13 Ways to Be Green and Save your Green ($$)

There are a lot of people including myself that thought or still think that going green equal spending a lot of money. But recently, I found out from my own experience that going green is actually helping to save your green bill in your own pocket. Here are 13 ways to go green and save your money.

1. Go for more fuel efficient car - Well, without having to explain it I think this one is a no brainer. Not only we help reduce the pollution but we will also help our own wallet. We sold our mini-van about 6 months ago and opted for a smaller and a bit better gas mileage. Oh.. how we glad we did that even before the gas price rises up to over $4/gallon.

2. Increase A/C temperature by 2 degrees - We use fan at night and set our thermostat to 78 degrees. In the beginning, I am afraid it might be too hot. But so far no one complains. Our electric bill remains the same even though the unit price has increased.

3. Wrap up our water heater - With the investment of about $15 for the water heater blanket, I will be able to save on our energy bill for that amount within a few months. Lower energy means less pollution and also saving on our high energy bill.

4. Change to CFL light bulbs - We started off with the most used room like our kitchen table, bathroom and laundry room. The saving has also shown. We still have a few more rooms to change as soon as I can get it together to do so.

5. Brown bagging with style - Packing your own lunch by far the most recommended way to save money. But if you want to pack your lunch with style why not bring your own utensils as well. Not only you will feel better eating from the real spoon and fork but you will help reduce the plastic consumption as well.

6. No more bottles of water - We bought Brita water filter pitcher. Just fill up with our water and put it in the fridge. Voila.. We have our own water without wasting on the plastic bottle. If we want to go out, we fill it up to our reusable bottle.

7. Forget the gym.. just run - After a few months of paying the gym membership that we haven't used, it's time to pull the plug. Mr. Rojo started running instead. With an investment of a great running shoe that costs about the same of one month of the gym membership but it sure will last longer than one month. We have saved on the gym membership and gas on driving there. I guess now I need to get my runnin shoes out and join Mr. Rojo.

8. Use cold settting for washing machine - We hardly use hot setting for our regular loads of laundry anymore. I find that our clothes are just as clean with cold setting. Plus it will use less energy when we forego hot water.

9. Don't buy books. Use the library card - I admitted I have never been to public library before in Florida. Until recently I didn't know how to get a library card. But now we check out children books from the library all the time. Not only we save money from buying the book, we are reusing the books so less trees will be killed to make those books.

10. Going slower - Gasp.. This will be one of the thing that Mr. Rojo probably never thought I would have done. Driving at speed limit. I have the thing for getting to my destination with the less amount of time possible. But lately, the gas price that clocks in at more than $4/gallon really got me rethink my driving. So I tried to drive slower.. really slower.. at around 65 mph. And guess what it does help me to get more miles from my car.

11. Grow your own organic vegetable - With the increase in the awareness about organic food, you can easily find organic herb and vegetable from the home improvment store. So it's not that hard (for people with green thumbs at least) to have your own organic vegetable garden. I did try and I think if I would have bought those plants instead of seed I would be more successful.

12. Use reusable grocery bag - If you shop regularly at Whole Food, you might already know that not only you will help the environment by using your own reusable grocery bags but you will get some money for using it as well. Whole Food gives back 10 cents for each bag your bring when you shop there. Not bad.. If the bag cost $0.99 it will only take 10 trip for it to pay for itself. What are you waiting for.. Go get your own bag. :)

13. No more birthday invitation card - I recently have been using evite for the kids' birthday invitation. It has so many benefits that I don't think I will ever go back and use typical invitation cards anymore. For one, it's Free. And we don't be wasting the paper to send the card. Also we typically get better response whether they will be able to make it or not. And it has so many designs that I can pick from.. What not to love!