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Last year, I had written about a plastic coffee tumbler that I’d gotten for cheap from the Starbucks store here (opens in a new window). The post received a lot of interest from informed readers like you, especially concerning the presence of any BPA in the tumbler material. After repeated attempts to get that information from the store as well as several other sources, I was not able to provide an answer. Yesterday morning, however, I logged into the site after a long hiatus and found out that one of my blog readers, Kori, had posted a comment about the recycle code on the bottom of the tumbler. I said to myself, D’oh! How could I not look beneath the tumbler! Anyways, this is some really valuable information for most of us who love to transport our coffees along with us everywhere and at the same time, want to know the safest (and cheapest) option out there to do it. Thanks a ton Kori.

After reading Kori’s comment, I decided not to use the Starbucks tumbler anymore and look for something nicer (read safer) elsewhere, within my budget though. I had been wanting to get a stainless steel one for a long time now but most of them run in the $20-$40 price range. Not only is the price a big bummer, but most of them are not that great in the quality department either. To make it worse, the coffee does not stay hot that long, I guess since it is steel. This info was based on my experience with another steel tumbler that I had received as a present from a friend.

Last night, I was doing my weekly errands and had stopped at Costco for some quick grocery shopping. My eyes fell on a set of stainless steel coffee tumblers that were strategically placed at the entrance. Not only was the price attractive (given how badly I look for deals ), I was smitten by the style too. These were tumblers made by a company called Contigo and they were selling for $20 a pair. Yes, that is $10 a pop. The packaging said that the tumbler had an AutoSeal feature to prevent spilling and it kept liquids hot for about 4 hrs and cold for around 12 hrs. I was clearly impressed. I picked up a pair just to give it a try and so far, I have been pleasantly surprised with how good this tumbler actually is.

The build looks very sturdy. Fits in quite snugly in the palm with a pretty tight grip. The lid is very well-built too and it is dishwasher-safe. The lid is completely air-tight which helps it keep the temperature steady for a longer period of time. The lid also has a switch that you use to let the drink out every time you sip on it. Another thing I observed was that the lid has a very cool design right around the opening. Gives a very good feel when you sip on it, letting out the right amount of drink while at the same time, making sure not to burn your tongue. I cleaned the tumbler twice since yesterday and I must tell you, it is extremely easy to clean; both the lid as well as the bottom container. And even though it is steel, it is as light as my previous Starbucks tumbler.

The only gripe I have is that they have only one stainless steel finish available at Costco. On their web site, I did see an additional four colors to pick from. The red one would be pretty cool! But again, the Costco ones are selling for half the price and the stainless steel look isn’t totally terrible. In fact, it looks pretty cool! You do get a choice of colors with the lids. I got the blue and green combo.

Overall, I’m thoroughly impressed with this tumbler and going by its build quality, I’m pretty confident that it’s going to last a lifetime. So go ahead, if you are a Costco member, grab yourself a pair. I’m sure you will enjoy it.

Image courtesy: Contigo.com

If you remember, when we started the Green Project^ in early November of last year, I had pledged that I was going to ‘drive a better car’. During that time, I had the 2005 Honda CRV and a 2000 Mitsubishi Montero. In May of 2008, when I bought the Montero, little did I know that it had the carbon footprint the size of an 800-pound gorilla. I felt helpless. I really wanted to get rid of it but I had just bought it and that too for a dirt-cheap price of $4800. And I must say, I’m not as green as I’m frugal. I continued to use the Montero sparingly, bringing out the CRV as much as I could. However, things turned a little ugly after a few months. The Montero, as old as it was, started giving up on me. At first, it was the minor stuff like the battery etc. Then, major breakage set in. I ended up spending a good $2000 on it within two months. I didn’t mind much about the extra expenses since I had bought it at such a bargain price.

While this was happening, I’d completely forgotten about something else that was playing a big role in my auto expenses every month. Even though I seldom used the Montero, my monthly auto expenses remained high. After a few hours of dissecting my expenses on auto, I realized the culprit was Gas aka Petrol (for my non-US readers). Without my knowledge, I had been spending close to $150/month on filling up this gas guzzler’s tummy. Yes, it was averaging about 16mpg, standing true to its name, an 800-pound gorilla, with a big appetite of course! This was inspite of me using the CRV more than the Montero. Maybe it was averaging even less than 16mpg, who knows! I still didn’t mind it. I thought maybe if I just stopped using this sucker completely, I will not have to worry about all this. I and Khushi started to co-ordinate our trips so that we used only the ‘better car’. We were not ready for a new car yet (check out my Money Experiment^).

