Sears, Kmart stores: Here's the list of the 46 closing in

Just warning you, I'm not concise, it's a novella.
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: $205K, 90% of which is my 401K with a mix of standard and Roth funds, the other 10% is a Roth IRA. I didn’t contribute to my 401K until I hit 30, but for the last three years I’ve been able to max out my contributions. My employer also does a 10% contribution each year. Husband has $40K in his IRA, he also did not save much till he turned 30 and but we’ve maxed out his contribution for the last three years.
Joint Equity: just over $100K, bought our house 5 years ago with a 5% down, FHA loan. We’d saved for a couple years to have $15K down payment, sold my husband’s car and minimized all our expenses to save aggressively once we hit 30. Bought our fixer upper house for $285K. With all our remodeling, we forced appreciation and refi’d a year later to drop PMI. Refi’d again this summer to pay off a HELOC and get a 2.75% interest rate.
Joint Savings account balance: $51K
Joint checking account balance: $3K
Personal checking & savings accounts: $2K
Husband’s (H) personal checking & savings: $3K
HSA: $6K
529: $2K
Mortgage: $328K
Car loans: $57K, Kelly Blue Book value of both is $75K
Student loan debt: $34K for business management undergrad degree.
Home Reno loan: $9K
Peloton: $1800
Credit card debt: 0
Net Worth: Roughly $330K
Section Two: $120K base salary with annual $18K bonus, spouse’s salary & bonus is$ 40K, rental income (rent out finished basement unit to a friend) $9K, totaling $187K
Income Progression: I've been working in my field for 10 years, my starting salary was $14/hour which was about $28K. I’ve stayed with the same company and have leveled up four times to my current role. For the first seven years I was paid under market but didn’t know this and when I realized it, didn’t have the confidence to negotiate. After working on my confidence and researching how to effectively ask for a raise, finally asked for an equity adjustment three years ago and since then have received four pay increases.
Main Job Monthly Take Home:
Gross salary is $10K month and net $6K after deductions listed below, annual bonus is paid mid-year and net is $7500 after 401K contribution and taxes.
Deductions:
Taxes: $2K
401K: $1100
Medical & dental: $200
HSA: $75
Dependent care FSA: $416
Life, accident, cancer & disability insurance premiums: $40
Nonprofit contributions: $150, this gets matched by my employer so I always contribute through my paycheck. I mostly support a local mental health nonprofit and have smaller amounts going to the Oregon Food Bank and Oregon Humane Society.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home
$100 net for rental income after expenses (1/3 of utilities & mortgage, taxes-our costs for these expenses below reflect this adjustment). We will have to raise the rent (haven’t done so in three years) soon as the IRS requires that the rent charged must be within market parameters but it doesn’t feel right with COVID as our tenant (and friend) was impacted for some months.
We also sell items online that we no longer use/need. Have generated an average $200/month the last four months of doing this. Didn’t include this in income as it’s very irregular and we’re going to run out of stuff we’re willing to part with soon.
Any Other Monthly Income Here
My spouse and I have both joint and separate accounts. His take home is $2500 after taxes, he doesn’t pay for health insurance as his employer covers 100% of premium, and he doesn’t have access to a 401K. His contribution is $1K/month to our joint checking and the rest goes to his own checking and personal savings. While I pay more into our joint accounts, $3500/month, we take turns buying groceries/dining out/other household items.
Section Three: Expenses
Mortgage, Taxes & Insurance: $1183 (this is adjusted as a 1/3 of our cost is offset by rental income).
Currently aggressively paying off student loans at $750/month, with $34K left. Husband paid off his loans last year with an inheritance. Haven’t been serious about paying off until this year.
My car: $689, I bought a new SUV last year, put 20% down. The monthly payment hurts but I also LOVE my vehicle-plenty of space for toddler, pups and us. Interest rate is 3% so this is low on our priorities list to pay off early.
His car: monthly payments are $525 and is a 1% rate so we have no plans to pay off early. This is paid from my husband’s own account and not our joint account, as are my student and car loans.
Home Reno loan: $265, this is a 0% loan, so no plans to pay off early.
Peloton: $66, this also is a 0% loan, so again, no plans to pay off early. And yes, I am one of the many that bought one due to COVID, no regrets.
No credit card debt, we pay in full each month.
Utilities-water, electrical, trash, gas and internet: averages $300/month after annualizing. This also is adjusted due to 1/3 being offset by rental income.
Cellphone: $85-this one bill is paid directly by husband from his personal checking. We switched carriers last year and just haven’t updated the payment account.
Monthly Subscriptions: $116 for book subscription for my kid and my niece ,Peloton App, Netflix, Disney+, Apple Music, Apple data storage.
Daycare: $1150, partially paid via DCFSA, the rest out of pocket.
Savings contribution: $500 to HYSA, $100 to 529 which also gets random deposits.
Retirement contribution: $6-10K/year deposited annually before cut off dates to IRAs.
Pet expenses: About $1k annually for vet visits and meds. Food and misc items are accounted for in weekly spending.
Credit card fees: $600 paid throughout the year.
Car insurance: $1800/year but paid biannually (H has tickets and an accident in the last three years-grr)
Annual subscriptions: Prime $129, YNAB $84, PlayStation Plus $70, Calm app $60
MD Questions
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it? No, I was the first in my extended family to attend college. My mother never finished high school (no GED either) and my step dad finished high school in the middle east. I moved away from my mom’s household when I was 14 to live with my grandma and while she supported me wanting to go to college, she had the mindset that I would take care of myself by finding myself a husband, as she and my mother had. I was a ward of the state at that point and received lots of grants but also needed student loans to pay for five years (I struggled my first two years as I was depressed) and took out over 45K in loans for those years.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances? No, it wasn’t discussed due to the cultural background of my stepdad. My mom didn’t have a job as my stepdad comes from a culture where women stay home. They struggled sometimes-for years I didn’t have glasses because they couldn’t afford to get them for me. But I never went hungry and while we shopped at Salvation army, it was my norm so I didn’t realize we were considered poor till pretty much middle school.
What was your first job and why did you get it? I babysat for neighbors-on top of watching my own siblings-when I was 14. When I moved to live with my grandma, my uncles-who were general contractors-would hire me and my cousins to do grunt work and so I’d make $5/hour randomly during the summer until I hit 16, and my first job that summer was working at a cannery for minimum wage which I think was $6/hr. I still cannot eat canned/frozen green beans. I got that job so I could buy myself a car, which I did by end the of the summer. Then I got a different job-pizza parlor-to pay for the gas and insurance and worked after school and on weekends.
Did you worry about money growing up? Not really. My grandma lived off social security and some assistance from the state for taking me in, so I knew money would always be tight but she was thrifty and made it work. We always had food and I had clothes-new ones from Kmart-so I felt secure. I didn’t start to actually worry about money until I was accepted into college and then I had to figure out how to pay for it.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net? When I moved away for college at 18. I never thought about moving back in with my grandma though I probably knew I could, but I saw it as a failure because so much of my extended family thought I was stuck up and “getting above myself” for going to college. We have a large savings now due to an inheritance and that is our safety net. I should probably pay off more of our debt but having the large savings makes me feel more secure and it’s worth the interest we pay to feel that security.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain. Our rental income is mostly passive. My husband received $90K in an inheritance and used a 1/3 to pay off his student loans, the rest when to savings and some purchases such as the down payment for my vehicle.
Day one
6:35 Wake up to the sounds of my toddler (T) talking to himself in his crib. I’ve slept in and he’s awake early, at least it’s Saturday. Sluggishly get out of bed and go in to get him up. He greets me with some happy babbling and a hug. Change his diaper and he signs he’s hungry so I we head to the kitchen for breakfast. I warm up some frozen aebleskivers for him (make a big batch once a month and freeze for weekend breakfasts) and add a banana to his plate and a cup of milk. For myself, I make a cup of coffee via pour over and add some chocolate protein powder, use a milk frother and drink my protein mocha. I let out our pups and put together their breakfast of meat and veggies. We raw feed our pups a mixture of different animals-primarily beef, chicken and turkey-and add veggies & organs.
8:00 Husband is awake, so I finally have a chance to shower and do my am routine of Cerave face wash, epicuren protein toner, Hanskin hyaluron essence, PerriconeMD vitamin C serum, and philosophy’s renewed hope in a jar moisturizer, wait a couple minutes and add some Aveeno facial sunblock. I head out for a quick walk by myself, usually I take T with, but it’s 45 degrees and misty this morning. I listen to Corinne Crabtree’s podcast as I walk and wonder about how I’m going to get my step goal (14K) in with the crap weather.
9:30 My best friend has shown up with her toddler and we head out for a coffee (drive thru only, with mask on) on our way to the farmers market. I get a cafe au lait and it’s on the house due to points. $2 tip. My best friend, brother and sister are part of our COVID pod and we see each other about once a week in person.
10 Pay to park downtown ($2), bundle up the kids in a wagon with blankets and head into the park blocks for some food and produce. T and I share a pork and chive pancake ($12 for two with tip) while in the middle of some grass to ensure we're adequately distanced from people. Afterwards, I go a bit nuts and buy four different types of squash ($9). Since my husband doesn’t like squash, it’ll take a while for T and I to eat-but it will be delicious and I'm already anticipating the roasted yumminess. We walk around some more and feed the kids snacks (crackers, oranges, peaches) as we catch up and chat.
11:30 Head out to the west side suburbs for some apple cider donuts (have been craving one for three weeks!) and spend a bit of time sitting outside with the kids as it warms up. I've never been to this place, and it's much busier than I expected so we people watch and eat our donuts. I buy some frozen sweet and savory pies for the freezer as well as a wooden farm puzzle for T in the store that also sells the donuts as we leave. I'll have to find a toy at home to post for free as I have a strict one in/one out policy with toys. $71
1:45 Back home and T is down for a nap that doesn’t actually happen. I semi listen to him talk to himself in his crib for an hour while I chat with my husband about the day.
3 T is up so we have a very late lunch. I warm up some butternut squash ravioli and marinara for him and I have the other pork and chive pancake from the farmers market.
4:15 My brother arrives for game night with husband and our friend/tenant. I pop open a canned cocktail of coffee and rum and put on the Hamilton soundtrack while I do some online shopping. Dance around with T (trying to get in my steps) and pick out 4 long sleeve tops and sweaters and request curbside pickup for tomorrow. I'm slowly rebuilding my wardrobe as my body has changed so much. Two years ago I was pregnant, last year I was nursing and this year I'm down a couple sizes and have literally five cool weather shirts/sweaters. Hoping this purchase will net me at least two items to keep, so I try not to feel bad about the cost when I know I'll likely return half the items. $136
6:30 Bake the chicken pot pie for everyone to eat. It’s so comforting-just what I wanted on a dreary day. I try to get T to eat some, but after 4 bites he just spits it out and laughs. I give him some leftover snacks from earlier along with milk and a fruit & veggie pouch. H feeds the pups and the guys head back down for more game night.
7:20 Put T down for bed after four books and he’s asleep within minutes, thank goodness. I tidy up from dinner, start some laundry and put away the load that got washed while I was out.
8:30 Sit down with a coconut seltzer water, check my social media, personal email and then journal a bit.
10 Realize it’s later than I typically stay up so I take my melatonin, drink water and do my pm routine after brushing my teeth: cerave face wash, toner, essence, Kiehls midnight eye cream, Origins nitamins oil, cerave pm moisturizer. Head to bed and read till I pass out.
Daily Total: $232
Day Two
5:45-A bit early but I know I won’t get back to sleep so I get up and start my coffee and mix in the protein powder. Since it’s Sunday, I meal plan for the week and update my grocery list. We cook 3-4 meals/week and we eat leftovers the other days and supplement with delivery/take out for one night a week. I buy meat and most bulk items from Costco about once every 5-6 weeks (average $200 for those runs) so for this week, only need things we’ve run out of and fruit/veggies and milk.
6:35-T is already awake, so I warm up his aebleskivers and then go in to get him up. He’s quite cheerful for another early morning but get’s cranky as soon as I set him down to eat, so I break out his tablet and let him watch some toddler shows on YT Kids. H wakes up and helps with the pups, while I get started on weekly cleaning. Luckily T loves to “help”, so he’s back to his cheerful self once I give him a rag and mini spray bottle of water to “clean”-which he promptly sprays everything with. With the three of us cleaning, only takes about an hour to get all the common areas dusted and tidied up.
9 Get my morning skincare routine in after a shower, same as the day before. Make an egg and bacon scramble and share with T. I then head out to get grocery shopping in. Start with Whole Foods and get bananas, pomegranates, salad, onion, yogurt, deli ham, eggs and milk for $35. Head over to Trader Joes and look for butternut squash mac and cheese but they are out for the season!!! ARGH. Pick up some soppressata, crackers, PB&J bars, chocolate covered frozen bananas, three different types of tea, butter and some brookies for $45. I’ve spent enough time waiting in lines, I can pick up the clothes I bought yesterday. Pull up to the store and open my trunk and they deliver my clothes.
12:30 T is asleep when I get home so I put away groceries and make myself a meat and cheese plate with some leftover balsamic brussels sprouts from earlier in the week. Really feeling the lack of caffeine so I lay down for 20 minutes, and then remember I have clothes to try on, so I get up. Alas, only two items fit well enough (and are soft and warm enough) to keep. One is a black heather tunic with a cowled neck and uber soft, I also decide to keep a flannel plaid shirt in pink.
2 H wants pizza, but only a slice, and so we decide to go out to eat and pickup some books from Powells. Bundle us all up-still only 46 out!-and head out. Make sure to grab the foot muff for the stroller. We park in the NW part of the city, $3 for parking, and head into a small but empty restaurant. I get a slice of cheese to share with T and a lime seltzer, H has an everything slice with a beer, $20 with tip and H pays. It’s sunny so we walk around for while after checking out the changes wrought over the last six months as we haven’t been back to this part of the city yet. Wait in line to get into the bookstore and it wraps around the building because it’s well spaced out and only 50 people are allowed in the store at a time. When we get inside, it’s a reprieve from the biting wind, and very hard not to touch all the books I’m interested in-but I resist (honestly, H has to keep reminding me). Pick one up for T, two for H, two for me, and a cookbook for my MIL as it’s her birthday next month. Comes out to $71 and H pays; all of the books except the gift are used which is awesome.
4:30 Back home and we settle in for some downtime. T plays with his new farm puzzle (I have to take a picture cause I’ll never remember how it goes back together) and I sanitize a toy wagon that he’s no longer interested in to post for free on FB with a porch pickup. We read some of our new books, drink some tea, and eat some brookies.
6:30 Time for leftover chicken pot pie. T actually eats some this time and drinks a whole lot of milk. Pups get fed and spend minimal time outside in their dog run due to the cold.
7:30 H does bedtime routine with T and puts him down for bed. I get a load of diaper laundry started, look at the load of clothes to fold and tell myself I’ll do it in the morning. I prep T’s snacks and lunch for the next day: yogurt for am snack, chicken and veggie pasta for lunch, and a mix of oranges, hummus & crackers for his pm snack. I prep overnight oats for the week and throw in some chia seeds, PBFit, a little cinnamon and brown sugar.
9: Journal a bit, take my melatonin and do my pm routine with a RoC retinol serum instead of the nitamins oil.
Daily Total: $174
Day Three
5:55 Wake up before my alarm goes off and I’m slightly irritated that I miss out on the last 15 minutes of sleep I could have had. I get up and start my protein coffee, put away the dishes from yesterday and then settle in to review my work calendar for the week. I usually take 15-20 minutes before T is up to figure out work schedule and see if I have any urgent emails.
6:40 T is awake so I get him up, take his temp to make sure he doesn’t have a fever (daycare protocol) change and dress him, and then warm up some overnight oats and feed him. H wakes up, and since it’s a day he has to go into his office-happens 1-2/week-he quickly feeds the pups and then packs up and head’s out.
8 Pack up T and take him into daycare. His daycare is operating under an emergency order and is able to have up to 10 kids per class (since T is a toddler, there’s less kids in his class with two teachers) but with strict rules in place. He gets his temp taken again before entering the class and I’m so damn grateful that we have the option to use daycare during COVID. Back at home, I make another cup of regular coffee, light a candle, turn on my heating pad and get to work-which is meetings, emails, reviewing financial disclosures and filings. I setup an office in an extra bedroom over the summer and keep myself closeted in there while H typically works from our dining table when he’s not in the office.
9:30 Have a break before my next call, so I warm up some overnight oats for myself and put away the laundry from last night.
11:30 Have an industry update webinar to attend, so I head out with headphones to call into the meeting and walk with a pup for 45 minutes. Back home I warm up a bit of chicken pot pie and eat it and some cucumbers with hummus.
1:30 Pack up my gear and some yogurt for a snack and also head into my office as I have some documents to get notarized. I can’t believe how many states still require wet signatures and notarized documents when they have secure online platforms to submit documents. This is the fifth or sixth time I’ve had to go in since COVID broke out so it’s not that onerous except I’m not used to it anymore. At least parking is plenty and free.
3:30 Waiting on the notary so I take a quick walk and pickup a couple gift cards from Starbucks for some of my team members. They’ll also be coming into the office next week so I leave it on their desk with a thank you note for all their hard work lately (after googling how long coronavirus can survive on paper & plastic-up to five days is what I found). $30
5:30 Get home and snuggle with T for a bit (H picked him up on his way home at 4) before getting to work on dinner. I had pulled out some frozen ground turkey last night, so I make stuffed bell peppers with the turkey, quinoa, onions and diced tomatoes. Add lots of garlic and some ginger to make it tasty as H isn’t fond of quinoa but he says likes it this time. T also eats it and we’ve got so much leftover I may have to freeze some.
7:00 It’s my turn for bedtime routine, so T gets his bath and then we read five books before he settles in to sleep. I take my shower and spend extra time actually washing my hair and doing a hair mask. Do my PM face routine and watch a movie with H while also journaling. Finally remember to prep snacks and lunch for T.
9:30 PM face routine, into bed I go and read until I pass out.
Daily Total: $30
Day Four
12:30 Wake up to T crying, which is not normal. Wait a couple minutes to see if he works it out and then go in and sooth him back to sleep. As much as I hate the disruption to my sleep, I love holding him while he sleeps and know this time is fleeting.
610 Alarm wakes me up and I feel refreshed somehow, so I pop out of bed, make my protein coffee and prep breakfast for T (oats, banana and milk again). Grab the laundry from the day before and get it folded before T wakes up. Do the usual temp routine and get him changed for the day. While he eats, I get my schedule sorted out and reply to a couple emails. H wakes up after 7 and feeds pups.
8 Drop off T at daycare and back at home with more coffee, my vanilla pumpkin candle lit, heating pad on and into my first calls of the day by 8:30.
10 Call into my next meeting from my phone, throw on my Beats, grab a pup and take a walk for 45 minutes. Once I get home, I eat some overnight oats and have some white pomegranate tea.
12:30 Eat some leftover bell pepper stuffing and then brush my teeth as I’ve a dentist appt in a couple hours.
3:30 Pay $15 for my office visit; for small dollar amounts like these, I do not pay from my HSA so this is out of pocket. The visit was a bit surreal but reassuring to see that the office is maintaining strict COVID practices. Head home and realize I need gas, stop by Costco and run my own cards before the attendant fills the tank, $45.
5:30 H picked up T and plays with him while I finish up some work. We eat leftovers that are in the fridge, so there’s the last bit of chicken pot pie, some roasted sweet potatoes and stuffed bell peppers.
7:30 It’s H’s turn to put T down so I say goodnight to him and head out for a walk by myself. Hit just over 13K steps before I call it good and head home for some tea, journaling and downtime with H.
9:30 My back begins to spasm up by my shoulder blades, this random pain started a couple months ago and comes and goes. I’ve started seeing a chiropractor for this but not sure it’s helping, thinking I’ll need to see a physical therapist soon. For now, I have H rub in some CBD camphor cream and take a CBD gummy to help me sleep.
Daily Total: $60
Day Five
5 I am awake and know that if I try to get back to sleep, it won’t happen until I actually need to get out of bed. Make my protein coffee and journal for a bit. I spend extra time working through thoughts I have around the holidays. Our house is typically the center of family & friend gatherings and I’ve been trying to figure out how I want to approach this year with a large gathering not an option. Prep T’s snacks and lunch for the day (yogurt, mandarins, butternut ravioli, peaches, graham crackers and some peanut butter pretzels, milk), prep his breakfast-last morning of oats & banana- and then go through my work calendar and emails till he wakes up. H wakes up sometime after 7 and feeds the dogs and helps with T so I can change and do my am routines.
8:15 Back home from drop off, have all the things in place and am able to get into my work.
10 Have a break in meetings, so I jump on the peloton and do an easy 20 scenic ride while I work through emails on my phone. After, I have some herbal tea and get back to my desk.
12:30 I get super irritated at a peer in another department and have to walk away from my laptop. Realize I haven’t had food so I eat more stuffed bell pepper, sans the bell pepper, which just means lots of quinoa and ground turkey. Really have to cut back how much I make of this recipe in the future.
4 Call it a day so I can be the one to pick up T. We head over to have a play date with best friend and her toddler. It’s so nice out that we manage to go on a walk around their neighborhood.
6:30 Arrive home to some yummy chimichurri steak, a salad and roasted delicata squash waiting for us. While H won’t eat squash, he’ll cook it for me if I send him the recipe. I cut up some steak into tiny pieces and give it to T and he seems to enjoy it. Give him some squash and it pretty much gets thrown to the floor for the pups to eat.
7:45 Bath and bedtime routine. Since it’s daylight savings this weekend, I’m starting to push T’s bedtime back 10-15 minutes at a time; by the time I put him in bed he’s pretty much asleep and I’m mentally drained. Decide I need a walk to sort myself out, so I head out with a pup listen to Women of Impact. Barely manage 10K steps but I’m ok with it. H has his weekly DND game night that’s virtual so he takes over the office and I don’t see him again for the night.
8:30 Settle in with sleepy time tea and a three TJ’s dark peanut butter cups. Get caught up on my transactions in YNAB, see that the Peloton loan charges came through and make sure all our expenses are accounted for through the end of the month. Take a shower, do my routine-realize I forgot to do this last night-take my melatonin and listen to a Calm app sleep story till I pass out.
Daily Total: $0
Day Six
2 Wake up and wonder why. I have struggled with insomnia and have instituted many habits to reduce it. Practice my go the fuck to sleep meditation and think I fall back asleep sometime after 3.
5:45 I wake up to sounds of T talking to himself and I wonder why me? I lay in bed and contemplate how I want to tackle his early morning waking and decide to leave him in his crib till he starts to complain. I get up and make coffee & protein, prep T’s milk, bananas, mandarins and cheerios, and then do work emails till I hear T begin to get cranky.
7:15 H is headed into his office, so I juggle getting T ready and getting pups fed and back into the house after they have time in their run. Not feeling my day so far.
11 Listening into some status updates for my area so I put away the diapers H washed last night, unload the dishwasher and change our bedding. It’s times like these that I feel especially grateful to work from home as it frees up our evenings to spend more quality time as a family. Being able to do these chores also settle my dissatisfaction with my day so far.
12 Eat some leftover steak & squash and a blackberry seltzer. Go for a quick walk by myself and listen to podcasts.
3 Call into a meeting on my phone while I do another peloton scenic ride. I haven’t really found an instructor that I love, so I’ve been making my way through all the place based rides which are pretty cool.
4 H picks up T and I continue to work till about 5:30. We head outside to the backyard to enjoy the last bit of sunshine. H cleans up the dog run (which is a big task as it’s about 700 sq ft) while I endeavor to keep T from throwing rocks. We snack on pomegranate seeds.
6 Cut up the last bit of steak and make fajitas with black beans, bell peppers and onions. Apparently beans are a hit with T and minimal amount of food gets donated to the pups via the floor. They get their meal after we eat and spend time in their run.
7 Realize we’re out of milk, so I run out to the closes grocery for milk and pick up some bananas, $5. Since I ran out to my car without a jacket, I get an overwhelming urge to have a warm drink, I stop and get a hot cocoa with some Irish cream flavor in it on the way home. $5 with tip.
8 T is down for bed, so we put on a movie in the background (a not so awful Nicholas Cage flick) while I journal, write up my MD, and H plays games on his phone.
9:30 Melatonin, pm face routine with retinol, and in bed. I try to make it through another chapter of Omnivore’s Dilemma but can’t recall where I fell asleep at.
Daily total $10
Day Seven
5:50 It’s the end of the week and I wake up excited for the weekend and get started with my protein coffee and prep T’s snacks and lunch (yogurt, PB&J sandwich cut into tiny pieces-and yes, I eat some, apple chips, cheddar bunnies and belvita pumpkin crackers, milk). When T does wake up, I give him some banana, pomegranate seeds, and a nature’s bakery bar. H wakes up and helps with T while I feed the pups and then get ready (ie am face routine and changing from pjs to my new tunic and some leggings).
8 Call into my first meeting while I drop off T at daycare. When I get home I keep the call on my phone while I eat some pumpkin yogurt and another cup of regular coffee in my kitchen. H has a late start to work today so he head’s out for dog food run, $189 for 130 pounds of raw meaty bones and organs and $18 for veggies. We keep an extra large freezer for all the dog food, which allows us to buy in bulk and minimize the raw feed costs.
12:30 Eat some roasted butternut squash-with butter, nutmeg and cinnamon with a side of soppressata and cheddar. H runs to the local hardware store to pick up some items to make a six foot candy shoot for trick or treaters. I tell him to make sure to buy disposable gloves for handling the candy. Really don’t know if we’ll get kids but if we do, H wants to have it for them. $25
1 Have some project calls to listen into, so I take the calls from my phone while running some errands. Pickup my refilled prescription for eczema, $1, return the tops that didn’t work out, -$49, and also return some toddler clothes to Target I purchased earlier in the month, -$25. Since I’m in and out of three different stores, I use disposable masks.
5 Finish up the last of my updates for a project and call it a day. It’s cold out but sunny, so we decide to go for a drive to a different neighborhood and walk around. Order a pizza from H’s fave place-1/2 everything for H, ½ BBQ chicken for me-and drink some wine in an outdoor covered patio while we wait to take the pizza home. I ply T with snacks (TJs pumpkin bar and a mandarin). H pays for the pizza, $35 with tip, and I pay for the wine and a bottle to go, $47 with tip.
7 Back home and we can finally eat. Still feeling a bit tipsy from my glass so hold off opening the bottle so I add it to the wine fridge. I don’t drink as much as I used to and I have got to stop buying wine like I drink it everyday.
8 Bath and bedtime for T. He’s so tired he falls asleep as I read the last book. It’s my night to choose a movie so I pick Hocus Pocus (third time watching it this month!), and H checks out on his phone but I pull out the froze chocolate banana slices and text my sisters as I watch the movie.
10 Stayed up late for me on a Friday night. Part of me smh at myself but a larger part of me is glad I get so much sleep. Melatonin, PM face routine and snuggle into my bed. Goodnight!
Daily Total: $241
Week Recap: $747
Food + Drink $246
Fun / Entertainment $34
Home + Health: $263
Clothes + Beauty: $62
Transport: $50
Other: $92
This was one of the most out and about weeks we’ve had since COVID started so the total dollar amount was a bit higher than average. I’m struggling now as I read through this about how much I went out among other people even though I wear a mask, sanitize my hands and do my best to not touch surfaces. With cases re-surging in Oregon, I really need to limit myself going out. On the other hand, it felt so great to have a busy week and be among others so not sure how I’m going to reconcile this.

