Want an easy way to cut down your heating bill?
I know you do, so let me quickly tell you. After you’re done cooking food in your big conventional oven or small toaster oven, leave the door open for a while. The remaining warmth from the oven can help heat your home.
You can stick a cork coaster/trivet in the door so it doesn’t have to stay fully open.
I know there will be some raised eyebrows when I confess that I like 3-ply toilet paper, but it is so nice and soft and strong.
But I also know that I need to use less of it, because it is so much thicker, stronger, and more absorbent. Whether or not you have the “better” toilet paper, stop using so much of it.
The paper is a pain to remove from the water, and yes, it becomes garbage. In most cases, the less stuff we send down our toilets, the better it is for our planet and our wallets.
Boiling water is something we just do, without a lot of thought, but it is something that we can do differently to help save the planet. How, you wonder?
It’s simple: Most of us fill the whole kettle and then set it to boil, even when we need only one cup of hot water. So we are heating 3 times as much water and waiting 3 times longer for it to boil, for no good reason.
So start saving the planet by boiling less.
Sign up to receive your bills electronically, and you will be putting less paper and personal information in the garbage
The trees will thank you, and you’ll never misplace your bills again.
When you go grocery-shopping, you can save yourself a lot of extra, unnecessary spending if you would shop with a list. People who know what they need tend to spend less on impulse goods and other things they don’t really need.
This way, you save not only money but also the environment, because less packaging and wasted food will end up in the landfills.
The library probably has one of the biggest - if not the biggest - collection of books you’ll find. Most of the local library branches have more books than the local bookstore, and you are welcome to borrow them.
A library card is cheap, sometimes even free. By borrowing books, you save a lot of trees from being chopped down, and you don’t have to spend all that money on books that you might read only once or later think twice about keeping.
If you would make your hot water a little less hot, you would save on your water heating.
The easiest way to get big savings here is just to turn down your water heater a couple of degrees. You will not notice the difference, because it gets mixed with some cold water in most cases. It’s really worth the extra savings, especially because the water heater keeps your water warm even when you don’t use any!
Did you know that refrigerators come with a door for a reason? I guess you did, since you need to open it to get your food, but we forget that the door is more useful when closed than when open. Many of us keep the door open way longer than we should.
It is better to open the door a couple more times than to leave it open for a while. By leaving it open, you let out all the cold air. Your home gets cold and your fridge gets warm, and more energy will be needed to get both back to the right temperature.
You know that stale old bread nobody wants to finish? It doesn’t have to end up in the garbage.
First, you can of course toast it and enjoy it with some nice butter.
You can also give that bread “new life” as breadcrumbs, or even croutons if you’re feeling ambitious.
And if push comes to shove, the birds outside will appreciate your old bread when they’re having a hard time finding food in winter.
You see, your “old” food can still serve a purpose, creating new ingredients for you and less waste for the planet.
People seem to have difficulty opening cans, which is why many of us get an electric can opener, and then we find that even these gadgets can let us down.
The solution: Get a good manual can opener. It will cost a bit more, but it will do the job better. This way you save on electricity and counter space.
