Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Time vs Money

I spent time to save money...but not sure it's worth it.
Time can never be increased - the quantity of time we have  is set in stone. We cannot increase the amount of time we  have. We can only  use it wisely to make it "go further"....

But, "frugal" is my middle name in this blog right?
SO...I'm referring to money and   frugality in this blog.

I saved money,   maybe $25.00, by purchasing new opaque plastic, instead of black,  to place on top of weeds to  kill them in a non toxic way.   I read online that  clear, opaque, or black plastic all would work. 

I frugally used black lawn bags I already  had on hand on some parts of the yard however.
Sure enough, the black plastic killed the weeds better, quicker, more thoroughly!

It's quite time consuming to lay down the black bags,  then to anchor them down with bags of compost or the few bricks I happened to  have on hand.

Looking back, I now realize I should have spent the extra money to buy the black plastic in sheets.
I could have more quickly put the black  plastic all over huge sections of the yard, etc.  And more weeds would have been more quickly, more thoroughly destroyed it seems to me.
 
But I won't beat myself up!  I  am human, and it's ok to make mistakes and to learn from them.

And I do feel good about saving the money. 

In the middle of the extra work out there, is when I get those feelings of " I want to spend more money to save more work next time!"

Also re: time -- I'm thankful I  have forced myself to "just begin" in the yard, the past few cool mornings. Just an hour each time...and there is progress, progress, progress!!  Hard to begin since the job seems so overwhelming...but so exciting to see how it IS progressing.  Bit by bit, week by week... month by month...next spring it may look very nice!!!  The main goal is that five  or ten years from now, it will look very nice, with  little time or money needing to be  spent on it after this initial investment of time and money.

More than one neighbor has made friendly comments to me!   They each seem very positive and interested in my  non- toxic mindset!  Those have been extra boosts to my energy and attitudes!

2 comments:

  1. Being outside where the neighbors can see and talk to you is an outreach in itself. :) Yards are definitely one step at a time. Who can afford to do it all at once? My big project this week was planting flowers--actually FREE with a gift card I'd forgotten I had from the purchase of a washer and dryer LAST year! :) Now to wait and watch them all bloom. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Progress is good. Nice to know you are seeing results and feeling encouraged Patty. I have been weeding and am going to dig up and replant some things I want to fill in empty spaces.

    ReplyDelete