For the last year, I’ve concentrated on riding my bike to work when the weather is nice.  Gas may not be as expensive as it was when I first bought the bike, but biking to work still saves me money and I learned I enjoy riding my bike and the great exercise.  I realize that my 1 1/2-mile commute is somewhat unusual when the nation’s average commute is around 30 miles, but I’m sure there are many people with commutes that are acceptable for bicycles.

If you want to try riding to work, here’s what you’re going to need.

Equipment

• Bike – Obviously if you’re going to bike to work, you need a bike. Just about any bike will do, but it will make the ride easier if you have a road or hybrid bike – a mountain bike will have a much heftier frame.  The heavier the bike, the more weight you have to pedal down the road.  Ensure that the brakes are in good condition, the tires are aired up and holding their pressure, and the chains and gears are properly greased.  If you’re not sure how to maintain your bike, take it to a bike shop before your first ride.
• Lock – I prefer a thick, sturdy cable lock to secure my bike.  A lock isn’t going to deter someone dead-set on stealing your bike, but a properly-installed cable lock can prevent “casual” theft of your bike’s equipment.  Many bikes today have a “quick release” for the tires to allow for easy tire changes.  These quick release levers also allow for easy stealing of tires.  Threading the cable lock through your tires and frame and then around a permanently-installed bike rack will help protect your investment.
• Helmet – A helmet isn’t just a suggestion, it’s a necessity.  I hate “helmet hair” as much as the next person, but that minor inconvenience is nothing compared to injury or death from a biking accident.  A helmet won’t save you from all harm, but it could make the difference between seeing your family again and being a young organ donor.
• Clothes – Don’t ride to work in your work clothes unless your office is extremely casual.  You want to be cool and comfortable during your commute and you don’t want to ruin your work clothes with sweat or mud splashes.  You don’t need to spend for a fancy biking outfit – shorts and a t-shirt should be sufficient.  Take your work clothes with you (or even better – have clothes at work waiting for you) and change when you get to the office.
• Shoes – Good shoes are important for safe biking.  Many dressier shoes have a slick sole that won’t grip your pedals and could cause you to get into an accident.  Tennis shoes are a much better alternative and your feet will be more comfortable on your commute.  Like your clothes, either take your work shoes with you or leave a pair at the office.
• Backpack – I purchased a decent backpack for $10 before I started riding to work so I could carry my lunch and clothes with me.  If I ever have to take work home or bring supplies to the office, I just put it all in the backpack.  Be sure not to overload your backpack since that weight could throw off your center of balance and every pound in your bag is another pound slowing you down.
• Saddlebags – Saddlebags are great for the work commuter.  Instead of carrying a heavy backpack, you can split the weight into two bags hanging beside your back wheel.  They’re a little more expensive than a backpack, but they make riding easier since the weight is lower and not pulling on your shoulders.

Your Route

Before you make your first ride, you need to plan your route for the places you can legally and safely ride your bike.  Not all towns are bicycle-friendly, so you’ll have to know your local laws and regulations about where you’re allowed to ride.  Many places prohibit biking on sidewalks and biking on many highways and interstates is illegal (not to mention dangerous).

My commute

To map out my ride, I installed Google Earth and zoomed in to my town.  As I examined the route I drove from home to work, I noticed a few low-volume side roads and subdivisions I could cut through that wouldn’t add much time or distance to my commute, but would provide a safer ride than taking the main thoroughfares.  Using the path tool in Google Earth, I was able to map out and measure the distance of my commute and I used it to prove to my wife that it would be safe enough for me to ride.

Get Pedaling!

Biking is great exercise and it saves you from the wasting your gas money stuck in the rush hour traffic jams.  Just be safe and smart about it and it’ll pay off for you in the long run!

Photo by: Amsterdamize

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

After last year’s successful container garden, I decided to up the stakes and build a “real” garden in my back yard. Following in the footsteps of Get Rich Slowly’s J.D. and wife in tracking their garden’s production, I’ve decided to chronicle my experiment for you.

Before winter came, I measured out a 10′ by 10′ square at the back of my yard. Since it’s away from the house, I don’t have to worry about the garden getting enough sun during the peak growing months and it’s also centered to the sides of my land so I can add fruit trees later if I decide to build a home orchard (which I’d like to do this Fall).

