Happy Earth Day! Save Money Being Green!
It’s Earth Day today, which is a great day to remind us to try and live greener lives. This is good because being green and eco-friendly can actually save you money!
A lot of people think you have to spend a lot of money being green, which may be the case for things like installing solar panels or replacing appliances with energy efficient counterparts, but there are many simple things you can do that save money and are good for the planet.
Ready to do your part? Here are just a few easy tips:
Shop At Thrift Stores & Resale Shops
Shopping at resale shops is a great way to help other people recycle their stuff and get new to you clothes, accessories, books, and more for a steal! Plus, it’s fun to dig around at a Thrift shop and see what interesting things you discover. Make sure to donate your unwanted items as well (and get a receipt for the tax write off!). This cycle keeps perfectly good items out of the landfill and puts them to good use again.
Bring Your Own Water Bottle
Drinking lots of water is good for you. Buying bottled water is not. And most bottled water is just tap water anyway. Cut out the middle man, save the petroleum used to transport and bottle the water and just carry your own reusable water bottle. Get a snazzy stainless steel
Grow Your Own Veggie’s and Herbs
Gardening is a fun active hobby. It can save you money in the long run by reducing the amount of produce and fresh/dried herbs you buy at the grocery store. That in turn helps the planet by reducing the carbon footprint of transporting those foods from the farm to your store. Even if you don’t have a yard to garden in, patio and container gardening are a great option for apartment and city dwellers.
Save Leftovers
Unless there was a cooking fiasco, save your leftovers! Then make sure to eat them! By doing this you make sure no food goes to waste. This can save you time and energy since you won’t have to cook a future meal from scratch. Take the leftovers for lunch the next day: you’ll save money eating in instead of going out to eat.
Pay Bills Online
Almost every bill you have–credit card, electricity, cell phone, cable, even those pesky student loans–can be paid online. This saves you the cost of the stamp, which can really add up over the years. Elect to receive your bills via email and help the planet even more by getting rid of the paper version of your bills.
Use Reusable Cleaning Products
Makes rags or buy reusable cloths for Swiffer sweepers and mops. This saves you money that would be spent on sponges or paper towels.
While You’re At It, Get Rid of the Paper Towels
Even if you’re not ready to take the plunge and get rid of paper towels completely, you can seriously decrease you consumption by using cloth napkins and rags. This saves you money and saves trees.
Make Money Recycling Your Gadgets or Books
I’m going to guess that most 20 somethings have old cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras, and other electronic gadgets lying around. You know, things you iPhone replaced. Well instead of tossing them out or leaving them to gather dust in a drawer somewhere, you can these items and even get cash for them. And those best sellers you read years ago or your Mom bought you for your birthday even though you hate the genre: sell those too, and give them a second chance. Those textbooks from college that you know you’ll never read again are great candidates for this.
Have any other tips on how to save money and be eco-friendly? Share them in the comments!
Looking for Earth Day freebies or deals? Check out the posts at The Thrifty Mama and Common Sense With Money.
Free MP3 Music: Love You to Death/The Pettit Project
I love free music. I love it even more when it’s from one of my favorite bands.
Love You To Death is a Canadian Pop-Punk band that was once known as The Pettit Project. I’ve been a fan of theirs for years. I love their catchy, fun music. I also love that they give away a lot of it for free.
If you’re looking for new music to try, give Love You To Death a shot. Check out their Myspace page for streaming music, and snag some of their free downloads.
Here are 13 free songs to try.
At their website download the following songs:
- Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley Cover)
- Only Gravity Can Bring Me Down
- Material Boy
- All This Mess
- The Life I’ve Missed
- Surfer Girl
- Pretty Girls makes Me Nervous (Prozzak Cover)
- Sleigh Ride
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
- Simple Song, Simple Plan
- You’re Champagne and I’m Shiznit
- How Do You Giftwrap a Young Boy’s First Broken Heart?
- Mistletoepriation of Funds
If you enjoy their free music, then go buy some from them! Their CDs are available on their site, and all of their music old and new is available for purchase on iTunes (Love You To Death and The Pettit Project). Their new CD, Recipe for Ghost, just came out in March, and it is amazing!
Here’s their music video for “99 Lives.”
Patio Gardening 2010: Week 1 - The Seedlings
Spring is officially here! I love looking out the window and seeing buds on the trees and flowers popping up. They’re all signs that the weather is warmer and gardening season is here.
When I lived at home, my parents had a garden every year, growing all kinds of vegetables and fruits. I always enjoyed going outside and picking fresh tomatoes or blackberries, and eating them right away. My parents always saved money on produce too.
They continue to garden, but now that I’m on my own I don’t reap the benefits of their hard work. Plus, living in the city of Chicago makes gardening a challenge.
Since I moved here for college six years ago, there have been various experiments and successes with house plants and kitchen windowsill herb pots, but we’ve never really much made an effort to grow vegetables. I think I just always thought it was impossible to have a garden without a yard.
