Make Yourself - Popsicles

Instead of buying Popsicles in the store, make your own! Obviously, it will save you money, but it also gives you the ability to control what and how much goes in them (Organic, sugar, etc.). Not to mention, it is a good way to keep from wasting food. In our house, wasting fruit is a big problem, since the fruit sits in drawers in the fridge, so it's "out of site, out of mind". This way, if I realize something is going to go bad before we can eat all of it, I can just make up some pops! Go read this great post with some tips and also some interesting ideas to help you get started and think out of the box in terms of ingredients. Green Factor:

• Can be made with organic produce.
• Making them yourself cuts out all the unnecessary fillers.
• You can control how much sugar (if any) goes in them resulting in a healthier treat.

Saving Green:

• Cheaper to make yourself then buy pre-made.

Homemade/Natural cleaners - Vinegar

I have been learning about homemade/natural cleaners lately. My current favorite is Vinegar.


My favorite use for it is de-stinking. It works wonders for clothes! I have a bad habit of forgetting about the laundry in the washer OR the wet clothes in the basket waiting to be hung up to dry. The clothes are left smelling mildewy and it takes A LOT of washes to get the smell out. Honestly, most of the time the smell wont completely come out. However, I have been using vinegar to get it out and it works in the first wash! I rewash the clothes with the regular temperature and amount of detergent. Then after they are done washing & rinsing, I turn the washer on for another rinse cycle and throw a downy ball full (not just to the fill line) of vinegar in with it and when they are done they smell like perfectly washed fresh clothes! Don't worry, no vinegar smell is left behind. I have used the same amount of vinegar for a small load of cloth diaper inserts and it worked perfectly!

It also works well for smells on hard surfaces around the house. I had a corner of my house my kitties had decided was their litter box! I used 1 part vinegar to 1 part water in a spray bottle and it got a LOT of the smell out. It would have gotten all of it, I'm sure, if the pee hadn't gotten under the flooring. It will smell like vinegar for a little while, but the smell with go away after a while. I used it on painted walls, baseboards, Pergo flooring, & concrete.

Green Factor: Replaces harsh chemical cleaners

Saving Green: MUCH cheaper then chemical cleaners

Re-use Curling Ribbon

You know the phrase right? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Well, here's a great way to reuse something we would normally throw away. Curling Ribbon. Check out Chica & Jo to find a "how-to" on making some cool looking coasters. I imagine you could make it fit any design scheme depending on what colors you used. Have fun!

Make your own reusable pledge/swiffer dusters

Okay, so I use the swiffer wet jet and was looking up a cloth version of the pads so I don't have to buy the tossable ones anymore. I'm trying to rid myself of all the "one use" items I can. There were a lot of options for those, but I ran across something I hadn't thought of before. You know the swiffer and pledge dusting wand things? The ones with the fuzzy "fingers" sticking out all over? Well, someone came up with a really simple "pattern" for making a reusable "refill" for these. I thought I'd share this here for you guys because it looks so easy that it could probably be hand stitched pretty quickly. Go here for a picture of the first one she made and here for the directions (and a picture of the second one).

Make a few of these and they should be just as easy as the tossable ones. You can just use one, toss it in the hamper, and use another one if need be. Still use and "toss," just not toss into the trash! ;)

Eating at home

Leanne from Savingdinner.com just sent out one of her weekly e-mails. This one caught my eye because it was talking about saving money by eating at home. Yes, it is a GREAT way to save money! It is also a wonderful way to eat healthier and an easy way to "go green."

When you eat out, you have little control over where your food is grown, how it is grown, & what extra additives are in it. When you cook at home though (and I'm not talking about frozen dinners!), you have a LOT of control over these things. You can chose to buy at a farmer's market to get locally grown fruits & vegetables. Not only does that save emissions of the food being trucked all over the country, it cuts out all that shipping time so you get fresher produce. At the grocery store, you can chose organic instead of traditionally grown. When you make it all from scratch you can control what "additives" (additional flavorings, salt, sugar, etc.) and how much of them are included. And you can completely skip all the extras that are added in commercially processed foods.

Even if you don't make it from scratch, you still have the power of information at the grocery store. You can read the labels and chose brands which are more wholesome.

You have to start somewhere right? So why not start with what not only affects the environment, but also, more importantly, YOU!

Sleep! And save the earth while you're doing it!

Yes, save the earth while you sleep! Okay, so not really save it! But help!

I thought of a not so commonly thought of way of "going green" last night. Get more hours of sleep! Yes, it is WONDERFUL for your body, but it also keeps you from having the lights on. Think about it, if you usually stay up until midnight, and instead you go to bed at 10 pm, that saves two hours of the lights being on. And not only the lights, but you wont be up to be doing other "electrical" things like cooking (late night snacks anyone?), watching TV, computing, etc. Hey, it might not be much, but every little bit counts right?! ;)

So in case your health wasn't a good enough reason, help the planet! Get more sleep!

Keeping good stuff out of the landfill

Have "clutter" in your house you'd like to get rid of but hate to throw away a good thing. Fear not, there are other options. Anything you can keep out of the landfill definitely helps!

Got something you think might be worth some money (a lot or a little)? Try listing it on Ebay or Craigslist. I assume everyone knows what Ebay is, but if you've never heard of craigslist, let me explain. Craigslist is sort of like an online yard sale, to the extent you list what you have for sale, the price, take pictures and then someone comes to your house to pick it up. It's not like Ebay where people "bid" on your item and the highest bidder wins; although, people do like to try to talk your price down sometimes. Okay, so maybe the like to do that a lot of times! he he. Like I said, it's like a yard sale. You can meet at a public place though if you don't feel comfortable meeting at your home. You have the option to sell it for a profit, or if you'd rather just get rid of it, you can list it in the free section. Or you could always have an old fasioned yard sale! :)

If you'd rather not sell your stuff and would just like to give it away you have a few options. You can list it on Freecycle and a member will respond if they want it and will pick it up at your house. Freecycle works sort of like Craigslist, except everything on Freecycle is free. Most of what's on Craigslist is for sale. Also, Freecycle updates it's members daily on what's been listed. You can also take it to your local Goodwill or Thrift Store. This is especially a good option if you don't want to wait for someone to contact you and just want the stuff out of your house right away.

By the way, if you have lots of clutter in your house, are feeling overwhelmed by it, and don't know where to start...Visit Flylady! She is very helpful in getting your home (and life) organized and setting yourself free of all that clutter. After all, the more you have, the more you have to clean (more toxins in your home), the less happy you are, and the less you know where stuff is, which results in you buying more (spending "green")! (Which of course just results in more clutter!!!) Yes, it is an endless cycle, unless you make a point to stop it and live differently! You can do it. Go visit her today :) She is awesome!

Why I started this blog

I decided to start this blog because I have been making little steps to "go green" & also save money for a while now. I've been doing this many ways. I think being "green" is something we can all improve on every day. It's not something you are or aren't. It's something you work towards. So through this blog I want to share the little steps I've taken to help my family make wiser decisions with our natural resources and also to save us money.

I think it is a misconception that being "green" has to cost you more money. Yes, there are certain things you could do that would cost you more, but there are also many things you can do that wont.

I encourage you to share the little things you've done. I don't think anything is too small. Every little step helps. It changes your thinking, the more "green" things you do, the more you begin to re-think other things you are doing.