While on the road, I always try to save extra money in any way possible . . . so that I can stay gone longer, of course! 

If you leave your car behind while traveling, a great way to save lots of money is to temporarily unplug your car insurance.  It´s not viable for everyone or for all situations, but if you are not going to be driving your car for an extended period of time, then there´s no reason why you should pay for an insurance premium while your car sits unused. Here´s a basic guide for getting what´s called ¨non-operational status¨(non-op for short)  on your car so you can save money on your car insurance. I´m saving about $300 this year by acquiring non-op status . . . well worth the trouble.

Before we even get started on how to go about this, a few words of caution. Don´t ever drive without car insurance. It´s just not smart, safe or sane. Only try for non-op status if the vehicle in question will not be in use for several months or more. That means parked off the street and not used at all by anyone for the entire length of time that you have non-operational status on the car. 

First, determine if you are eligible for non-op status. Rules and eligibility will most likely vary from state to state. My car insurance is issued in the state of California, so those are the rules I follow in my example. Check with your state to find out if you are legally able to put your car insurance temporarily on hold.

Check with your insurance company to find out their policy on this matter. Thoroughly explain your situation. Get your agent as excited about your trip as you are – that way they will be more willing to help you. Don´t be afraid to ask questions. If your agent says that your insurance policy will have to be cancelled, keep asking, because sometimes there are ways to circumvent cancellation of your policy. For example, my insurance company lets me by have a theft-only policy in place for a grand total of $23 per year while I´m traveling. This keeps policy cancellation out of the equation.

So, once you´ve checked with your state and your insurance company, make sure you follow the directions of both agencies perfectly. Make sure you take the time to go to the DMV in person. Tell them exactly when you are leaving. Get any pertinent paperwork from them and fill it out before you leave town. In California, the process is very simple. You fill out a non-operational status form. This tells the state of California two things: that your car will not be in use and that your car will not be on the streets. This includes being parked on a city street.

Send the form by mail directly to the appropriate state office. When I went to the DMV, they were so busy with local stuff that I did not want to take a chance on my form getting lost. Ask the DMV personnel exactly where to mail the form. Get a supervisor´s name if possible. To be very thorough,  send the form by certified mail.

Before sending your planned non-operational form to the specific DMV office, make two photocopies of it – one for your records and one for your insurance company. Fax a copy to your insurance company. Call or email to confirm that your agent has it in hand. Send a hard copy to your insurance company. Again, certified mail is a good idea.

Try to get a DMV non-op office phone number. Follow up within two weeks to make sure that they have received your form. This is important, as insurance companies are required by law to inform DMV offices of policy changes. If they don´t receive your form for some reason and they get notice from your insurance company that you´ve dropped your car insurance, then at the very least, you may find yourself having to deal with the DMV while you are on vacation. At the most, depending on your state´s laws, you may have to pay fines. Neither of those scenarios are fun, so take the extra time and effort to do this correctly.

And last but not least, make sure your car is parked in a secure place for the entire duration of your absence, such as a garage. Parking is not available where I live, so I put the word out to all of my friends. Turns out, I have a friend with a parking space in his apartment building, but his SUV is too tall and won´t fit in the tandem space that he shares with his roommate.

This friend is a stable person (also very important) and he does not forsee moving for at least another year. This gives me plenty of time in case I decide to stay out of the country for longer than the four months I´d originally planned. Make sure you give a spare set of car keys to someone you trust who resides in the same town where you´ve left your car, just in case of an unforeseen emergency.

Last but not least, contact your insurance company the moment you return home and get that policy put back in force before you even put the keys in the ignition. I cannot stress this enough. Contact the DMV as well and let them know you are back on the road and that your car insurance is in place once again.

And if you are like me and a friend let you park your car in their garage, then bring them back a really great gift from wherever it was you were wandering!

A conversation with a friend of mine has prompted me to take a look at the history of an ordinary household product – paper towels. Her complaint was that paper towels, along with many other household goods, have become very expensive. Although I couldn’t agree more, I was a bit confused by the comment. While I do always have a roll of paper towels on hand, I personally don’t have need to buy them regularly because I use old kitchen rags for everyday uses like soaking up spills and cleaning.

The conversation caused me to wonder how many rolls of paper towels the average American household purchases in a month and what they use them for. I’ve decided to compare paper versus cloth products in price, usage, convenience,  aesthetics and sustainability.

First I dug up some interesting history on paper towels. The invention of the paper towel was actually a serendipitous accident. In 1907, a rail-car shipment of the wrong thickness of paper was delivered to the Scot company, the premier toilet paper manufacturer in the US. The president of the company remembered reading an article about a school teacher who gave a small, soft square of paper to each of her students as an alternative for wiping their hands on the communal bathroom cloth towel in hopes of stopping the spread of colds in her classroom.