To frame the garden, I chose four 10′ 4″x4″ treated timbers for a total of $48 to build a square frame. Initially, I planned to dig out the sod to use in other places of my yard and embed the timbers two inches into the ground. I began the excavation two weeks ago, but I wore out after digging out only 10 square feet. Shortly after, the Spring rains came and the small area I dug out flooded and stayed full of water for over three days.

The minor flood was a blessing in disguise since it happened before I got too far along in the project. The land at the back of my yard is low, so it has a tendency to hold water. Since I didn’t consider that when I was designing my garden, I had to adjust my plans and use a raised bed since I’d rather not drown all my plants.

To finish the raised bed, I still need to haul in about two truckloads of top soil to fill the garden, mix in the vermicompost I’ve harvested so far, then I need to devise a way to keep it all from washing out. Most likely, I won’t be able to solve the washout problem this year. I expect I’ll have to build up the garden using bigger timbers and embed the first level a few inches into the ground to make up for the uneven land. Then I’ll have to add adequate drainage to the structure to keep it from flooding. In all, that would be too much expense for the first year of this experiment so I’ll just wait and see and patch the flaws as they appear.

So that’s where the experiment sits for now: The ground is finally starting to dry out (even though there’s more rain on the way); my timbers are in place; I have a partly-filled in 10 foot long hole in my yard; and I’m waiting until I have time to go purchase and haul the top soil to continue work. I hate to be stuck going nowhere with this, but I know it will happen soon enough.

Garden Experiment Scorecard

Photo by: Martin LaBar

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

Four months ago, we cut the cable TV and installed an antenna in our attic to catch the local over-the-air TV signals. I’m not saying it’s been easy to give up the extra channels (especially Food Network, Disney, Nickelodeon, TLC, HGTV, and USA), but we’ve adjusted and found many creative ways to fill any “entertainment void” we’ve encountered.

We Discovered “New” Shows

Not long after ditching cable, we ran out of pre-recorded material. Our favorite shows were on their winter hiatus and we were left with nothing to watch. So with the help of Vista Media Center as our DVR and program guide, we set about to see what else was on.

To our surprise, there were a number of shows we didn’t know about that we started enjoying right away, such as the syndicated rebroadcasts of Scrubs. And now that our favorite shows have returned to the air, we have more than enough to keep us entertained.

Our older daughter, on the other hand, didn’t like missing out on her Pooh, Dora, and Mickey Mouse shows. To entertain and help educate our daughter, we investigated the local offerings from PBS as well as their over-the-air sub-channels. Now she’s hooked on Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Angelina Ballerina. In just days, we had enough recorded material from PBS and the PBS Kids channel to permanently replace the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.

We Caught Up With Hulu

Hulu has been a great resource for when we miss the regular airing of one of our favorite shows. While we’re constrained to watching on my laptop sitting on the coffee table, it’s a great way to legally catch up on missed episodes. While I understand their restrictions, life would be much better and my wife would be much happier if I could integrate Hulu into my Media Center and watch from my living room’s Extender…

Netflix Filled In the Gaps

Now that we’ve discovered a show like Scrubs in its eighth and final season, there’s a lot of catching up to do. The syndicated rebroadcasts are nice, but it’s a pain to watch a show with long storylines out of order. Making full use of my Netflix subscription, we’ve been able to watch many new-found and old favorite shows from the beginning.

Netflix has also been a great resource for children’s shows for my daughter. Through their service, we’ve been able to introduce other educational and entertaining shows to her, such as Little Einsteins and Care Bears. Now we make sure to always have at least one kids DVD ready to ship from our Netflix queue.

We Pulled Out the Crafts, Books, and Board Games

When there was nothing left to watch or we were in the mood for some family quiet time, we’re content to just turn off the TV and enjoy each other’s company. We no longer feel pressured to “use” the cable TV we were paying for and we feel freer to take it or leave it as we please.

I’ve rediscovered my love of books and have read a great deal over the last few months. My wife has picked back up her knitting hobby and has knitted some wonderful creations. My two-year-old loves her puzzles and coloring books and we can’t wait for the day when we can all sit down to a heated game of Candy Land with her.