Hello everyone. A few months ago, I posted an extensive write up on the DeOrr Kunz case and later the Asha Degree case with several other missing people’s cases sprinkled in between, which many readers seemed to enjoy. Those can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/fcmvmz/extensive_summary_regarding_the_disappearance_of/
Today, I wanted to do a similar long form write up but this time, I wanted to switch gears and talk about Ridgway and his victims.
Terms used
The scene- A term used by Bundy and LE to describe the people with high risk lifestyles those who are homeless, sex workers, exotic dancers, drug users, hitchhikers, and others who are down and out
The Strip- An area of Pacific Highway South near the airport in extreme south Seattle (no longer Seattle) known for the scene. Most GRK victims were last seen in this area.
The Avenue- An area of extreme north Seattle along Aurora Avenue North known for the scene. A handful of women disappeared from this area.
Rainier Avenue and Central District- Neighborhoods in south Seattle near the strip. Usually regarded as cheaper places to live. A handful of women disappeared from here.
The camp- An area of downtown Portland known for prostitution
Dating- A term used to literature to refer to soliciting prostitutes. Ridgway used this term as did many sex workers. I use this term below as that is what is described in GRK literature. I don’t use it dull what was happening in these exchanges.
Boyfriend or protector- Many of the women in this case had boyfriends or protectors who were actually pimps. Which is why some of these women had the same “boyfriends.” If the men who were involved were not believed to be pimps, I tried to note that.
Introduction
Living in the Pacific Northwest everyone you meet seems to have had a close encounter with a notorious criminal. I know a woman who Bundy followed on April 17th 1974 in Ellensburg, Washington before he abducted Susan Rancourt. I talked to a barber once who told me he cut Ridgway’s hair and used to watch Constance Naon (one of Ridgway’s victims) take dates to her place across the street in the Rainier area. In college I used to shop at a Safeway store that Bundy worked at. Some days it seems like everyone I talk to has the same stories, close encounters, and bizarre brushes with some of the worst men in America. This is the story of one of those men, Gary Leon Ridgway.
I believe that Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was a much more prolific predator than most people online seem to think and I wanted discuss these crimes because his victims are often dismissed while they deserve to be remembered.
In the true crime community, there is a near reverence for Ted Bundy. On the other hand, Ridgway is considered boring and banal. These feelings of course are perpetrated Bob Keppel’s book, Riverman; Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer which contains large swathes of interviews from an incarcerated Ted Bundy. King County authorities interviewed Bundy on Florida’s death row in hopes of getting confessions out of him during the 1980s. Instead Bundy wanted to talk about the new murderer plaguing his home state, the Green River Killer. In his interviews, Bundy provides interesting insight into the mind a killer and many of his predictions about the “Riverman” turned out to be true. Naturally, some of his predictions were also false. Bundy, the master manipulator, was able create a narrative about Ridgway and his victims which has bled into the public consciousness. The descriptions of Ridgway’s crimes have been controlled by Ted Bundy’s opinions and his apparent distaste for Ridgway. In discussions on this case I often see people say things like “Ridgway isn’t interesting to me because his victims were high risk” or “Ridgway was dumb, he was so lucky he wasn’t caught.” In my opinion this is unfair to victims of the Green River Killer – in addition to being false. Of course, Bundy is not the only reason people say these things but his opinions have shaped this case. At the end of the day, Bundy should not have a say in how these crimes are perceived.
Most importantly, the victims of these men (and other killers) are not entertainment, these are real people who lives were stolen and all of their stories deserve to be told, even if the man who killed them is considered by some to be “uninteresting.”
Additionally, no one wants to compare to Bundy and Ridgway but I believe the men have more similarities than Bundy wanted people to believe. Bundy hated being compared to the Riverman and I think it is because Bundy knew that the Riverman was more prolific than Bundy could ever be. Bundy’s ego led him to adopt a dismissive attitude towards this crime spree and he always bristled when compared to the “Riverman” and unfortunately these ideas have become gospel. These assumptions aside, I think Ridgway was a much more prolific killer than anyone will ever be able to prove.
There are so many misconceptions about Gary Ridgway that I want to discuss. People say that Ridgway was stupid, he was free to kill as long as he did because no one cared, and finally that he only was able to be “get away with it” because all of his victims were sex workers. Not only are these ideas false, these misconceptions invalidate the stories of Ridgway’s victims.
Intelligence
The first thing I think is often talked about when discussing Ridgway was his intelligence or lack thereof. While it is true that IQ tests showed that Ridgway hovered on the line between impaired and typical, and he apparently had a learning disability that affected his school performance, I will always argue that Ridgway was no dummy. I have worked with the disabled population for several years. That experience taught me that IQ is a bunk way to measure intelligence. Some of my acquaintances have higher IQ scores than Ridgway’s 80, but struggle to keep down jobs or lack social skills. On the other hand, people I have worked with lower IQs (62-80) than that have attended 2-year college, kept down jobs, married, and had families. IQ in and of itself is poor determinate of intelligence. In my experience, IQ seems to measure processing speed, not intelligence. I am not sure if this 100% scientifically accurate, it is just my experience but I think it is worth noting. All that to say, I don’t think Ridgway was nearly as impaired as many armchair detectives make him out to be. The women he fooled were street smart and don’t deserve less attention simply because they were fooled by a “dumb” predator. Perpetrating this myth does a disservice to Ridgway’s victims. I am not arguing that Ridgway was a criminal mastermind of above average intelligence, that is simply not true. I am simply trying to demonstrate that Ridgway cold and calculating, not blundering and impaired.
Forensic Counter Measures
Ridgway’s intelligence is also evidenced by his crime spree and the forensic countermeasures he employed. Many online sleuths have used this information to show Ridgway’s lack of intelligence, but I would argue that his forensic counter measures actually worked. The Riverman would put used gum, beer cans, and cigarette butts near his body dumping grounds. He also put airport and hotel pamphlets near the bodies to make law enforcement think that the killer was a traveling business man which is why his crimes would start and stop. While these attempts at misdirection did not fool law enforcement for very long, it did muddy the water with media coverage. It was reported that the killer was a traveler, a smoker, or a guy who liked big red gum even though Ridgway was none of these things. These little attempts at misdirection fooled the general public in Ridgway’s favor and precious time and resources were wasted forensically testing these items.
When Ridgway began dumping victims in the Portland area law enforcement incorrectly believed that their killer had moved and they minimized their efforts in Seattle, falling right into Ridgway’s trap. The killer also changed his car regularly and made sure that he created false trails. Ridgway changed his car often, he used his own cars sometimes but he also drove his brother’s truck, his parents station wagon and his girlfriend’s/wives’ cars. As many know Gary was employed as a truck painter. He spent a lot of his time at home painting and working on his cars, removing and replacing canopies and just in general altering his vehicles. This allowed Ridgway to move about more freely as he was not seen in only one type of car. This is in stark contrast to Ted who repeatedly used his tan colored bug until it was linked to the murders. At that point Bundy would use Liz Kendall’s bug or make slight modifications to his own car but these efforts paled in comparison to Ridgway’s efforts to conceal his vehicles.
Ridgway also made sure the women he killed were clean when he dumped their bodies. He would have them shower and used the bathroom before his crimes, which had a three-fold purpose. First it put his victims at ease around him. Second, it made his clean up easier (victims wet themselves when being strangled and Gary didn’t like doing extra laundry), and third it removed evidence from his victims’ bodies. This is a just another example of how Ridgway was able go undetected for so long. He thought about his crimes, learned things and then changed his methods to iron out bumps in his murderous plans.
When questioned by investigators he always had explanations for his whereabouts and did not deny “dating” women on the SeaTac strip. Ridgway even used women he had been seeing to create alibis and a false sense of security. In his confession he explained that he would often pick up sex workers for dates repeatedly and not kill or hurt them in order to create a facade that he was a nice guy.
All of these things suggest that Ridgway wasn’t the bumbling criminal he was made out to be.
Victims
Another misconception in the Green River case regards victimology. Many people seem to think that all of Ridgway’s victims were sex workers which is simply not true. Contrary to popular belief some of the Green River victims were not prostitutes, although most did lead high risk lifestyles and were part of the “scene” as Bundy called it. Many were homeless, addicts, sex workers, exotic dancers, and hitch hikers, but not all. Carol Ann Christensen had no connections to this scene at all and worked as a waitress at a bar and grill near the airport. Opal Mills, a local high school student, had no arrests for prostitution (or anything else) but was known to hitch hike. Cheryl Wims was not a known sex worker but did struggle with addiction to drugs and alcohol. Ridgway’s victimology was actually much broader than most people assume.
Bundy used this misinformation about GRK’s victims to “prove” that he was a better criminal than the Riverman as Bundy abducted low risk victims, even though we know Bundy killed at least several hitchhikers who were unfortunate enough to get in his car. And Bundy, ever the coward, often chose very small willowy women to victimize. Ridgway on the other hand was physically strong even though he appeared slight. Ridgway was able to control and subdue many women, and while many were small and young some of his victims outweighed him, and a few were taller than him. My point being, both men were cowards and monsters who took advantage of all types of women, their victimology is not that different. Both men killed both low risk and high-risk victims, but of course Bundy doesn’t like to focus on his high-risk victims.
The abduction and murders of women not in the scene, (waitresses, moms at bus stops, and daycare workers) demonstrates that Ridgway was intelligent and organized enough to pull off meticulous crimes which were never solved... he just preferred easier targets.
Investigation
Another misconception about Ridgway is that he was only was allowed to kill due to the women he victimized; this is a partial misconception. In 1982, right after the first several bodies were found floating in the Green River, a task force was formed made up of 25 detectives from both the city of Kent and King County. For the next 19 years, as many as 40 detectives at a time (70 people if you include officers and support staff) worked solely on this case. At its smallest, 4 or 6 detectives were at work following up on tips. For years, evidence was collected. Men were followed and interviewed. Suspect lists were compiled. When this crime spree occurred, there was no AFIS (automated finger print identification system), no DNA testing, and little cooperation between agencies. A single finger print could take two months to process. Then it had to be compared manually and sent from state to state to check for matches. At the end of the day, the tab for this investigation cost a whopping $30 million dollars.
In the late 1980s detective Matt Haney had a hunch that Ridgway was the most likely killer but it took years for his suspicions to be proved. Using a tip from Marie Malvar’s family, he collected Ridgeway’s DNA in 1987, the same year DNA testing became available. Most other detectives believed other, better suspects were the ones to blame.
Despite the best technology at the time and Haney’s suspicions, Ridgway was not caught. As mentioned above, Ridgway was always a Green River suspect. From his first arrest for solicitation in 1982 until the day he was apprehended Ridgway was among the hundreds of men suspected of being the killer. Despite being on this list, Ridgway evaded capture because on paper, he was a poor suspect. Ridgway was a very typical man in both appearance and life style. He held down the same job for years. He was married and even fathered a son. In his life he was generally even keeled and unremarkable. He was investigated by the Green River Task force several times. Gary’s coworkers even named him “Green River Gary” a moniker he hated, but even his coworkers claimed they were just teasing the awkward guy at work, they did not actually believe he was capable of committing such atrocities.
Moreover, Ridgway had no record of violent offenses. Several violent crimes from his past would come out once he was arrested, but none of these were on his official police record. In the early 80s he was accused of assaulting a sex worker, but the charges were dropped when the woman did not want to testify. Ridgway also had a juvenile record for stabbing a 6-year-old boy, but being a juvenile at the time those records were sealed.
Ridgway was always willing to work with investigators and readily admitted he “dated” women on the SeaTac strip. He allowed himself to be interviewed but nothing solid was ever linked to him. He even gave hair samples and passed two polygraphs. Additionally, Ridgway gained the trust of many working girls he did not kill. He purposely left many women he “dated” unharmed. Some prostitutes who were interviewed by the task force inadvertently protected Ridgway by painting the picture that he was a harmless John who showed them pictures of his son and was polite. Sometimes, he even bought them burgers to eat. This misdirection on Ridgway’s part was just one reason he was never apprehended.
Ridgway was so different than any other captured serial killer at the time that the FBI had to change their profiling techniques and knowledge of serial killers completely when Ridgeway was caught. From the 1980s when profiling was in its infancy until the early 2000s, it was generally believed that serial killers had high IQ's and were of above average intelligence. It was believed that serial killers had a hard time staying in relationships or keeping down jobs. Further, many experts in the field claimed that serial killers basked in the glory of their evil deeds, taunted police, and watched news coverage of their crimes. It was also taken as gospel that serial killers could not stop once they started killing and in general killers did not cross racial lines. None of these things applied to Gary Ridgway, adding to law enforcement’s belief that he was not a “good suspect.” (While Ridgway did write one anonymous letter to a newspaper, he did not aggressively flaunt his suspect status, or openly taunt police as some of the other men did.)
When DNA linked Ridgway to his murders, task force members weren’t totally shocked but they were surprised that it did not match one of the better suspects such as Melvyn Foster, William J. Stevens II, or any one of the violent pimps, husbands, boyfriends and exes who had been interviewed. They assumed their killer would be one of the men with more violence in his background, possibly a rape conviction, or one of suspects taunting them with letters and phone calls, but it wasn’t. Only detective Matt Haney wasn’t surprised.
As the phrase goes, hind sight is 20/20. I think this is a good saying to remember with this case. Once Ridgway was arrested many pieces fell into place and it painted a picture of an unhinged killer roaming King County, but no one piece of evidence was a smoking gun in this case. Ridgway dressed like the killer, plaid shirts and jeans but so did half of the working-class men in King County. Ridgway drove vehicles similar to the one reported by many witnesses, but how many men drove by the airport in tan or blue pickups and aged station wagons? Marie Malvar’s boyfriend was convinced Gary’s truck was the one he saw Marie climb into before her disappearance, but when Ridgway’s home was searched nothing of Marie’s was there. Investigators hit a brick wall, but kept Gary Ridgway in the back of their minds. Every little piece of evidence was part of a puzzle in this case but nothing conclusively tied Ridgway to anything more than being a client of many of the working girls in the area. This tip by Marie’s family and boyfriend was what lead Det. Haney to collect Ridgway’s DNA in ’87.
NOTE- before I go on, I just want to say that it would be naïve of me to pretend that the victims’ professions and life styles did not affect the investigation. It absolutely did. It affected public perceptions, law enforcement response, and media attention and these women did not receive the same attention as the Ted victims from seven years prior. For example, in late 1983, citizens called for a public forum and called for an “end of prostitution.” Detective Mullinax suggested that the killer was the problem, not the prostitutes and there were some very awkward moments before the citizens told him they just wanted Seattle to be free of sex workers. This was just one example of the public opinion not being kind to these women.
In this piece, I simply want to point out that law enforcement response was not as minimal as some people make it out to be. There have been many cases where law enforcement has completely dropped the ball when investigating the murders and disappearances of sex workers such as the Grim Sleeper investigation, but I do not think the Green River Task force deserves to be placed in the same category.
Additionally, if Ridgway was not caught ONLY because the police blatantly disregarded the cases of sex workers, then why wasn’t he caught after killing daycare worker Maureen Freeney? Or blonde waitress Carol Anne Christensen? But all measures these two women came from caring families, were white, and did not live in the scene, and were reported missing right away. If Ridgway was only going free due to poor law enforcement response, then he should have been caught after the deaths of the women above, but he was not.
Casualties
Because of the nature of Ridgway’s victims, media coverage was initially slim and many victims of Ridgway were never reported missing at all. Gary Ridgway was convicted or 49 murders although he admitted to over 71. In recent articles Ridgway has even confessed to leaving 80 bodies in King County alone. Investigators doubt King County was the only county that Ridgway operated in and it is generally believed that a string of bodies found in Tacoma and Portland, Oregon were the work of the Riverman. Some of those women are discussed below. Because of this information I am inclined to believe that Ridgway has many, many more victims who have never been found, who are unidentified, who were never reported missing or whose deaths were attributed to other things. Many missing women have been placed on the “Green River List” because the pool of potential victims is much larger than only missing sex workers. With the addition of these victims I think it is very possible that Ridgway’s victim count far surpasses any official numbers and may make him one of the worst serial killers in America.
Some of the women I believe were victimized by Ridgway are profiled below.
In conclusion, all of these things point to Ridgway being a much more prolific, cunning killer than many have made him out to be. If Ridgway’s known victim count is 70 (charged with 49) and he himself claims there is 80 bodies in King County alone, I think it is safe to assume the real number may be closer to 100.
Ridgway has only been charged with homicides if he both confessed to and there was one or more pieces of evidence against him. For example, if he led investigators to a body he was charged with that murder and all the murders of the women he left in the same cluster. He has also been charged with other cases if there was circumstantial evidence, fiber evidence, paint chip evidence, or DNA. He has not been charged with the murders of women still missing or women whose cases cannot be linked to him in corroborating way, which is why the confession list is so much longer than the charged list. Also please remember that mass murders are not known for their honesty and we have to take confessions with a grain of salt.
The official Green River Victim list is challenging to compile because different agencies have different lists, some add women are still missing while others add only known homicides. Some add all suspected victims, some do not. Some add victims to the list only if Ridgway is the prime suspect, and other lists add victims whose cases have other prime suspects but Ridgway is still a possibility.
Below I have completed write ups of women I believe were victims of Ridgway as well as a section to remember his proven victims, both known and unknown.
NOTE- I want this section to tell the women’s stories in a respectful way and initially I did not want to focus on either their professions or their physical appearances, but I was also wanted this section to be authentic and I don’t want to sugar coat any of these stories. For many of the victims there is very, very little information available. I think this is why sometimes their appearances are mentioned as it sounds better to say “At age 21, she was a tall woman with thick red hair and a great smile” rather than she died at 21. Additionally, some of these victims’ stories are not very pleasant and a in a few cases information from family and friends is unflattering or downright negative (Wendy Coffield and Marta Reeves specifically). Rather than skip these women or pretend these things did not occur I chose to include them in the summaries below. I added as many positives as I could and tried (key word tried) to shy away from information solely about their appearances or criminal records but sometimes no other information is available. I hope everyone can understand that my intention is to remember these women and their lives in the best possible way while realizing that not everything is positive. I ask you for only respect down in the comments. Thank you.
In remembrance
Gary Ridgway pled guilty to the homicides of the 49 people profiled in this piece. (Because this is a mystery sub reddit and the write-up will have to be put into broken into several pieces, I will begin with the Jane Does Ridgway confessed to killing. All other victims both potential and confirmed are placed in chronological order to the best of my ability.)
Jane Doe B-10 was a murder victim who was found in 1984, near the remains of Cheryl Wims. She was a white female between the ages of 12 and 19. She most likely died in the summer of 1983. She may have had brown hair and was around 5’5’ and 120 lbs. She was likely left-handed. She had a healed injury to the front of the left side of her skull. She is not Rose Cole, Janel Peterson, Susan Cappel, Lisa Dickinson, Wendy Huggy, Kase Lee, Keli McGinnis, Anna Anderson, Kristi Vorak, Amy Matthews, Teresa Hammon, Cheryl Wyant, Denise Dorfman, Carol Edwards, Linda Jackson, Angela Meeker, Andria Bailey, Dean Peters, Joan Hall, Patricia LeBlanc, MaryJo Long, or Kerry Johnson.
Jane Doe B-17’s bones were found twice. Some bones were found in 1984 and some more were found in 1986. She was most likely a white female, aged 14-19, around 5’4”- 5’8” and average weight, around 120-140 lbs. She most likely died in 1983. Ridgway said she died in Spring or Summer 1983. Isotope testing shows she is possibly from the Northern United states (Alaska, Montana, Idaho, North Dakota) or Canada. She is not Rose Cole, Janel Peterson, Susan Cappel, Lisa Dickinson, Wendy Huggy, Kase Lee, Keli McGinnis, Anna Anderson, Kristi Vorak, Linda Jackson, Andria Bailey, Joan Hall, Patricia LeBlanc, MaryJo Long, Carol Donn, Barbara Cotton, Pollyanne Carter or Kerry Johnson.
Jane Doe B- 20 was a murder victim who was discovered in 2003 after Ridgway led investigators to her body. Her skull was not recovered so no composite can be made and no race can be determined. She died in between 1973-1993 but most likely died in the late 1970s. She was likely 13-24 years old. Ridgway says she was a white woman about 20 years old with brown or blonde shoulder length hair who he killed in Summer ’82 or ’83. Ridgeway claims to have started his crime spree in ’82 but it could have been earlier. He does not remember killing anyone in the 1970s but admits it is possible. Jane Doe B-20 is not Keli McGinnis, Andria Bailey, Cora McGuirk, or Deborah Tomlinson.
Wendy Lee Coffield was a young woman whom life had never treated kindly. She was a junior high dropout, a chronic runaway, and a hitchhiker. She never had the chance to land on her feet and start over. She was only 16 when she was murdered in 1982. To add insult to injury, her own family even said they weren’t surprised when her “lifestyle” caught up with her. Gisele A. Lovvorn was a 17-year-old Dead Head and free spirit who wandered the country watching Grateful Dead shows with her on again off again boyfriend. In early high school was a straight A student before dropping out. In the summer of 1982, she called her parents in California to tell them she was going to travel home and re-enroll in high school. She left her apartment one Saturday in July at 1 pm to “turn 3 or 4 tricks” she never made it home and her parents were never able to see their free-spirited daughter again. Debra Lynn Bonner was 22 when her body was found in the Green River. She had dreams of getting a GED and joining the navy but an abusive relationship and addiction lead her to a life on the streets. Despite her profession, Debra called her parents regularly and was trying to pay off her debt (She had several unpaid tickets in Tacoma). She was planning to visit her father after he had an eye operation but she never made it home. Marcia Faye Chapman nicknamed Tiny, was a mother of three who engaged in sex work only to support the three children she loved so much. She left her apartment one August evening and disappeared into the night. She was only 31 years old. Cynthia Jean Hinds had no criminal record but frequented the streets of south Seattle. Everybody called the 17-year-old her nickname, Cookie. Her boyfriend and probable pimp reported that he last saw her get into a black Jeep on August 11th 1982. Her body was later recovered from the Green River. Opal Charmaine Mills was a biracial 16-year-old who, according to her brother, struggled to fit in in a racially divided world. She never got the chance to learn to be comfortable in her own skin because she disappeared after going to work in 1982. An occasional hitch hiker, Opal had no other links to the “scene.” Opal and her friend Cookie (Hinds) had been hired to do some painting near Angel Lake park. Opal called her parents to pick her up from work, but she never made it home. Terry Renee Milligan, a 15-year-old, hadn’t been seen for several weeks when her live-in boyfriend reported her missing and then immediately skipped town. Terry was a bright student who wanted to study computer science in college and dreamed of going to Yale. Terry gave birth to a son as a teenager and her hopes of college changed course, although friends have always explained that Terry adored her son and care of him the best she could. She was also musically inclined and sang in the church band all throughout her childhood. She was seen last arguing with another woman outside her apartment after that she disappeared. Mary Bridgett Meehan was adopted as a young child and grew up in Bellevue, a wealthy suburb east of Seattle. She was a compassionate soul who loved animals and children. She wanted to be a mother. Two miscarriages at ages 15 and 16 left her broken inside, her family and friends explained that she was never the same. She starting using drugs and drifted around the Seattle area and began engaging in sex work. Later, Mary gave up another baby for adoption after her boyfriend kicked her out because he didn’t want kids. But unfortunately, less than a year later, the cycle began again. Mary was back living with a dead-beat boyfriend and pregnant, except this time she was determined to be a good, stable mother, but she never got the chance. She left her motel room and vanished into the night at 8 months pregnant in September 1982.
Debra Lorraine Estes went by the name Betty Jones on the street. She was barely 15 and had entered the scene five years earlier at age 10. Her parents were always worried for her, driving the streets looking for their daughter and bailing her out of the King County jail under various names and aliases. Her pimp was a sleazy older man whom occasionally lived with her and her friend Becky Marrero. She was last known to be alive in September 1982, but may have been alive into December. Linda Rule’s parents divorced when she was a teen and the family disintegrated with each person taking their own paths. She last seen leaving her apartment and walking to Kmart on Aurora Avenue north, to buy clothes. When she did not arrive back home, her boyfriend assumed she had been arrested, but he couldn’t find her at any of the local jails. He did not think Linda was working as it was rare to see girls working Aurora Avenue during the day time. He immediately filed a missing person’s report. Unlike many other men in this case, her boyfriend was not believed to be a pimp. 16-year-old Linda and her boyfriend were saving up for their wedding and but it would never come.
Denise Darcel Bush, a 23-year-old Portland native had traveled to the SeaTac strip after hearing that money was better in Seattle. She suffered from epilepsy but used medication to keep it under control. She was last seen crossing the street to buy cigarettes. She was never reported missing and her friends all assumed she had simply had decided to go back to Portland. At the time, it was hard to know if she or many of the other girls left willingly or suffered a much worse fate. Shawnda Leea Summers from Bellevue, Washington loved going to the beach. She was last seen at the same intersection on the strip, the day after Denise Bush was last seen. She was not reported missing for months and some girls thought she had moved to Portland to work. Her parents looked for her whenever they could but Shawnda would never reach her 19th birthday.
Shirley Marie Sherrill at age 19 was described as tall and beautiful. She was last seen in the China town area of Seattle having lunch with a friend. They both left the restaurant to work and were picked up by different men. Shirley was never seen again. Like Shawnda and Denise, she disappeared in October 1982. Becky Marrero was the 20-year-old friend of Debra Estes. The two lived together at a motel on the SeaTac strip on and off. In the fall of 1982, Becky left her two-year-old son with her parents and told them she was leaving for a while and going to a place that “babies shouldn’t be”, but she would be back eventually. She packed her bags, borrowed some money from her father to rent a room and vanished. Becky was registered as living at a motel on the strip until December 1st ’82, along with her friend Debra Estes. She never made it home for Christmas like she said she would. Colleen Renee Brockman was 15 years old when she was last seen alive. She worked the SeaTac strip, but her friend Bunny and other girls still thought she was naïve. She trusted her customers wholeheartedly and enjoyed the gifts and dinner dates she got from johns. She was identified through the braces that were still on her teeth when her skull was found in Pierce County years after she was last seen. Delores Lavern Williams was a tall, slender, African American girl with a lovely smile. She worked near the Red Lion hotel near the airport and generally “dated” wealthier, traveling johns. In early 1983 locals and friends realized they hadn’t seen her in a few weeks. She was reported missing. She was only 17 years old. Alma Ann Smith hailed from wine country and was born in Walla Walla Washington. In the 8th or 9th grade she began traveling to Seattle alone on the weekends, something that confused her younger friends. She eventually moved to Seattle and was last seen entering a blue truck with a very average looking male. Gail Matthews was drifting through life in her mid-20s. She lived with her boyfriend, Curt in south Seattle. The couple did odd jobs, tried to win money by gambling, and hitchhiked around the area. Gail would occasionally come home with money that Curt assumed she made doing sex work but he wasn’t sure and didn’t want to ask about it. He saw Gail leave the bar they were at together saying she was going to “make some money”. He later saw her in a car with an average looking white guy with a mustache. For some reason the scene chilled him and he knew Gail was in trouble because she looked scared. He waited for Gail to come home but she never appeared. Curt called the police and the Gail’s family. Gail’s ex-husband had custody of their children, but he was worried about the young woman who he remembered as a meandering soul who wanted to be an artist. A missing person report would be filed in April 1983. Andrea M. Childers moved from California to Washington to move in with her father and step mother. She was a wonderful dancer who wanted to be a dance instructor to children. She taught a dance exercise class and was close to her elderly grandmother. At 16 she left her family home and was never seen again. Sandra K. Gabbert was called “Sand-e” by her family and was known as Smurf on the street. She was on the varsity basketball team in high school before dropping out at age 17. Sand-e moved in with her teenage boyfriend and started working on the SeaTac strip. Sand-e told her mother that she made more in turning one trick than she did working a whole week at KFC. Her mother understood her daughter’s desperation and commissioned her to “be careful.” They also talked about taking a trip to sunny California sometime. That was the last time Sand-e and her mother even spoke. Kimi Kai Pitsor street name Melinda was a happy 16-year-old who loved glitter, unicorns, and the color purple which was fitting for the young woman whose native Hawaiian name means “golden sea at dawn.” Kimi Kai always wanted to be an adult and when she turned 16, she left home to move in with her boyfriend/protector in downtown Seattle. Her boyfriend last saw her talking to a date in a blue pickup. She never made it home and her boyfriend called the police with the description of the vehicle. She had left home and entered the scene less than two months before. Tragically, Kimi Kai was the third of Joyce Pitsor’s three children to pass away. Kimi Kai’s two older siblings died as infants. Kimi Kai’s mother, Joyce later adopted three other children. Sandra D. Major was from Rochester, New York. Her family knew she worked as a prostitute and while they weren’t thrilled with her lifestyle, they always kept in touch and “loved her the same.” The last contact the Majors had with Sandra was a post card sent from Seattle. After that they lost touch. Sandra was believed to be last seen on Aurora Avenue north in 1983 at age 20. A TV in program in 2013 highlighted the unidentified victims of the Green River Killer, prompting the family to contact the police. Sandra was identified and laid to rest. The family gave a brief interview in which they asked for privacy. Because of this very little is known about Sandra’s personal life.
Marie Malvar’s came from a large Filipino family. At 18 she had left home but called her parents and siblings regularly. Marie’s boyfriend saw her enter a blue truck and drive away. She was gone a while and he decided to track down the truck. He drove where he saw the truck go but couldn’t find Marie or the vehicle. He was hesitant to contact the police due to their backgrounds and was even more scared to tell Marie’s parents about her profession. After 4 day had passed her boyfriend, brother, and parents went to the police station to report Marie missing. They even drove around with police until they found a similar looking truck. Police questioned the man and took down his information. His name was Gary Ridgway. But Marie wasn’t in his house and he had no record of note, so the police left. The man was one name among hundreds that they took back to the task force offices.
TO BE CONTINUED....
These sources are a good place to begin
Green River Running Red by Ann Rule
The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I hunt for the Green River Killer by Bob Keppel and William Birnes
The Search for the Green River Killer: The True Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer by Carlton Smith and Tomas Guillen
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19920727&slug=1504298
http://charleyproject.org/case/keli-kay-mcginness
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Green_River_victims
https://www.kingcounty.gov/depts/sheriff/about-us/enforcement/investigations/green-river.aspx
http://www.seattlemag.com/article/remembering-victims-green-river-killer
https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19911121&slug=1318612

