No More Trash Bill!

Trash Pictures, Images and Photos
We have finally made the leap to no longer having a trash bill! I know it sounds a little bit strange, but this is something that my husband and I have been trying to do for several months now. I first got the idea after reading Tammy's blog and how she did not have a trash bill. At first I thought she was crazy, but after I thought about it for awhile I realized that it was actually a really smart idea.

Here is what we did...
-We realized that we had mandatory recycling in our city and we pay for it every month so we might as well use it.
-We made our goal to only have 1 bag of trash per week.
- I set up a recycling bin in the garage right off the kitchen.
- We recycled everything we could...paper, junk mail, glass, tin cans, and aluminum.
-My husband made a compost pile on the side of our house for the garden.

We decided to see how things went for 2 months and then make our decision. Since we try to buy as few prepacked foods as possible and reuse as much as possible we quickly realized that we would probably be able to easily meet out goal.
The result-2 months later we had managed to consistently have 1 bag of trash per week.
What did we decide to do with it? Well, we would prefer to burn it and not have to deal with it at all, but in our small suburb that did not seem like a good option. So instead we have been taking the 1 bag to my mother's house and adding it to her trash cart.

We did not see a reason to pay a trash company to pick up 1 bag a week. As of mid October we no longer have a trash bill. That is a savings of $35-$40 a month or $480 per year. This may not seem like a lot, but it is little things like this that add up to big savings. Especially if you are trying to save money so you can be a SAHM. Not to mention the way it helps our environment that God gave us to take care of.
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12 comments:

Cheryl said...

That is wonderful! We compost and recycle a LOT, but know more coud be done. You've motivated me to try harder.

Dawn @ simply transparent said...

same here, cause it "stinks" we should have to pay for our trash, pun intended ;D

Land of Lovings said...

Awesome idea! We recently started our compost pile and now we really need to get serious about recycling. For some reason, I never considered that we could actually eliminate our trash bill that way.

Thanks for the tip!

Frugal Finds said...

I like this idea! I may consider this for 2009!

Anonymous said...

Great idea! I have been thinking about composting. :) Thanks for the nudge.

Emily said...

What a great idea! We've been paying more for curbside recycling since it was introduced a few months ago. It's a shame that you have to pay about $10 a month for that here - I'm sure it discourages people from doing it! I'm going to talk to my husband about this one - that is a great idea!

Marlene McGarrity said...

Great idea - I love seeing how families are going green.

Sherry @ Lamp Unto My Feet said...

Wow! That is awesome!

Lynne Campbell said...

Good Job!We live out in the country and have not recycling....you are lucky.

Anonymous said...

Do you help your mother w/her trash bill then?
I know we have a dump site in our area that charges $10 a bag to take the trash. (It is the big gal. size bags.)
We too are down sizing our trash.

Stephanie Appleton said...

We have talked about this here and there too. We recycle a lot and food waste all goes to the chickens. Our recycling center does not take glass so I'm not sure what to do with that, but we could burn where we live. Thanks for getting me thinking about it again.1

Anonymous said...

We started doing the same thing! A local recycling plant here also takes garbage starting at $.10 a pound. I estimated we have 25 lbs. so that's only $2.50!