How can We Afford to Get Green? How Can We Afford Not Too?

I believe that going green should not cost more money. It should save money, at least in the long run. You can always start small. I'm all for thinking green, but I'm not going to spend a fortune on solar panels.

Instead of organic groceries:

I read that you grow your own vegetables. That's awesome you know there's no pesticides going into there, and it's always nice for the earth to plant greens. And you can wash your fruits and veggies with baking soda and water to get the pesticides off when you buy from the store. Better than nothing. Or what about shopping at a local farm stand? Eating less meat also saves, especially because organic meat is expensive. Now you don't have to worry about growth hormones and nasty stuff.

Waterbottles

Plastic waterbottles waste more money in the long run. They are not cheap and create a ton of waste. Get a stainless steel waterbottle of decent quality. It will last you at least 10 years. Subzero sells cheap ones.

Reduce & Reuse

Reducing saves money because you buy less. Limit shower times, use of stuff like shampoo, paper towels. Unplug unused appliances and take out the batteries from electronics you don't use a lot. And drive less, walk more.

Reusing saves money, because you don't need to buy something new everytime you run out. Try this website for reusing ideas.

http://frugal.families.com/blog/reuse-review-commo...

Whenever you have junk or are in need of something, search up some DIY recycling projects. You will not have to waste the items you don't need, and you will have something new afterwards.

Recycling

Putting recyclable items in the recycle bin shouldn't cost money. In fact, in some places, you get money for recycling. Also, join freecycle, swaps and shop in thrift stores.

Home Remedies

Cheap, natural home remedies are available. For example, you can clean your entire house with vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice.

http://housekeeping.about.com/cs/environment/a/alt...

And these key ingredients have other uses too, such as hair rinses, exfoliants, shampoo etc.

I also made an aloe video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdbFEZ3xnU

You can always google cheap home remedies. They often have multiple uses.

To me, thinking green is about health, environment and saving money. :)

I'll use 3 levels of explaination

Lvl 1: Free

Recycle

Start a Freecycle account

Reuse stuff you have

Turn off the lights when nobody is in the room.

Hang your clothes to dry them

use the backs of sheets of paper as note pads

Make your own paper from old news papers, and other paper scraps

Mow your yard every other week

Walk distances of less than 1 mile.

Libraries

Radio is free and uses less juice

Lvl2: Low cost ( Under 50 bucks per idea)

Buy seeds and plant them in your own organic garden

Buy CFLs

Yard sales are a great green shopping source

Thrift stores and the Good will

Consignment Shops, and Antique/Junk stores

Second Hand clothing

Buy the materials to make your own cleaning supplies ( Lemon Juice, Rubbing Alcohol, Vinegar, Baking Soda, Borax, olive oil)

Rent movies instead of buying them

Buy food in glass, that way you can use the jar later ( I love my jelly water glasses)

Box fans beat A/c when it comes to electricity.

Shop less at Big stores,and way less at Gimmick Health food stores.

Lvl 3: High end living ( 50+)

Energy effiecent electronics and appliances

Bamboo furniture

Organic groceries (Trust me... You can do just fine with local. Organic is as much of a consumerist idea as you can get. Hypocritic and harder to afford.)

New windows

Good thoughts. Going green asks for lot of effort on the population as whole. See for ways on cutting the energy costs, start recycling, stop wasting electricity and making many such changes can help save the planet.

Saving water and saving energy can save you some money. Tips on how to save water can be found at http://www.bewaterwise.com/tips01.html. Try collecting rain water for use in your garden, or use recycled water for gardening. Hope you finds these tips helpful.

start small.....recycling cost nothing...don't use plastic water bottles (go with steel), make sure your home benefits from home weatherization. All these changes are free or low-cost. Start small....and save...then buy the food you thing you need.

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