Surely, we all have bags sitting around the house that we could use instead of going out and buying more stuff. Spending money to save whatever sort of misses the whole point of reducing consumption.

Maybe it’s just where I live but I have only seen 3 instances where someone used recycled bags when shopping. One of those people was me, reusing plain, old plastic grocery bags from the messy collection I have unfortunately accumulated.

It may not be “fashionably green”, but then I never really cared what other people think.

One item missing from the list is to go as paperless as possible and to get off those junk mail lists. I did this long ago and it greatly reduced the amount of paper in my mailbox. I can also be fairly certain that my bills or other personal info doesn’t end up in someone else’s mailbox (unfortunately, our mail carrier often gives other people’s mail to us and vice versa).

Whatever junk or other mail I do receive can be reused as scratch paper (like those envelopes). Why would I buy recycled paper for scratch paper when I have a small but useful supply that is essentially free to me?

I’d love to learn more about composting in a realistic way. I don’t want to have it a daily chore, but saving eggshells, coffee grounds, fruit & veg peelings, etc., would be doable. I just don’t know where to go from there.

I have recently started blogging about my own journey to not only be frugal, but to be green at the same time.

Another great idea is to try to buy things used or pre-owned. I just wrote a blog post about this last week: http://liverenewed.blogspot.co.....owned.html.

I don’t know how many CFLs have been so easily broken in our house, and they are not good for the environment either–besides energy efficiency.

Heidi @ ggip’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday – My Favorite Mugs

A: Keep your cars maintained. That means change the spark plugs, air filter, oil, keep the tires inflated, belts tensioned,throttle body clean, and so on. Better yet- buy a shop manual and learn how to repair your own cars. This kills 2 birds with one stone. First, it makes your cars last a lot longer and save you money since you don’t have to buy new ones as often. I’ve got 2 Toyotas with over 200,000 miles each. Second, a well-running car pollutes less and uses less fuel.

B: Don’t rake up the grass clippings or bag up leaves. If you mow the yard regularly, just letting the grass come out of the mower chute is fine. The clippings dry up and disappear in a day or so. That also helps fertilize the yard. Plus you save time because raking yard clippings is a pain in the rear. With leaves, you can always just grind them up with the mower. I’ve done this for years: Just run over the leaves back and forth a few times and they disintegrate into “dust”. Again- more food for the grass. That means less stuff in landfills.

C: Carpool. Sounds difficult, but my Wife and I have done it for years. We do it for a number of reasons, the first is to not have to pay bridge tolls ( $4 a day) and also to save gas. We commute 90 miles a day, so the gas savings means that we save almost $1,200 a year in fuel. Additionally, if you have a family, consider medium to small vehicles. There’s a misconception that if you have a family, you have to buy some huge SUV because they’re “safer” and bigger. Ironically, they’re actually more dangerous because they flip over easier. Some new small cars are just as roomy as some full sized cars from 20 years ago. They’re cheaper, plus in general but not always- full size SUVs tend to be built exclusively by manufactures with poor reliability ratings, hence again, you save money if you go with a better brand.

D: Use jars as drinking glasses. We do this only because we had a house mate who either lost or broke the “real” glasses we bought. After awhile we got tired of it and started saving old fruit and spaghetti sauce jars. We’ve been doing this for years and don’t even think of it anymore… unless guests come over, at which point the “real” glasses come out. There’s even a few tricks where you can cut the tops off the jars and smooth down the rough edges and make pretty cool looking glasses… but that’s another story.

E: Use coffee grounds as garden fertilizer. Lots of people throw out coffee grounds. But they’re full of nutrients and “look” like soil anyway, so dump it in the garden and its good for the plants.

F: If you see something useful on the side of the road waiting to be thrown away ( happens less often now) consider either using it yourself if you want it, or take it home and sell it on craigslist. It was free and if you sell it- wallah! instant money!

Lastly…”Most of them are unproven, ineffective fallacies, generated by touchy-feely environment liberals.”

Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Somehow a lot of people let their ideology get in the way of fact.
It is a fact that CFL’s use less electricity.
It is a fact that an efficient cars get better economy than big ones.
Its a fact that it takes a ton more electricity to make a new aluminum can versus melt down an old one.
Its a fact that using re-usable bags at the store uses less paper and plastic.

Lastly, most of these things saves money. But if you want to pretend otherwise, go for it.