CarbonFeet

When times are hard, like they have become lately, it is time to cut costs. This is not a popular move, but to be honest, it need not be such a problem as you might envisage. The biggest single cost for most households is the energy bill and in especially the electric bill. If you do not use electricity to cook or heat your house, then the next biggest contributer to your bill is probably lighting.

Anyway, here are six suggestions for reducing your household expenses.

1] Plan your menu before you go shopping. If you can, plan your meals for the entire week so that you can use bits and pieces from one day’s meals in the next day’s. It is also easier and less expensive to buy in quantity, which will also save you travelling costs. Use coupons were you can. It is an obvious idea, but one that a lot of people overlook as they peruse their magazines.

2] Replace all your traditional, incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). These bulbs use a low quantity of energy, but still put out a high amount of light. It is a good idea to check for the ‘Energy Star’ rating before you buy in order to ensure that you are getting a high quality product.

3] Instead of using all the lighting in a room, try to illuminate only what you have to. If you are working at your desk, switch off all the other lighting except a desk top lamp and possibly a standard floor lamp. It is surprising how far light travels in a dark room. The light from two lamps such as these will be ample to see your way around too.

4] Buy stocks of light bulbs by the dozen. They will last a long time, but the CFL bulbs will not deteriorate, so as the price increases with inflation, you will have a stock at the old price. If you can, buy them online, because an online retailer has fewer overheads, which can convert into savings of as much as 70%. Online auctions are also a great idea, you may be able to pick up bankrupt stock.

5] Cook your own meals and make your own food for work. Take home-produced sandwiches or salads. A flask of tea or coffee will supply up to $25 of Starbucks’ substitute coffee drinks

6] Put as many of your lights and appliances on timers or photosensitive switches. If you use passive infra red sensors to activate lights to deter intruders in your garden, you could be using up more electricity than you need to during the day. If you buy flood lights with photosensitive switches, then they will deactivate the lights during daylight when they are pretty useless anyway.

If you have a pond and pond lights, you can also use similar devices to turn your pond lights and pond fountain off during the nighttime..

None of these measures should have a negative effect on your lifestyle, although they will save you money.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several subjects, but is at present concerned with researching wrought iron floor lamps. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light

categories: lighting,house,design,remodelling,DIY,energy,security,hobbies,electronics,other,uncategorised,advice,garden,environment

If you are a business owner looking for better way to pack your boxes to protect your merchandise, now is the time to make the switch to green packaging materials. I will share what those materials are and why it is so important to get on the eco safe band wagon.

There are several manufactures that make only eco friendly materials to pack your shipping boxes. All of these materials are recyclable and can be reused for other things. These may cost more than traditional items like bubble wrap, but they are worth every penny to help our precious environment.

One example is what they call soft foam sheets. It is a foam material which is starch based. It comes in different sized rolls. It can be used to wrap breakables and for cushion purposes. Like the foam sheets, they have made a peanut form foam which is used for the same reason.

If you want to do your part, you can use things like cardboard boxes that are in strips. Newspapers are always great for recycling. Newspapers will give your boxes much needed cushion. Those things are not green, however will work for now. Those are the two most common items to use.

Some of the more unusual things that you can use are two liter plastic soda bottles. These work well when used for packing, they are light weight and will keep things from breaking during the shipping process. You could also use the smaller plastic soda bottles if using for smaller boxes.

There is a feeling in all of us that we want to do something to save our environment. That is the reason to begin using these materials on a daily basis. Each product you recycle now will keep it out of the landfills. Even if it is not necessarily environment save.

If you supervise a warehouse and need packaging materials to send and receive, you need to find the correct supplier. There are tons of websites that can help you get items such as bubble wrap, boxes and tape.