Last summer, when we moved into our new building, I saw one of our neighbors had several large and healthy tomato and basil plants growing on their balcony. I was very envious of their patio gardening success, and knew that come next spring, I wanted the same.
This year, the boyfriend and I will make our first serious attempt at patio gardening, and we honestly have absolutely no clue what we’re doing. It’s actually pretty fun and exciting and we just plan to jump in feet first and learn a lot.
We’re one week into our gardening adventure, so let me quickly bring you up to speed.
Basically, we’re starting out with seeds we have left over from previous planting attempts (they’ve been stored in the refrigerator) combined with seeds recently purchased from Family Dollar, some local Asian grocery stores, and Jewel.
We bought a bag of potting soil and are using small pots we already have and and some seed trays from the dollar store.
The veggies and herbs we’re attempting to grow this year are:
- Cherry Tomatoes
- Green Onions
- Zuchinni Squash
- Yellow Squash
- Peppers
- Pumpkin (this is a long shot, I know)
- Green Beans
- Cucumber (spacemaster)
- Cucumber (pickler)
- String Beans
- Lettuce
Our total expenses so far are $3 for potting soil, $1 for seed trays, and $6 for seeds. That’s a $10 investment. We’ll still need to buy more soil and pots for when we transfer the seedlings.
We planted the seeds on April 11th, and currently we’re keeping them indoors on our windowsill until the weather warms up a little more.
There are little seedlings for everything (including the pumpkin!) except for the peppers. No sign of life from them, but we’re not giving up yet. The zucchinis were the most enthusiastic and started to sprout after just a few days. The picture of the seedlings is from Sunday (the 18th).
So far, so good. We’re reading and researching and looking into what size pots we should get for our plants and shopping around for good prices (I was eying some pots at the thrift store yesterday. I probably should have grabbed them and expect they’re all gone now). I’m going to try to update each week on how our plants are doing and what we’re learning while we grow our first patio garden.
Update: Here are the subsequent posts:
- Week 3: Pepper Surprise
- Week 4: Wilting Cucumbers
- Week 5: Transplanting the Seedlings
- Week 6: Little Bean Pods
- Week 7: Transplanting & Harvesting
- Week 8: The Plants are Flowering
- Week 9: Stakes & Hand Pollinating
- Week 10: Storms & Powdery Mildew
- Week 11: Cherry Tomato Flowers
- Week 12: Bugs on the Tomatoes
- Week 13: Cutworm Invasion
- Week 14: Blossom End Rot
- Week 15: Waiting for Tomatoes
- Week 16: Female Flowers on the Squash
- Week 17: Harvesting Tomatoes
Unemployed Once Again
As I believe I’ve mentioned briefly before, last December I scored a seasonal job in a tax office. Last Thursday was Tax Day in the US, so I worked a lot in the weeks leading up to it (which explains the lack of regular posting for the past few months). With Tax Day comes the end of the tax season, which means the end of my job, so I am unemployed again.
I have to say that at this point, I feel pretty good about it. Most of that is because I was so overworked the past few weeks that I need a little break. Also, I knew when this job would end when I took it, so I was mentally prepared for this (not at all like last summer when I suddenly lost my job).
Even though I wasn’t preparing taxes and I don’t see a future for myself in that industry, I learned a lot about personal finances and helping people. I plan to take those experiences and move forward, looking for new opportunities and ways to improve this blog and my own thrifty ways.
Being unemployed again will present new challenges in stretching my budget and finding creative ways to earn money, all things I will share here.
Mostly, the point of this post, is just to share a little optimism. I know a lot of other people out there are unemployed and have been for a long time. Things are not better yet, but they’re starting to get better. This is not the be all and end all. And things could certainly be much worse. So, let’s keep our chins up and be on the look out for our next opportunity.
Also, I’ll be a lot more active on this site with all this extra free time. So look forward to more fun and thrifty content.
It’s Tax Day!
Well, tax day is here again, and if you haven’t filed your taxes yet, you better do that now! Here is how to file your taxes cheaply or free.
Did you get a big refund this year? Great! Congratulations. Now, be smart about how you use that money.
Did you know that if you get a big tax refund every year, you may actually be wasting your money by giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan. Seriously. You may want to check out that article from the Charlotte Observer.
But anyway, it’s Tax Day, which means there are freebies to be had! I did a post about this last year, so I figured I should do it again.
- Cinnabon is giving away 2 free cupcake bites today only. Limit 2, while supplies last, so get there early!
- Taco Del Mar is giving away free tacos with this coupon. (There’s one of these down the street from the tax office I work in. Convenient!)
Know of any other Tax Day freebies or deals? Let me know!
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About Tiffany
I'm a 20-something living in the big expensive city of Chicago. I'm post-college and bouncing between underemployment and unemployment, while trying my best to be thrifty, save money, pay off my 6 digit student loan debt, and still have fun and enjoy life. I live with my boyfriend, a rabbit, and a chinchilla. Read more.
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