Simple living ideas that green up your life are more abundant than you may realize. I will be offering simple living ideas that offer easy ways to live a more green existence. Why would you want to do this?
Why not? Living a more simple lifestyle that saves money and is more healthy for you and the planet is a win, win for all.
Take a look at my suggestions. Adopt those that may work for you. Mix, match, alter, change them at will. If have missed any favorites that work for you please share them in the comments section. Enjoy 😉.
Green Home Simple Living Ideas
Move It or Lose It Walk as much as you can during your daily routine. Take the stairs often and ditch the car whenever possible.
Go Paperless Almost every business offers online account management and payment options. Some simple living ideas are a no-brainer but if your bank does not offer this service GET A NEW BANK because they are probably are lacking other important services.
.More Efficient Light Bulbs This technology is still evolving so use compact fluorescent light bulbs. They reduce energy usage by up to 75% as compared to traditional light bulbs.
Your Food Waste Look into ways to compost kitchen waste instead of throwing them into the regular trash. If you are not comfortable doing it indoors try doing it outdoors.
Unsolicited Mails Other simple living ideas no-brainer. We all hate junk mail and can only imagine a number of trees destroyed to produce it. Use CatalogChoice or the FTC’s OptOutPrescreen to reduce junk mail clutter.
Down Size, Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Restore This is a living simple ideas tagline. Once you have adopted the decluttering mindset, remember to try and give away, donate and recycle any items that still can be used. Try to avoid throwing anything of value straight into the trash.
Less Meat Reduce the amount of meat you consume on a weekly basis. You would be surprised at the amount of energy that (31.5kWh) goes into producing a pound of beef.
Your Tap Water Drink tap water whenever possible. Use a portable water tester to test your tap water to ensure it is safe beforehand. Avoid bottled water if your tap water test safe. Overuse of bottled water generates a ton of plastic bottle waste and costs much more over time.
Collect Rainwater That is correct. You can collect rainwater and use it to water your houseplants and garden. You can even use it to wash things outside.
Stop Charging Overnight Stop charging your smartphones and tablets overnight! This waste energy for hours and hours unnecessarily. These devices usually only need a few hours to reach full charge and overnight is overkill.
Avoid Oven Preheat In most cases, oven preheating is not needed and is a waste of energy. You can use a microwave or better yet use a NuWave Oven to cook or if you need to reheat leftover food.
Stop Toilet Leaks Pour a little bit of food coloring into your toilet tank. If you see coloring in the bowl then you have a leaky toilet that is wasting water 24hrs a day. Replace the flapper or call a plumber to correct it.
Food To Go When ordering food for delivery or picking up food to go ask the restaurant not to add plastic utensils, napkins, and anything else you will not be using.
Dry Clothing Outside Try getting clothes to rack for drying clothes or run old fashion clothes drying lines outside or in the basement of your home. Air drying is less harsh on clothing. The dryer adds wear and tear to your clothing and leaves the evidence in the lint trap for you to clean.
Grow Your Own You grow Indoor plants and they act as natural air purifiers and help absorb harmful pollutants from the air. Why not plant a vegetable garden outside to do the same and help feed you and your family?
Personal Mug This is a simple living idea that most are using anyway but it still must be said. Stop using plastic cups after plastic cups at work. Bring your own mug and refill your favorite beverages at will without adding to the landfill.
Telecommuting Work-from-home for a few days per month to reduce the environmental effects of commuting to work every day. Of course, this is not an option for everyone but is a good option for those who can work it out.
Lunch Time It is not enough to just pack your lunchon a regular basis but you need to get a reusable container, instead of using paper bags, foils, and the like to reduce what goes to the landfill. Try making mason jar lunches to avoid waste.
For You Meeting Notes If you need to write notes during internal meetings at work consider using scrap paper for that purpose. Paper can be reused many times in the office. Just take a look around and be creative.
File Sharing Your office should have a secure intranet and should offer file sharing. If your office does not offer a reliable file sharing option to share office materials then consider using services like DropBox or Google Drive. This will reduce the need to print out these materials.
