Eco-Friendly and Wallet-Friendly

Scientists, treehuggers, and Al Gore have made it crystal clear that unless we start cleaning up our act, the planet we leave our children will be little more than a smoking, overheated ball of smelly waste. Sadly, trying to save the world by buying a hybrid car and installing solar panels on rooftops is not financially viable for most people. Luckily, you don’t have to drop thousands of dollars to be environmentally friendly. Kiplinger’s list of things to do to go green on the cheap offers efficient and economical ways of cutting energy consumption. What’s surprising is that going green can actually save money in the long run: purchasing energy-efficient light-bulbs cuts annual lighting bills by half, and fixing drafts in windows and doorways helps improve the efficiency of furnaces and air-conditioners so that they don’t need to be left on for long periods of time.

Being environmentally friendly also makes life easier – paying bills online as well as opening an online banking account reduces the use of paper and makes payments less of a hassle. Finally, only running washing machines and dish washers when they’re full saves both water and money (and who wouldn’t want to decrease the amount of times they have to wash their socks?). Maybe if we all became a little more eco-friendly, we could postpone earth’s downward spiral into a flaming pile of waste – at least until another generation can deal with the problem.

Going Green On the Cheap [Kiplinger]