GOING GREEN ON A BUDGET? Here’s Help:
1. Visit your local library for books, CDs and DVDs. They’re more than just books. Plus, if you play a musical instrument, they have sheet music you can check out. Great entertainment – for FREE
2. S-squared (Shoe Swap). Plan a Shoe Swap this fall. Kids outgrow soccer cleats, football shoes and track shoes so quickly it’s worth the effort. Just put a big bin on your front porch and send out an email to all the kids on your teams, at your church, or send out fliers. Have the school, your kids and their friends spread the word.
“Bring a pair of athletic shoes and take another size home with you.” Brothers and sisters will come to join in the money-saving fun. Your youngest can even set up a lemonade stand – if you want to specify times for the swap.”
3. Hang curtains over your mini blinds on HOT days. It will keep the sun from warming the inside of your house. If you don’t have any extra curtains, use sheets, you can tack them up with a few thumb tacks. It will help keep your house 10-15 degrees cooler.
4. When you’re watering your flowers, veggies or lawn, put out a couple of large mixing bowls. The sprinkling water will fill them and you’ll be a friend to the local wild life, birds, squirrels, and butterflies will swarm your yard at night. And it won’t cost you a penny more.
5. Recycle old desk calendars. Use the pictures and artwork to create your own “new” greeting cards. Quick, EZ and fun to do with your kids.
These are all great. Thanks for sharing.
I love #2! What a great idea! We often shop the Play It Again shops for deals, but I like this idea better! Especially since we have many friends with kids a year or two older than ours. : )
Bdaiss: We used to shop Play it Again Sports for soccer shoes for our 3 kids until I started the shoe swap. It was a huge success and saved us all loads of money.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
Good ideas! Especially the shoe one! I can’t believe how fast my baby’s feet grow!
My husband is the coach coordinator for our local little league and he just talked to me about setting up a bin at registration where parents can drop-off and/or pick-up used cleats. I was just starting to think about how I was going to set this up. What a timely post!
I’ll add: Use one year’s holidays greeting cards for the next year’s tags.
Don’t use a sprinkler to water your garden and flowers! If you hand water you use a tenth of the water and end up doing almost no weeding (you are watering the space in between the plants so you will help the weeds grow).
Also instead of sheets in front of the blinds, spray the window with water and slap up bubble wrap. I cut my heating and cooling bills by a third this way. It comes off easy (like in the living room if company is coming), but in the bedroom it offers privacy and lets in enough light if you open the blinds.
I used to use those calendar pictures to decorate my classroom back in the day. And we hand down our old cleats–I’m also a huge fan of “Play it Again Sports” where you can buy used equipment/gear for a good price.
Millie Barnes and Daisy: Love those tips too – thanks for sharing.