Greening your lifestyle can be costly, especially if you don’t know where to shop or what to buy. But there are really great green deals out there. Some green products are cheaper in the long run while some are cheaper up front.

Top 5 Green Savings Tips

Buying wholesale.
Finding green products whole sale is now easier than ever with I-tryit.com. You can purchase the latest and greatest green and organic products at about half the cost. They have everything from all-purpose cleaner to zebra-stripped organic cotton ones-ies. You join the site for free, promise to come back and write a review of the things you purchased, and shop, shop, shop. www.i-tryit.com Eco-fabulous.

Create your own Co-op.
I’ve “co-op-ed” sacks of flour, rice, dry beans, herbs, and other long lasting staples with my friends or co-workers. It’s really simple. Buy a few 25lb sacks and split them 5 ways. Contact an organic foods distributor, ask at your local health market, or even your favorite café manager. You can save dollars per pound, even when compared to traditionally grown food. Image, whole wheat organic pastry flour at less than 70 cents a pound… yum!

Web Coupons.
Organic food company websites are full of deals. Click around before you go shopping. Some companies have products or deals only available on the website. If you can wait 3 days for those almonds, you could save a bundle.

Bulk Up.
Honey, liquid soap, peanut butter, dog biscuits, and more are available in bulk bins at many co-ops and natural markets. Sometimes you even get a discount for bringing your own container. Bulk bins save money and packaging. Good for your pocket and your planet.

Re-Use It.
We throw a lot of cash in the trash. Coffee filters, paper towels, razors, picnic ware, and more all get trashed when we’re through. Stop buying the disposables and buy one or two of the nice reusable version. It may not seem like a lot, but in the long run, the savings add up. When I stopped buying paper towels, it didn’t seem like much of a difference. Sure, the first three days I grabbed at the empty holder out of habit. Now, I use a cloth and keep a rag-bag. I’m saving about $20/month on paper towels alone. I also spill less, wipe dog paws off on the porch more, and have a pretty striped set of cloth napkins.

Environmentally savvy folks already know that recycling, and buying recycled products, are among the easiest, and most effective, strategies average consumers have in the ongoing effort to protect the earth. Not only does recycling slow the consumption of nonrenewable resources, it also helps to address global climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the manufacture, distribution and use of products, and the management of the resulting waste. For every household that recycles its seven-day newspaper subscription, between 75 and 100 trees are spared from being cut down each year.

But there are two other steps in the oft-repeated mantra of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” that sometimes get overlooked. Reducing, whether making a choice to consume fewer products, or to seek out items that use less wasteful packaging, has been an increasingly hot topic of late.

Unfortunately, the reuse of items and packaging for purposes other than the one for which they were created seems to be a lost art, relegated for many of us to foggy childhood memories of grandparents whose lingering depression era obsession with wringing the highest possible number of practical uses out of every single resource was a matter of pure necessity. Decades of plenty have made too many of us forget, or even disdain, our forebears’ ingenious conservation tactics.

Over the coming weeks and months the Farmers’ Almanac will share some ways to give many overlooked and underappreciated household items a second chance at life, before they’re relegated to the recycle bin. Here are just a few to get you started:

• An empty mustard squeeze bottle is great for decorating cakes and cookies. Wash and deodorize it with baking soda before filling it with frosting.

• Used envelopes make great scrap paper. Carefully open up the envelopes and use the inside for notes, lists, etc.

• Used popsicle sticks are handy for windowsill or outdoor gardens. They can be used to mark seed varieties and planting dates planted, or as “stakes” to mark outdoor garden rows.

• Large tuna fish cans are the perfect size and shape for baking small pumpkin breads as gifts.

• Old, well-used oven mitts are great for washing and waxing your car.

• Don’t fret over a lost leather glove; turn the remaining one into a handy little carrier for light tools. Cut off the fingers at the mid length, make two slits in the back to run your belt through.

• Recycle old socks into cost-free doll clothes. Cut away the foot and stitch them into imaginative stretch outfits.

For more handy, earth-friendly tips, check out our Home & Garden page, or pick up a copy of the 2008 Farmers’ Almanac print edition. And be sure to log into our community forum to share your favorite ideas for reusing household items.

Reuse, Recycling, Environment, Conservation, Farmers’ Almanac