Monday, August 22, 2011

Going Green saves you Green!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle has become my mommy mantra.
About 4 months in to my pregnancy I decided I wanted to cloth diaper. I had never really liked the smell of disposables (and those who know me know of my insanely strong sense of smell) and cloth came in so many cute colors.  Ben wasn't quite on board until I showed him how much money we'd save by using cloth.  Since we're using One Size diapers we've never had to buy more and have saved about $100 a month for 2 years (after the initial $500 investment).

Not everyone can cloth diaper, if we didn't have a washer/dryer in our home I don't think we would have done it either.  Never fear, there are so many other ways to go green and save yourself money.

Just do one thing, just this one thing and you will save a ton of money and make less waste.  Swap out disposable for reusable. 
Instead of disposable cups and utensils for the family use ones you can wash and reuse again.  You pay a little more for the permanent items (and sometimes there isn't a huge price difference) but it lasts much longer and you don't have to keep buying new items. 

Ziploc bags are useful but I hate having to toss them.  I started making my own snack bags with fabric and PUL, they're easily cleaned and I can chose the fabric.
simple PUL snack bag

If you don't want a soft snack bag you can find snack containers just about anywhere, Target usually sells them in their $1 spot (I could live in that section alone) and they are very sturdy.
If you can't get around using a Ziploc bag don't assume you need to throw it away when you are done.  You can wash and reuse them over and over again.


With the rising cost of everything these days it makes sense to go green.  Not just for the environment but for your wallet.

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