A Catalogue Of Sustainable Achievements
Yo, SuperForest!
Sometimes, I buy fresh produce and it sits in the bottom of my fridge and remains there for weeks, until it turns awful colours and its smell finally signals to me that it needs to go in the bin. Not anymore. You don’t have to either.
I explain in the vid.
April
Our next money-saving tip comes from none other than The Wall Street Journal. They have a great article in today’s energy section, entitled How to Go Green in Hard Times.
We all know the cost benefits of living a sustainable green lifestyle. However, some of those benefits might not be seen until years later. The WSJ throws down ten maneuvers you can pull that will not only help the green in the trees, but also the green in your wallet.
Take a peek at my favorite tip:
Lighting Motion Sensors
Although they’re more common in commercial buildings, motion sensors that automatically turn off lights when a room isn’t occupied can offer big energy savings in a home. They’re particularly useful when installed on outdoor lights, which are often left on all night.
COST: Many porch lights have built-in sensors and cost about $50 to $60.
PAYBACK: Under a year. Assuming the light would have been left on for 12 hours through the night and is now off all that time — except for brief moments when someone approaches the door — a sensor will save about 1.8 kilowatt-hours over the 12-hour period and 54 kilowatt-hours in a month. In an expensive state like New York, that would come to about $10 a month in electricity costs, making the payback time a little over five months. In a cheaper state like Nebraska, the motion sensor would save about $5 a month, making the payback time just over 11 months.
Motion sensors for your home! Not only would you be saving money, but it would feel like walking about some futuristic starship at the same time! I can see it now…
Walking into a room
“Computer, lights on.”
Vrooooom
An ideal place for indoor motion sensors would be a bathroom or a walk-in closet. People forget to switch those energy-suckers off all the time.
(Photos courtesy of Serge Bloch)Check out the full article here for more energy-saving ideas that won’t empty your wallet.
Have a great weekend!
And for you lovebirds out there, have a Happy Valentines Day!
Love,
Spoon
(pic via flickr user eyeflyer)
Here at SuperForest we are well aware of the stressful economic condition we are all in. To help tighten our belts and save some dough, SuperForest will be posting several tips and tricks to help you get by. Our goal with this series is to share everyone’s ideas on how to pinch that penny.
Our first tip comes from SuperForester Jackson. He writes:
My biggest money, time, and energy saving tip would be to start eating more grains and vegetables. Explore the wide and wonderful world of couscous! Get to know pastas and risottos again. Lentil soups, veggie chilis, salads…
By eating more fresh, alive things you will feel more fresh and alive yourself. Your immune system will be stronger and your body will be more flexible and heal more quickly.
And you will save time, energy and money in that these wonderful garden-y gifts are cheap, plentiful, and easy to prepare. Couscous takes literally five minutes.
AND
If you make a big ol’ dinner out of fresh veggies and invite a bunch of folks over to help you eat it, you’ll be saving them time and money too. If you’ve got six friends, and everyone picks one day of the week to cook, you could conceivably get to spend every night you chose eating delicious things and laughing with your friends, plus you’d only have to cook one night a week.
In short: Eat veggies and pool your talents. It will be good for your body, mind, and wallet.
Love,
Jackson
What a wonderful idea!
Group dinners save you time AND money. You can start as simply as calling one of your friends and picking a night for each of you to cook. Once you and your buddy have a weekly routine setup, invite more friends to fill in the rest of the dinner slots. Before long, you will have nightly dinners with good friends and a variety of meals to choose from. Brilliant!
Do you have a money-saving tip that you would like to share? We would love to hear it! Send any tips and tricks to superforestnyc{at}gmail{dot}com.
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Afternoon SuperForesters!
The other day I heard a wonderful thing from SuperForester Nicholas.
He said that if I was ever to call, say, a bank, or an airline, or any company that would first route me through an automated menu process, there is only one sensible thing to do:
Press Numero Dos.
Here’s why. You’re an English-speaking caller and you need to talk to a human.
Chances are, there are a lot of English speakers also wanting to speak to a human, so you just end up in a long queue.
Now, if you press “numero dos” (as in the number two,) it will promptly bring you to a Spanish speaking operator. There will probably be no wait.
Chances are this operator speaks English as well as Spanish.
So you say: Hola! yo soy una… question.. para… Uh, hey, do you mind if we speak English? My Spanish is rusty.
And they say: Not at all, sir (madam.) How may I help you?
You just skipped to the front of the line.
You just $aved Money, Honey!
$ave Money Honey is an excellent lifehacking blog. It features incredibly helpful tips like the one above that will save you time, energy, and that sweet sweet moolah.
If life is a video game, then $ave Money, Honey is like pressing up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, a, b, select, start on your Nintendo. You get what we’re saying? Level up, homes. With plenty of kizzzzzash.
$ave Money, Honey is run by the talented and thrifty Allison Caviness, who quite plainly rules the school.
This is funny: advice from April 6th of this year:
Solid. Save Money, Honey!
SuperForest is a positivity blog.
SuperForesters are all over planet Earth, all united in exploring how to redefine "environmentalism" and "sustainability" to encompass every aspect of our lives. Everything you find on this website has been personally created to uplift and inspire you.
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