As beautiful as the term eco-friendly can be, it often comes with a feeling of dread and negativity. You see, while it is in the best interest of the environment and our health to be more sustainable, the efforts of sustainability can be rather costly. And in today’s age of fragile finances, most people are naively choosing to save their money instead of saving the environment.
However, what if I told you that there were ways to do both? While many earth-friendly initiatives seem exuberant in cost, they really don’t have to be – with careful thinking and a little imagination, you can actually save money and make money while being eco-friendly.
8 Ways to Save and Make Money while Being Eco-friendly:
Be more energy efficient: The top way to save money while being eco-friendly is to be more energy efficient – being an efficient energy consumer simply means that you are making a continual effort to use less energy. Doing so will save you money on your electricity bill while helping you curb your carbon footprint. First, you can visit a source like AlbertaEnergyProviders.com to find greener energy providers in your area and then shop based on price and type of energy provided. Additionally, you can be more energy efficient by upgrading to energy star appliances, driving less, turning lights off when you leave the room, running the dishwasher and washer/dryer less often, turn down the water heater and use low flow shower heads and faucets.
Make it yourself it: Learning how to make your eco-friendly cleaning supplies and beauty products will save you the money on purchasing. You may even get so good at making soaps and scrubs that you decide to sell some to make a few extra bucks. Additionally, you can also tend to your own organic garden – growing your own crops will allow you cut down on your grocery bill while feeding your family healthy homegrown produce. And you can even sell some at your local farmer’s market.
Shop secondhand: Shopping for clothing and home décor from yard sales, thrift shops, auction sites and swap groups is a great way to keep useful items out of the landfill while saving money at the same time. Additionally, you can make extra money by rehabbing a few of your secondhand finds and reselling them elsewhere for a higher price.
Cheap and green gift-giving: Maintaining your cheap and Green lifestyle during gift giving time might seem a little challenging, but you can do it. You can grow beautiful potted plants in your garden and gift those away to your friends with green thumbs or you can upcycle some of those lovely thrift shop finds and create lovely jewelry or art to give away.
Live a minimalistic lifestyle: You create more trash when you accumulate more stuff, plus purchasing more than you need is a waste of money. Therefore, living minimalistically is the most economical choice. You can decorate subtly with minimal décor and furniture, clear your home of clutter and disorganization and sell or donate the working items that you no longer use.
Recycle: Recycling is one of the best ways to be sustainable, doing so will help keep the environment a little cleaner and spare the use of virgin materials. Additionally, recycling can save you money in a few ways – firstly, you will be purchasing fewer trash bags which will save you in the long run and some recycling companies actually pay you in cash or redeemable points for recycling.
Inside promotions: Sign up to receive newsletters and promotional material from your favorite eco-friendly brands. The insider deals can save you big.
Start an eco-club: If you live in a tight open-minded community then this tip can help save you big. You can start an eco club where a group of you pool your money in to buy eco-items in bulk and then you share the goods. You can make your eco-club educational and fun and spread the word which in turn will inspire others to join your Green up/save money journey.
You see, life is all about perspective, once you change your perspective on living environmentally friendly, opportunities for you to save and make money will open up. And soon, living cheap and Green will become less challenging, worthwhile and fun.
James Hendrickson is an internet entrepreneur, blogging junky, hunter and personal finance geek. When he’s not lurking in coffee shops in Portland, Oregon, you’ll find him in the Pacific Northwest’s great outdoors. James has a masters degree in Sociology from the University of Maryland at College Park and a Bachelors degree on Sociology from Earlham College. He loves individual stocks, bonds and precious metals.