I want to start off with saying this will be a lengthy post, and any advise/insight will be greatly appreciated. Bottom line, is it worthwhile for to take a vacation to Winnipeg and Brandon in 2021?
First, a little background history—I lived in Winnipeg from 1993 to 1996, and in Brandon from 1998 to 2001. I have not been back to Winnipeg since 2001, and I was in Brandon for 1 day in 2014 (I’ll get more into that later).
Everyone knows we look back at the past with fond rose-colored glasses, and I’m guilty of that. I feel nostalgic when I think back to my childhood in Winnipeg in the mid ‘90s, and I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world. I guess I want to go back and relive those days, even though I know I can’t.
Through the wonders of the internet, I have been able to take many “virtual vacations” to Winnipeg and Brandon, via Google Maps and street view, and I’ve seen how much has changed and how much has remained the same. I recently discovered here that the downtown Bay Store will be closing in February 2021, earlier than my planned visit and that saddens me.
When we lived in Winnipeg, our 3 main malls were Grant Park, St. Vital, and Polo Park. I’ve visited all 3 of those malls’ websites and on Google Maps, looking at directories and pictures. I remember the Woolco stores in both Grant Park and St. Vital becoming Wal-Mart stores, and now the Grant Park Wal-Mart is a Canadian Tire, and although the one at St. Vital remains, I’m sure it looks nothing like the former Woolco store I remember (looks like it’s mall entrance is sealed off with a Sport Chek). Later (when I was living in Brandon) I saw the Polo Park Eaton’s become the Sears owned eatons, that store is now a Bay store and the Sears is now closed (not sure what took that space). My mom still has the sweaters she bought for me in the Sears bargain basement, now she wears them for house and yard work.
I know I can’t go back to the St. Vital Centre I remember with the Safeway at the end of the short food court, begging for the “smelly markers” from Wilson’s Stationers, being bored in St. Clair Wallpaper, lusting over the new Macintosh Performas and boxed DOS computer games at Compucentre, dining at Moxie’s when it looked like a 1940’s themed restaurant and drinking “Beetlejuice”, seeing “The Santa Clause” at the Famous Players theater, being bored out of my mind while my mom waited for concert tickets to go on sale at the TicketMaster in the Customer Service kiosk, buying POGs and other small toys from the dollar store. Buying “Kirby’s New Adventures” and “Dr. Mario” for the NES in French because that was all that Wal-Mart had left since the NES was being phased out. We were living in Brandon when they renovated St. Vital and built the new food court and Chapters.
Same goes for Grant Park mall—I think the only thing that remains is the movie theater and the CIBC branch where my parents banked. There used to be an Italian restaurant between the BiWay and the theater. There was also a “Dairy King” restaurant in the food court, and they had really good burgers. I remember getting lost in Safeway and having to get my mom paged, begging to go to that Wal-Mart after school to buy a Yak Bak, just like all the other kids had. Then going to Swiss Chalet on Pembina that looked like an actual chalet in the Swiss Alps. Speaking of restaurants on Pembina, anyone remember Uncle Willy’s or The Round Table?
Then there’s Polo Park—Sears, Eaton’s, Zellers, Sam the Record Man. Riding the escalators. That food court, Marvelous mmmuffins. Although I have memories of Polo Park—I seem to remember it better when we lived in Brandon and would make weekend shopping trips to Winnipeg.
Christmas shopping downtown at Eaton’s, Eaton Place, Portage Place and The Bay was always so magical with the Christmas lights on Portage Ave. The big displays at the department stores, Eaton’s Christmas displays (Children’s Museum has those now now). Getting to see Santa at both Eaton’s and The Bay. Seeing Robert Munch at the Prairie Exchange Theatre. Buying DOS shareware floppies at the dollar store on the main floor. Browsing the little stores on the sky bridges between buildings.
Next to Polo Park, the old Winnipeg Arena, going to Jets games with my dad, uncle, and cousin-- sitting in the nosebleeds and those steep steps to get to your seats. Goldeyes games next door at the Winnipeg Stadium. I actually met Bill Murray there--- my only real celebrity meeting. I didn’t really know who he was at the time, but I remember everyone around us making a buzz and going to his seat. He was really cool, signed my ticket and complimented my shirt. I remember the CKY-TV studios were there too, all next to the mall.
Getting picked up from school on Tuesdays and going to the Cinema City 8 at Bishop Grandin and Pembina for $1.25 movies. (Anyone remember when that whole complex was an enclosed mall with a Kmart? I can’t seem to find any info on it--- only had been there once or twice before it was converted and I remember the Kmart and dollar store).
Getting my first computer (an Apple IIe) from Value Village on Pembina for $20. Building my Polaroid Camera collection from that Value Village ($5 was the most I’d spend on a camera as a kid with not much money), and the one on Ellice when it opened.
Going to the Forks in the summer, and the neat knickknack stores, and the musty smelling basement. Countless hours running around the Children’s Museum, skating the Red River in the winter. Going to Assiniboine Park Zoo on Tuesdays (free admission) and getting ice cream from the restaurant in the middle of the zoo that looked like a greenhouse. Mr. Dressup performing at the Teddy Bear’s Picknick at Assiniboine Park. Mini golf at the Golf Dome. Playing The Simpsons arcade game, and exchanging tickets for prizes at Chuck E Cheese on Pembina.
Field Trips to the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, The Planetarium, The Winnipeg Art Gallery (my uncle had an exhibit there too), the Aviation Museum, and Fort Whyte. Taking out of town visitors to the Mint. Tinkertown. Skinners hot dogs. Although I’d be planning a late spring/early summer trip I can’t help but mention skating on the Red at the Forks, and outdoors at St. Vital park. Maybe I can see if Century Arena has public skating since that was where we went for indoor skating.
I know I can go back, and some of those places are still there, some changed, some not, and others are gone. I won’t be able to go to Grapes on Main, on Kenaston, on Ellice, or Pier 7 (Yes, that’s a Pony Corral now--- have never eaten at a Pony Corral--- we’d always go to Grapes or Applebees) and have their chicken fingers with honey dill or the Chicken Cajon Fettuccini. Things would be immediately different for me since the airport I know and remember is long gone.
Part of me also wants to go back just for the food--- Ice cream from BDI, Gondola Pizza, Chicken Delight, Jeanne Cakes, Salisbury House just to name a few. Glad to see Nick’s Inn in Headingley is still there (I remember going to plenty of antique auctions across the highway at the old hall. Funny story, when family was driving in from Edmonton, they stopped and called for directions. My mom told my aunt to go to Nick’s, go inside, ask for Nick, and ask him for directions. We all made fun of my mom and said ‘that’s like going to McDonalds and asking to talk to Ronald. My mom got the last laugh though when we went there after an auction and Nick himself came up, introduced himself and asked how our food was.) I plan on gaining 20 lbs.
When we moved to Brandon, my dad would have plenty of overnight/weekend business trips to Winnipeg, and the whole family would tag along. Staying at the Lombard downtown, walking to Eaton’s and Portage Place via underground walkways and sky bridges. Other times he would stay at the Canad Inn Fort Gary and we’d get the “themed kids’ room” with the small room with 2 sets of bunkbeds, and swim in the pool with the waterslide.
Moving on to Brandon, back in 2014 I was working that summer in Moose Jaw, being on call and not much time off. However, on my last full day there, I made a day trip to Brandon as I have just as many fond memories there and Winnipeg was too fatoo much to do. There was sure some growth and change, but it was nice too see enough remained as I remembered it. I ate at the Beef & Barrel and went to Velvet Dip twice. It was cool to go into my old school and snoop around, as the building was open for registration for the new school year.
Well that about sums it up. . . I know I don’t have a time machine, otherwise I’d take that to travel to Manitoba, so that’s why I present the question to you. Should I take trip north next year? (Assuming COVID is addressed and the border and businesses reopen) Or am I setting myself up for failure? As much as I want to visit, it’s more of a nostalgia trip, and reliving my childhood. I know things are gone or not the same, will that upset me, and will I regret coming back? Or am I better off going somewhere new and leaving Manitoba as a good memory (that can be relived by home movies).
I’ve priced plane tickets from DFW to YWG, and even with the airlines hurting; tickets are still not cheap. Same goes for hotels, since I’m reliving my childhood—I’m being specific with where I say—The Lombard (Fairmont) and Canad Inn Fort Garry for Winnipeg and the Victoria Inn for Brandon)—even with the exchange, prices seem pretty steep for my liking and I wouldn’t want to compromise on hotels.
Not a cheap or easy decision to make, but some insight and advice would be great. Thanks!

