traffic. We have at least three in my town now, and they have allowed traffic to flow much more smoothly. Unfortunately, they could be even more efficient if everyone knew the law about signaling. When we first got our roundabouts in my town, I read up on them. An article by MNDOT said to signal your turn. I thought that meant to signal as I enter the roundabout whether I am turning right or left. I have frequently been frustrated by my signal turning itself off before I even get into the roundabout due to the way some of ours are laid out. However, now that the law has been officially entered into the books, I have found out that I was mistaken. We are supposed to signal right when we intend to exit the roundabout. If everyone would do this, traffic could flow more freely, as we wouldn't have to assume they are staying in the roundabout any longer than they are.

Let's save even more gas and time by putting into practice these two little changes that can make such a difference!

How to Save on Garbage Service

Rate increases last month forced my garbage bill up by $8/month after taxes and fees. I really don't appreciate having my set monthly expenses go up, so I decided to lessen the impact. I had been noticing that my garbage can was rarely more than 2/3 full each week. Since I had the largest can size (90 gal.), I downgraded it to the 60 gallon can and decided to do a little better job with composting and recycling, saving $5/month plus tax. No, I didn't come all the way up to that $8/month figure, but it was close. If we find we can go down to the 45 gallon can after we get the hang of this, that would be awesome. If you can't imagine reducing your garbage can size, compare your household size to mine. We have two adults and seven children, ranging from 3-15 years old. If nine of us can go down to a 60 gallon can, certainly a more typically-sized family should be able to do this.

Regular glass, plastic and paper/cardboard recycling has been going pretty well in our household the past year, but I found another way to recycle this month. Mackenthun's and many other grocery stores in the Twin Cities metro area recycle plastic bags & food packaging for free. I found a website that gives details about which plastic items can be recycled just by dropping them off at the store. It also has locations of some of the stores here in MN that take the recycling. Just go to http://www.itsinthebagmn.org for more information. Yesterday, after about three weeks of saving up store bags, cereal bags, zipper bags (with the zippers removed) and wrap from things like bulk toilet paper and water bottles, we had a large garbage bag full and took it to the recycling station while running errands. It was pretty painless.

We have been composting kitchen scraps for a few years, but it has primarily been during the non-winter months. This year, we are composting year-around. Fortunately, I have children I can send out to the compost bin with food scraps so I don't have to tromp through the snow. Composting food scraps, rather than throwing them away, saves space in the garbage can and keeps the garbage can from stinking so much. I have a Tupperware container with a lid that we use, which keeps the smell of our potato peels, apple cores, banana peels and other compost-friendly items from leaking out. Many counties sell compost bins to their residents for a very reasonable rate. Carver County charges $35 for theirs. You can find their address and hours of operation here: http://www.co.carver.mn.us/departments/LWS/env-svc/envirocenter.asp

That last link also has a list of all of the other items Carver County takes, many of which are free, such as fluorescent bulbs, batteries and household hazardous waste. They take paper products that you could recycle in your bin if only they weren't tainted by food, such as the cardboard round inside a frozen pizza box, or a cardboard pizza delivery box, napkins, paper towels, paper plates and even those waxy dairy boxes that you can't recycle. And here's the clincher: they will also take ALL food scraps - even meat and bones. I haven't gotten motivated enough to take that stuff all the way to Chaska yet. Maybe if they were open in the evenings I would, because I go out there regularly for play practices with my kids. At the moment, it is not worth the gas to do it. I wonder how much more room in our garbage can could be saved if we did? Maybe I'll have to experiment and see.

Let me know if you have found any ways to reduce your garbage. I'd be grateful for any tips!

***UPDATE***
Carver County expanded its recycling service to include more items this year. We can now recycle all plastics #1-7. This has already proven to overfill my two huge recycling bins if I don't do a good job of squishing everything down. I haven't noticed my garbage can getting any less full, but I have been doing a lot of de-junking with my spring cleaning so far, so I doubt I would see much of a change yet. Maybe in a few months?

Saving on College Textbooks

Here is a shameless way of getting on the search engines for the textbooks I just listed on eBay. I went to the bookstore today to sell back my books, but they had canceled the buyback session. What a waste of time and gas! So, I'm going to see if I can sell them on eBay. Here are the details:

Normandale Community College World Civilization 3 1103 History Textbook and novels, used in David Rayson's course.

I just finished this course and checked that these are still the same books used for the course for Spring semester. If you buy them used from the bookstore, you'll pay $102.50. Get them here for a fraction of the cost and avoid lines at the bookstore, all with free shipping via USPS, arriving within a week of your cleared payment (credit card purchases will ship the next business day).

Included in this bundle are:

Global Society: The World since 1900, Second Edition, Copyright 2008, by Pamela Kyle Crossley, Lynn Hollen Lees, John W. Servos ISBN-13 9780618775958, ISBN-10 0618775951

This book's cover has some creasing, a tiny rip (about .25cm) and some pages are bent at the corner a little. There is highlighting throughout, but no writing. All pages are intact and and the binding is strong.

All Quiet on the Western Front, Copyright 1956, by Erich Maria Remarque ISBN 9780449911495

This book has a minor crease on the corner of the cover. There is some minor highlighting inside, but no writing.