Green Outside Simple Living Ideas
Carpooling with Colleagues Work to set up a carpooling program at work. Use incentives to encourage employees to join. Incentives should include free parking, prioritized parking space, and whatever that would be unique to your workplace.
Use Laptops Consider getting a laptop the next time purchase new office computers. Laptops consume much less energy than desktop computers, takes up less space, and are easier to maintain.
Plastic Bags Bring your own reusable bag whenever you go grocery shopping. Try to embrace Zero Waste as much as you can. It is now becoming more popular for stores and supermarkets to no longer offer free plastic bags to customers and allows customers to bring their own reusable bags.
Junk In The Trunk Why have junk in your car trunk? Extra weight in the trunk reduces your vehicle’s fuel efficiency. If you don’t need it, get rid of it and save gas.
Use Cruise Control For some reason, I don’t use cruise control and I should. Use cruise control, especially when driving on the highway. Cruise control helps increase fuel efficiency by keeping your vehicle moving at a constant speed and avoiding fuel robbing changes in speed.
Replace Air Filters Replacing your car’s air filters when clogged with dirt and dust will help your car’s performance, acceleration, and gas mileage. Check your car’s filters on a regular basis.
Bike or Walk
Bike or walk if your destination is only a few blocks away. This will add more healthy exercise to your daily routine and save gas and help you bond more with your community.
Inspiring others to pursue their authentic self and greatest passions by Living Simple, decluttering, maintaining and managing fewer possessions. Enjoying more time and money to welcome happiness.
I’m glad to say that I am doing a lot of these things. My wife and I pay all of our credit cards online. Now, we can even deposit checks to our bank account through our iPhone! If we could just get the senders to stop writing checks! And we use the compact fluorescent lights. My wife is a master gardener, so we have 3 compost barrels in our back yard (no meat or fish, though). And we do drink out tap water, though we put it through a filter to eliminate the strong chlorine taste.
But I certainly did learn some facts that I did not know! Great scoop on getting rid of junk mail. 99% of our mail IS junk. Sometimes big, fat, glossy catalogs that we have no idea why we’re getting them (for heavy duty construction equipment)!
And I did NOT realize charging overnight drained power. I figured once it’s charged, it stops drawing it. Great tip!
Nor did I realize laptops took less energy than desk computers. I’ve been using a laptop at home for over a decade (for the convenience of being able to take it anywhere), but where I work there are many desk computers. I’ll give them your advice!
Roger you and your family are way a head of me. Your wife being a master gardener is great. You are more likely to have a more healthy diet and save money at the same time. The composting helps that process to. Lessening junk mail is big. It should be a crime to send as much junk mail that is being sent. They have to be losing money on it.
Laptops save money and adds to productivity in the office. I have found the trend that many offices offering a co-working type environment where you are assigned desk space daily, especially for out of town employees and visitors. This allows for less office space (cuts cost) because you never have full office staff, there will always be rotating portions of the office telecommuting from home.
I have even seen companies not even issue you a computer and just reimburse and potion of the cost of you buying your own laptop for work. They save on support as all laptops come with a few years of warranty service.
Some great ideas here, Tony. I am not vegetarian by any means (love bacon!) but a plant based diet is certainly much greener and everyone would benefit from halving their intake of meat – from a health point of view. And when it comes to water and the environment, my sources tell me it takes over 2,400 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat, 2,000 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk, but an average of 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of plant-based food. Makes you think!
Even with the fact that the planet is 74% water the usage you state still are staggering. They are what they are. Bacon is a deal breaker for me also. LOL
Tony, I am amazed at just HOW simple your ideas are, but they are things we don’t always remember to do! Thank you for a very inspiring article that will hopefully encourage all of us to take a good luck at how we are living and act now on these easy ideas you shared.
Absolutely great advice! Now if we will just DO IT! ;)-
One thing that caught my attention here was the lightbulbs. A few years ago there was suppose to be a hike in electric prices in my area. My wife and I decided to prepare for this by lightening our load on our electric. The first thing that we did was to change all of our lightbulbs over to the electric friendly ones. We also changed out our thermostat to a programmable one so that we could better regulate the temperature.
