Making Da Changes-Hilo style

For many the $4 mark was the first sign of an economic tsunami building up speed. Many little changes began to happen. The first big change was a trip to the car dealer to trade in the Hummers, Escalades and Suburbans. But many found out that no one else wanted them, either including the Dealers. So as a result, over 4 billion less miles were driven in the month of April alone which was about the time we hit that mark more or less.

As usual politicians don’t “get it” so they do what they have always done; piddle on our legs and tell us its just passing mauka showers. Not only that, when they do sorta“get it”it is only because Wall Street is pooping their diapers and throwing Cramer tantrums. So then we get a Chinese financed-debt weighted stimulus check in our mailboxes. (This is much like supplying more drugs to an addict, mind you.) But did this check stimulate anything but credit card paydowns and savings account deposits? Apparently, it somewhat delayed the pain so Wall Street can continue the Enron Accounting 101.

How many of us are thinking and doing new things these days since we entered this new Age? Like maybe that 40 cu ft chest freezer in da garage not worth the $400 electric bill anymore?
And whatabout the clothes dryer in the laundry room? Do you think Ace has any of those solar clothes dryer thingies in stock? Maybe should set it up in front yard so neighbors think you gone Greenie?
How many think that roasting pork butts in oven for 3 hours is a waste of propane?
How many now think old fart Japanee guy down the street with backyard garden is suddenly one clever, resourceful dude?
Has anyone thought about all of the free energy stored up in all those fat cells we carry around? Do you think it could be worth something? Do those things on the end of our legs serve any purpose other than pushing a gas pedal?
How many of you wished you had taught those whiny, no respect, kids the value of a buck? Instead all you get is stink all day long about how you don’t drive them to Prince Kuhio anymore? And how come can’t buy Quicksilvers and Hurleys, no more? They just don’t get it; the struggles you have, whether to fill up the Explorer or keep rice and spam in da pantry. They think money grows on trees, those ungrateful brats! (Yes, Keoni, you will wear your uniform to Hilo Intermediate!)


Finally, I want to bring your attention to someone who really does get it. My friend Margaret, decided she would start using her free energy stores even though she is already the model of fitness and has little fat cells to spare. This age 50 year young mother and wife lives in Kurtistown and works in South Hilo. She began riding her bike to work about the same time the pump ticked to $4.009. She has a fuel efficient car but instead of wasting time jogging with no purpose other than fitness she chose to get up a bit earlier and have a destination. She’s whizzing past all those Hummers, Suburbans, Tundras, Sierras and Cayennes sitting there, stacked up, burning idle 10mpg fuel at the 5 stoplights on the way. How many of us will take her lead and make this change that collectively could start a full blown revolution of unimaginable possibilities? Is Margaret more stressed out these days since she isn’t getting her daily jog? I doubt that, but she is making waves. How many will follow her lead? BTW if you are reading this and live on the mainland US Kurtistown to Hilo is about 8 miles on a busy highway. Margaret is one ballsy wahine, IMO.

Is Frugality the Next Consumer Trend?

Todays, Hawaii Tribune-Herald had a great article from the Associated Press today about consumers changing their spending habits. I have been waiting for this paradigm shift for a long time. I knew it would come eventually when enough shit hit the fan and forced us into new ways of thinking. Here’s the article if you want to read it. http://www.newstin.com/sim/us/69471888/en-010-004278182

