Go Green to Save Money – Part 1

Lately, I’ve been making an extra effort to “go green”. At work, I take the stairs instead of using the elevator. I avoid my car as much as possible. I use re-usable water bottles. I loathe to see people shun the green movement.

I’ve heard many people claim that they’re just one person, and what they do won’t make a difference. I wholly disagree. Everyone is just one person – and everyone makes a difference, particularly when it comes to being environmentally friendly.

So I’ve tried to appeal to people’s environmentally friendly side for money saving purposes.

Now, I’m not talking about buying hemp sweaters or installing a rainwater collector on your roof for washing dishes, though those are great options. I’m not even too sure that those options would save you money. I’m talking about the little things.

Re-use Plastic Containers

Yogurt, cream cheese, cottage cheese, water and soda bottles, and even laundry detergent and cleaner bottles can all be reused. If you’re anything like me, my plastic containers for sandwiches and yogurt that I bring to work don’t last as long as I’d like. They crack or are given away with leftovers when we have people over. Having a couple of containers that are left over from groceries that are long gone is super helpful.

This saves the containers from ending up in the landfill as quickly as they would otherwise, which is environmentally friendly and will save you money.

Use Vinegar for in Place of Commercial Cleaners

In January, before I switched to WordPress, I wrote a post on my Blogger blog about how vinegar works for pretty much everything. This is still true. Cleaners have harsh chemicals in them which are really terrible for the environment. Vinegar is environmentally far more friendly than Clorox, and it’s safer for you, too. There have been studies which state that typical household cleaners – bleach, Clorox, even Mr. Clean – double the risk of breast cancer in women.

If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is.

Plus, vinegar is much cheaper than Mr. Clean! A large bottle of vinegar is just a couple of dollars, and can be mixed with water to replace Windex (as it cleans glass really well), and do many other things. Vinegar can act as a liquid fabric softener in your washer (and seriously works quite well), a spot remover in your dishwasher, a floor cleaner, an appliance and electronic cleaner, and so much more.

Vinegar kills lots of harmful bacteria and mold, but it doesn’t kill the environment like Clorox will. Doesn’t smell good? Grab some essential oils! They actually smell a lot better than the stuff in the cleaner. Orange is my personal favourite, followed by lavender.

Carpool and Walk

This is probably something you’ve all heard before, but this is a great money saving tip. If you live a 20 minute walk from your gym and you plan on driving there to work out, just walk or run! Then you can skip your cardio workout and go straight for the weights.

This is healthy, green, and cheap. Right now, gas is at about $1.39 per litre. That’s about $5.14 per gallon for my American friends. Transportation costs are a huge expense for most of us, so why not minimize them?

Driving pushes emissions and carbon dioxide into the environment. Carpool with a friend to save money, ride you’re bike, walk, whatever. Avoid your car when you can.

Save Water

Sometimes, when I’m at the gym, I see people leave the tap on while they dry their hands off, brush their hair, or stand there staring in the mirror. What’s the point? Turn off the tap. There’s no point in uselessly wasting water (this usually happens with seniors, so I’m not too sure what’s going on there). Guess what? Water costs money.

It doesn’t cost a ridiculous amount, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not savings in your pocket if you use less of it.

Too many people let the tap run while they’re brushing their teeth, allow the tap to run constantly while they’re washing dishes (that’s why there’s usually two sections to your kitchen sink). A 10 minute shower alone can cost Canadian households an average of $44.46 annually for one person. At an average of $0.50 per cubic metre, I’m sure that with a reduction in water useage, you could reduce your water costs greatly in a year.

Make sure you’re washing machine is full when you do a load, don’t run the water when brushing your teeth, fill up the sink to wash/rinse the dishes, and be more water conscious. It’s better for the environment and your wallet.

On that note..

Ditch the Bottled Water!

You’ve all heard it before. Plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose, and bottled water is bad for your body. The plastic leeches into the water and can cause cancer. On top of that, did you know (and you might have already known), that bottled water is 1000x on average more expensive than tap water? That’s a huge markup!

Bottled water is also TERRIBLE for your health and you are far better off drinking tap water.

Make sure you bring a reusable bottle of water with you every day when you leave the house. If you even buy one bottle of water every week, with 52 weeks in the year at $2 (I’m low balling it here) per bottle, you’re still paying $104 per year for something that would be only cents – if that. Why waste money on something that’s a very low cost to us, anyway? Doing so would reduce your carbon footprint by saving that plastic from going in landfills.

Not only can you do it, but the companies you work for can as well by ensuring they have received environmental compliance approval from the government. What this means is that the company you work for is creating emissions which don’t exceed what is considered acceptable by government regulations for things such as noise pollution, carbon pollution, land impact, and impact to water systems.

There are thousand other things that you can do to save money and reduce your carbon footprint. Stay tuned 🙂