We had forgotten how much fun it was to just be together, instead of training our eyes on the brain-wasting TV. That discovery alone has made the antenna more than worth the price I paid for it.

Dropping Cable Has Paid Us Back Many Times Over

Our savings from dropping cable has more than paid us back for putting up the antenna and buying the digital converters. We went from $70/month for cable TV to just $17/month for Netflix as our only on-going cost. We’re happy and the TV we do watch looks way better in free over-the-air HD than it ever did on standard definition cable.

I doubt we’ll ever go back to cable. Why would we? It turns out that we’re not missing anything – at least nothing that can’t be found online or by Netflix. I wholeheartedly encourage you to investigate the availability of over-the-air programming in your area and start saving serious money.

Photo by: The Eggplant

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

One week ago this morning, Charter came out and blithely disconnected my cable TV service (and internet service, temporarily). The next evening, I made the final connections to serve the free over-the-air TV I was pulling from my new antenna to the TVs in the house. And thus our experiment began.

Immediately upon unplugging the cable and installing the antenna, our viewing habits changed. Instead of the 70-some-odd channels we had with cable, our TV “experience” is now limited to 12. All of the channels we see are digital and some are even in High Definition, which will be especially nice when we finally get a high-def TV. We receive Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS (plus an all-local weather sub-channel), PBS (plus 3 sub-channels), CW, a local religious channel, and something called “My” TV.

Yes, you read that correctly: Sub-channels. In digital over-the-air broadcasts, the broadcaster has the option to segment their signal into multiple streams. For instance, our local PBS station broadcasts the “regular” PBS in HD, has a 24-hour PBS Kids channel, an arts/food/crafts channel, and a second non-HD PBS channel with a different schedule. So while we only really pick up 8 stations, we benefit from this segmenting with 4 extra channels.

All of the national TV stations broadcast in HD. As I’ve stated before we don’t have a HD TV, but you can still tell the difference on high-visual impact shows such as Heroes. Since moving to the antenna, we get a much better picture on the same TV we’ve had for 7 years. Apparently, Charter was really holding out on me…

We definitely enjoy the content we’re receiving more than before, but not everything about the switch has gone smoothly. My two-year-old daughter is starting to miss some of her favorite shows from the Disney channel. New shows, such as Imagination Movers, aren’t available on DVD yet and we’ve run out of recorded material. The PBS Kids channel is doing a decent job of replacing her favorites, but she still misses her Little Einsteins and Handy Manny. Netflix is helping to fill the gap, but it isn’t a perfect fit yet. In time, she’ll adjust, but it has been a bit of a problem so far.

And this past Saturday, I realized what I’m going to miss most: My favorite sports teams. In the winter, the only place I can watch my favorite college team is on Fox Sports. So if I want to catch my Missouri Tigers beating up on their latest opponent, I have to trek down to my father’s house or to a local sports bar. In the rest of the year, if the St. Louis Cardinals aren’t on the local Fox affiliate, I’m stuck in the same predicament. Of course, I can always tune into the radio to hear the game, but it isn’t quite the same as seeing the action unfold before your eyes.

Now that we’re watching less TV, other individual and family activities are getting more attention. Avoiding the distraction of TV has allowed me to finish reading my latest book, has given my wife a chance to really advance her knitting, and has given our whole family more play time together. No more mindless channel surfing with mediocre content. Now we watch TV only when we know one of our favorite shows is on. (I have yet to get a new capture card for my media server to be able to record from the antenna signal…)

So far I believe the experiment is a success. We’re saving over $30/month from our previous cable plan, which will quickly pay for our antenna and other equipment and eventually will go toward running down our debt. And while we’re watching less TV, we’re enjoying it more. It really seems to be a win-win situation!

Photo by: j.meunier

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

We’ve finally reached the two-week mark on our grocery budget experiment, so it’s time to check in and see how we’re progressing.

Last time, I mentioned how we were averaging $77 for food and groceries each week. (For the purposes of my experiment, I consider “food” to be any junk, fast, or pre-prepared meals and “grocery” to be all else.) Nearly two-fifths of that average was from eating out, so there was definitely a lot of room for improvement.