Could this New Frugality really be the next big consumer buzz word? Does it mean that the age of McMansion lust could finally be a thing of the past, along with SUV’s, Cruise ship vacations, and coordinated Chihuahua wardrobes? I have been waiting for this day since I saw the mindblowing series on PBS ten years ago, called “Affluenza”. It was a series that chronicled the history of consumerism. It was about how the amassing of all this stuff was destroying not just our souls but our earth, creating gargantuan mountains of garbage, and various forms of pollution. It was so ahead of its time but hit a raw nerve that stuck with me and changed my thinking forever. Go check it out from Netflix if you are curious. I highly recommend it and the book by James or John DeGraf.
Don’t get me wrong, here, I have always been a natural frugalist and always yearned for the simple life long before it was cool. I have even lost boyfriends because I did not aspire to live “Large”. Somehow, I knew the simple life was the life for me. I don’t recall being a big fan of Green Acres but I do remember a movie from 1963 called “What a Way to Go” starring Shirley McLaine and Dean Martin. It was about a girl who just wanted a simple life on a farm in the country but every man she married (she married about six guys through the movie) would end up becoming a mega tycoon and then kicking the bucket from over work. Must have made a big impact on a me as a 6 year old!
My husband and I have lived in this humble abode for 13 years now and paid it off a few years ago. We did not plan to live here this long but self employment can be demanding and just because the hubby is an architect does not mean we live in some cutting edge architectural masterpiece. In fact he did not design this thing, which I am quick to tell anyone who drops in and notices such things as unaligned beams, and mix and match floor tiles. So to make a long story short, here we are still living in this compact , 973 sq ft house with (gasp) one television, one real bedroom, (the other bedroom is his office) no chest freezer, and free range chickens in constant fertilization mode (chicken manure can be highly underrated but is not lost on our lawn!).
Okay, so two adolescent boys, and two somewhat successful home businesses it has gotten a little cramped and many adult tantrums have been thrown over this. Why have we not moved or built on to this place, you ask? We did try to expand last year and get the husband out of the 2nd bedroom, but due to a little mortgage lending crisis and an aging commercially zoned building that did not conform to Freddie and Fannie’s standards, it did not happen. Adding on addition is time consuming and plans have to be drawn and yadayada. Etc. It’s that old thing about the shoemaker’s children having no shoes. Same thing with some architects, I guess. Anyway, its great not to be in massive debt in what would have been a seriously upside down deal. ( The real estate goddesses protected us from that disaster.)
Now the upside of all of this house challenge is that suddenly we may have a model lifestyle and $95 HELCO bills (which are less than half the average electric bill). I am sure that small efficient homes are the next great housing wave. Well we aren’t model material yet since we lack the solar panels but we do have a scrubboard, hand wringer and solar clothes dryer. We are prepared! Also, along with 30 egg laying chickens, we have enriched chicken shit soil, water catchment tank and a vast forest of wild pigs and tasty little waiwi fruit. We have a growing wood pile of waiwi clearings in case the fuel supplies get disrupted. We have two Matson containers that could serve as shelter for refuges from Mainland chaos if that were to come down. Of course we do have the bicycles and a broken down Honda scooter in need of major repairs. We are ten miles to Hilo so it would be a haul, but certainly not impossible.

Speaking of Hilo, it really is the perfect safe haven if anyone were looking to leave the mainland, well as long as one can put up with certain challenging social conditions. Hilo is ideal for getting around on foot or bike and has access to ocean, forest and ag land. Sometimes I am amazed that it is still such a sleepy town, going nowhere really. It seems to be stuck in some timewarp from the early 70’s. Perhaps the lack of retail options, catastrophic health care system, and shit jobs is enough of a deterrent for most folks. There are some challenges for sure, but any adventurous, bright, positive, adaptable character can make a good go of things around here. All it takes is enough vision, creativity, and resourcefulness, topped up with loads of Aloha spirit.
The key ingredient is Aloha with a generous serving of humility. You must be comfortable with da Brown Skin man cause he rules. Cannot ever change that. It does not mean that they do not appreciate the haoles, though. You see, if they hated haoles then they would hate many of their close relatives. What they hate are pushy, know it all kine who think mainland ways are better. WRONG, stop right there, go fast… get that okole back on da jet, asap. Nevah gonna work for you here.
If you are a Caucasian then bring your warmest smile, open heart and willingness to learn the culture as fast as possible. Learn as much as you can about this place before you come. Start with James Michenor’s HAWAII. It is essential you know what you are getting yourself into or you will find your miserable deflated self on a jet, belongings sold at garage sales cheap, car on Matson container and piggy bank minus thousands of dollars in lost investments.
E Komo Mai to this new age of Frugality, I think it is here for a long time.

Getting Downsized -Puna Style

The message is getting louder, the media is trying to rattle our cages with all this bad economic news: We are hitting the wall hard with all of the past collective economic irresponsibility we have partaken. We have massive foreclosures, credit card defaults, big bank failures, Fannie and Freddie giant mortgage bond debacles, unaffordable or even non-existant health care, shrinking investment portfolios, crumbling infrastructure, and the Big Daddy of all: PEAK OIL=Expensive Energy and Food. We are in a rapid slide to third world status. (In Banana Republic, District of Puna, third world status has been the standard for many but that is another topic). The cheap oil party of the last 100 years is OVER. People, if there is ever a time to prepare for what is to come it is NOW (er, well maybe I should say last Christmas). Economic irresponsibility is the straight and narrow path to the misery of Debt Slavery and a too many are locked down in its ball and chain and can barely breathe.

