Jul
2012
10 Ways To Go Green That Can Save You Money
As a young person with a relatively low income, a big part of determining which ways to go green comes down to the financial aspect. While I believe in going green and want to do my part, it’s not worth going broke over. Someday, I hope to change my income situation so that I can afford to pay a little extra for eco-friendly products. But for now, I stick to ways that I can go green while saving money, or at least go green without paying more than I would for the non-green products. Here are 10 ways to go green that can save you money.
- No Ziploc: Instead of buying ziploc bags, buy a few reusable sandwich and snack bags. If you use these bags for storing food in the fridge or freezer, opt for glass storage containers instead. These items cost more up front, but can be used for years so they pay for themselves in time.
- No Paper Plates: You’ll spend more time doing dishes, but the extra dish soap or dishwasher detergent that you use will cost less than you’re paying for paper plates.
- No Dryer: Instead of wasting electricity while using your dryer, make an outdoor clothesline to use during summer or purchase a portable clothes line that can be used indoors.
- No Paper Towels: Places like Etsy sell unpaper towels, or you can use hand towels or even rags laying around your house instead.
- Cloth Diapers: This one is admittedly a bit iffy. I’ve heard moms say that they opted for the more costly diapers, and only used them for one child so it was as expensive or perhaps even more expensive than disposables would have been. However, if you’re able to opt for the cheaper cloth diapers it can save money especially if you have multiple children.
- Cloth Pads: I spent roughly 75 dollars for my stash of cloth pads and have been using them for 1.5 years now. I was used to using tampons and pads at the same time, and buying the name brands, which was costing roughly 8 dollars per month. So in about 10 months time they paid for themselves and I expect to get much more use out of them before they need to be replaced.
- Filtered Reusable Water Bottle: If you haven’t tried a water bottle with a filter yet, you’re missing out! I really dislike the taste of the water from the fountains at my school but with my filtered water bottle it gets rid of the yuck. No more need to buy plastic water bottles!
- Crocheted/Knitted Face Scrubbies: Instead of buying cotton balls and makeup remover wipes, opt for knitted or crocheted face scrubbies. I use these to wash my face, remove makeup, apply acne products and removing nail polish. I simply throw them in the wash with my clothing and they come out ready to reuse.
- Reuse Cat and Dog Food Bags: While it might not look pretty, we reuse large pet food bags and chip bags as trash bags. We used to use grocery bags to fill our bathroom and bedroom trash cans, but now that we use reusable grocery bags I wasn’t sure what to use until it occurred to me that we could use at first. Now we use the pet food bags. It keeps us from buying expensive mini trash bags.
- Re-purpose Old Clothing or Linens: Instead of throwing away old clothing, look online for tons of ideas for repurposing. With basic sewing machine skills you can turn your pillow case into a dress, your sweater into baby legs, and that old t shirt into a toddler bodysuit or stuffed toy.
This has been a guest post.
Emily is a 20 year old Michigan blogger who lives with her long term boyfriend Ryan and their pet hedgehog Henry. Her blog is Emily Reviews and primarily focuses on product reviews and giveaways from a wide variety of of categories including clothing, pets, food, toys and more. You can keep up with her blog on the Emily Reviews twitter and Emily Reviews facebook.