Going Green | Can You Save Money Going Green?

Short answer – absolutely you can save money going green! The term “going green” typically refers to any activity that lessens your impact on the environment and/or doing your part to conserve and recycle our everyday resources. There are literally thousands, if not more, ways to actually “go green“, and with the help of blogs and the internet in general, we have a real shot as we move into 2009 of going green by leveraging and taking advantage of many different and unique methods.

In contrast to going on a diet when you’re trying to lose weight – generally the diet food costs more than “regular” food, so besides actually losing weight, there is no other benefit to going on a diet, and it can be quite expensive, but that’s quite the opposite when you go on an earth diet (conserving less energy, recycling, etc…). When you make a concerted effort to “greenerize” yourself (yes, new word!), you stand the chance to save quite a bit of cash in the process!

For instance, let’s look at a few popular ways that your every day consumer can go green:

1. Carpooling

2. Public transportation

3. Using compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL’s)

4. Setting your thermostat a few degrees higher in summer

5. Wash clothes in cold water

6. Hang dry your clothes instead of dryer

7. Install low flow shower heads

8. Using reusable water bottles

I could go on and on about different ways to go green, but the eight ways listed above are perfectly easy and acceptable ways to help the environment, and best of all, you’ll save money using every single method!

Doing a quick average, I would conservatively say that just by doing the above, you could save anywhere from $250-$350 per month, and to your average 4 person family, that’s a nice chunk of change that can be saved or used for other bills (like your mortgage!). Recently, a poll came out that said only 12% of consumers are really “going green”, while another 41% were considered “light green”. Just imagine if we could get that first number higher, it would make a much greater impact than most people could imagine.

So I encourage you to make a list right now that lists out ten ways you can start going green today. At the end of 30 days, give yourself a true estimate on how much money you saved by comparing it with your regular costs. Saving money by going green is so addictive that you’ll find yourself cutting back and conserving even more to enjoy all the extra cash you’re putting back in the bank!