How do we escape from this slavery? Number one: Get OUT of DEBT. Yup, it is a big one and it is excruciating and daunting. Who will be better off in a declining society? The folks living in the paid-for shack off the grid with the pigs, chickens, and taro patch or the ones with mortgaged McMansion, 7 year car loans and 25 maxed out credit cards? Maybe we need to have new role models in our fading empire. The "Live large and be in Charge" model is sooooo last year and frankly the facade is wearing off fast for those kine. Maxed out with high unsustainable overhead is perfect entry point for living in the downsized world of SUV Flopping. (Sleeping in the Suburban while surreptitiously parked near any public toilet facility.)

Should we be concerned about the national epidemic of financial idiocy and affluenza that starts in Wall Street and Washington and then trickles down through every strata of society?
Can we continue to consume 25% of the worlds resources yet have only 2% of the global population? Are we more special and more entitled than the rest of our fellow earthlings? Is that the reason we are scorned, hated and ridiculed by the rest of our planetary inhabitants? We need to quickly cut the addiction to consumerism and have a revolution of frugality and simplicity not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. (Too bad most Tutus and Papas are either too dead or too alzheimered to tell the tales from this time.)

We have been at this cheap oil-Affluenza party now for a hundred years , and kids, IT IS OVER . Mom and dad are coming home and we have made an awful huge mess that needs to be picked up.

Okay, so just how does one live on a meager income in a time of escalating energy and food costs? I will share with you the lifestyle that my husband and I live so you can see what it takes for meager income family of four to live within or below one’s annual income. We have an average combined income around $40K-50K before Uncle Sam and Aunty Lingle take their share. We are self employed so our income goes through big fluctuations. We have always lived downscale since moving to Puna in 1995 from Kaimuki, Oahu.

Resourcefulness, determination, focus and sacrifice, are essential to saving money. There is no magic recipe for freedom from debt just as there is no magic pill for weight loss. In fact weight loss and debt management share a lot of fundamental principles. We all know that limiting portions and increasing metabolism helps shed pounds. So it is with saving money; One must consume less and do more by your own energy. Same thing really, just dieting is all about food calories and the saving is all about cash money.

First, let me go over a couple of basic money management rules that have been around since money was invented. NEVER use debt to purchase something that depreciates in value. This is a very simple rule but no one seems to be teaching this to anyone anymore. That means anything that depreciates including and especially new automobiles but also, appliances, tv’s, food, clothes, etc, etc. Also, if one uses credit cards then they should be paid off in full every month or better yet, use a debit card.

The next most essential rule of wealth is the miracle and disaster of compounding interest. Compounding interest is miraculous when one sees how money multiplies when saved in the form of cds, good stocks or mutual funds. Compounding interest is horrendous when it comes in the form of credit card balances or other unpaid and accumulating debts. It becomes a ball and chain and makes you its slave. Saving even a small amount of money every month (something like a $100 a month for 40 years) on a regular basis can make you a millionaire by the time you are ready to retire (you can do the math on this one to see for yourself) and involves no effort but depositing money in an account and forgetting about it. Another term for money is “liquidity”. The term liquid is used because it behaves very much like water in that small amounts trickling down into the piggy bank in many directions can eventually create a very large pool, which can if continued turn into even larger pools. The rich get rich because they believe in magic pools, these pools are created from pinching of the pennies.

So those are the basics that everyone who is good with money practices to at least some degree. Some of us don’t learn this stuff until were older so the millionaire part by retirement is only for the lucky few who practice what they were taught as children. (Unfortunately, my husband and I had clueless parents who DID NOT teach us this stuff.

Saving money implies that you must be able to keep from spending money. How do we keep the money in our pocket? One can get ridiculous in this area but the word ridiculous is vastly open to interpretation so of course practicality is an individual matter! So here is a very Punacentric list of my own methods of trickling the pennies into my money pool. (So far only a small backyard pool, kinda like a doughboy kind!)



Hang clothes on clothesline. (Dryer is only used when rain has been nonstop for weeks.)

Discover joy of cooking with a crockpot instead of using the oven whenever possible.


Turn off all powerstrips at night and unplug cell phone charger when done charging.

Learn to cut everyone’s hair yourself (big savings here)


Find Kulana Meats on West Kawailani and buy your local grass-fed beef and porkbutts wholesale.

Buy the bread at Love’s day old store on Manono Street.


Learn about the excellent health benefits of beans and learn how to make filling and delicious stews with them that include small amounts of meat.

Buy kids clothes at garage sales and Salvation Army.


Start a vegetable garden.