In the first two weeks of the experiment, we spent just $98.23 on food and groceries. That means we averaged $49.12 each week since June 5. Surprisingly, only 28% of that was on fast food, even though it felt like more. We probably could have spent less, but I have a real hard time saying “No” to my pregnant wife when she’s having a craving. (Love you, honey!) Seriously, though, when a pregnant mom wants to eat at Panera Bread, you do whatever it takes to deliver for her need.

Our average may look good so far, but keep in mind that two weeks worth of data isn’t really enough to start noticing any trends – especially since we haven’t made a Sam’s Club trip since the experiment’s start. I know that the average is going to shoot up as soon as we can make our way to the club warehouse.

Changes

As I mentioned yesterday, we started using a meal plan to reduce our fast food expenses and to guide our shopping trips. Before the plans, we would wander through the store with a very generic list, letting our stomachs guide the way and make bad decisions on our behalf. Now, we go in with a plan and we get out as soon as we’ve gathered every item on our list. It saves a lot of time and money.

As a side effect of making the meal plans, we started scouring ads for stores that we normally haven’t shopped and finding deals we were missing out on. This allowed us to track down the true deals and find bargains we wouldn’t have found otherwise. For example, my wife visited the Wonder Hostess Thrift Shop for the first time this week and found cheaper bread that she had seen anywhere else and took advantage of a coupon that promised “Buy 3 – Get 1 Free.” She walked out with 4 loaves for just $2.47 – just under 62 cents per loaf! These kinds of deals help us stock up for a long time: Three of these loaves are sitting in the deep freezer, which will last us about a month.

Thoughts

So far this has been a lot easier than I expected. I figured we would be cutting back and cutting corners. I was anticipating having to trade tasty meals for frugal “gruel.” That hasn’t been the case. Actually, I think we’ve only been eating better – tastier and healthier – since we implemented the meal plans. I wholeheartedly recommend setting one up for yourself and seeing how much it can save you.

We will be shopping at Sam’s Club this weekend in our monthly stock-up, so I know I will be sharing some bad news through my data in the next check-in. We are really trying to cut down our expenses from dining out; hopefully these cuts will be enough to offset the grocery expense.

Have any of you changed your shopping and eating habits lately? Anyone have suggestions for other changes for us to try in our experiment? We definitely want to hear from you and incorporate your ideas!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

“What do you want for dinner?”

“I don’t know. What do you want?”

“I picked last time; you have to pick.”

That is such a common exchange in our household… We have found that if we leave figuring out the day’s dinner until I get home from work, we’re not likely to decide on anything. The consequence, assuming we don’t have any leftovers to rescue us, is the unexpected expense of fast food.

But one simple lifestyle change has all but eliminated our indecision: We implemented a meal plan. Sunday afternoon, my wife sits down with the grocery ads and sheets of coupons and gets to work on mapping out the best deals. Then, taking new-found recipes and old favorites into consideration, she writes out a plan for the entire week.

Surprisingly, since she implemented her meal plans, our grocery expense has shrunk even lower than our already-frugal budget. It required very little adjustment from our current system and has possibly even saved us time as well. It’s pretty easy to start and you’ll start seeing the benefits right away.

Write Out Your Meal Plan

The obvious first step is to decide what you intend to eat over the next week. The goal is to be creative and list things you not only want to eat, but will want to prepare. When we make out our meal plan, we take into account if we have anything scheduled that day, the weather forecast for the given day, and what we’ve already had in the week and try to adjust accordingly. If we know we’re going to be busy on a certain day, we schedule that day as a “leftover day” or something simple, such as sandwiches. If the weather’s supposed to be hot, we plan something light, such as a grilled chicken salad. And to keep from getting bored with a certain meal, we try to make sure we don’t include it in back-to-back weeks.

Once your meal plan is complete, write out the ingredients you’ll need to prepare the week’s meals. This is the “rough draft” for your shopping list. In the following steps, we’ll adjust and shorten this list depending on a couple of factors.

Search Your Pantry and Freezer

Now that you know what you intend to make, it’s time to take an inventory of the ingredients you already have. You’d be surprised how many times we’ve bought something common, like another bag of flour when we already had 4 – we just couldn’t remember in the store.