Instead of taking a loss on the errant paper shipment, Mr. Scot decided to introduce the concept of a disposable sanitary towel, which was marketed to the medical industry. It’s of great interest to me that the actual consumer grade paper towel was not introduced to market until nearly twenty-five years later, in 1931. The simple fact was that people had no use for such a product because they used washable cloth rags.

I priced a roll of Bounty paper towels at $2.50, while a pack of white bar rags are about $10/dozen and you only buy them once. The paper industry needs you the consumer to absolutely believe that their product is not only indispensable but also that there is no alternative. Check out this old Bounty commercial. How many diners do you know of that rely solely upon paper towels to address their cleaning needs?

Watch Old Bounty Paper Towel at EncycloMedia.com

Ads are aggressively marketed to create a *perceived* convenience factor, but in the long run, the boasted conveniences are really an illusion – we the consumer throw that paper directly into our over-taxed landfill system. And don’t forget that a tree was most likely chopped down to make the pulp for that paper towel and millions of gallons of chemical-laden waste water was flushed directly into the water supply from the paper towel factory.

Kimberly-Clark is the global giant of the paper industry and also the leader in setting standards for paper industry sustainability, so I decided to check out the Kimberly-Clark 2007 Corporate Sustainability Report. K-C spent millions in 2007 to update the water systems at their factories and to convert their power systems to utilize methane gas from local landfills. They also buy virgin wood only from reputable sources to ensure that their raw materials aren’t coming from the rainforest. I applaud Kimberly-Clark’s efforts, but their report isn’t completely undisturbing.

In 2007, the company used 31% recycled paper, so that means that nearly an alarming 70% of all the material they require to make paper towels, facial tissues, diapers and dinner napkins came from trees, otherwise known as ‘virgin wood resources.’ Also, their most water conserving plant, located in Beech Island, South Carolina, recycles 60% of it’s water. They only flush a mere 40% of their waste water into the Savannah River, which is an important public water source. And another note of extreme interest to me is that the K-C’s Emerging Market division has it’s sights set on changing the way that half the world’s population views the use of paper products. Here’s a direct excerpt from the report:

We are seeing our fastest growth in developing and
emerging (D&E) markets in Asia, Eastern Europe and
Latin America. Within these markets, we continue to
focus on the BRICIT countries (Brazil, Russia, India,
China, Indonesia and Turkey). The BRICIT countries
represent half of the world’s population, but only six
percent of K-C sales.

 Our range of semi-durable paper towels,
developed to meet cultural norms in Latin America where
disposable paper towels are rarely used, have been highly
successful.

I suspect that families with small children use the most paper products, because a busy Mom will tell you her *perceived* truth – that it’s just less hassle and more sanitary to throw a snot-covered paper towel away rather than wash a cloth. That’s one way the utilization of paper becomes the norm within a household.

The Bounty website helps perpetuate the modern trend of American germophobic thinking by encouraging the belief that  rags are a breeding ground for billions of household germs that are just lurking, waiting to attack. While hygiene is truly of utmost importance, germs are not only ubiquitous in our world but a necessity for the existence of life. Be smart instead of fearful; washing your kitchen rags and towels regularly will keep you out of harm’s way.

I urge you to look at your household habits. By making the switch to durable cloth rags, dishtowels, napkins and handkerchiefs, you will not only save more green paper from your wallet, but you’ll be using a lot less in the way of resources. I *perceive* that a few extra hundred bucks in your household could go a long, long way.

Lately I’ve noticed everyone’s buzz word is ‘the economy.’ I’m always looking for small ways to save money and resources, so I’ve decided to regularly share some tips that work for me with my readers.

“The economy” this and “the economy” that. Many people I know who never used to question their purchase power at common places like the grocery store are starting to feel a pinch in their wallet when purchasing what they consider to be their basic needs. It’s my belief that yes, our economy is slowing down, but that these market fluctuations give us a chance to re-evalute the items we spend our money on – both big ticket items like cars as well as everyday goods like paper towels.

I have certainly noticed price increases over the years and especially this year. I’ve made it a life-long habit to always take the time to think through trends, ask questions, comparison shop and utilize creative solutions when it comes to what I need in my life. As dorky as it sounds, I really like comparing ounces and prices at the grocery store – many times the opportunities I find to save are astounding.

Being raised by my grandparents gave me an insight into running my household in older, simpler (and many times more effective!) ways too. An added bonus is that often times, simpler equals not only money saved, but also resources saved. We as a society need to try to save resources and encourage thrift, even if those endeavors are not currently valued, supported or demonstrated by our government and big business.

Of course, I understand that people don’t want to compromise their modern lifestyles in any way. The good news is that you don’t have to! It’s my belief that people genuinely want to learn small ways on how to spend less and use less, but often don’t know how or where to start. That’s because most of us were raised in a generation that hasn’t encouraged thrift.

We all just need to help re-educate one another in small ways. While a post on saving money with cloth towels vs. paper towels might seem over-simplistic, I’ll bet that there’s at least one person out there who maybe never thought of the difference between the two. That’s why I’ve started this category.