Raise chickens and eat eggs fresh outta chicken’s butt! Chickens are cheap to keep as they dine on bugs and worms. In fact catch da cockaroaches instead of blackflagging them or stomping da crap outta dem and toss em out to chickens. Those B52 kine are like lobsters those buggahs. They like to get some dried corn, too, but I think they would do okay with just kitchen scraps and leftovers, too.

Get rid of the big freezer (if you do have one) and only stock what fits in the freezer of your fridge (BIG savings on the electric bill, and I mean BIG were talking around $35 average savings.)

Reuse same bathwater for as many kids or grownups as you can stand. (Could get ridiculous on this one, luckily I only have two boys. If your keiki are little then more bettah. mine used to bathe together, but now not practical or wise unless I want flood in bathroom from grabbass shenanigans. ) Saves on the running of the water pump. Since most of us in Puna are on catchment, then water pumps click on every 30 gallons used or so (don't know exact amount here).

After everyone has had their bath use tub water to flush toilet so water pump does not go on everytime plus only flush when #2 or potty way too yellow (twice a day for shee shee maybe)

These actions will reduce Helco bill around 10% which is quite a few more pennies for that pool.

Eat less meat, eat more beans, cabbage and rice.


Less is usually more, as in less soap in washer. Rainwater is very soft so way less soap is needed than the directions recommend. I use about ¼ to 1/3 cup for a full load. Also, try using less shampoo, less toothpaste (a dot is a lot!) Also, cold water wash does just as good of a job as warm water. Big savings.

Use scrub brush on stubborn spots on clothes to get lots of stains out instead of buying worthless products. Also fill up machine with clothes and soap and all agitate for a minute then stop and soak for an hour or more.


Drive old car that is paid for and keep it going indefinitely by changing the oil every 3000 miles, tune up, maintain all fluids, check tire inflation and change the air and fuel filters when recommended. This will optimize gas mileage and general auto expense. A little preventative maintenance , may cost you but saves the big bucks down the road. We have a 20 year old Plymouth Reliant and believe me it is a real piece of shit Puna crudmobile but it has saved us huge amounts of money. It has over 200K on it and still runs great. We do most of the work ourselves but not all.

My husband, Robert, is very skilled at fixing stuff. This has saved us $1000’s and 1000's over the years. This is one of those things that is not “one size fits all”, though! I, too, am also very resourceful with the sewing but possess other resources as well. All these things have made a huge difference for us but are not necessarily possible for everyone.


With money you have saved, make a goal of paying off credit cards. Start with ones that have small balances. Pay them off and then cut them up. Do not cancel them, though as this affects your FICO score. Then tackle the bigger ones and pay as much as you can each month. Treat this as an illness that can be cured. With diligence, focus, sacrifice, and creativity one can get out of debt.

Credit cards are the most horrendous trap of all because this is the way the banks can do whatever they want by charging the fees and upping the interest rate at whim. Now is especially a dangerous time to be in credit card debt as the banks are reeling from economic downfall on the mainland. They will raise the interest rates on you with warning, freeze or reduce your line of credit or just cut you off all together. Do everything possible to eliminate credit card debt, NOW. Your life and future depend on this.

$4 Gas the Tipping Point for Americans

Could it be that the 21st century is really the Dawning of the Age of Expensive Oil? The year 2007 saw a barrel of oil go from $55 a barrel to over $100. So far it is on pace to do the same thing, that is from $100 to $200. Many have wondered at what point does the cost of gas cause the Great Wallet Slam? You all heard it, though, a couple of months ago, that loud whack when the sign clicked to $4.009. So now what, as it ticks up to $5,6,7,8 ,9 or gasp… $10.009? Could it mean big changes of the lifestyle that we take for granted by everyone under the age of 100 ? Can a 21 year old remember life before Xbox, MySpace, Ipods and cell phones? Can a 60 year old remember life without a television or frozen dinners? Does an 80 year old remember life without supermarkets and refrigerators? Can a 100 year old remember life without light bulbs, flush toilets, movie theaters and horseless carriages? Just what sacrifices WILL we be faced with to keep ourselves fed, sheltered, employed and entertained as we enter this new age?


Can you believe it? A manini $4, and suddenly we’re rolling around gasping for air like a guppy headed for the toilet bowl. Four measly ass dollars. Does that even buy a gallon of milk at KTA? Does it buy a half-caf-mocha soy-latte at Starbux? How about a gallon of Crystal Spring Water? Ridiculous, isn’t it? You know the folks across that little Atlantic pond think we are a lot of whiny, spoiled, snot-nose cry babies. They have been paying something like 7, 8, 9 euros a liter for years now. They drive tiny little toy cars that get about 60 mpg and that’s if they even have an internal combustion contraption. They do silly things like walk and bike to work, (of course, they don’t have things like suburbia, poor tings) or worse, they actually commute to their jobs on degrading mass transit thingys. Ugh.