This is also a great time to adjust your meal plan. If you notice some ingredients that are starting to get old and items that are nearing their expiration date, take a moment to go back over your plan to see if there is a way you can incorporate them into an existing recipe or another flavorful recipe you can swap in for a day. The goal here is to not waste money or food – if your plans exclude aging ingredients you’ve already purchased, you’re throwing money away.

Based on your pantry and freezer search, mark out all the items from your shopping list that you already possess. This is your final draft unless, of course, you find a deal that’s too good to be true in the sales ads or coupons.

Plan Your Trips

Using the sales ads from your local grocery stores and your revised ingredients list, search out the best deals and the best way to chain together some purchases for your shopping trip. It makes no sense to use up $3 worth of gas to go out of your way to save $0.50, so be smart about what can be purchased where. Remember that cold and frozen items will require you to either carry a cooler in your vehicle, buying you a few extra hours of shopping time, or to head home to store away the perishables, so take that into consideration and save all your cold and frozen purchases until the end, if you can.

Collect Your Coupons

Since you’ve already chosen your meals and searched through the ads, find the coupons that will give you the best savings for your ingredients. Of course, use your common sense when making your selections. If you’ve been carrying around a price notebook and if you scoured the ads well enough, you should know if a coupon is actually a deal.

Shop For Just What You Need

Once you’ve found all the coupons that could save you money on the trip and you’ve mapped out your store run, take your ingredients list and get to shopping! This time, when you’re walking into the store, you will know exactly what you need so there’s no reason to spend on anything else. Make a bee-line for the first entry on your list and don’t stop until your cart is filled with everything you need for the week – and nothing more.

Enjoy Your Meals

Dinnertime is much more pleasant now that I’m not coming home to the standard inquisition, “What would you like for dinner?” Everything is laid out in our meal plans and we’ve purchased everything we need, so there’s no rummaging or last-minute changes due to lack of supplies. Shortly after I arrive, we head to the kitchen and complete the meal’s preparation and sit down as a family to eat.

By implementing the meal plan, we’re saving a lot of money and headaches and we’re actually enjoying the opportunity to cook and eat together as a family. It’s a great return on a relatively small investment of time!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

Lately, I’ve been in an experimental mood. It’s something I get into every now and then: I push myself toward a new goal; I crunch spreadsheets of data; I find new and more creative ways to save money. I’m pretty sure it annoys my wife, but it keeps me entertained and what’s better than entertainment that tries to pay for itself?

Before we bought our new washing machine, I experimented with creating my own laundry detergent. I had wonderful ideas about writing up that experiment, but it failed spectacularly about the same time our washer kicked the bucket. I ended up with a curdled mass of slimy muck instead of a flowing, bubbly detergent. After we installed the new washer, I was unwilling to continue the experiment for fear of damaging our new expensive appliance.

After that, I experimented with saving money by riding my bike to work. Even though I haven’t had the chance to ride as much as I’d like, I believe that experiment was a success. As gas prices push higher every week, my investment will pay larger dividends with each stroke of the pedal.

I followed that with starting my own worm bin so I could throw out less waste and create good dirt for a garden or my potted plants. The worms are still busy eating away in their home and it will be quite a while before I have any results from that experiment. With all the rain filtering through their home, I’ve been able to capture a lot of “worm tea” as a fertilizer boost to my flowers.

Now, I’m interested in reducing our grocery and food budget. With my diet, eating less shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s wastefulness I want to attack most. Recently, I had to add an entire bell pepper to my worm bin because it went moldy in the refrigerator. We bought that bell pepper with grand intentions of turning it into a tasty dish, but in the end it was simply wasted money. That got me looking into our pantry and fridge trying to find ways to cut back or become more efficient.

My first step was to analyze what we’ve spent. Our food expenditures (grocery and eating out) have varied widely over the last 6 months:

• May: $171.11
• Apr: $343.89
• Mar: $518.20
• Feb: $228.11
• Jan: $370.65
• Dec: $350.57

Since we started tracking expenses, we’ve spent nearly $2000 on food – that’s almost 12% of what I brought home in that same period! Apparently we need to cut back more than I thought…

$2000 worth of food in 6 months is roughly $77/week. That’s well within (or maybe even below) the national average, but that number looks a lot worse when you consider that 39% of that expense was from eating out. That equates to a lot of money we could save by just eating out less (which we are trying to do, anyway).

