Update on Safeway

Just wanted to let everyone know that Safeway now has a new brand of recycled paper products, including toilet paper, napkins and paper towels. The brand name is Nature's Balance. The products are 100% recycled with 80% minimum post-consumer content, and whitened without chlorine bleach. I have tried the toilet paper and napkins, and both are of decent quality, and softer than many brands of recycled paper products. Napkins are $2.50 for 200 single-ply. I don't remember the exact prices of the paper towels and toilet paper, but as I remember they were cheaper than some and more expensive than the 75% recycled TP we have started to get from Wal-Mart since the products first disappeared from Safeway's shelves. (Sorry about the delay in informing everyone...I wanted to try them out first and we just finished our previous package and had a chance to try this new brand.)

So, thanks everyone for any postcards you sent in. I am not sure whether we had anything to do with this or if this was just part of Safeway's plan all along when they discontinued the previous brand. They didn't respond to either their comment card that I filled out or the postcard from 7Gens that I sent in. (Let me know if any of you received a response!)

Death of SUV's

I recently read an article about the death of SUV's in the US. I wasn't surprised. In fact, I saw this coming about this time last year. We started trying to sell our 1994 Toyota 4-Runner after deciding to downsize to only one vehicle. As gas prices began their climb and were nearing their $3 mark, it sat and sat listed (at the approximate blue book value) at the KOTA Territory Auto Mall for over six months. We had a couple of half-hearted phone calls, but no real serious interest.

Then, in November or December I hit a deer. I mentioned to one of the body shops where we got estimates that this had happened "just when we were trying to sell it." He said his father-in-law might be interested. About the same time we also got one of the calls in response to the KOTA ad. Of course I told him I had hit a deer. We received estimates of $1800-2400 to fix the Toyota. Considering we expected to sell it for just under $3000, we decided to sell it for $1200. Finally at that point both of these people would have bought it (in hind-sight we should have gotten them competing against each other!)

I guess the point of this is that I saw that the SUV market was at least flat-lining at that point. Now that gas is at about $4, it appears the market may be beginning to crash. That can only be good news on the road for those of us who drive smaller light-weight (and gas-light) cars as well as the planet.