This post has been inspired by this recent podcast featuring three of the biggest names in the Aussie FIRE blogging community, and the follow on discussions in the Aussie Firebug Facebook group about how much it costs to raise kids in Australia. As all three acknowledge they don’t have kids so it’s not something they really have any experience with.
As someone who has two young kids I thought it would be useful to write about it from my perspective. Obviously my situation isn’t the same as everyone else’s, there are plenty of people who would be horrified with how much we’ve spent, and others who would wonder how we manage to spend so little. Everyone’s situation is different, so what works for my family wouldn’t necessarily work or others.
My oldest child has only just started school this year so I can’t really speak from experience beyond the 0-5yo age range, but I’ll talk through some of the typical costs, what we have and haven’t spent money on so far, and what we’re anticipating in the future.
The costs people actually talk about The first two things that almost always come up when people start talking about the cost of babies are prams and carseats. Yes, you can spend a lot of money on these things if you want to, prams in particular. From a quick look at Baby Bunting the most expensive pram there is nearly 3 thousand dollars, and I’m betting that with a few accessories you can easily get over that mark.
No, you do not need to spend that much on a pram. Yes you can probably pick one up on the cheap from Kmart or Target etc for well under a hundred bucks, but it’s probably not going to be as sturdy or hold much of the gear you take with you. Happily a pram is also the sort of thing where you can pretty easily and safely pick one up secondhand or get a hand me down from someone else.
We bought a Babyzen Yoyo, which is basically a small sized pram although it still has enough storage room for us. It folds up so that you can take it on a plane as carry on luggage, is quite light, extremely maneuverable and very sturdy. I’ve taken it running plenty of times, it’s even got a Parkrun PB of 22:06!
This thing is absolutely gold. Unfortunately it’s priced as though it’s made of it as well. There wasn’t an option to get one second hand because it had only just been released so we had to pay full whack. I think we spent over a thousand dollars on it including all the accessories and the lie flat and sit up seats etc.
It was worth every cent. It’s been going for 5 years and 2 kids and is still in great shape, we’ve never had a problem with it at all. My wife tells me it is one of the best things I have ever bought her, although we both use it obviously.
And at the end of the day a one off cost of $1,000 for us as a family is going to have basically zero impact on when we hit FIRE. Plugging the numbers into a compound interest calculator and using 7% annual return over 30 years I miss out on $8,000, which is about a month worth of returns on my target portfolio. I can live with delaying retirement one month for about 5 cumulative years of having a really good pram that works great for us.
Similarly you can spend a fair chunk of money on car seats. This is one of those things that I wouldn’t want to get second hand because you can’t see if they’ve been broken or not and safety is a huge priority for us and presumably everyone else.
Happily car seats don’t tend to cost that much, you can pick one up for a couple hundred bucks or less pretty easily. If you do that it tends to be one for a much shorter age range, say 0-2yrs whereas I think you can get ones which will take your kid from 0-8 but they cost a lot more. In any case per kid you’re probably looking at a thousand bucks total, and this could easily be a lot less.
Again it’s not going to make any appreciable different to us reaching FIRE. So as easy as it is to point at this sort of stuff as being ridiculously expensive and over priced etc, it’s really not going to make much of a difference to most people. Sure you don’t want to spend any more money than you have to, but you also want to make sure you’re getting something that works for you.
The other one off costs There are also a bunch of one off costs for babies and young kids like cots, beds, mattresses, baby carriers etc. From what I’ve been told you want to buy a baby mattress new, but that’s only about a hundred bucks at Target, potentially cheaper elsewhere. We have an Ikea cot which cost about the same, you could easily get one second hand or likely for free just by asking around your friends who will probably be delighted to get it out of their house.
Some people do co-sleeping in which case you don’t need the cot and mattress although you may like to kid yourself that your baby will actually sleep in their own bed, maybe even through the night. It’s nice to pretend sometimes!
As kids get older you’ll need a proper bed for them, again you can probably pick this up second hand pretty cheap and a mattress can be easily had for a couple hundred bucks. So none of these things are really going to have much of an impact so long as you’re a decent saver already.
The big costs you see When you don’t have kids it can be great to live in a studio flat or one bedroom apartment in the inner city close to all the bars and restaurants and all the rest of it. You can stay in your local area and have plenty to keep you entertained, there is probably a supermarket nearby and plenty of public transport so you may not need a car either.
Once you have kids, it’s likely going to be a different story as your priorities change. It may be that you’re happy renting with kids, but lots of people tend to prioritise stability and security when they have kids and that means owning your own home in most cases. I’m not saying everyone will want this, but a lot of people will.
So now that you have kids you almost certainly want a second bedroom and if you’re planning on having more kids maybe a third or fourth etc. Obviously kids can share bedrooms for a while at least but sooner or later they will probably want their own space, as will you.
You’ll also be wanting parks with playgrounds nearby and somewhere you can easily take your kids for a walk or kick a football around, ideally in a good school district which can add a couple hundred thousand dollars to the cost all by itself if you’re in Sydney or Melbourne. And if you want to live somewhere cheaper but send the kids to a good private school, well that can cost anywhere from the low thousands to multiple tens of thousands per year.
Similarly if you didn’t have a car before, you will very likely want one now. I’ve mentioned before that we drive a base model Corolla which works just fine for us so far, but you’re still probably looking at $20k plus if you buy one new, mid teens if you want one used. If you want an SUV or a luxury model car, be prepared to fork out a lot more.
In the same vein if you were previously going on lots of holidays and plan to keep doing so, well you now have at least one more plane ticket to buy, might need a bigger hotel room etc. As I talked about in this post about big ticket items, that all comes at a real cost. We bought land and built a house, so I can say that we spent roughly $100,000 more on that than we would have otherwise.
The ongoing costs There are also a bunch of ongoing costs for kids as well. They need to be fed, they need clothes and shoes, they need medicine, and a bunch of other stuff that costs money. I wrote here about a bunch of things that we do to keep costs down, but the reality is that you still have to fork over a decent chunk of change.
On top of all that contrary to what you might have been told public school is not free, there are a bunch of things that you have to chip in for here as well. We’re not at the stage that we’re forking out a fortune in extra utility bills etc but we certainly use the washing machine a lot more than we would if we didn’t have kids, there are extra lights and tvs etc on so there are extra costs there as well.
There are also a bunch of extra items that you don’t really need to spend, but probably will. For us this includes stuff like swimming lessons, some sports like AusKick (AFL) and Junior Blasters (cricket), occasionally taking them to a theme park or zoo etc. They also get birthday and Christmas presents, and if they get invited to other kids parties they take a store bought gift with them.
The above is about what I think our 5yo costs us at the moment based on our spending, our 2yo is probably about two thirds of that due mostly to her not eating as much and not getting swimming lessons yet, as well as not being in school or doing sports.
I’ve left the holiday line blank because this is hugely variable. Last year we did a trip to the UK and it probably cost us about $3,000 extra between the two of them, next time it will be another couple thousand dollars more because the youngest one will need her own seat rather being on someone’s lap for the flights.
So our spending for our eldest is about two thirds of the costs quoted in this article for a 6yo girl, I would assume that apart from a boy maybe eating a bit more the costs should be fairly similar. The main difference compared to our costs seem to be education and transport.
Also, it was somewhat shocking to me just how expensive swimming lessons are! This is actually at our local council aquatic centre and is the cheapest in town. We do get to use the pool whenever we want, but that only tends to be once or twice a week at most. At least the lessons will hopefully only be for a few years for each child, although after that we may be forking out for something else instead.
The hidden cost of kids The biggest cost is often actually one that doesn’t show up as an expense, the opportunity cost of one parent giving up paid employment entirely for a while or doing part time hours (I’ve used the phrase giving up paid employment here because looking after kids and a house is definitely work!).
If we say that you’re giving up a full time paid job that’s at minimum wage of roughly $20 an hour for 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year, then that’s $38,400 a year ($33,605 after tax and medicare levy) that the family is giving up for however long this goes on for. If you’d otherwise be earning more than that, then the opportunity cost each year is even higher. On top of that there is the hit to your career and future earnings, because those are definitely going to be impacted as well.
If you’ve got two kids that are separated by two or three years and you as a family want a parent at home until they go to school, well that’s 7 or 8 years of missing out on that money which works out as around $250k based on a full time minimum wage job. I’m pretty hopeful that my wife would be earning more than minimum wage as well so for us it’s even more than that. On the plus side, she gets to spend more time with the kids although that probably feels like a mixed blessing some of the time!
Alternatively if both parents want to keep working then there will likely be childcare costs for the first 4 or 5 years and then before and after school care, as well as missing out on spending time with their kids. Because we haven’t gone down this route I don’t know exactly how much it costs, I do hear plenty of stories about it being $100 a day minimum around where I live and it’s a lot more in capital cities. There are subsidies available for this, but you can pretty easily be spending tens of thousands each year on childcare while they’re young and then once they’re old enough before and after school care.
You may be lucky enough to have grandparents or other family nearby that are happy to help out with this if they live nearby, but that won’t apply to everyone and it’s unlikely to reduce the cost entirely.
The costs that are yet to come At the moment our kids are still young and fairly inexpensive. Between the two of them they tend to eat roughly what a grown adult eats, but from what I’ve been told that will change fairly dramatically as they get older. They’ll need new clothes more frequently, more shoes, potentially play more sports, go on more school excursions, you get the idea.
Education could be another factor. There is a public high school that will be built in the next few years quite close by, and assuming that it’s decent our kids will likely be going there. But if it’s not, then we’ll have to look into private schools which can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands.
There will be extra curricular stuff as well. Given my wife and I are both horrible at music it seems unlikely that our kids will be doing extra lessons there, but there are plenty of other areas like sport or extra educational activities that we’d be considering. I know a few parents who have kids who are in elite sports programs (as in regional or state teams) and the costs here can very quickly add up, likewise if extra education is needed or wanted then that’ll be an extra expense.
Government and other assistance I know that depending on your circumstances that there can be government assistance in the form of Family Tax Benefit, childcare subsidy and possibly other programs as well. We don’t get any of these which is fine, we don’t need them and they are presumably meant to be for those who do. If you’re not sure if you should be getting any of these then Centrelink does have this payment finder.
We did get the one day a week Kinder program for 3yos and 3 days a week Kinder program for 4yos, although these both also came with costs of roughly $1,500 a year so it actually cost us money, again this is fine, just a reminder that it isn’t actually free.
Depending on your employer you may also be able to get parental leave for a while, and there is a minimum payment which they have to make so long as you’ve met some requirements. Some employers may also have some continuing support with subsidised childcare and the like. None of this was applicable to our situation but at least some of it will likely be available for others.
So what’s the bottom line? For us the biggest actual one off cost so far has been the bigger house and land that we purchased because we wanted our kids to be able to have plenty of space inside and outside the house. That cost about a hundred thousand dollars more than we would have paid if it were just the two of us. All the other stuff like a pram, car seats, cots/beds, mattresses and all the rest of it have been maybe $5,000 total, which is tiny by comparison.
The opportunity cost has been bigger than this though. When we had our first child when we were in Hong Kong my wife wasn’t working much anyway as there just weren’t that many jobs she could do and my wage easily supported both of us so she was doing some very casual part time work and so not doing that work afterwards didn’t impact us much.
In Australia though she probably would have been earning at least $40,000 a year after tax, so we’ve foregone almost $200,000 on an after tax basis there. Which as I’m sure you can imagine has a pretty big impact on when we will hit FIRE, particularly given we’ve got another few years or her not being in paid employment at all and then likely only working part time after that. So I would guess we’ll be looking at forgone earnings of at least $500,000 by the time all is said and done, and it could quite easily be a lot more.
The actual ongoing costs of the kids so far haven’t been too bad. Between the two of them it’s about $8,000 a year at the moment, although we would anticipate that this will go up a fair bit over time as they start eating more and getting into more extra curricular activities. I get that this is spending that isn’t a necessity, but do I really want my kids to miss out on a bunch of fun stuff so that I can retire a year or two earlier? No, no I do not.
So far the total costs look something like this. You can see that by far the biggest cost has been the earnings that we’ve missed out on because my wife has been at home looking after the kids and doing the household stuff (yes I do some of it because I think it’s important that we share the jobs and to role model stuff for the kids, but the reality is that she is at home a lot more than I am and does more of it). Buying a bigger house and land is next, and the actual costs of feeding and clothing and all the other one off stuff for the kids is a tiny proportion of the actual cost.
All up I’m hopeful that we can keep the ongoing costs to somewhere between $125k and $150k per child from birth through to age 18, although if private school is necessary then that will push up the costs a fair bit. This is less than half of what this article suggests, so although it sounds like a lot of money it’s actually fairly frugal by comparison.
To put it in perspective, it’s basically spending about 7 or 8 grand a year on each child. There are plenty of people out there who spend more than that on food alone, let alone the rest of their living expenses.
As I said earlier travel costs are on top of this, and this can increase the costs quite a lot! Travel is a huge part of the reason we’re pursuing HIFIRE, and we want to be taking the kids on plenty of holidays while they’re growing up.
That’s obviously discretionary spending to a large extent, but we do have close family living overseas who we want to see every couple of years or so, and it’s not fair to expect them to always be the ones travelling. I would guess that we’ll be looking at about $50k per kid in travel costs by the time they turn 18. That’s about 3 grand a year, which doesn’t sound wrong based on the cost of international travel. It may be less than that which would be great, but could also be a fair bit more.
So all up for the two kids we’re looking at about a million dollars from birth to age 18. About half of that is the foregone wages from not working, which is by far the biggest impact. The actual cost of the kids is about another 30%, then travel is 10%, another 10% for the bigger house and land. And then right at the end is less than 1% for the one off stuff like prams and baby seats and cots etc.
How could we spend less? Obviously there are other things we could be doing instead to keep the cost down. The biggest expense is the wages that aren’t being earned because my wife is looking after the kids and the household stuff. We could have chosen to have her work and instead pay for childcare and after school care etc.
If we did though then she wouldn’t get to spend as much time with the kids (which she tells would be welcome some of the time!) and there would be a lot more house work and shopping that would need to be done after work or on weekends for both of us, we’d potentially eat out more often as it’d be more of a hassle cooking meals each night, as well as a bunch of other tradeoffs.
So having her stay at home was our preferred method, and thankfully we’re in the financial position where we can afford to do it that way. Other people make different choices, or they’re unfortunately not in a position to make a choice, they need both partners working or if they’re a single parent have to do it this way.
We could have also gone with a smaller house and less of a backyard. I shared a bedroom with my brother for part of our childhood and we both managed fine. It’s not ideal, but it’s certainly doable, and we could have saved a lot of money by having a smaller house. Again we chose not to because we wanted a bigger house and a decent sized backyard for them to be able to run around in and we can afford it.
We don’t have to travel, although it’d be a bit rough expecting family to travel overseas to see us every year or two and then not reciprocating. Still, that would save a fair amount of money.
It’s pretty hard to say how things will work out with the actual costs of raising the kids. I know roughly what we’ve spent so far, but it’s pretty difficult to know what we’ll be spending in future as they get older. They’re likely to be eating a fair bit more food, s they grow they’ll need new clothes and shoes, they’ll presumably be playing sport and doing other extra curricular stuff which will all cost money.
$150k per kid from 0 to 18 seems like it’s a lot less than what it costs most people, but then we already live a fair bit more cheaply than most others so maybe it’s about right.
At the end of the day we’re happy with the choices that we’ve made so far, but there has certainly been some room to have spent less money than what we have, or to have had more money coming in through both of us being in paid employment. Obviously it has an impact on when we will hit our FIRE number, but I’d rather take a little bit longer to get there than to make different tradeoffs along the way.
Have you got kids or are thinking about having them? How do you think it will impact on your FIRE journey?
Original post with pretty charts, pictures, tables etc is here.