So, starting next week, we’re going to start an experiment to see how low we can safely push that weekly food expense amount. My first goal is $65/week with a long-term goal of $55/week. I know that this will be difficult (considering the rising food prices and the addition of a 2nd child at the end of this year), but, honestly, achieving that first goal could be as simple as not eating out once a week.

There are many ways we could cut back and my wife has already started planning next week’s shopping. She’s pored over this week’s advertisements for all the local grocery and drug stores looking for the best deals and she’s amassed a stack of coupons higher than I’ve ever seen.

I’m really looking forward to this. Not only will we be saving money, but eating smaller meals at home will certainly be healthier and help with my diet. I can’t wait to share the progress and results with you!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

Last week, I ordered red worms so I could start my own worm composting bin at home. It doesn’t cost much to get started, but you have to make sure the home for your worms is ready to move in before they arrive since they’ll be stressed and at risk for death by their travels.

I found a number of methods for building your own worm bin, so I took the suggestions made in each of them and combined them into my final product. There is no one right way to make a worm bin, but there are plenty of potentially dangerous mistakes you can make if you’re not mindful of the needs of your worms.

If you wish to make a worm bin like mine, you’ll need two 10-gallon opaque plastic tubs with lids. I found these during a shopping trip to Lowe’s for $5 each. You can probably find them cheaper and you could also salvage some from your home, as long as they fit into each other. Composting worms thrive in the upper 3 inches of the material, so surface area is far more important than depth. More surface area means more room for worms, more places to hide food, and potentially more compost production. Many storage tubs are sufficient in that regard, which is why they’re such a common source for cheap, quick bins. For this construction, one tub will be considered the “main” tub that we will fill with bedding, and the other will be the bottom that we will use to catch our “worm tea.”

First, you’ll want to drill holes in the bottom of the main tub to allow for drainage. Worms need a high-moisture environment, but even worms can drown. I used a 7/16″ drill bit and cut out 20 evenly-spaced holes across the bottom. Note: A worm can crawl through just about any size hole you make, but you don’t have to worry about them crawling out unless there’s something wrong in their bin. Worms love a free meal and won’t move out unless something is irritating them. Even so, you’ll still want to check the bottom bin regularly in case you need to rescue a wayward worm.

Next, you’ll want to drill air holes in the sides and lid of the main bin. I used a 3/16″ drill bit to bore holes near the top of the bin along all sides, spacing the holes approximately 1″ – 1.5″ apart. Worms, just like most other living beings, need oxygen to survive. These holes will allow for air to filter in as liquid drains from the bottom and will also provide some ventilation in case the bin starts getting too hot for your worms.

Now, prepare your bedding if you haven’t already. Your worms not only need food, they need someplace to live. Fortunately, good bedding provides both. You’ll want materials that hold moisture well and break down easily. Good bedding choices include shredded cardboard (remove all tape from used shipping boxes), shredded newspaper (no glossy paper), fall leaves, and peat moss. Cardboard is one of the best since it holds moisture very well, breaks down easily over time, and has enough empty area to allow for aeration. Newspaper is good, but it has a tendency to clump together, preventing good drainage and aeration. Worms love fall leaves, I mean really love them, but they do not hold moisture at all. Peat moss is good, but that’s just one more thing you have to purchase. Ideally, you will combine these bedding materials to capture the benefits of all of them. Fill your main bin about 6″ deep with fluffed bedding (don’t pack it in tight).

Now that your first layer of bedding is in, you’ll want to start adding the food scraps you’ve been (ideally) collecting over a week or so. We have a separate container in the kitchen to hold our food scraps and waste napkins and paper towels. That way we don’t have to make frequent trips to the bin and the food will be well-aged before being added. For this initial feeding I had paper towels and napkins, bulbs that failed to sprout this year, lettuce, tea bags, coffee grounds, carrot peelings, banana peels, green pepper pieces, and a couple of grape stems. A co-worker of mine was also gracious enough to provide me with a small amount of fresh horse manure to make a welcome home for the worms. Just about anything can make good food for worms, with some exceptions: Avoid meats, oils, dairy, human and pet wastes, and harsh chemicals. For more information on worm food, Red Worm Composting provides a good list of do’s and don’ts.

