resolution update

after the last blog about my new year's resolution to only buy local products from local merchants, i have some baseline statistics for the month of february.

three categories: products, services and gasoline (+ other car related expenses). i put my car in its own category because of the sheer amount of driving i had to do between baker city, la grande and pendleton and because i sort of think of it as a service, though it is traditionally viewed as a product.

gasoline/oil/car maintenance were 24% of my $ spent overall. becasuse i don't need to drive nearly as much that should be a lot less $ this month.

services were 43.7% of my $ spent overall.
rent/phone/utilities were 73% of the services category and 34% of $ spent overall, as is probably normal.
other services as percentage of service category:
tips: 6.4%
mail: 0.6% (i need to write to more peeps)
r/t bus ticket to portland: 20%

products consisted of 32.3% of my $ spent overall.
58 products were purchased from local merchants (totaling 59.6% of $ spent)
71 products were purchased from chain stores (totaling 40.4% of $ spent)

local products: 18 items, 21.6% of $ spent
pnw products: 33 items, 18.3% of $ spent
wetern region products: 24 items, 17.5% of $ spent
other products: 21 items, 9.3% of $ spent
second hand products: 5 items, 1.8% of $ spent
drinking/eating out: 29 items, 31.6% of $ spent


local product = produced within 200 miles of purchase point
pnw product = produced further than 200 miles but within the pacific northwest (oregon, washington, idaho, northern california, british columbia, alberta)
western region = produced outside of the pacific northwest, but within western u.s. (montana, utah, colorado, arizona, nevada, southern california)

my goal of buying local was mostly hampered by the fact that i purchased mostly food. considering there are only three grocery stores in town (safeway, albertson’s, wal-mart – screw all of those places!). to some extent, i have to give in. soon the farmer’s market will be here... but still, i will try to do better. this is just a beginning.