"Every summer Ōpōtiki simmers with opportunity like a pan of boiling water. Every year New Zealand’s kiwifruit growers produce around 149 million trays for export, and the Bay of Plenty is responsible for 80% of the crop. Three kiwifruit packing houses in town open up for the season.
Ōpōtiki is my home town, in a way. But there was a time when I couldn’t call it that: I moved with my family here when I was 15. Before that we lived in Lisbon. So it’s complicated for me to answer the question of where I really come from; it depends on what year you’re asking me about. My father is Portuguese; my mother is Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, from Te Kaha further along the coast on the East Cape. I couldn’t think of two stronger opposites.
For a long time after we arrived, I didn’t like it. In Lisbon I received consistently high marks for English, but here in brown-as Ōpōtiki my English sounded strict and formal, which didn’t help me fit in. I’d led a sheltered life in Portugal with almost no relatives, and attended a private school in a refurbished palace. Here I attended decile-one Ōpōtiki College and had loads of cuzzies. Rutaia was my bad-ass cousin whom many felt intimidated by. Everyone knew he was trouble and that connection made me untouchable at school. But nothing that happened in those days could make me love Ōpōtiki. When I left three years later to study film at Unitec in Auckland, I vowed I would never return.
In 2018 I’m back in Ōpōtiki – from Wellington, where I work in a call centre – for a summer holiday. It’s Mum’s first season working in the kiwifruit packing house. I warn her against it because I’ve heard it’s hard work and the pay isn’t good. Mum has done many jobs in her life, from working for my father’s security company in Portugal to admin, catering and teaching. The year has been a hard one for her, her only income from relief teaching a few days a week. My father’s retired, but he’s signed up for a second season at the packing house. Mum is adamant — the money will pay to refurbish the kitchen. "I can handle it," she tells me.
Town is bustling with new people wherever we go: at the supermarket, on the main drag, at Ju Bailey’s and the Masonic Hotel. People have travelled from around the country and overseas for the kiwifruit season: young European backpackers, Indian families, Tongans and Sāmoans. Kiwifruit season transforms the lives of locals too. Whatever your financial situation, you have the ability to make things better for the next few months at least. Couples worry less about bills, stay-at-home mothers break away from the monotonous rhythm of domestic life and high-schoolers work to put aside money for makeup, RTDs and beer. If it’s good enough for others, it’s good for Mum too.
There are several kiwifruit towns in the Bay of Plenty: Te Puke, Tauranga and Katikati are the best known. Mum’s packing house, on the edge of town in Ōpōtiki, attracts those who are not considered for better jobs elsewhere. Two thirds of them belong to racial minorities. A small number of young families who struggle in the cities drift to little Ōpōtiki too.
The beloved Bex's Hair Studio, Church Street, Ōpōtiki Mum works the unpopular night shift, on duty between 5.45pm and 4.15am.
"You should have taken the day shifts!" my father complains. "Too hard! Too much work they do!" My mother just tucks her hair into her bulbous factory white cap and says nothing. The choice of shift is so typically her. Mum takes the harder option and there is nothing anyone can do or say about it. She wants her shiny kitchen.
The only thing my father can cook is toast, so every evening I make dinner for us. I’m going through an Arab-Jewish phase, trying out recipes from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook. My father tries everything, from brown lentils and deep-fried onions in our mejadra to sumac sprinkles and yogurt on broad-bean dip. Even the couscous and stuffed eggplants, though he doesn’t usually eat vegetables. When I go back to Wellington, Mum will leave food for his dinner.
Her knees and feet are sore by the time she sneaks into bed, not long before birds start singing in the dawn-blue garden.