Add the food in layers separated by more bedding. It’s a good idea to cut up the worm food into pieces since more surface area allows for faster decomposition. Covering the food with layers of bedding will help keep undesirable insects, such as fruit flies, from invading your worms’ home. Most insects are not dangerous to your worms, but they can be a nuisance if you decide to keep your worm bin inside. If you’re overly concerned about other critters taking up home in your bin, you could install bug netting over the holes in the bin, but I’m not sure how well that would work.

Moisture is a critical factor in your worms’ lives, so you must add water to your bedding so they can move in. Ideally, your bedding should be about as wet as a sponge that has been lightly wrung out. If you can squeeze your bedding and water pours out, it’s probably too wet. If you hear more of a crumple than a “squish” when you squeeze it, it’s too dry. If you’re not sure, err on the side of “too wet” since your drainage holes should take care of the excess water for you.

Now that you’ve wet the bedding, fluff it up a bit since it will have gotten packed down by adding the water. This will allow for air to get in to the bedding and aid in decomposition. It will also provide a way for your worms to quickly burrow into their new home and find their food. By now, the food and bedding should be full almost all the way to the top. If not, go ahead and add some more bedding and water until you’re just below the air holes in the tub.

Add a handful of dirt to the top of the bedding to give the worms some grit to digest their food. Worms don’t have teeth to eat their food, they rely on their gizzard to break it down. A little grit from the soil should be enough to help the worms do their job. I threw in some very old, used potting soil that had a small amount of sand it in as well. Just about any clean dirt would work, but I would avoid fresh potting soil since I don’t know how the fertilizers they contain would affect your worms.

Next, add some risers inside the bottom bin for the main bin to stand on. If you have two identical bins, they will seat together real tight if you put the main bin in the bottom. When I bought these bins, I struggled to separate them and even with my wife’s help it was difficult to pull them apart. This suction impairs the drainage and ventilation and basically defeats the purpose of having the bottom bin. I had 2×4 pieces of equal length left over from another project and I stood those up inside the bottom bin. The material and size of the risers don’t matter much as long as it prevents a strong seat between the bottom bin and the main bin and as long as they don’t cover the drainage holes.

Finally, put the two bins together and set it aside to rest. Ideally, you’ll want to let your bin rest for a week to give the food and bedding a chance to start decomposing. That way they have an ample source of food as soon as they arrive and will be more than happy to move into their new home. Place your bin inside or in shaded place so it doesn’t overheat and check the moisture levels every day to ensure you’ve got a good balance. If you notice it’s drying out, add some more water and protect it from the wind, if necessary.

Once your worms arrive, their home will be waiting for them and all you will have to do is empty out their container directly on top of the bedding. Watch them burrow in, then close the lid and leave them alone. Let them get acclimated to their new home for about a week before adding any more food. Once the worms are settled into their new home you can start adding food to it regularly.

Congratulations! You are now officially a vermicomposter. Live it up! Tell your friends! This is a simple home project that anyone can do and provides wonderful rewards. Red worm composting is an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to dispose of most of your household waste that will provide wonderful soil for your garden, plants, and yard. Enjoy your bin and your new wormie friends.

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

Yes, you read that correctly:  I paid a stranger $29 to send me a pound of worms via Priority Mail.  But, you see, these aren’t just any ordinary worms. These are Eisenia fetida, otherwise known as Red Wigglers.

Last week, I stumbled upon a post on DIY Life titled, “Start your own worm composting bin” and I was enthralled.  The idea that one can wrangle a bunch of worms into eating your food scraps and waste paper and turn it into super-charged dirt for your plants or garden quickly caught my attention.  I immediately showed it to my wife and she surprised me by becoming just as excited about the concept as I was.  (I had no idea my wife could be such a tom-boy!)

