With a new school year comes new living arrangements and usually many changes in lifestyles. This year, my roommate and I are trying to live sustainably. We have a two-person apartment (still owned by our university, but it feels like our own place), so we have much more control over what we do. Follow along with us as we try to compost, recycle, reuse, keep our lights off and showers short, garden, cook, go to the farmers’ market, clean, remember our reusable bags, and everything else that could be deemed sustainable. I hope you enjoy the ride!

Here are some notes so far:

• We don’t have air conditioning, so that’s not a problem, but we do keep our fans on and windows open almost all the time.
• Our refrigerator, which was at least 30 years old, completely broke and the university replaced it with a new, energy-efficient one.
• We have no dishwasher.
• I bought a green bell pepper, zucchini, eggplant, two homemade jams, and bread & butter pickles (no high fructose corn syrup!!) at the farmers’ market last week.
• We are trying to buy items that contain no high fructose corn syrup. Do you know how hard this is?!?
• For foodstuff, the farmers’ market is generally cheaper than the grocery store.

If you have any ideas for us, let me know in the comments section!

About this Contributor: Maria Schwartzman is a senior computer science major with a Spanish minor at a small liberal arts school in Indiana. She’ll be writing a lot about how to save money by living a sustainable lifestyle! Check out her website and then follow her on Twitter.