The end result was when the hike hit, our bill was cheaper than it was even before so.
James, the hidden benefit of you changing to the compact fluorescent light bulbs is you won’t have to do it again for a long time. Some believe they can last up to ten years. Only time will tell.
Great post! I already go as a paperless as possible. Not only does it help keep trees around to help us breath but it has simplified and de-cluttered my life. I’m going to have to use your suggestion on checking to toilet leaks to make sure I’m not wasting water and money.
Great lists, Tony!
I’m glad to say that I am doing a lot of these things. My wife and I pay all of our credit cards online. Now, we can even deposit checks to our bank account through our iPhone! If we could just get the senders to stop writing checks! And we use the compact fluorescent lights. My wife is a master gardener, so we have 3 compost barrels in our back yard (no meat or fish, though). And we do drink out tap water, though we put it through a filter to eliminate the strong chlorine taste.
But I certainly did learn some facts that I did not know! Great scoop on getting rid of junk mail. 99% of our mail IS junk. Sometimes big, fat, glossy catalogs that we have no idea why we’re getting them (for heavy duty construction equipment)!
And I did NOT realize charging overnight drained power. I figured once it’s charged, it stops drawing it. Great tip!
Nor did I realize laptops took less energy than desk computers. I’ve been using a laptop at home for over a decade (for the convenience of being able to take it anywhere), but where I work there are many desk computers. I’ll give them your advice!
Thanks for helping green me up!
Roger
Roger you and your family are way a head of me. Your wife being a master gardener is great. You are more likely to have a more healthy diet and save money at the same time. The composting helps that process to. Lessening junk mail is big. It should be a crime to send as much junk mail that is being sent. They have to be losing money on it.
Laptops save money and adds to productivity in the office. I have found the trend that many offices offering a co-working type environment where you are assigned desk space daily, especially for out of town employees and visitors. This allows for less office space (cuts cost) because you never have full office staff, there will always be rotating portions of the office telecommuting from home.
I have even seen companies not even issue you a computer and just reimburse and potion of the cost of you buying your own laptop for work. They save on support as all laptops come with a few years of warranty service.
I guess we all will continue to do our part.
Some great ideas here, Tony. I am not vegetarian by any means (love bacon!) but a plant based diet is certainly much greener and everyone would benefit from halving their intake of meat – from a health point of view. And when it comes to water and the environment, my sources tell me it takes over 2,400 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat, 2,000 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk, but an average of 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of plant-based food. Makes you think!
Even with the fact that the planet is 74% water the usage you state still are staggering. They are what they are. Bacon is a deal breaker for me also. LOL
Tony, I am amazed at just HOW simple your ideas are, but they are things we don’t always remember to do! Thank you for a very inspiring article that will hopefully encourage all of us to take a good luck at how we are living and act now on these easy ideas you shared.
Absolutely great advice! Now if we will just DO IT! ;)-
Rita
Rita, I am sure if some of the money saving tips are not being done many will adopt them. Maybe. LOL
One thing that caught my attention here was the lightbulbs. A few years ago there was suppose to be a hike in electric prices in my area. My wife and I decided to prepare for this by lightening our load on our electric. The first thing that we did was to change all of our lightbulbs over to the electric friendly ones. We also changed out our thermostat to a programmable one so that we could better regulate the temperature.
The end result was when the hike hit, our bill was cheaper than it was even before so.
James, the hidden benefit of you changing to the compact fluorescent light bulbs is you won’t have to do it again for a long time. Some believe they can last up to ten years. Only time will tell.
Great post! I already go as a paperless as possible. Not only does it help keep trees around to help us breath but it has simplified and de-cluttered my life. I’m going to have to use your suggestion on checking to toilet leaks to make sure I’m not wasting water and money.
Yes Jaron going paperless is a good habit. The toilet trick is a good one. Don’t feel betrayed by your toilet if this is leaking. I know I did. LOL