In the last few months, we have made a real effort to turn a darker shade of green. I mean, I’ve always recycled, minimised water usage and turned off the lights, but recently we’ve stepped it up a notch. All these changes have been really easy to implement and although they are great for the planet, they are also nice on the hip pocket.
1. We’ve replaced most of the light bulbs in our house with compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. They might cost more to purchase but they last for years and save money on your electricity bill. To be honest, they weren’t even that expensive to buy. We got a bulk pack from Costco and replaced the high-use bulbs in our house first. As the rest of our regular bulbs need replacing, we’ll swap in more CFLs.
2. We walk to the grocery store and carry home our shopping in reusable canvas bags. It’s great for the environment and even better for our biceps. It takes a little strategic packing, but we have the clerks at the grocery store well trained now. We make a point of refusing all plastic bags and it’s been interesting to watch people’s reactions to our explanations. I must say, recently we’ve been getting less strange looks. Perhaps it’s catching on.
3. We buy less stuff. I have a real problem with buying more new things which just adds to to the amount of waste produced. We’ve decided to try and buy everything second-hand, but so far it’s just meant we haven’t bought anything. I intend to try craigslist.org and freecycle.org when we get the chance.
4. I use the local library. I love to read. I inhale books and of course I have the bookshelves to prove it. To my credit I’ve bought 90% of my books second hand, but it’s still money and still paper. In about 60% of cases now, I can find the book I want in the local library. I can check online and if it’s not available I can then choose whether to buy it or not. One of these days I’ll try some of those book swapping websites.
5. We repair. Actually, my husband repairs and I congratulate him on what an amazing job he’s done. He’s extremely resourceful and has saved many an item from the scrap heap. Most recently he’s given a second life to a beloved pair of shoes I’ve had for about 10 years and a pair of sunglasses on which the arm had completely snapped off. Not only has this saved us quite a substantial amount of money, but I get to keep using items I love and we save them from becoming landfill.
6. We minimise our heating. So far we’ve managed to not turn the heater on at all. On cold nights we put more clothes on, use a throw rug and snuggle. We open all the blinds that allow sunlight in during the day and then closed everything up mid afternoon as the sun drops low.
7. We regularly give the car a checkup. Actually my husband maintains the car and I congratulate him for having so many useful skills. Having dirty oil or a dirty air filter actually costs you more to run the car. A quick tune-up will see your car run more efficiently and it will emit less pollution.
8. We turn of the tap (faucet). It’s such an easy one. We don’t need to keep water running while cleaning our teeth or peeling potatoes. We water our very minimal lawn as little as possible and we wash the car at a car wash that recycles their water. When we lived in Australia we would always be on water restrictions. It was a normal part of life in a dry country. Now we live in California, another very dry place and we are horrified at the amount of water that is wasted.
9. We utilise reusable water bottles and mugs. There is no need for a new plastic water bottle every time I want a drink. I just refill my BPA-free bottle with filtered tap water. I also carry my travel mug with me on trips to the coffee cart. My barista appreciates that I bring my own and do my bit to reduce the horrendous amounts of paper and plastic cups making their way into landfill.
10. We are starting to buy more local and seasonal food. We eat all the fruit off our orange and apple trees. We frequent our local farmers market and do our best to identify local produce in our grocery store. We still have a very long way to go on this task, but at least we’ve made a start. Next year, we are starting a small vegetable garden in our courtyard.
There are plenty of other simple, cost effective things we should be doing. Can you suggest any we can implement right now??
Photo by: Orcoo
This is fabulous! Congratulations on all the wonderful changes!
Other ideas would be:
1) We put a low flow shower head and new low-flow aerators in to further cut down on water use. Here’s the post where I talk about it. It has links to the products we bought:
http://simple-green-frugal.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-low-can-we-go-water-conservation.html
2) We use a bucket in the shower to catch the water while it is heating up (while the stream is too cold to get in yet) and use the water in the garden.
3) When I steam veggies or boil potatoes, I save the water. It works great as a veggie broth in soups or for cooked rice.
4) I learned how to bake my own bread last spring. I didn’t expect to be able to do it, let alone enjoy it, but it’s so much fun and we’ve saved lots of money.
5) I make all my own greeting cards. I used old calendars, ribbons, old maps, construction paper and whatever colored paper or pictures that come in the mail that I think may be useful. We’ve saved a TON this way!
6) Making your own household cleaners is a big savings too. There are recipes all over the internet.
7) We cancelled cable almost a year ago and don’t miss it at all. The few shows we do enjoy are free on the internet or we can rent through the library.
Hope this helps!
Good ones Heather. We are actually doing a couple of those things already, but I forgot to mention them! I’m sure I’ll do another post down track as we implement more new things into our life. Thanks for the great feedback.
Making your own cleaners can help a lot–in a lot ofways. Since switching over almost a year ago, I’ve hardly spent any money on cleaners for our home. An excellent list of ideas/recipes may be found here:
http://down—to—earth.blogspot.com/2007/08/various-recipes-for-green-cleaning.html
Making your own cleaners eliminates a lot of waste, is a lot less toxic, is more frugal, and really doesn’t take much time or effort at all.
Just a thought!
[...] My Rich Life tells us how they save money while turning green. “Green living” and frugality often go together. I liked many of the suggestions in this [...]
[...] My Rich Life tells us how they save money while turning green. “Green living” and frugality often go together. I liked many of the suggestions in this [...]
[...] How we save money while turning green was included in the Money Hacks Carnival [...]