Last April, however, things changed for the worse. One fine evening, when we were coming back from Sun Harvest, the damn thing refused to boot. After repeated attempts to revive it, the thing did not budge one bit. We had done a good bit of shopping and had to call a friend to pick us (and our groceries) up. We left the car that night in the parking lot and the next day, my insurance guys eventually towed it to a shop. The shop guy calls me the next day and says the alternator has gone bad. Usually, one would suspect the battery to go bad when a car doesn’t start. But I had replaced the battery only a few months before. Didn’t make sense! Well, it so happened that the bad alternator had caused the almost new battery to fail too (due to an overcharge). The estimate came out to be $650. That was the day when I decided enough was enough. It did not make any sense owning a 10 year old vehicle that I was spending top dollar on, month after month when I could get something nicer for the same amount (post coming up in the Money Experiment on this). In a year, I had spent about $2700 in repairs, about $1000 extra on fuel and another $2000 in depreciation totaling to $5700 for 13 months or about $440 per month.

Last week, we finally pulled the trigger on a new Prius. I traded in the Mitsubishi Monstero (happily so) and welcomed the green machine to our family. So far, I have been enjoying the 48mpg. Will report more and add pix shortly.

It’s been a while since I posted anything on my Green Project. However, the Green Project is still on and it has become more of a lifestyle change than a project per se. We have been doing a lot of changes and adjustments to our current ways of living. One of the things that we had completely ignored in our household was a recycling bin. We were vociferously dumping all of our trash in a common trash basket irrespective of what kind of trash it was. I think it’s pretty much the same in most of the southern states where being green is looked upon as something very gay. I’m not kidding. People make fun of you if you’re green. Hahaha. For instance, our apartment complex does not have any regulations on garbage disposal and people can pretty much stash away anything they feel like in the community trash bin. I have seen furniture, beds, mattresses, exercise equipment among other things. Though there is a bunch of recycle bins that are like half a mile away from my apartment, I’m not sure if they really recycle stuff from those bins. We didn’t have much choice than to use those bins though!

Even though we didn’t take it to the level of extremity that I mentioned above (furniture? c’mon!), we thought we could do better. Eventually, late last year, we got ourselves a recycle bin. We looked around many stores for something specific for recycling and the ones we found weren’t any different from regular trash bins. We wanted something that we could use to dump stuff like bottles, paper, plastic etc.; anything that can be recycled. But I wanted something bigger so that we did not have to make half a mile trips to the community recycle bins everyday. Also, I wanted something that could be transported easily. A regular trash can is a b1tch to carry around. Something more horizontal was what I was looking for. So, I thought why not use something like a laundry basket? They are pretty sturdy and are extremely easy to haul down a flight of stairs right? I ended up getting a medium-sized Rubbermaid laundry basket that looks something like this.

It did not cost me more than $5. Compare that to the regular trash bins of identical size at $20. It’s highly transportable and quite easy to clean too. Try it out, it’s been working out really well for us.

In my quest towards going green for the next year, I have decided that I shall be carrying my own coffee mug to all coffee stores from now on. Most coffee stores serve coffee in either plastic/styrofoam cups or partially recycled paper cups which you know eventually end up in a landfill. In fact, even popular stores like Starbucks use cups that are made out of only 10% recycled material. And we don’t even know what happens to the cup once it gets dumped in their trash cans. Does it get recycled? Or does it just get dumped? Well why bother to think about all that when you can bring in your own coffee mug? Not only would it make you green, it might just let a few people around you know that bringing in your own mug is totally cool at a coffee store! I have also heard that you usually get a discount too if you bring in your own mug.
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This post is part of my Green Project series.

This is one of those things that I fail to understand, no matter how many times or how hard I try. I just do not get the reason behind people’s fascination with bottled water. For the uninitiated, bottled water is the water that you buy at gas stations for a buck.08 and it comes in a PLASTIC BOTTLE. I could understand people drinking bottled water if there wasn’t enough clean water supply, e.g. in a third world country. But, for someone like me and you who has almost 24X7 access to clean, filtered water, I feel it’s a total no-brainer. Read more »