SAVE GREEN

GOING GREEN

These are a few ways you can do to save money while being eco-friendly.  If you have a limited budget you can always start with the free ones first and then try and add another step as you can afford them. In the long run, the savings will far outwiegh the initial cost! 

Save green going green.

Reduce Energy Consumption

·       Insulate! Insulate! Insulate!

·       Insulate electrical sockets on outside walls.

·       Turn off the lights when you leave a room to help reduce your electric bill.

·       Unplug your cell phone charger when not in use. (Considered an energy vampire)

·       Turn off anything with LED lighting, ie VCR/DVD, cable box,etc... Again, energy vampires.

·       Do not hold refrigerator or freezer door open for an extended period.

·       Close blinds or curtains on sunny side of house in summer to keep the sun from heating up the room, keeps AC from having to work harder.  In winter, open blinds and curtains so sun warms the room, decreasing heating costs.

·       Caulk around windows to keep an airtight seal, reducing energy costs

·       Seal leaks around the house. A common place to look is at the junction where the foundation and house meet.  Also another place to look for is where the electric and plumbing come into the house.

·       Change all bulbs to CFL bulbs or LED lighting.

·       Change furnace filter every month to have furnace work efficiently.

·       Use Energy Star appliances when possible.

·       Use a programmable thermostat.

·       Turn down the thermostat. For every degree you turn it up or down you save money. In the winter, turn down the furnace.  Wear shoes, socks, and a sweater.  We program out thermostat to go down to 64 degrees at 9 pm when the grandchild goes to bed.  Everyone can be warm snuggled under the covers!  Also open curtains and/or blinds during the day to let the sun warm the room.

·       In the summer, turn air conditioner up and use a ceiling fan in the room you are in, when you leave the room turn off the fan.  Close the curtains and blinds on the side of the room the sun will be shining into.  This helps to keep heat out thereby reducing energy costs.

·       Caulk around your dryer vent.

·       Turn down water heater to 120 degrees.  This can cut up to 5 % off bill with each 10 degrees that you lower the temperature.

·       Put an insulated wrap around your water heater.

·       Use a pressure cooker to cook things quicker, food is also healthier.

·       Give your digital clock away, use a wind up clock, or if you need an alarm what about your cell phone?

·       Weather strip and caulk around doors and windows.

·       Using the microwave is cheaper than using the stove or oven.

·       Cook with crock pot, pressure cooker, or microwave. 

·       In the summer, arrange cooking so that you don’t use the oven and heat up the house.  Use the grill as an option. 

·       In the winter, when you use the oven when the food has finished cooking open the door so the room is warmed too. 

·       Air dry dishes, don’t use the high heat drying cycle of the dishwasher.

·       Don’t put the refrigerator near a heating vent. 

·       Keep temperature of the refrigerator about 34 degrees F.

·       Keep the freezer temperature between 0-4 degrees F.

·       Keep the refrigerator coils clean.  Vacuum the coils every month for maximum efficiency.

·       Keep refrigerator a couple of inches away from the wall so coils won’t  have unnecessary heat trapped. 

·       Keep freezer full. If necessary use gallon jugs of water between grocery trips. Uses more energy to keep air in freezer at proper temperature than to keep solid items frozen.

·       In refrigerator compartment it is most efficient for the air to circulate around foods. 

Reduce Water Consumption

·       Turn off water, don’t let it run when brushing teeth or working in kitchen.

·       Put a brick or plastic bottle filled with water in your toilet to decrease the amount of water you use when flushing toilet.

·       Reuse your bath towel more than one time! Hang it up to dry and use for a few days to reduce the amount of laundry you have. This is for energy AND water savings.

·       Use the water that was used to boil eggs, cool it, and water your plants with the water. Utilize the water that will run down the drain, use it to water your plants or gardens.

·       Insulate at minimum the first 6 ft of hot water pipes from the water heater.

·       Use low flow faucets and showerheads.

·       Reduce the amount of time spent in the shower by a few minutes for  water savings

·       Take a shower instead of a bath-uses less water.

·       Fix any water leaks! 

Saving money on Laundry 

·       Empty dryer lint trap before drying clothes.

·       Don’t wash small loads in the washer. Fill the machine to capacity to keep from doing multiple loads of laundry.

·       Line dry clothes whenever possible.

·       Remove laundry from dryer promptly, to prevent wrinkles and having to iron.

·       When drying clothes separate the lighter clothes from the heavy ones.  Dryer will keep running until the wettest item is dry. 

·       Wash clothes in cold water.  Can save up to $63. a year for the average consumer.

·       Don’t run appliances during peak times.  In some areas your energy costs more at these times.  Check with your local gas and electric company to see what your peak times are.  (Usually around 1pm to 5pm.)

Saving money in the Home office

·       Turn off the computer, printer, and fax machine when not in use.

·       Shred paper to prevent identity theft, use in compost piles.

·       Use a Smart Strip with all office equipment.

·       Only print what you must have in print form, if you can save in a digital file, do so. If you need to retain it for records purposes, look into an online backup/storage facility. They are very inexpensive and your records are guaranteed safe. (This is great also if you have a system crash!)

Money Saving Gardening Ideas

·       Plant a vegetable, herb, or container garden. This will save lots of green and is a very green thing to do!

