Tightwad Tuesday: Earth Week Edition

In case you have not heard, this is Earth Week. Earth Day is officially tomorrow (Wednesday) but many companies are celebrating all week long. Today, I thought I would share a few easy ways to help our earth without breaking the bank.

Turn off lights: It seems like such a simple concept but how often have you run through the house for something and realized lights were on in every room? We have been teaching our son to turn off lights and he is getting it. This morning, we were getting ready to walk out the door and he ran back to his room to make sure the light was off and the door was shut. I was proud that he did this all on his own.

Shut doors to unused rooms: It takes energy to heat/cool rooms so shut off those that are not used. We started doing this when our son was very little and getting in to everything and we quickly realized it made a difference in our electric bill. Now, the majority of doors are shut in our house throughout the day. As an added bonus, the clutter in some of those rooms is now cut off.

Use what you have: This concept can be used in all areas of your house but here are a few examples. Go through your pantry and find at least one meal that can be cooked from what you have. This saves gas, money, pollution, etc since it means one less visit to the store for missing ingredients. Another example is to go through your bathroom cabinets and find all of the random samples and gifts of hand lotion, shampoo, etc. Make a pact to use these up before buying anything else. If you do not plan to use it, give it away to someone who would.

Recycle: Create an area in your house for recycling. If you have a designated place, it will make it much easier to actually follow through.

Of course, there are hundreds of other ways to help the earth - composting, florescent bulbs, homemade cleaning supplies, etc. but my goal today was to provide you with a few very simple and easy ways to get you started towards taking care of the earth. Feel free to leave your other tips or links to your blog post on this topic in the comments section.