It’s so simple. I never knew about solar lights before, but it seems they sit in your lawn charging throughout the day, and then automatically turn on at night (or they’re always on as long as they have enough charge?). So why not use them inside the home too?
Get a few from the hardware/garden store and rig them up to hang in any window that gets sunlight in the evening. Then, come nightfall, they’re providing you with plenty of free light to last as long as you need. Apparently, however, there’s no way to turn them off, but who cares, because the electricity is free and clean and you can put them in another room or drape a piece of fabric over them when you’re ready to go to bed. It sounds like they’re pretty affordable too.
Get the whole lowdown here, at Dawn’s Frugal for Life blog.
We’re going out to live something of an indoor/outdoor existence at my girlfriend’s father’s house for the next couple months. It’s a small house, so we’re probably going to set up a big tent in the yard to sleep in and spend a lot of our awake time on the porch or elsewhere on the property. I’m going to get me a few of these lights on the way out there and try them out. Why ever pay for lighting again?
Ooooh, that little green light really drives
me crazy! And yeah, I own a Kawasaki
DVD/CD player. So what?
I finally got home to my apartment tonight. For various and sundry reasons, my 10 day trip had extended to nearly 2 months, and so the apartment had been closed up for almost all that time (thanks to my Mom for saving my plants and Mike for saving my overstressed mailbox).
When I arrived home, I was delighted to find that I’m brilliant. Before leaving in February, I had switched off the power strip that feeds my television and stereo. This is particularly important because my stupid stereo sits on standby when it’s not on. I’ve heard some unbelievable statistics about the amount of U.S. energy wasted on standby electronics, but since it’s late and I’m sick, I’ll search for those specifics another day.
For now, suffice it to say, the simple flip of a switch saved me a bunch of money and the Earth a bunch of energy. In the future I’m going to power down every night — not just before trips.
Seems like an inocuous thing to do. It was one of those one-person-at-a-time bathrooms in a small restaurant. Imagine how much electricity is wasted every day in all the millions of small public bathrooms not being used! Think about all the bathroom lights that get left on all night long because the person who pays the bills isn’t around at closing time. It was around the end of the night when I came out of this bathroom and turned out the light, so it’s possible I saved a whole night’s worth of electricity. Maybe not, but a girl can dream, right?
When your car is supposed to be serviced, don’t put it off.
Don’t try and extend the time between oil changes in your car, it will end up costing you more in fuel and increases the pollution levels your car pumps out.
According to EarthEasy.com, a poorly tuned engine will use up to 50% more fuel and pump out 50% more emissions. Also, be sure to change clogged air filters that can eat up 10% of your fuel efficiency.
Another fuel and environment saving tip is to check and maintain your tire pressure regularly. I know More…
My wife came across this tip about ten years ago when she was trying to grow her hair long and healthy. It is actually healthier for your hair and scalp to not shampoo your hair every day, according to Marie Claire Healthy Hair 101 and the Embracing Women’s Health site. The natural oils from your scalp, once adjusted to producing the correct amount, are very beneficial to healthy hair. In addition to being healthy, it is also good for the your wallet and the environment. As a guy with short hair, if you skip shampooing your hair every other day, you can save about 2 minutes of water and the energy to heat it. For folks with longer hair it is even more important and the savings add up faster.
My wife had been encouraging me to skip washing my hair every day when I shower for a few years. Her main reasons were to save time and give me the flexibility to not need a shower every single day. She also More…
Use an electric blanket or mattress pad on your bed.
Plug in your bed!
This one comes to us from Jonathan in Boston, who’s too busy setting technology policy for MIT (and raising my niece and nephew) to write a silly little blog post. (For anyone who can find some time to write with us occasionally, click here!)
Many of the ideas on this blog focus on ways to minimize energy use, so pushing an electric blanket might seem a bit out of character — until you consider the savings to be had on the back side of this move, when you turn down the thermostat!
The truth is, I don’t know how well this equation works out. I’ve poked around on the Internets a bit and haven’t come up with too much on the difference between energy consumed by electric blankets and energy saved by lowering the home’s heat. My intuition tells me the blanket is probably a good idea, because you’re focusing a bit of heat More…
Buy an energy-saver light bulb next time you’re at the drug store.
So you don’t need a light bulb. It’s okay, buy one anyway. Here’s why:
I’m switching out my old
bulbs as they blow.
“If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.”
800,000 cars! That’s directly off a U.S. government Web site (here). And you know the U.S. government wouldn’t lie to you, right? Or stretch the truth? But anyway, a ton of very reputable organizations are saying the same thing, so this time I’m buying.
A wonderful Web site for people who want to live greener lives, Treehugger.com, explains it like this: Energy saving light bulbs cost a little bit more than the regular ones but only use about a quarter of the More…
There have to be a million reasons to use less energy. I’ll give you four.
Goodnight my banjo buddy.
#1, unless your landlord is picking up your electricity bill, it costs you money. A kilowatt/hour saved is a kilowatt/hour earned.
#2, the energy we use in our homes is generated at power plants far, far away, often using oil that comes from even farther. Americans like to talk nervously about “our dependence on foreign oil.” Less energy = less “dependence.”
#3, burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) pollutes the environment. The less energy we use, the less fossil fuel we burn, the less pollution spews into our skies — and lungs.
#4, and probably most important by far, is that burning fossil fuels to generate electricity releases carbon dioxide into the air, and carbon dioxide is causing climate change and all its very serious consequences. I’ll go more deeply into climate change in a future posting, I promise. For now let’s leave it at this: our kids will thank us profusely someday More…
It’s so simple. I never knew about solar lights before, but it seems they sit in your lawn charging throughout the day, and then automatically turn on at night (or they’re always on as long as they have enough charge?). So why not use them inside the home too?
Don’t try and extend the time between oil changes in your car, it will end up costing you more in fuel and increases the pollution levels your car pumps out.
