This is a guest post from the lovely Fabulously Broke.  Check out her blog for more great content! I went green not to really save the environment or to turn into some kind of hippie. Saving the environment was a nice bonus but to be brutally honest, it never factored into my decision. I was also hoping to be able to have less stuff in the process as I am starting to really push myself to become a bona fide minimalist. So in short, I was being extremely selfish. I wanted to detox my own life to live longer and healthier. It’s certainly not the most altruistic reason to go green, because everyone always cites that they wanted to save the animals, save the Earth, the water, to stop building huge landfills etc before saying that it is an added benefit for their health and bodies to do so. Well, I am not as self-sacrificing and probably more honest than that, I’m afraid. But the most shocking thing is I never expected it to change me or to be quite [...]

A few days ago I discovered that we were running low on toothpaste.  We don’t use Crest, Colgate, or any of those main brands, we generally use Tom’s of Maine or Trader Joe’s toothpaste because there is no sodium lauryl sulfate in them.  I didn’t want to spend $4 on more toothpaste, so I decided to improvise.  I’m kind of scared of using straight baking soda as toothpaste, so I decided I’d make a recipe with items I had on hand. Here’s my toothpaste recipe: 2 Tablespoons coconut oil 3 Tablespoons Baking Soda 10 drops of peppermint essential oil. (You could also use cinnamon or spearmint) I stirred them all together in a glass container for about 5 minutes.  It looked about the consistency of toothpaste.  I tried it out, and while it didn’t foam (doesn’t bother me), it did an excellent job of cleaning my teeth!  I think once we run out completely I’ll rinse out the old tube of toothpaste, put my toothpaste in the tube, and use one of those toothpaste squeezers on the end to keep [...]

“Finances are 80% emotion and 20% logic.”  I heard that from a financial adviser the other day.  I gave her a call to ask her advice about paying off debt versus keeping the money in our emergency fund.  Truth be told, sometimes I second guess myself.  Imagine that. This quote resonated with me all day.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a quote about personal finance that’s been more dead on.  Really, does paying off debt make sense if it saves you money in interest but you can’t sleep at night because you’ve depleted your emergency fund?  What about on the flip side, is it worth hoarding all your money in your emergency fund if you have enough in there to sustain you for 8 months or so but you’ve got the debt monkey on your back worrying you at all times? To me, peace of mind is priceless.  Knowing I have an 8 month emergency fund is the most awesome feeling.  Knowing that I’m being the most proactive I can in managing my future by making wise decisions makes [...]