• ​

In town it’s widely thought that packing workers are mostly Māori, but not many work on the night shift. I’m surprised when Mum tells me this. We were both dead convinced only Māori would bother doing this work. In the evenings, 80-90 packers work at Mum’s packing house: about 10 are Māori, 10 are Pākehā and the rest are Sāmoans, Tongans, Indians and young foreigners. Plenty are backpackers who will move on to the South Island after the season. It lasts only six months and the Sāmoan and Tongan packers are the ones who are the most eager to go home.
I’m curious and always ask Mum about work in the packhouse. She explains her job to me: she selects grade A fruit from six-metre refrigerated containers, to be boxed for overseas orders. Grade B goes to national supermarkets and local food distributors: New Zealanders do not get the best golden kiwifruit. On his shift, my father packs some of the special orders that go to China. My father is almost 80, but no one would guess that — he looks much younger.
Mum’s best friend at work is Grant, who she describes as a Pom. He and his wife have lived on Auckland’s North Shore for four years. Grant had no profession when he moved to New Zealand and can only find work in hospitality via an agency. In Auckland he earns $200–300 a week, which is like shifting wind to your bank account and expecting things to be fine.
Grant saw an ad about the kiwifruit season and decided to come down alone. He sleeps in his car by the Mōtū Trails and rents a shower and bathroom nearby for $60 a week. He could rent a bed as well for $100 a week, but instead he saves the rest to send back to his family.
"You think brown ones have problems, but white ones have them too," Mum tells me as we drive around town in the black truck. She keeps sharing her work stories with me. At the packing house during their mealtime in the staff cafeteria, Mum and Grant gossip talk about his bisexuality.
"In the past I used to be only with men, would you know?"
"For fuck’s sake, Grant," she blurts out, spitting rice. "You’re gonna put me off my kai."
"And then I took a turn, I got married. I had three children."
"For fuck’s sake, did you stop being gay?"
"No, I still liked men. I used to be gay all the time! Then I met this girl, a New Zealand girl. We got together and decided to have a baby."
"Fuck, you’re weird." They share her fruit salad and half-sleeve of Krispie’s biscuits for dessert. Mum’s baffled by Grant’s apparent nonchalance about his sexuality.

• ​

Mum says working in the packing house is slavery. "Not just the Coconuts," she says, "but white slavery and the rest of us. We are all slaves." The Tongan and Sāmoan governments have contracts with the New Zealand government to bring workers in seasonally, and the kiwifruit workers think the Tongan packers have it worst of all. Mum’s Tongan friends have a contract with their government — their king and the royal family. They are hedged by restrictions: the furthest they are allowed to travel is Whakatāne, an hour’s drive away at most, and even on their days off they need permission to go.
Motunui Island, Te Kaha The Tongan packers come with minders, too, employed by the Tongan government to watch them. The Tongans are not allowed to form new relationships or have sex with anyone: the minders will know or be informed by others. The minders are part of the workforce that travels from Tonga for the kiwifruit season. Mum tells me there are workers among them who are snitches, hired by the employer. The pack-house employers also keep the Tongan workers under the thumb with draconian contract clauses. Mum says the other workers sometimes gossip about the conditions under which the Tongan packers come here. They know the packing house flies them over to New Zealand and makes them pay back the fare, but no one is allowed to talk about how much it costs. Mum thinks it’s likely that the packing house is screwing them with the airfare. None of the workers will ever know because the Tongan packers, even if they are Mum’s friends, are not allowed to discuss it.
The packing house provides accommodation too, with four roommates to one bedroom. Two double bunks where there used to be one, a lean pillow on each mattress. An acquaintance of Mum’s, who used to run the administration at the packing house, confirmed that only two people are supposed to sleep in each room. The four-to-one bedrooms are a recent addition for which the workers are charged $117 each per week. Mum’s disgusted by this. She says they have to share the bunks, and some barely fit on the mattress. The springs creak whenever they turn over in the metal bunk beds.
On a break, a young Tongan woman called Ana complains to Mum about their room.
"It’s very small. Got no space. I sleep with Emeni, Huelo and my sister. Emeni snores all the time."
"Why don’t you tell her to turn over?"
"It doesn’t matter. If Emeni’s on her back or her side, she snores. Emeni should be in room of her own."
"Why don’t you ask them about putting some of you on split shifts? Say, two on days and two on nights. At least then you get a bit of space in the room."
"No, they won’t let us."
The employers pile Tongan workers from the same shift into the same room, so the women Mum knows are always together. One might think this promotes sisterhood, Traveling Pants-style, but Ana doesn’t think so. She really can’t sleep.
Mum brings Ana apples and oranges from home to console her.
"You’re my best fend, Ra! I tell everyone you’re my fend."
Mum knows she’s Ana’s best friend because she brings her kai. Since we were little, my sisters and I were taught by Mum to take an offering with us whenever we were invited somewhere. In 2006 when I was back in Lisbon I showed up at my ex-boyfriend Paulo’s apartment in Coimbra, breathless, a purple net of brown onions in hand. I’d spent the last of my money on a train ticket to see him, and the onions were all I’d managed to grab from my sister Tina’s pantry. Paulo wasn’t just any boyfriend: he looked like the director Xavier Dolan, with dark features and a gentle but noticeable belly. When I moved to New Zealand he used to call me every night, but after I’d been in Ōpōtiki a couple of months, Paulo and I decided to cut all contact for our own good. We missed each other too much, and despite all our efforts at communicating the situation was unsustainable. Later he had started dating a girl from his rural home town with hair like Zooey Deschanel, who’d always tried to impress him at the disco.
During that 2006 visit to Portugal, Paulo emailed me just before I was about to leave for home. He had heard I was in Lisbon and asked if he could call me. I didn’t reply. Instead I packed red lipstick, electric-blue tights and a small bottle of perfume, grabbed the bag of onions and set out. Four hours after I received his email, I called him from the Coimbra train station. He came to meet me and we walked up the cobbled street to his home. There I could smell the sweetness of vanilla in the air, the scent of another girl. Carrying my onions because of that little voice of my mother’s that I could hear: Always bring something with you, no matter where you go.

• ​

On one occasion, Mum brings a box of fruit for Ana to share with everyone. Ana thanks her.
"Nahu, Emeni, Huelo say you’re they fend! When you going to Auckland, Ra? Can you buy me a hoodie? A 2XL hoodie." Mum plans to get her a $9 one from Kmart. She thinks Ana probably means a polar fleece one but doesn’t know how else to describe it. She asks her cousins and acquaintances from old jobs in Ōpōtiki, "Do you fellas have any nice warm jackets you don’t want anymore? Give them to me to wash, and I’ll give them to the Cocos."
Ana has a wide frame, golden skin and scarlet lips. They call her Big Tip. She’s a young mother of two; her wee ones — four and six years old — are back in Tonga. She’ll be away from them for the whole season. Mum learns that the Tongan packers who are good and play the game properly may return for future seasons. A handful of them come year after year.

• ​

Back at the call centre in Wellington, I ring strangers in Australia and ask them to donate to various charities – for epilepsy, families of kids with cancer, a police youth club. Lots of my co-workers are let go because they don’t reach their targets. Many quit after a few days or a few weeks. If anyone lasts a year, they’ll be there forever.
I talk to Mum on FaceTime. She tells me the packing house has had a big meeting with the Tongan workers. No one else knows what’s happening and they’re dying to find out. The Tongans packers are tight-lipped — even Mum’s friends — and won’t say why it took place. Grant and Mum try to spot whether anyone is missing in the evening shift group. See who shagged who out of the group. They can’t figure out what’s happened. Perhaps the Tongan packers are frightened that if they step out of line, they will get sent back to the Islands.
Omaio Pa Road, Omaio Work slows down for a fortnight and the packers only work three or four days a week. As a result the Tongans are not earning much money to send back to their families, and they’re hungry. Groups of Tongan packers sit near Mum and Grant’s table, looking at their food while they’re eating. When Mum takes out an apple, Ana asks for a bite.
Ana’s request makes Mum feel whakamā. She thinks about the strength it must have taken to ask. Though Ana’s sisterhood say nothing, they’re all staring at Grant’s kai. After this Mum starts packing larger portions in her bag.
Mum tells me that those Tongan packers who do have food eat two-minute noodles. Mum hates seeing the noodles in the cafeteria. Why not make a pot of something more nutritious together, instead? Sometimes she and Grant finish their shift before the meal break, and everyone gets sent home. If Ana is fast enough to catch Mum, she asks her, "Ra, you want to have something at home, eh?"
"You want my dinner?" Mum offers. It’s un-Islander of her Tongan friend to ask her so bluntly for the food. Ana, though, is a smarty pants and a bit of a hustler. Mum likes that about her. None of the other Tongan packers would ask, but somehow Mum attracts smart-arses wherever she goes.
"Share it," Mum tells her. "Make sure you share it with the others then, Ana."
"The ladies say they love your vegetables."
Besides Mum’s leftovers, her Tongan friends and the others also eat canned mackerel in oil with boiled pumpkin and rice. Grant eats the canned mackerel too; he tells Mum that it’s the cheapest thing, $2 a can. Grant mixes the oily goo with curry and rice. Once or twice a week Mum brings enough kai for them both.
On his last night at work Grant tells Mum that all he has to eat is a cold omelette with mayonnaise. As usual, Mum’s packed too much food and offers him some of her fettucine.
The four friends in the Tongan Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants brought frozen fish from the Islands, but they were limited in the amount they could bring. Within the first fortnight they ran out.
"Costs a lot of money to eat fish here. We can’t eat fish here! Only fish in a can."
"Don’t worry," Mum tells them. "A lot of New Zealanders can’t afford to eat it either. Māori are like you fellas, only eat noodles." Mum offers her big freezer to her Tongan friends, if any of them come back next year. They’ll be able to store more of their fish. Hopefully next time it will last them for a couple of months.
My parents eat pan-fried tarakihi almost every day. They scrimp on other essentials to have this pleasure. This town — along with many others along the East Cape — is known for its abundance of fresh seafood all year round: mussels, kina, raw fish, snapper, cod, you name it. The locals here are loud and proud of it. I always look forward to coming back home and eating that fish. It doesn’t taste as fresh anywhere else. And I look forward to pulling the bread apart with my hands at Mum’s table, eating roasted rīwai, grease stains of pleasure on the table cloth at the end of the meal.

