Happy Earth Day

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy earth day. I hope that everyone looks at today as a time to raise awareness about conserving our resources and keeping our planet clean and not just the one day a year to do something. Keep reading this blog for more useful ways to conserve resources and money while keeping our planet healthy.

Check Your Car For Cash

While gasoline isn't $4 a gallon anymore, even at $2 a gallon keeping your vehicle maintained can add up to significant savings. Some simple maintenence can add up to big cash. A couple of things you can do will cost you absolutly nothing and save gas. Checking your tire pressure and making sure your tires are fully inflated to the manufacturers specification can save you the equivilent of 20 cents a gallon and lightening your load (i.e getting rid of the junk in your trunk) can save you 3 cents a gallon per every 100 pounds removed. Getting your car tuned up regularly can save you up to 8 cents a gallon, replacing the air filter can save up to 20 cents and a proper alignment can save up to 20 cents a gallon as well. Don't forget to check your gas cap too, replacing a broken of missing gas cap can shave a penny off a gallon.

These are all simple things that everyone can do at little to no expense, and any money spent will be paid off quickly given the savings in gas, and thats at $2 a gallon, if gas prices go back up it will be even more!

Unplug it!

One simple thing that everyone can do, at absolutley no cost is to unplug certain things when they are not in use. I'm not saying unplug your alarm clock or coffeemaker with a clock (it would save a small amount of energy, but not practical to reset your clock all the time) but if you unplug simple items like cellphone chargers or other battery chargers, printers and anything else with a transformer. Eliminating this "leaking" electricity can save you anywhere from 6 to 26 percent of your household electricity use.

Saving Money With Compact Florescents

I'm going to start off with my first real blog post about how you can save money by replacing your incandescent bulbs with compact florescent bulbs. This is one of the easiest and cheapest way to save energy and money. While the initial cost of a bulb is more, they last 10 times longer and use 75 percent less energy. The savings in electricity alone can be $30 or more during the life of one bulb, and the price of the bulbs keeps coming down. Many major retailers are selling 3 packs for around $6.99 and electricity suppliers often sell them to customers at a discount as well. If every household in the United States replaced just one bulb we would save $600 million in energy costs and reduce pollution by the amount of 800,000 cars. In addition, if we cut demand on energy, the prices should go down, saving more money. While it might be expensive to change your entire house at once, you can reduce the hit on your wallet by changing over as bulbs burn out. Think of the energy savings from multiple bulbs over multiple years, thats a lot!

Welcome

Welcome to our new blog! This blog is about practical and realistic ways to be more environmentaly friendly, save energy and save money. This blog is not going to preach about buying carbon offsets or global warming. This is not a partisan blog, it is open to left,right and middle. We will try to educate you on real practical solutions that actually save energy and not just make you feel good. The plan is to update 2-3 times a week with topics for your everyday life.