·       Plant deciduous trees on the east and west side of your house to keep sun out of house, thereby reducing AC bills.  In the winter, the leaves will fall off the trees and allow the sun to come into the windows to provide warmth.

·       A cheaper, quicker way to provide shade now is to grow an annual vine in front of windows to provide shade in summer months. Hyacinth beans grow quickly and are beautiful where I live.  (And a bonus, the hummingbird visited the vines.)

·       Shred paper (to protect against identity theft) and use it in the compost pile.

·       Start a worm bin with your kitchen scraps (vermicomposting) for use around flowers, herbs and vegetables.  Save money not spending money on expensive chemical fertilizers that are not environmentally friendly any way.

·       Mulch, mulch, mulch.  You can use things like leaves, grass clippings, straw and compost. 

·       Collect rain in rain barrels to water the gardens.

·       Use the boiled egg water, water from the dehumidifier, or water that ran off your vegetables when cleaning them, to water plants.

·       Plant native plants for your area, they may need to be watered less. 

·       Choose plants that can thrive with other plants with similar needs. 

·       Plant for wildlife.  Planting the right plant can attract birds, butterflies and bees.  Check out Hanna’s Garden section here for more information.

·       Build healthy soil with the use of organic matter.  Compost with things that you may have on hand such as grass clippings, leaves, and old kitchen scraps such as lettuce leaves, old banana peels, etc.  (No meat or dairy)

·       Check out what the neighbor is putting in his trash too but check to see if they use synthetic chemicals. 

·       Compost healthy garden wastes.

·       Composting for fertilizer and increasing soil health is not expensive and very eco-friendly. 

·       Composting attracts earthworms, so let them aerate and fertilize your soil.  No need for tilling, the earthworms will do it for you. 

·       Join a garden club for seed swapping or plant exchanging. 

·       Control disease and pests through natural cures first.  Last year I used the Cornell recipe for powdery mildew on my roses and it worked! 

·       Water during the early morning to prevent diseases that spread when leaves are wet and to prevent evaporation during the heat of the day.

·       Mulch to suppress weeds and hold in moisture.

·       Use newspapers in your compost and also as mulch.  Don’t use the shiny kind of papers just the dull paper.

·       Use cardboard for composting and also can be used before laying down the mulch.  (Make sure their isn’t any tape on the box it won’t break down.)

·       Check with places like Craigslist or FreeCycle for things you need for the garden.  Talk to your neighbors and friends.  Remember to rethink, remake, reuse and recycle.  Recently, I found things that I had been looking for the coming garden season. Of course my price had to be free and close to where I live.  In the winter, people don’t want to get out because of the cold so the odds are greater that you can actually pick some of this unwanted stuff up.  One neighbor saves coffee grounds and filters for my worm bin.  The other neighbor redid her windows-so now I have old windows for some cold frames.  On Craigslist.com I found bags of old leaves, old stakes and chicken wire for my peas, and 5 dozen Ball canning jars.  Last year I picked up a bunch of old bricks for walkways for free.  You can also find plants and flowers.  I went and dug about 9 currant bushes for free.  Also, picked up around the corner from where I live enough rocks to use around my new pond that I am building to encourage wildlife.  All of these things were free, eco-friendly and will be reused or remade into something!!!! 

Automobile (Transportation)

• Bicycle or walk short distances instead of driving.
• Change your automobiles air filter every 10,000 miles can reduce gas mileage as much as 10%.
• Check your tire pressure once monthly.
• Drive the speed limit, the faster you drive the more gas your vehicle guzzles.
• Don’t accelerate and break swiftly, uses more gas.
• Remove luggage rack and bike racks.
• Don’t need to use premium fuel unless automobile manual states to use it.
• Turn off engine if you are idling for more than 30 minutes or more.
• Get a tune up and oil change as manual states.
• Change your fuel and air filter on your automobile as the manufacturer states for optimum efficiency. 

Save on Groceries

• Use coupons for items that you would normally use.  Some stores offer double or triple coupons. Be sure that the item you would have bought wouldn't have been cheaper.
• Calculate savings using the price per smallest possible unit. Usually found below shelf item on tag-calculated ounce, pound, etc.
• Read grocery circulars.
• Write up menu for the entire week before shopping.  Stick to the menu and what you need for each meal.  You can use items that were on sale that week for some of the meals.  
• Don’t buy prepackaged foods, such as pre-cut  lettuce.  You will pay premium price for this.
• Plant a vegetable garden!!!  This can save you lots of money and give you the assurance of how the food was grown. 
• Plant fruit trees, and bushes.
• If you plant a garden an economical way to save produce for all year would be to can, freeze, or dehydrate your food for later usage. 

General Money Saving tips

• Don’t buy your coffee out every morning, make your java at home- serve in a coffee travel mug.
• Pack your lunch for work.
• Recycle your printer cartridges. Many places like Staples Office Supplies will give you credit when you recycle your printer cartridges through them.
• Use the correct size pan on the stove for the cooking job, use lids when cooking.
• Make your own safe cleaners using baking soda, vinegar, and lemon juice.  See our home section for some of these cleaning ideas.
• Don’t buy bottled water, buy a reusable bottle and fill at home.  If you are concerned with water contaminants purchase a water filtration system.