• ​

After I did my film degree, I had a stint as a freelance camera operator. When I returned to Ōpōtiki for the holidays, my mother offered to teach me how to drive. One evening I was practicing night-driving home from Ōhope, my mother in the passenger’s seat. Just before we entered town and got that beautiful glimpse of the beach, my mother thought I was veering into the other lane. She grabbed the wheel to correct my steering and told me to slow down: I pressed the accelerator by mistake and the car spun out of control. We ended up in a ditch. I fractured my spine and spent three weeks in various hospitals, and after that I stayed at home with my parents in Ōpōtiki, trying to figure out what to do next. Most of my recovery time was spent cooking.
On my return to Auckland I studied to become a pastry chef. For almost three years at the Langham Hotel I made cakes for high tea and the restaurant. The hours were long and odd: I started work at 4am and finished at 2pm. I would be walking to work while other people were still out at clubs on K Road. Though I don’t do this work anymore, I still bake for my parents – Portuguese custard tarts, and farófias, poached meringues that look like clouds of egg white with a custard sauce. My father said his mother used to make these for him.
The last time I saw Paulo, he fried the onions I brought with chopped garlic, tuna and passata. He poured some wine in the pan and boiled the spaghetti. The remaining red wine he divided between two mugs so we could share it.

• ​

At the call centre we have a half-hour break for lunch between four-hour shifts. People sit in the staff kitchen eating lunch from Tupperware containers, or two-minute pot noodles. Many of us say we’re saving up for a trip, but no one ever takes leave. No one ever goes anywhere.
My mother tells me that the newer packing line is used by the daytime workers and the older, shorter one in the evening shift. A deafening mix of 90s covers chosen by one of the Sāmoan packers blares from two big speakers, so loud the workers can barely hear each other speak. The Tongan and Sāmoan packers love to sing along to the old tunes. During the odd slower song, some get teary-eyed thinking of home.
Mum tries to chat to Emeni the Snorer while they are packing together on the line. Fold that box, careful to not get cut by the sharp corners and on to the next one! Ten seconds is all they have between packing this box and the next. Mum asks Emeni why she doesn’t go fishing on her days off. The beach is close by.
"We are not allowed to go fishing. In Tonga, ladies stay home. Ladies wash the clothes."
"But you’re in New Zealand! Can’t you do that if you’re not home?"
"No, Ra. Still Tongan lady."
Mum asks Ana too. Maybe she will dare to go fishing — she’s the youngest, after all. But Ana gives a similar reply. Her Tongan friends know they have to carry that aspect of Tongan culture wherever they go. All they can do is keep on working, keep going. Hide away in their difference.
Grant and Catarina's mum celebrate the end of season At their packhouse, the end of the season is celebrated with a huge barbecue for the staff. At least, that’s what Mum was told. On the six-metre-long packing lines where Mum and the others usually work they have placed rotisserie-cooked chickens, meat patties, sausages, curried egg salad, potato salad and coleslaw — all bought from the local supermarket.
"Pai kare!" she complains to Grant. "They didn’t even cook anything. Except for the fucking patties! Can you believe this?"
All the Tongan and Sāmoan packers, Indian families and backpackers are there. The Tongan Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants are dressed to the nines. The women all wear the same shade of lipstick, a brighter red than usual, and new pants in a slimming fit. Emeni wears a bright yellow hoodie. They tell her that Ana fell ill and has gone home.
Mum is glad to hear that. Things went sour between her and Ana in the last few weeks. Ana had told Mum how much she and the girls missed eating taro, their favourite food from back home. You couldn’t buy it on the coast. Mum happened to remember this when she was on a visit to Auckland. She bought six kilos of taro from the Avondale markets, and they weren’t cheap.
On her next shift back Mum gave Ana the big box of taro and told her to share it with the women in her room. In the following weeks Mum saw her eating the taro in the cafeteria, but only with her friend Huelo. That wasn’t fair — Mum had bought it for all of them. Ana never wore the hoodie Mum got her either.

• ​

For that final meal there’s fruit trifle made by the bosses: too-soggy sponge with fruit from cans and a custard that’s runny like soup. The most hideous dessert is a pineapple and mango cheesecake: loose biscuit crumbs topped with canned pineapples and whipped cream folded into fresh mangos. It's the most bizarre thing Mum has eaten, even in all her years of helping in the marae kitchen.
An older Tongan man in loose khaki shorts, white socks and jandals sits on a wooden crate by the soggy trifles, playing the ukulele. Grant tells Mum that he’s not going back to his wife. "I feel like being just gay again," he says, "for a while." They hug and say goodbye.
Mum decides to skip her shift. Stuff it. She zips back home in the car to my father and a night in a real bed. A new school has offered her more stable work, so she’ll be earning regular money.
I ask her if she’d work as a packer again and Mum says she would. The money from this season has gone on fixing up the bathroom. She still wants a new kitchen.
Catarina's essay is taken from the exceptional new anthology of New Zealand writing, Ko Aotearoa Tātou: We are New Zealand edited by Michelle Elvy, Paula Morris and James Norcliffe (Otago University Press, $40), available in bookstores nationwide.

Catarina De Peters Leitão

Catarina de Peters Leitãoe (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui) is a writer born and raised in Lisboa, currently living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She has a master's in creative writing from Victoria University and won the Letteri Family Scholarship for her essay collection in progress."

