My budget this year is pretty much shot. Between the $20,000 we have done in home repairs and our recent vacation, we have pretty much depleted our bank account and I’m starting to think I need to start coupon clipping again. I have gotten spoiled in the last few years and while we are careful with our money, I wouldn’t say I have been thrifty or budget conscious. We will soon be moving into the holidays and I am starting to look into some practical money saving tips to help get our bank account up where it needs to be in case of emergencies. I thought I would share a few ideas on how to save money that will also help you go green at the same time. I have found that green and thrifty often overlap when it comes to home making! Here are a few practical money saving tips that may help you reduce your carbon footprint this summer! ( I will include a few affiliate links for products that you may find helpful)
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Practical Money Saving Tips That Help You Go Green
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Reduce The Amount of Water You Use. Keeping your lawn green during the summer heat requires a lot of water. Most homeowners hose down their lawns or run a sprinkler when the sun goes down to keep the lawn lush and healthy. However, homeowners typically use too much water, which is wasteful. Use a water timer on the hose/sprinkler to ensure that just the right amount of water is shed onto the lawn. This helps prevent the use of excess water. These timers are quite affordable and will save you a decent amount of water in the long term, thus cutting your water bill.
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Try a dual flush for your toilet. Dual flush toilets have been used in Europe for years and use significantly less water than the standard toilets we have in the U.S. While these units are available in America, they can cost hundreds of dollars to install. However, dual flush conversion kits can turn almost any regular toilet into a dual flush system in minutes. With this simple upgrade you can save up to 10,000 gallons of water a year, which will not only save water, but also money!
Switch to LED light bulbs. If you are looking for practical money saving tips that take very little work to enact, consider switching to LED light bulbs. LED light bulbs are now available from all major manufactures and have the same brightness and color temperature that you’re used to with traditional incandescent light bulbs. While a LED equivalent 40-Watt light bulb can cost $40, it will last up to 20 years and use one fifth of the electricity of a regular incandescent light bulb. They can be used both indoors and outdoors and will have a dramatic effect on your electric bills all year-long.
Rent, borrow or use Freecycle: The key to saving money is to stop spending it. However, we don’t stop needing things, right? My husband bought himself a new garden tool last month that we had been borrowing from a friend for the last couple of summers. Some things you only need once or twice and it makes no sense to buy those things new. Check your local garden supply store to see if the item you need can be rented. Ask around and see if your neighbors have one. And when those things don’t pan out, check out Freecycle and see if anybody has one that they don’t need. Anything you can get second hand or that you can rent instead of buy is probably going to reduce your carbon footprint.
Install a Water Aerator: A water aerator is easy to install and will help you reduce the amount of water your home uses. It costs only a few dollars and pumps air into the water, so users don’t need to run the tap at full blast. Trust me, you don’t need to be super handy with tools to make this one happen!
If you are wondering how to save money, it really doesn’t have to be hard. And the great thing about the ideas I listed here is that these practical money saving tips will also reduce your carbon footprint at the same time!
Have any other tips on how to save money while going green?
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Diane is a professional blogger and nationally certified pharmacy technician at Good Pill Pharmacy. She earned her BS in Microbiology at the University of New Hampshire and has worked in cancer research, academics, and biotechnology. Concern over the growing incidence of human disease and the birth of her children led her to begin living a more natural life. She quickly realized that the information she was learning along the way could be beneficial to many others and started blogging and freelance writing to share this knowledge with others. Learn more about her HERE.