Search Coupons
Find the best deals and coupons

Eco-Friendly Habits for a Budget-Friendly Green Lifestyle
Living sustainably often sounds expensive, but the truth is that some of the best green habits are also the most budget-friendly. Making conscientious choices about your energy and water use, waste management, and landscaping can contribute positively to the planet while saving money. And buying items that are durable, reusable, or recyclable is a smart investment that contributes to a sustainable lifestyle.
Sustainable living doesn't have to involve huge changes overnight; it's about adopting manageable, mindful habits that lead to a more eco-conscious home. From teaching kids about sustainability to making your home energy-efficient, every step counts in reducing both your carbon footprint and monthly bills.
Home Energy Efficiency and Conservation
One of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint and save money is by conserving energy at home. Taking steps like choosing energy-efficient appliances and lights and adding insulation can significantly reduce energy consumption and lower monthly expenses. Even small changes, like swapping out light bulbs for eco-friendly LEDs or taking shorter showers, can save resources and money. Contact your energy provider to ask about renewable energy plans or free audits for even more savings and sustainability.
- Home Energy Yardstick: Use this tool to assess your home's energy efficiency and identify areas for improvement.
- Save Energy Used to Heat Water: Using less hot water conserves water and reduces the amount of energy needed to heat it.
- CFLs vs. LEDs: Choosing the right light bulbs can significant lower your energy bills.
- Nine Ways to Make Your Home Greener: These tips from the U.S. Green Building Council can help you cut your energy use.
- Tips for Living Green: UCLA created this document to help college students live a more sustainable lifestyle, but the information here can be useful to anyone.
- Top 20 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: Using less energy reduces the amount of carbon emissions needed to generate that energy.
Water Conservation Inside and Outside the Home
Water conservation is a crucial part of both sustainable living and reducing your utility bills. Simple actions such as fixing leaky faucets or installing water-efficient landscaping can lead to significant savings. Encourage your family to adopt daily habits like taking shorter showers and reducing water use in the garden, which can help protect this precious resource while lowering your monthly bills.
- 25 Ways to Save Water in Your Home and Yard: Learn how to check for leaks and implement easy water-saving strategies at home.
- Ten Tips for Outdoor Water Conservation: This guide from the Regional Water Providers Consortium offers effective strategies for reducing water use in your garden.
- 25 Ways to Conserve Water in Your Garden: HGTV provides a visual guide to water-saving techniques for your garden and landscape, helping you to reduce your water consumption and costs.
- Ten Tips for Saving Water in Your Landscape: Get expert advice on water-efficient gardening from Fine Gardening magazine.
Sustainable Landscaping and Gardening
One way to save water is to transform your yard into a sustainable landscape. This benefits local ecosystems and significantly reduces the time, effort, and money spent on maintenance. Choosing native plants, implementing smart watering techniques, and fostering healthy soil can create a beautiful, low-cost outdoor space.
Sustainable gardens can even help you conserve water-by selecting drought-tolerant plants, you reduce the need for frequent watering, directly lowering your water bill. Consider these expert resources to guide you in creating your sustainable garden:
- What Is Conservation Landscaping?: Blue Water Baltimore offers information about steps you should take to create landscaping that uses natural resources efficiently.
- Composting at Home: The Environmental Protection Agency created this resource to help people enrich their soil and skip pricey fertilizers while keeping food scraps out of the trash.
- Why Native Plants Matter: Native plants usually need less water and fewer pesticides, saving you money in the long term. They also help to create healthier habitats for wildlife.
- Native Plant Finder: The National Wildlife Federation's tool can help you find native plants suitable for your area.
Minimize Waste: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!
Another way to embrace sustainability is by living the "reduce, reuse, recycle" motto, not just because it's good for the environment but because it helps you save money. By consciously cutting back on what you buy, finding new uses for old things, and recycling, you'll lighten your environmental load and stretch your budget further. For example, one way to reduce your grocery bills and cut down on waste is to try meal planning and smart shopping so that you use what you buy. You can also reduce the amount of single-use plastics you buy over time by investing in good-quality reusable options. And old clothing can be reused in a lot of ways, like cutting up old T-shirts to make cleaning cloths or wrapping a gift with the fabric from an old skirt.
- Eight Ways to Reduce Waste: Cutting down the amount of trash you create is a great way to help save the planet.
- The Sustainability Guide for College Students on a Budget: This guide provides practical tips to help anyone live within their means and be eco-friendly as well.
- 21 Ideas for Zero-Waste Living: Reducing the amount of trash you make and getting the most use out of everything you buy are key parts of living more sustainably.
- Going Green and Saving Green: Cutting down on waste can go a long way toward saving both money and the environment.
- 50 Ways to Reuse Your Garbage: Lots of things you might be thinking of throwing away can be put to new uses.
Conservation Lessons for Kids and Teens
Involving children and teens in conservation efforts from a young age is crucial to creating a more sustainable future. By teaching kids and teens to embrace green habits, you're contributing to the planet's well-being and ensuring that these practices become second nature as they grow. They can also learn about ways that being eco-friendly saves money. For instance, you could teach them about ways to avoid wasting electricity and show them how the household energy bill goes down when you use less power. Kids can also collect and return soda bottles and cans for recycling, which can earn them some extra money from the bottle deposits or from selling the scrap metal to a recycling center.
- Water-Saving Tips: You'll find dozens of practical ways to save water in your daily life in this family-friendly guide.
- Items You Can Recycle for Money: Kids can earn some extra pocket money by helping their parents to collect and sell recyclable materials.
- Be a Green Kid: Share this page from KidsHealth with your children to help them learn about how to become more environmentally friendly.
- Eco-Friendly Activities to Enjoy With Your Kids: Learning about helping our planet can also be fun for kids and their parents.
- Tween and Teen Simple Eco-Tips: Chicago Parent provides practical and relatable tips for older children to embrace sustainability.
- How to Care for Your Clothes: Kids can learn more eco-friendly ways of doing the laundry that save energy and extend the life of their clothes.
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: This resource from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences focuses on the three R's for children.
- The Importance of Pollinators: Learn about the vital role of pollinators and how to protect them with this resource from the National Park Service.
- How Can We Respond to Climate Change? Watch this video to find out about how businesses, governments, and even kids can help the environment.
Environmental Conservation and Education Games
Learning about environmental conservation can be both educational and entertaining, especially for younger generations. Engaging kids through games and interactive lessons helps solidify the importance of sustainability in a way that resonates with them. As you work to introduce your family to eco-friendly habits, these resources can help make the learning process both enjoyable and impactful.
- Environmental Education Group Games and Activities: The National Environmental Education Foundation has a collection of interactive games and activities for groups to learn about environmental issues.
- Recycle Roundup: Playing this game lets kids practice sorting recyclables.
- Every Drop Counts: This engaging activity book teaches kids about the importance of saving water through fun exercises.
- Sesame Street Goes Green: Even young children can learn about taking care of our planet by playing online games.
- Take Care of Resources: In this game, players click around the house to find all of the places where resources are being wasted.
- What's Your Energy IQ? Kids can test what they know about energy and where it comes from with this quiz.
- Bright Ways to Save: This fun maze game also teaches kids about energy efficiency.