Random little Earth Day tips that will save you a bit o cash

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not super green, I mean, I try, don't get me wrong, but I don't shower with a bucket to water my plants, and frankly you probably won't see me riding a bike to save gas - I think people that do are honorable - but I just don't - I hope that nobody out there thinks badly of me for admitting this....

So I think Earth Day gets everyone all excited about doing just a bit more to be 'greener' - here are a couple tips that help reduce our carbon footprint just a bit - AND help us save some cash. Here are a couple easy peasy things.

*bring your own mug to Starbucks (get 10 cents every time and you save a cup).

*notice inside Starbucks they have large bags of coffee grounds you can take home for your garden for free - you can also use your own coffee grounds in your garden - keep it out of a landfill & make everything grow better.

*bring reusable bags to the grocery store - Ralphs, Sprouts, Henrys, Target (do you know others??) all give you 5 cents back for each reusable bag you bring in.

*I fully own that this is RANDOM - but if you 'plant' green onions in a cup of water - they will grow new green onions - for reals - I know green onions are not really hitting anyone that hard in their pocket books, but I always get double out of each bunch I buy.

*If you are gonna try to plant one kind of produce - might I suggest the tomato - take it from a gardenly challenged individual with a VERY limited growing area that doesnt get much sun - you can't kill a tomato plant - we have the same one growing from 1 1/2 years ago - but we killed EVERYTHING else.

*Join Freecycle in your city - you can give away LOTS of stuff that you otherwise would just throw away - likewise you may find something wonderful for yourself that someone else would throw away!

*Always consider Craigslist, Ebay, and good old fashioned 'hand me downs' prior to making a new purchase - we bought our 'sit & stand' stroller used (but in perfect condition) for $30 on Craigslist - it would have been over $100 plus tax at Babies R Us - the awesome part - if I keep it in good condition I will totally get that $30 back when I am done!

*Try out one of those reusable bottles for water at the gym (I totally admit I dont do this every time) - if you do drink bottled water - make sure you recycle it! We have a seperate trash can for water bottles & cans - our kids think it is fun to 'feed' the machine that is behind Ralphs - we dont go very often - but it is cool to get a few bucks to apply to our shopping trip.

*Unplug appliances not in use.  We've got a treadmill & a tv in the garage that we unplug except for when we are using them (only a couple hours a week) apparently stuff still sucks power when you aren't using it! We also unplug our living room TV & a couple other appliances at night & more if we leave town for a while - and we have noticed a difference.

*So obvious (but not all our neighbors remember, I'm sure we all forget sometimes) - turn off your sprinklers on rainy days!

Happy Earth Day Everyone ~
Kate