Money and the environment, there used to be a time when these two forces were opposed; in 2011 they go hand in hand. Some of the best ways to save money is through environmental savings, eight of which we have listed below, so let’s take a look…
Switching to a green energy tariff
Most, if not all the major energy suppliers will have green tariff option available which all help environmental sustainability in different ways. How they help depends on the company, for instance, on a green tariff your energy might come exclusively from renewable sources, such as solar or wind power. Another way the contribution could be worked is some of your energy bill goes towards research into renewable energy.
As you can guess, it’s not just saving the environment, but green tariffs will also save you money. A green tariff will cost the same as a duel fuel tariff at worst, plus different companies will be competing trying to offer the best green tariff, so it would be the perfect cover to change energy supplier at the same time.
Be more careful driving
Not many people realise how the little things in driving can soon add up to using more petrol than you actually need. Making adjustments to your driving style can really help, for instance accelerating and braking hard require more fuel than a slow and steady increase, stay in the speed limit to keep fuel consumption at a steady rate and preferably don’t have a roof rack, as the drag can use up 2-3% of the fuel every time you fill up. To round off, it’s not just the engine that needs fuel, electronics in the car can take up a fair amount of juice, such as having the air conditioning on regularly at full blast.
Saving energy at home and work
This shouldn’t be a tip, nut just more of a reminder, turn lights off when not in the room, don’t leave appliances on standby switch them off instead. Finally, only turn on and use the central heating when it’s needed, as that’s the mega money drainer.
Make use of your library
The amount we spend yearly on various forms of entertainment; books, CD’s and DVD’s in particular, can be saved and joining and using the local library. This route could slash hundreds of pounds a year you spend buying as well as slashing the amount of packaging you consume and discard in a year at the same time.
Alter your computer settings
The default settings of your computer are never set for energy efficiency, so altering them should be priority and using the sleep and hibernating options if the PC is not being used, if it’s not going to be needed for an hour or more, switch it off to save more energy.
Grow your own produce
Growing your own doesn’t have to be a hassle, special gardening equipment does not have to brought, nor does much precious garden space have to be sacrificed to make room. Ask other growers, such as friends or neighbours for cuttings or seeds to plant instead of buying packets and by summertime you’ll be shaving costs off your food bill and saving environmentally on the ‘food miles’ and packaging of supermarket bought produce.
Save on paper used
Again, a pretty simple and well known and used method of cutting stationary bills and saving a few more trees from the chop, use both sides of the paper and scrap paper for the odd notes, shopping lists etc. As with PC’s, printers are not optimised for energy efficiency so again a tweak here and there will be needed, lastly never forget to recycle where possible.
Use rechargeable batteries
Batteries can be quite expensive, so buying them over and over can cost a pretty penny, so the long term savings rechargeable batteries can give make them a worthwhile investment. The purchase price is going to be higher than for normal batteries, but that is easily offset by the large savings to be made by using them. Used batteries are one of the worst pollutions on the environment, so the less they are the used is always a good thing.
We could go on for another few pages about the ways to save money and environment, but I think we’re pushing our own tips about paper and PC energy saving as it is. What we’ve listed is only a few of the simplest and most effective methods, if you navigate the World Wide Web you will come across many more, hundreds even, of more tips to save the environment and money in one swoop, so get going!
James writes for Just Remortgages one of the UK’s top sites for the latest remortgage rates and best remortgage deals.
