Living Green and Saving Money: 3 Green Living Tips That Will Save You Money

Living Green and Saving Money: 3 Green Living Tips That Will Save You Money

Can going green actually save you money? Maybe you are not convinced of that. If so, that would be entirely understandable. Without a doubt, there are a number of consumer items promoted under the "Green Living" rubric that cost more than comparable "non green" items. Evidently, there are enough consumers who are willing to pay a premium for products labeled "green" that marketers can make a good living selling various items this way.

But you don't have to follow that crowd. In fact, establishing a greener lifestyle can actually save you money if you go about it the right way.

My focus is very much on how consumers can save money as they go green. And it makes sense to create your green lifestyle this way. Cutting back on energy use, conserving water, driving your car less, and buying certain items second-hand are all actions that reduce your consumption of resources. Why should that cost you more?

In fact, it doesn't. Here are 3 tips for living that greener lifestyle that are guaranteed to save you money.

1) Replace all incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs use only one-quarter of the energy of an incandescent and last up to 10 times longer. It is easy to understand why. Incandescent light bulbs convert only about 3-5% of the energy they consume into light. The rest is dissipated as heat. Incandescent bulbs are essentially little heaters that happen to generate some light. Because CFLs generate less heat, using them will reduce your cooling costs in the summer. Another advantage of CFLs is the following: although the earliest version of CFLs did not work with dimmers switches, the more recent versions will.

2) Buy power strips to switch off electronics when they are not in use.Most people probably do not remember the days when you switched on a television set and then waited 30 to 60 seconds for it to warm up and turn on. Nowadays, we have the instant-on feature, which become so much a part of our modern world but which costs us in so-called "vampire power." Why? Because in order to deliver the immediate gratification of instant-on, the device (television, radio, computer, etc.) must stay in a constantly warmed-up mode, and it must continually draw a little bit of power to accomplish this. Electronics have become so pervasive that this vampire energy draw is estimated to account for around 10 percent of residential energy use in the United States. By plugging your electronics into a power strip that can be switched on and off, you can cut the power completely, saving all that energy drain. In addition to televisions and VCRs, computers and printers should be switched off at night or whenever you are not using them for an extended period of time.

3) Reduce hot water use by taking showers instead of baths. A bathtub will require 40-70 gallons of water to fill, and all of that water is heated. In contrast, a shower uses about 2 to 3 gallons of water per minute (less if you use a low-flow showerhead). A 7 minute shower, therefore, uses only 14 to 21 gallons of water. You get a double benefit, saving not just on water, but also on the energy required to heat that water.

These three simple steps are guaranteed to make your greener lifestyle cost you less, not more.

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