I initially started writing this as a small post but it just kind of blew up as I dug through the state of fashion and its environmental and social impacts. I know this topic is brought up fairly regularly in this community, but I think as we move forward as a community it is important to have this information ready and available for new converts to MFA. Like the basic bastard wardrobe or the recurring rundowns on specific pieces (this recent one on chore coats is one of my personal favorites it gives fashion novices a roadmap to understand the space and dip their toe into this wonderful world of fits and fashion. I would love to do something similar for sustainable fashion and the crazy, convoluted world of certifications, greenwashing, and actually reducing your footprint in environmental and human misery. I’ve broken impacts down into 3 categories: Environmental Impacts, Social Impacts, and Certifications.
Environmental Impacts: Ok, so I think the majority of the posts I’ve come across on this topic have to do with the environmental impacts of fast fashion and the fashion world at large. With companies like Patagonia mounting large campaigns around the environment, ‘green’ fashion has become a popular point with both consumers and producers. While some producers are making some good initial steps in the right direction, others are merely using the hype to sell more product. The world resources institute did a great article on the impacts of fast fashion with some fantastic infographics on how it’s changed our consumption habits and how those affect the environment. In this section I’ll be diving into six categories: farming (land conversion/pollution/runoff), material extraction, pollution, shipping impacts, ‘unwilding’ (like deforestation and wetlands loss), and total carbon footprint. Before I jump into these topics, I want to define some terms as there can be a lot of jargon in this area that can be used to purposely confuse or trick consumers into thinking a product is ‘good’ for earth. I want to throw a caveat that while I am hard on recycling and organics, they are still the processes we should be moving toward and are decent steps in the right direction. It is not a reason to ignore those options, but just to think critically about how beneficial they are and how reducing consumption overall might be better than relying on those bandages.
Green Washing: I think most people are familiar with ‘green washing’ but if you’re not, it just means that brands are using marketing to say they are doing something beneficial for the planet while ignoring or covering up their largely problematic practices. Many of the big names, like Zara, H&M, and Uniqlo, are attempting to do it.
Recycling: Here is a term I thought I understood but it might surprise you how recycling works and what the outcomes are. I was raised in the age of Captain Planet and the recycling boom so I assumed recycling is a great catch all for reducing landfill waste. As just a quick overview, while recycling can be better than using virgin material sources, common recycling methods are inefficient and in many cases end up as trash themselves. This is a decent paper on the efficiency of recycling when it does work and this article on the issue facing our current supply chain limitations.
Micro Plastic: Plastics have really become the scapegoat of the 21st century, however they are indeed still an issue. Micro plastics are waste that escape from all types of plastic goods but what we’re concerned about is the role of polyester clothing. Polyester clothing makes up nearly 60% of all clothing produced. In every load of polyester clothing washed, millions of plastic microfibers make their way into our waterways and oceans. In some studies, up to 80% of ocean micro plastics are polyester microfibers.
Carbon Footprint: Carbon footprint just means the total amount of carbon(C02) spent to produce the product and get it into your hands. That means the total spend making the cotton, polyester, or wool, shipping it to a textile factory, creating the garment, creating the packaging for the garment, shipping that off to the distribution center, storing the garment, trucking that off to a specific store, selling that garment, and having you take it home. All of the touch points that one piece went through had a cost, both financial and environmentally, to get it there. There are many organizations dedicated to understanding the carbon footprint of products like ISO or Carbon Trust. Organic: I’ll start out the textbook definition of organic agriculture written by The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)
An integrated farming system that strives for sustainability, the enhancement of soil fertility and biological diversity while, with rare exceptions, prohibiting synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified organisms, and growth hormones.
Within the United States organic certification is undertaken by the USDA. The specifications effectively call for a halt in the use of traditionally farmed (ei. agro-chemically) land for three years to lay fallow before the production of ‘organic’ produce can begin. This is one of the biggest hurdles for farmers to convert. However there are subsidies available from both the government and non-profit sector. Effectively organic reduces the amount of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that can be used on a plot of land to a near negligible amount. There are still negative impacts of farming associated with organic farms that will never go away namely: water usage, organic fertilizer runoff, and monoculture degradation of topsoil. That said they are a huge leap forward from standard, chemical heavy farming.
Now that we have that out of the way let’s jump into the meat of the issue.
1.) Farming: Farming and the production of the raw materials for garments is the single biggest issue associated with them. I’ll talk about shipping and carbon footprint later, but this is where the majority of environmental damage happens. I’m going to do a TLDR first and then dive deeper into each issue. TLDR: The big takeaways from the environmental impacts of farming are that with increased demand come increased farming (which means destruction of native habitat like woodlands or wetlands), removal of water for crop irrigation from river watersheds (that compound the effects of increasing droughts from climate change (shout out to my other Californian’s feeling this particularly hard)), the runoff from agriculture cause huge algae blooms and create dead zones in the rivers, lakes, and oceans downstream (not even pollutants, I’m talking like fertilizer and nutrients), and pesticides used during production add to the reduction in insects that drives biodiversity loss. (I’m even leaving out the transportation of fertilizer, water, and the product itself as that will be addressed in shipping but remember that is still part of the problem with farming)
Ok that was a big TLDR, but I think it reflects the big impacts farming has on our environment. Remember this is only one of six total impacts of garment production on our environment.
-1. Destruction of ecological habitats: Globally there are over 35 million hectares of cotton are under cultivation. That is the size of Germany, 351127 km². This land is distributed primarily across the United States, China, India, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Brazil, and Turkey in habitats like flood plains, forests, and chaparral. Remember, any land used for agriculture was once a healthy native habitat.
-2. Excessive water removal: This is one of the best understood impacts of cotton production. One standard cotton shirt takes around 2,700 liters of water to produce. That is enough for you to stay hydrated for 2.5 years! National Geographic has a good short minute long video on it here. I think that metric makes it easier to understand how much water we are removing from already stressed systems. I actually learned a new word in researching this topic, gigameters. It turns out we use 256 gigameters of water to produce cotton globally. Every year the fashion industry uses 93 billion cubic meters of water — enough to meet the consumption needs of five million people. There are many examples of what happens when water extraction decimates native ecosystems but the Aral Sea is the best example. The Aral Sea, once the world 4th largest lake, now completely dried due to cotton production and climate change.
-3. Runoff and effluent: Another huge impacting factor from cotton production is the runoff of fertilizer and nutrients into our surrounding waterways. These additional nutrient loads drive excessive algae growth that remove oxygen from waterways and suffocate life in impacted habitat. While there are great examples across the world, one of the most visible examples is the runoff from the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers that chokes out the coastal waters of the Caribbean Sea. This map, look specifically at coastal dead zones, shows the dead zones caused by agricultural runoff. The majority of runoff is caused by meat production, however in areas like Monterey, California showcase how fertilizer runoff is an additional compounding factor.
-4. Pesticides: While cotton account for 2.5% of the total agricultural land use, cotton accounts for 24% of the world’s insecticides and insecticides/pesticide use is a key driver of biodiversity loss.. Excessive pesticide is responsible for making 41% of insects in decline, 33% are at risk of extinction. However their impacts extend beyond insects, pesticides also harm wildlife in habitats where it is discharged by runoff like river watersheds, wetlands, and forests. Bird populations, amphibians, and mammals including humans. Human health is a huge element and has been studied at depth, but I’ll dive into that more during the social impacts of fashion. All I’ll say for now is that it affects nearly every system in our bodies, from reproductive to nervous to circulatory systems.
If you want some very extended reading on the impacts of cotton production, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has very detailed guidelines. Ok, we’re through farming, let’s keep going!
2.) Material Extraction: Ok, so we’ve now seen the impacts of cotton production on the environment, but as they only make up 40% of the total textile market in fashion let’s take a look at synthetics that make up 60% of the total fashion market. Every year [the fashion industry uses over 70 million barrels of oils to make polyester each year]((https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/12/03/making-climate-change-fashionable-the-garment-industry-takes-on-global-warming/#19b72da479e4). To put that in perspective, that’s almost that same as two weeks worth of the total United States transportation usage. Every single car, truck, and train in the United States. Leading experts now believe that polyester is the single largest contributor of micro plastics. Each load of wash sends around 1,900 individual plastic fibers into our waterway and oceans. One of the most positive aspects of polyester is that it is completely recyclable, and it is also possible to manufacture polyester from recycled plastics. This means that we can access the benefits of polyester without needing to manufacture from virgin petroleum stocks. However, be wary of ‘recycled polyester’ as this will often be an attempt at green washing. In some cases the 5% recycled materials will just mean a longer tag made of the material while the actual shirt remains all virgin materials.
3.) Pollution: I think pollution is the specter of environmental destruction we were all taught about. It featured heavily in captain planet, pokemon, and Fern Gully. It is environmental damage incarnate. But that being said, I think our illustrations of pollution miss some of the biggest implications of carbon emissions (10% of global total), impacts to drinking water and watershed habitats, and insect death.
Total Carbon Footprint: Carbon emissions, as part of increasing greenhouse gasses, are the leading cause of climate change. Globally, the fashion industry is responsible for 10% of those emissions. Unlike all other sections, I think that might be enough said on the topic.
Social Impacts: While the social implications of the fashion industry pop onto our radar every now and then, particularly when something catastrophic happens like the 2013 factory collapse or [2012 fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fire] in Bangladesh, outrage is often quickly forgotten and ew return to business as usual. For this post I’m defining the social impacts of fast fashion are any negative impacts the production of the textile products in question have on the surrounding communities or company workforce. There is an argument that the degradation of the adjacent environment is a negative impact, but as I’ve addressed that in environmental impacts I’ll be focusing on slavery, wages, working conditions, and human health.
Slavery: Today slavery takes a variety of forms, but here I’m going to address the three main issues: The Chinese created Uyghur concentration camps, the United States prison system, and human trafficking at large. I’m sure there are more examples of it, but these are the stars in the spotlight and that’s what I’m going to focus on.
Chinese Concentration Camps: While horrible working standards and the use of slave labor have been rife within China for decades, the new creation of Uyghur concentration camps is the most recent atrocity. These ‘re-education’ camps are now functioning as effective slave labor loan programs. The article linked above explains the heart of the issue so much more succinctly than I could.
Here is a list of fashion brands that are currently engaged in Uyghur forced labor contracts: Gap Nike Uniqlo H&M Adidas Abercrombie and Fitch Amazon Calvin Klein Fila Jack and Jones LL Bean Lacoste The North Face Polo Ralph Lauren Puma Sketchers Tommy Hilfiger Zara
United States Prison System: I’m sure some of you have tuned into 13th on Netflix that dives into the continuation of the slavery in the United States through our prison system. I’ll be the first one to embarrassingly admit, I knew about prison labor, but I assumed it was for government equipment such as license plates. I’m not sure it is much better, but I was shocked to see how many companies are using and abusing our system in the search for even greater profits. A group to be aware of is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that promoted mandatory minimum sentencing and the three-strikes law, which drastically increases the length of sentencing for people convicted of more than two serious crimes. Many corporations who back their policies also profit from the use of prison laborers.
Here is a list of fashion brands that are currently engaged in US prison system contracts: Fruit of the Loom Target Walmart - Saying it won’t use prison labor on products, but uses it to dispose of returns and excess inventory. JCPenny Macy’s KMart
Here is a list of fashion brands that have engaged in US prison system contracts in the past: Nordstroms - Sold jeans made in prisons, now pledged to no longer do so Eddie Bauer (Not as relevant to male fashion but adding it incase anyone purchases for gifts) Victoria’s Secret - used prison labor in the 90s
More articles (1, 2, 3) on labor abuses built into the fabric of the US prison system.
Human Trafficking: [Human traffed slave labor can be used to pick the cotton, sew the garment, and even to model the finished product(https://www.dressember.org/blog/dressemberreadingday22)]. Convoluted supply chains allow for brands to deny responsibility or culpability for enabling these practices while the pursuit of cheap prices drive them to be more and more common. There have been a number of examples in the news from the big case around Nikein the 90sto more recently with messages for help on Zara tags. According to the Global Slavery Index, $127 billion worth of garments are created by slave labor and imported annually to G20 countries (like the United States and Canada). In many cases these slaves are children and their hands are better for fine detail work and picking cotton. There are too many examples of how the fashion industry benefits from loose labor and slavery laws.
Human Health: The human health impacts from fashion production are huge so I won’t be able to tackle everything but with the highlights I’ll cover here and some of the points I touched on it throughout the other sections I think we should get a pretty good understanding of it.
Production: Most polyester is produced in countries such as China, Indonesia and Bangladesh where environmental regulations are lax, and air and water pollution is often discharged untreated, resulting in significant pollution and harm to communities in the vicinity of (as well as downstream and downwind of) manufacturing plants.
Distribution: Pollution impacts aren’t just from the production of clothes. The shipping and distribution of fashion products also contribute to the negative health effects of our global transportation system. At our current pace, the fashion industry’s greenhouse gas emissions will surge more than 50% by 2030](https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/09/23/costo-moda-medio-ambiente).
End of Garment Life: When clothes reach the end of their life, [which for not a small number of clothes happens without ever being worn. In 2018, H&M had a surplus of 4.8 billion dollars worth of unsold merchandise that was eventually burned. Likewise, Burberry admitted to burning 37 million dollars worth of product, rather than selling them at reduced rates. Our pollution is not just driven by utility but by brands actively and purposefully wasting product.
Certification Agencies: Ok, with so many different impacts to both humans and the environment it’s nice that we have some certifications that can signal us which brands are putting their bottom line where their marketing team is, but unfortunately this gets a little complicated too. With convoluted supply chains, diverse impacts, and an insane number of stakeholders, the certification market is kind of like the wild west. This is good for fast fashion, as it makes it easy to give yourself some random certification and who can tell if it is a legitimate or bogus certification (think of Chevy and the J.D.Power Awards). This convoluted space also makes it hell for consumers. It is hard to be a continuous consumer. A company that works with all sustainably raised, organic cotton might be made with slave labor. The made in America brand could be using sweatshops in Los Angeles paying their workers two to six dollars an hour. With that in mind, let’s dive in.
I’d like to start by giving a big shout out to Ecocult, particularly this article. I’m really just reformatting their legwork to make it more consumable. They have even more info on who gets certified and more guidelines in the original article.
Material Specific Certifications:
Cotton - Better Cotton Initiative (BCI)
Leather - Leather Working Group (LWG)LWG approves and/or rates (Gold, Silver, or Bronze) leather tanneries and leather traders based on how their production processes affect the environment. Audits can be done by several third parties using the same set of standards. They take into account things like waste management, energy consumption, water usage, traceability, restricted substances, and more.
Timber- Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)FSC is a global not-for-profit organization that ensures that companies using timber from an FSC-certified forest meet their standards along the entire supply chain.
Wool - Climate Beneficial Developed by the non-profit Fibershed, Climate Beneficial wool comes from animals that were raised in such a way that more carbon was sequestered than emitted! Right now, the project is focused on wool, but in the future they may expand to other materials.
Vegan - PETA The PETA-Approved Vegan label signifies that the brand or product has signed PETA’s statement of assurance verifying that their product is vegan. This is based only on self-reporting and brands are not audited to confirm what they state is true. Also, you should know that just because something is vegan doesn’t mean it’s good for the environment. In fact, it’s often the opposite; many vegan leather alternatives such as PU are toxic to humans and the earth.
Environmental Certifications:
Global Organic Textile Standard: GOTS is one of the most trustworthy and wholistic certifications. It covers the processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, trading, and distribution of all textiles made from at least 70% certified organic natural fibers. The textiles must meet a certain set of environmental standards (toxicity, wastewater, etc.) as well as social criteria in accordance with the International Labor Organization.
OEKO-TEX: This certification is based on the chemicals found in the product. This certification tests for substances like toxic chemicals that are harmful to humans. Well respected and trusted. Bluesign: Bluesign is a common certification given to textile manufacturers who are producing in a way that is safe for both humans and the environment. They take into consideration everything from water waste to dye toxicity to worker and consumer safety and more.
Cradle to Cradle: Since it’s focused primarily on circularity rather than just the ethics of production on the front end, the Cradle to Cradle process and certification could have the potential to transform the way we think about and manufacture consumer goods. Organic Content Standard: Originally developed for cotton but later expanded to other types of textiles, the OCS provides a strict chain of custody system from the organic raw material source to your finished product. The OCS Certification was written by the Textile Exchange (originally named Organic Exchange), an international, member-supported, non-profit organization.
United State Department of Agriculture Organic: USDA Organic products are certified by the US government if they meet strict standards in their growing and harvesting process. They cannot be treated with any pesticides, synthetics, fertilizers, hormones, or other types of additives. Regenerative Organic Certified: Still a pretty new certification that is pilot testing, Regenerative Organic Certification goes beyond organic to be a holistic agriculture certification encompassing pasture-based animal welfare, fairness for farmers and workers, and robust requirements for soil health and land management.
EcoCert: ECOCERT is an independent inspection and certification company that specializes in organic agriculture products. For textiles, the ECOCERT label means the fabric is either GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard), OCS (Organic Content Standard), and/or Ecological & Recycled Textiles (Ecocert Standard) certified.
Human/Environment Certifications: National Sanitation Foundation (NSF): Originally called the National Sanitation Foundation, NSF is a third-party certification that ensures human and environmental safety across several different industries.
Social/Labor Certifications:
SA8000: Established by Social Accountability International (SAI), SA8000 is a social certification standard for factories and organizations across the globe. Standards are in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Labour Organization (ILO): conventions and include things like child labor, forced labor, health and safety, discrimination, working hours, and more.
Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP): WRAP is a social compliance certification that works with facilities primarily in apparel, footwear, and sewn goods . Factories are audited in categories such as forced labor, benefits, and discrimination, and then given a platinum, gold, or silver certification.
NEST: While there are several great certifications that audit labor standards in factories (see above), there wasn’t one that ensured ethical working standards for all of the labor that’s done within homes (where some estimates say as much as 60% of production takes place, according to Nest).
Fairtrade International: Fairtrade International works with small farmers, producers, and traders around the globe who meet strict standards. Though the specifics of these standards vary by industry, they include factors like fair wages, safe working conditions, and supply chain transparency, all audited by FLOCERT.
FLOCERT: FLOCERT is the B2B certifying body that audits for Fair Trade International. They also have a couple other programs: EDGE (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) and SMETA (Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit) Social Audits for supply chains.
Fair Trade USA: It’s a bit confusing because Fairtrade International and Fair Trade USA used to be the same entity; however, they separated when Fair Trade USA wanted to give large farms the opportunity to be certified as well. Fair Trade USA uses many of the same labor standards as Fair Trade International, while also including certain environmental standards like the prohibition of GMOs and toxic chemicals. This is the body that certified certain Madewell and J.Crew denim styles as Fair Trade, in fact.
Ethical Clothing Australia: ECA is an accreditation body that works with local textile, clothing, and footwear businesses to ensure their Australian supply chains are legally compliant. That means workers are being paid appropriately, receiving all their legal minimum entitlements, and working in safe conditions throughout the entire supply chain.
Business Model Ethics Certifications:
B Corp: B Corp Certification is the only certification that measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance, from supply chain and input materials to employee benefit and more. Each company gets a B Impact score, indicating how much room there is for improvement. B Corp’s long term goal is not just to certify companies, but to usher in a new economy where companies are legally required to balance purpose and profit.
Eco-Age: Eco-Age is a consultancy that awards their brandmark to brands that have been validated by Eco-Age and meet the Eco-Age Principles for Sustainable Excellence. These principles include a wide range of areas, including fair work, community, diversity and inclusion, environmental management, leadership, animal welfare, and more.
Member Networks:
Ethical Trading Initiative: ETI is a network. In order to be a member, companies must adhere to ETI’s Base Code, which ensures that works have freely chosen their employment, are being paid fairly, are working in safe conditions, and more. Companies are required to submit annual reports to prove compliance. ETI also works to play a key role in lobbying governments to set and enforce fair labor laws.
Canopy: Canopy is an international nonprofit organization that works with over 750 companies to protect ancient and endangered forests. When it comes to clothing, modal, which is a rayon/viscose fabric, is often used as a ‘sustainable’ alternative to synthetics and more resource-intense natural fibers like cotton. However, Canopy states that using these materials is leading to deforestation, so it’s important to make sure the ‘eco-friendly’ fabrics in your clothing are actually being sourced sustainably.
Higgs Index: Developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), the Higg Index is a suite of tools that enables brands, retailers, and facilities of all sizes — at every stage in their sustainability journey — to accurately measure and score a company or product’s sustainability performance. The Higg Index delivers a holistic overview that empowers businesses to make meaningful improvements that protect the well-being of factory workers, local communities, and the environment.
Fair Trade Federation: Fair Trade Federation is also a network. In order for a company to be a member, they must meet strict ethical standards—like safe working conditions, living wages, and environmental stewardship—the way they would be a certification. Fair Trade Federation membership is based on self-reporting and is not audited by a third party.
Fair Labor Association: When companies or suppliers sign on to become FLA compliant, they begin a two or three year implementation process during which they work toward bringing their supply chains into compliance with the FLA Workplace Code of Conduct, which ensures safety and health for workers. At the end of the implementation period, FLA evaluates whether the company can be considered for accreditation.
Fair Wear Foundation: The Fair Wear Foundation is a membership that’s focused specifically on labor standards in the garment industry. The non-profit organization works with garment brands, factories, trade unions, NGOs, and governments to improve working conditions for garment workers to audit and educate based on a set of standards that ensure worker welfare.
1% For the Planet: 1% For the Planet is a network that includes companies of any shape or size from any industry who are committed to giving back 1% of their gross sales to help the planet. 1% For the Planet provides advice and helps pair organizations with trusted nonprofits and certifies all donations annually to ensure compliance.
Good on You: Good On You is a rating system. It helps you identify which fashion brands are the “least” and “most” ethical and sustainable based on things like transparency, fair working conditions, environmental production practices, and animal welfare. Each brand gets a rating from worst (“We Avoid”) to best (“Great”). In order for brands to display the “Good On You Rated” label, they must achieve a “Good” or “Great.”
Suggestions
Total Consumption: Reduce your total consumption, if this means spending more money on clothes that will last longer and look better, great. But the big takeaway is to buy less. If you still need that extra thrill of the purchase, thrift as much as you can. A reused item saves a garment from heading to the dump and fills the place of a potential virgin item. If a garment has hit the end of its life, there are a number of things you can do and it all depends on why you are getting rid of the clothes. Is it a high fashion piece you’re sick of? Great, sell it on grailed, ebay, or give it to a friend. Is it a garment that wouldn’t have resale value but still has life left? Donate it to your local Goodwill, Salvation Army, or favorite thrift shop. Is it just too far gone to pass on? Sounds like it’s ready to be recycled or turned into the perfect cleaning rag! Recycled rags are a great way to cut down on single use cleaning materials like Swifers, paper towels, or synthetic sponges.
Materials: This is a complicated beast that will take some research to understand each individual producer. Looking for some of the certifications we talk about earlier will help, but there are some key hints that can help you. Organic natural materials are a huge step forward as far as reducing pesticides, so always try to go that route over standard industrial cotton. Right now only 1% of cotton is organic so you will have to pay a premium but it will help move the dial in the right direction. Wool, hemp, and linen are great alternatives. They are more water efficient (hemp is the most water efficient, then linen) and require fewer pesticides. Polyester is it’s own confounding issue. I love sport wear, so when it comes to polyester I understand buying it for it’s sweat wicking and quick drying properties. I think the key here is to buy quality that will last a long time. If you are looking at more expensive options, look at how many years they are likely to last. At companies like Patagonia you can call customer service and ask how many sessions they anticipate a jacket will last. If they say 1-2 years, do not buy it. For non-waterproof gear, again just go for quality that will last and learn how to repair your clothes.
Real Cost: Lastly, remember to think about the true cost of an item. I know a lot of us don’t have much money, but a $5.00 three pack of plain cotton or polyester tees from Walmart has a much larger ecological and social cost to them. It’s important to take these things into consideration when making purchases and think about alternatives when you can. Plus, who doesn’t love a little patina on their gym or hiking tees. It’ll make it look like you’ve been doing it longer ;) I am aware how much easier this is for wealthy consumers, but there are options for everyone!
Brands: To be honest, researching this was incredibly difficult. There are many brands that are positioning themselves as sustainable or eco-conscious, however most take on one component of the overall problem or a small initiative at a huge corporation. It makes me reticent to give out any green lights on who to buy as it likely won’t be a cover all for the brand's products. My suggestion, do your research and buy products you really like that will last a long time and buy less.
TLDR: There are tons of negative impacts from fashion, particularly fast fashion, and while I don’t want to demonize the whole industry I think it’s important to understand where your clothes come from, where/how they are produced, and know the practices of the companies you’re supporting with your purchases. As the old adage goes: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle IN THAT ORDER! Take time and go watch the Lorax