I’m a big fan of saving money and saving the planet. I like to bring those both together in my daily rituals so I save money by saving the planet. These are some of the ways I found that anyone can do to save money and contribute to saving the planet.
- Changing the light bulbs to LED and energy efficient, an average household has a minimum of 20 -30 light bulbs by changing them to LED and energy-efficient can save you at least $1 – $2 per bulb per year on electricity charges and you can find these bulbs cheaper than the regular filament bulbs.
- Choosing an alternative transport or changing transport options. An average American household has 2 or more cars, having more cars means having more bills to pay car loans, insurance, and regular maintenance which cost anywhere from $500 per car to $1000 depending on the type of car.
Reducing the number of cars per household helps you not just save money but also helps the planet as there will be fewer emissions. Try using carpool or public transport which helps you get through traffic and saves money, time and planet. - Cooking more homemade meals and reduce consumption of processed foods. Cooking at home can be daunting initially but you will get used to it very quickly. If you cook at least half of the meals you generally would eat out will save you anywhere from $20-$50 per meal, adding to saving money you actually help reducing the plastic and food waste you might have when you take out or eat out.
Reduce eating processed meat, the meat industry is one of the highest produces of carbon emission in the USA. Reducing meat consumption actual helps save the planet, money, and most importantly your health (health is wealth). - When you are decorating your house or buying fancy furniture which you might not use or use very rarely please try to replace them with sustainable decorations, you can decorate your house with some cool plants which help you get some fresh oxygen and looks beautiful, this helps you save money on art pieces and reduce plastic/polymer wastage.
- Using reusable water bottles and having a water filter at home can be a real game-changer. Many households spend a lot of money on purified water bottles. You can save tens/hundreds of dollars per month when you use a reusable water bottle with a water filter at home. It saves you $$ and reduces plastic wastage from water bottles.
- Ordering online especially on Amazon has become the most common thing in the past decade. When you order on Amazon you can ask them not to use plastic and can choose to send your orders in fewer boxes and if possible you can choose to get it delivered a little late. Selecting these options helps in the reduction of package waste, the number of trips a delivery person makes to your house which reduces emissions from the transport and Amazon offers digital credits for you to buy digital products on Amazon which you can use to buy movies or kindle books which saves you money.
- If you use battery-powered devices at your home like remote and gaming controllers try using rechargeable batteries instead of replacing batteries every time which costs a decent amount of money and battery wastage.
- I like to take long and warm showers. But once I realized that I’m using more water for my shower than the water required to clean dishes and clothes, I started taking short showers which helped in the reduction of water wastage. Taking short and cold showers has more than one benefit, it helps in the reduction of your water and sewage bill (yes they are calculated separately one for incoming and the other for outgoing) and also electricity or gas bill based on the time of water heater you use.
- Go paperless, period! It is easier to go paperless now than ever you don’t have to keep receipts for everything you buy your credit card company keeps track of the purchases or ask for an e-receipt. you don’t have to print and sign every document with ink, ask for the authority if they use e -sign services like docu sign, which helps you reduce clutter on your side as the documents are saved safely in the cloud.
- This final tip goes unnoticed/ unrecognized. Going paperless is not just enough it surely has its benefits, every person has more than 2 email ids which holds a ton of unwanted emails. Every digital service needs a data center to store all your emails, documents, and everything you store into your cloud. Can you imagine it releases a ton of carbon emissions for an email to store at various data centers, so deleting unwanted email and documents in the cloud can save you cloud space which you might be paying money, and also reduce the carbon emissions which are released from data centers that stores all the data?
I hope these tips help you save money and do your part to save plant which helps all of us living in a sustainable future.