I am always looking for ways to reduce the trash our house sends to the landfill, but solutions are hard to come across that are both economical and subdivision-compatible. For example, I would love to have a compost pile, but there is no way it would fly in my subdivision.  And I would also love to be able to recycle more, but our area provides no curbside pickup and storing the recyclables until we have enough for a trip to the recycling center quickly becomes unmanageable due to space and bugs.   That is where my wonderful worms come in…

I made an inconspicuous home for my worms to do their work that can stay in or outside and won’t smell or make any noise or look too out-of-the-ordinary.  My starter system was easy to make and relatively cheap.   We were able to purchase a new 10-gallon plastic storage bin for $5 and I already mentioned the $29 for the worms, for a final total expense of $34 – and the great part is, I never have to spend another dime if I don’t want to as long as we take good care of our worms.   Although, I probably will upgrade to a larger wooden box if the experiment succeeds and our worms dramatically increase their population.   (Here is a resource covering one way to build your own worm bin.)

Once the worm home is set up, you have to put together a bedding of a 6 inches of soggy paper shreds and a handful of compost.  After that, all you have to do is feed your worms a regular diet of common household biodegradable trash (except for meat, oils, and dairy).  That means, if I manage my bin well and I grow a lot more worms, I might never have to throw away any spoiled or scrap food and I could keep my shredded credit card applications out of the trash. Just think, my worms could help save me from the risk of identity theft!

If you want to order some worms for yourself, I recommend Red Worm Composting since the seller is a red worm expert (and blogger) and the prices and quality are great.  My worms should arrive sometime early next week and I guarantee I will be writing more about this experiment after they arrive and when they start showing results.

If you would like to learn more about vermicomposting and building your own worm bin, you can check out these resources:

• Red Worm Composting
• Start your own worm composting bin
• Home Vermicomposting
  
• Cheap and Easy Worm Bin
• 5 dollar, 1/2 hour Worm Composting Bin(s)

Photo by: tom.arthur

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com

After nearly a month of waiting for the weather to cooperate, I finally was able to ride my bike to work this morning. I still haven’t saved up enough to buy my own bike, so I’m riding one I borrowed. So far I have purchased a helmet, a safety light so other drivers can see me, a rear-view mirror (which I discovered this morning is useless), and a lock, totaling around $40. When I finally buy my bike, it will cost about $350 after tax, so my total cost for this first year will be somewhere near $400. On my way in, that got me to thinking about the cost effectiveness of this latest adventure.

Considering that my truck has been getting about 16 miles per gallon lately and the price of gas is $3.50 per gallon right now, I’m currently spending 21.88 cents per mile. Since my commute is 3 miles round-trip, I spend 65.63 cents per day for gas. If gas reaches its estimated high of $4.00 per gallon this summer, my commute will cost 75 cents. Averaging the two (since we have no idea what the price of gas will do), I spend about 70.32 cents on gas each day I drive to work.

Of course, I can’t ride my bike to work every day due to weather and other circumstances and by late Fall it will be too cold to ride. Taking that into account, I’ll probably only be able to ride my bike two-thirds of the time between now and the end of September. Based on that estimate, I will ride my bike to work 83 days this year. Immediately, that will net me a savings of $58.37 over the course of this year.

That doesn’t sound like nearly enough yet to justify riding my bike. That barely pays for the stuff I’ve bought so far, let alone the total cost of the bike and its maintenance. I’d have to ride the same bike with the same equipment with no maintenance for almost 7 years just to break even! That may be true, but I’m saving much more money by biking than just the cost of gas.

• Since I will now be getting regular exercise through my diet plan and riding my bike, I canceled my gym membership. That saves me $30 each month, or $360 each year.
• By not driving my truck, I’m incurring less wear and tear on it and it will need less maintenance. I estimate I’ll save about $50 each year due to less wear on my tires and brakes and more time between oil changes.
• With the added exercise, my overall health and weight will continue to improve. I will save $20 each year just by making one less trip to the doctor.

Adding that up, I’ll be saving almost $500 each year by riding my bike to work whenever the weather cooperates. This doesn’t even begin to consider the overall benefit of using less gas and exhausting pollutants and greenhouse gases.

My first trip went much smoother and faster than I expected, but it sure proved how out-of-shape I am. I’m still hacking from the dry, cold air abusing my lungs and I only just stopped feeling light-headed. I’m looking forward to a happier commute home since it will be about 20 degrees warmer. This may be Day 1 of my latest adventure, but I think this one is already safe to consider a success!

(c) 2007-2009, That One Caveman, http://www.thatonecaveman.com