Red Azalea, Copyright 1994/2006, by Anchee Min ISBN 1400096987

This book is in great condition. No highlighting or writing.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Copyright 2007, by Khaled Hosseini  ISBN 9781594483851

This book is in great condition. No highlighting or writing.

You can find the eBay listing here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160524457822&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123#ht_500wt_1156

***UPDATE***
I'm sad to say these didn't sell, and I didn't make it out to Normandale for their used book return day (well, technically I did, but they canceled the day I went there, and I couldn't make it to the other one). So, if you happen to want any of these books, I'll take whatever offer I can get.

Saving on Textbooks

I thought I'd try to save a little by selling my textbooks from last semester on Ebay. So far, it hasn't worked out. I was hoping that someone from my college taking the same course in the Spring semester might like the books for less than what the bookstore is selling used books for. I'm still crossing my fingers, but I haven't gotten a bite yet. The books are for Normandale Community College's World Civilizations 3 course. The books are Global Society: The World Since 1900, All Quiet on the Western Front, Red Azalea and A Thousand Splendid Suns. The auction runs another week or so. Here is the link, in case anyone is taking the course this Spring. http://cgi.ebay.com/Global-Society-World-Since-1900-bundle-/160520226176?pt=US_Texbook_Education&hash=item255fc04580#ht_500wt_1156

I checked to make sure David Rayson is still using the same books.

First Day of School

Well, Aaron came back from Asia last month and I forgot to get these pictures off the camera. The video camera cable is still missing, so I don't have Aidan's first day of school for you to see yet.

Tristin is sporting his new bolaro. He got away with it for a few days before he was told he couldn't wear it in the hallways at school. But, there was a hat day, and he has worn it to some parties, so his purchase hasn't been for naught.

The boys are all doing very well in school so far. Tristin is enjoying being around more mature students, and even has math classes with mostly sophomores and juniors. Show choir practices twice per week, and I think he enjoys it. Aaron and I went to watch him for the last half-hour of dance camp on Saturday (it went from 9-6), and he is keeping up really well!

Brandon had his first show choir activity last night. He is one of 20 boys in the choir, which consists of all of the boys who auditioned, plus all of the 8th grade girls. The 7th grade girls are making up a new show choir this year. There were 112 kids who auditioned in all, so they created a new choir for them.

William is enjoying middle school. Band started last week, so he is working on consistently getting the right sound out of the flute. He is also participating in the play with me. We're working on getting him through his chores. He is not one who likes doing the same thing every day. He'd rather do a big project that has an end than sweep and vacuum the same floors each day.

Ben is becoming more responsible. He has come home to an empty house with Dallin and Aidan a couple of times now, and has done exactly as he's been instructed, making sure Aidan comes right in and doesn't go out to roam the neighborhood. It is only about 20 minutes before the older boys get home, but he has been handling that 20 minutes very well.

Dallin is also doing very well. He has some harder chore responsibilities this year, and is doing well at them.

Clearance + Coupons = SCORE!

I had a fun time shopping at Target today.  I had two of the big bottles of Tide on my list.  I recently purchased some in the smaller bottle, because of a sale and some coupons that made it a better price per ounce, only to find that it drips all over the place when the cap is put back on (weren't those supposed to have a no-drip design?).  I figured I could set it aside and use the big one until there was room enough to dump the rest of the smaller bottle in.  Since I use both Tide Coldwater and regular Tide in my machine, depending on the type of load I am doing, I needed two.  I had one $1/2 coupon, which wasn't particularly great.

I visited the clearance aisle at the end of my trip.  They had marked down filler paper and notebooks quite a bit. I had seen them right after school started, but their idea of clearance then was double their sale prices from before school.  This time, however, they were one cent less.  I wasn't completely sold on buying them yet, but one of the brands of wide-ruled notebooks had a sticker on the front that said "$5 in Target Coupons Inside," so I flipped one open.  There was a coupon for $1/1 Tide inside!  There were also coupons for Tropicana, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, Life Cereal, Chewy Granola Bars and Instant Oatmeal, Danimals, Nature Valley, Energizer, Kellogg's and Frito-Lay.  Not all coupons were the same in each, but if you are buying for a big family for next school year, you are sure to get more than you need.  They all expire 10/31/10.

I didn't think much of anything other than the Tide.  But, when I got home, I was putting away some tortilla chips (Mission brand were $2/bag), and I found an empty Quaker Instant Oatmeal box in the cupboard.  I thought to myself, "hmm...any coupons inside? that could stack with the Quaker coupons I just got..." and sure enough, there were five coupons in the box, four of which would stack with the coupons I had just received.  I already had two printable Life coupons for $1/2, so now all I need is a great sale, and cereal will be extremely cheap next month.

The one other unbeatable deal at Target that I found this week was Playtex Sport 36 count for $7.14.  Buy two, get a $5 gift card.  If you've been getting the paper for a while, and/or have signed up for Playtex samples in the mail, you probably have at least $1/1 coupon in your binder.  That makes it a great deal!

Excuses, excuses!

So, I haven't been updating this weekly.  After vacation, I got into the school mode, and I haven't been remembering to buy newspapers on Saturdays, so I haven't had coupons to make great deals match up.  I'm really sorry!  I will try harder this Saturday to remember.