Those Europeans, though, they’re like those vegan types; all himakamaka and shit about their low impact lifestyle. Always with that “holier than thou” crap. They see actually see Americans as a vast, sprawling wasteland of Zanaxed, diabetic, Disneyfied couch surfing zombies clicking through 150 channels looking for mindless entertainment to numb the senses from the bottomless pit of an empty culture . Auweee.

Here’s the dilemma about oil; we’ve burned through most of the cheap light-crude stuff leaving a lot of thick stuff which does not refine into gas too well. Meanwhile billions of folks in “Chindia” strive to drive internal combustions and live large like American movie stars. We are looking down the barrel of CHANGE and are scared shitless. When one is too fat or in deep kimchee debt there really is only one fix and it ain’t ever easy. The facts: The US is 2% of the worlds population yet consumes 25% of the oil. Now that $4 gas has bitchslapped us across the wa’a that 25% is a lot lighter on da pedal, down 4 billion miles driven in April, alone! That surely means lots less soccermom splurgefests to the Metroplexes, Mega Malls, and McIntheBoxes of this consumer nation.


Once upon a time the US had great vast oil reserves like Saudi Arabia. Once those depleted down the bell curve, back around 1972, we started importing more and more to fill the great sucking demand. In the seventies we shipped in 24% of our daily fix. (Talk to T. Boone Pickens if you think I’m making this up.) Today, over 75% is imported. Something like 82 million barrels a day just so we can keep those Hummer wheels rolling.

And what is so shocking is that no one has come up with a real viable Plan B to replace all this oil as it drops down to the level that no longer makes sense to suck out of those petro-oceans. It takes decades and zillions of dollars to explore, drill, pump and build new refineries for all of that alleged oil in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico or Bakken, or wherever the untapped Reserve du jour happens to be . Meanwhile we still gotta get to work so we can eat, keep the crib, and manage the Tundra payments.

Food and petro have a tight relationship when it comes to growing stuff agri-biz style. All the big gas guzzling machinery and fertilizers depend on “Texas Tea” to do all that back breaking work. Then there’s all the manini details of how it actually gets processed, packaged and shipped from Petaluma to Pupukea, to Pahoa and beyond.

With all that bellyaching about the cost to fill up that Grand Cherokee, consider the big rig guys; you know, da ones with Peterbuilts, they are paying over a buck more for the diesel to fill those hundred gallon tanks. They do vital stuff, like hauling spam, rice and toilet paper from Matson’s to Walmart. Somethings gotta give when faced with food and fuel inflation. Could it mean consuming less?

Cheap Oil has endowed most Westerners with an affluent lifestyle that has transformed us from the dirt scratching farmer to properous McMansion owner. Along with the lopsided prosperity we wallow in, we have the addiction to designer labels, the massive consumer debt, SUV’s, all-you-can-eat-buffets and 60 inch flat screens. This affluenza has brought epidemics of obesity, heart disease, cancer and mental illness enabling the cash cow of Wall Street; the Pharmaceutical industry. Toxic landfill mountains reek of Pampers, fast food waste, overpackaging and plastic Walmart junk. Junkyards litter our landscapes, stacked high with the remains of a past energy crisis; decomposing skeletons of Eagles, Falcons, Vegas, Dusters, Pacers, Hornets and Firebirds piled on top of 80 more years worth of rubber and steel Car-casses.

But its all good, this Expensive Oil revolution, really it is! The vast unwashed, teeming masses of us will have to start using our own stored energy now ( BMI -Fat cells-that is)that we have piled on through the wonder years of cheap fuel. Many will finally figure out why The Creator gave us legs with feet on the ends. (And, no, those feet are not just for pushing the accelerator on a Rascal Scooter.)

Swapping the F350 for the Prius is on a lot of to-do lists right now and may prove discouraging when the trade-in value is calculated for the 2 year old gas glutton, but there are thousands of little things we can do with those FREE reserves of body fat, INSTEAD of using all of those cheap fuel driven labor saving devices. Clothesdryers, dishwashers, electric can openers, Roombas , food processors, Fry Daddies, Lean mean grilling machines, sharpeners, hair dryers, electric curlers…

Simplicity is about to become the next big status symbol.

Stay tuned for glimpses of the future with Expensive Oil.