I’m going to run a little experiment here at Growing a Green Family. I always say, “Green living saves you money!” so I think we should find out if I’m right or just plain crazy.
As you may have noticed I stated in the title that living green can save you $50,000 in five years. Why $50,000? Honestly, I needed a number. I’m not sure HOW much green living can save you. But it’s high time we found out and saving $50,000 seems like as good as anyplace to start.
I’ve got some general ideas which I’ll be posting about weekly here at Growing a Green Family and maybe in one year we can round up all the figures and see if we hit the $50,000 mark.
Experiments always have rules…
I was a science and math major in college so I like rules with my experiments. Here’s what I came up with.
- I’m basing all figures on a four person family because it’s a decent all-American sort of number and I think that savings will be easy to multiple or divide from four. Hence if you’re a family of two or six, four isn’t that tough to work with.
- I’m going to look for bulk deals in conventional and decent deals in green. If I decide to say compare paper napkins with cloth napkins, I’ll hunt down cheap bulk paper napkins and semi-decent eco-friendly cloth napkins for my figures. Why? Because why buy bad green products plus, even with the worst paper napkins you can find, I’m guessing green will come out ahead.
- Not all savings will apply to all families so at the end of the year we’ll have to consider that. Obviously you can save a lot of money with both reusable water bottles and cloth diapers – however, water bottles apply to everyone while diapers; not so much. By the end of the year I’ll figure out some sort of checklist you can use to add up your personal savings.
- I’ll try to figure in all costs. For example, the cost of tap water used to fill your reusable water bottles, transporting nasty chemical cleaners or the cost of washing those cloth diapers.
What I’ve got in mind for cost comparisons…
- Bottled water vs. tap and filtered tap water in reusable bottles.
- Cloth napkins vs. paper napkins.
- Ditch paper towels and use cloth!
- Cloth diapers vs. disposable diapers.
- Have a less consumer-based Christmas
- Eco-friendly coffee made at home vs. not so eco-friendly bought in paper cups.
- Reusable baby wipes vs. disposable baby wipes.
- Re-purposing furniture vs. buying new.
- Organic meals from scratch vs. non-organic convenience meals (not sure if we’ll come out ahead here).
- Homemade cleaners vs. store bought green cleaners
- Cable TV vs. nature and other family activities.
- Vegetarian meals vs. meat meals.
- Composting vs. buying soil.
- Biking vs. driving.
- Library books vs. buying new books.
Those above are just some ideas. IF we’re going to save $50,000 in five years, we’re probably going to need to do more – especially since not all the cost savings will work for every family. If you got more ideas about stuff I can cost compare let me know in the comments.
What do you think? Is $50,000 aiming too high? Can a family of four really save $50,000 in five years just by living green? I guess we’ll see.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting experiment. I’d figure more around $30,000 in 5 years, but you may be right with the higher number.
I didn’t see clothing. Buying used clothing will save a lot of money, especially for larger families (like mine!). Also free clothing from Craigslist and organizing swaps with friends/neighbors.
Food- buy local. Farmer’s Markets are a bigger savings than some Co-Ops (in our area). I can buy fruit/veggies in bulk for about the same price as a much smaller amount in a grocery store. Growing food, too- then you know for a fact you’re organic!
Don’t know the answer, but love the question. I think this could be a huge idea if you could get lots of families keeping track. Hmmmm, I feel a book coming on!
Very admirable goal– hope others join you! As far as saving money on plastic water bottles (and saving the environment), I suggest you check out the Sovereign Earth reusable water bottles. They are portable, stainless steel and the best part is they filter the water for you! So you can always fill up the bottle on-the-go and have clean water.
Great concept. I’m sure people will follow you and do the same things you’re doing. I’m going to post this on the FB page at ECOBAGS.com to share with our fans. Hopefully they’ll follow you, too!
And thanks for the note about bad green products – we hate to tell anyone they’re buying the wrong stuff if they’re doing the right thing but it makes a lot more sense to buy great quality items (like bags) and have them last forever.
Thanks Ellen – I’ve reviewed ECOBAG gear before and really like it. Your produce bags last forever. I added you on FB but didn’t see a way to share your page in my faves – I think it’s the set up. I agree that people should buy quality bags, which I always recommend over flimsy lame store-brand bags. Why throws those out? It’s just as bad as plastic. I’ve had the same recycled cotton grocery bags for years and they’re going to become cleaning cloths later on.
Ha, really I should write a popsicle book. I get so many emails about organic pops. It’s insane. Don’t know that I’m a book writing type though. I’ll settle for my posts being mentioned in nice books like yours
I was thinking thrift stores too – but not sure how to compare that. Maybe by a specific clothing type – like jeans for example. Jeans are like $2-10 at TS and what 30+ new. That’s insane! Farmers markets are better than co-ops here too. I’ll try to cover that for sure.
Maybe you could find someone to set up an accounting matrix online and everyone could enter their costs. I think this could be a lot of fun, very interesting and, count as a research project for someone…hmmm, my brain is spinning! Seriously, this could be big…OK I get the book issue, but I’m betting that this definitely could lead to something interesting. Funny about the organic pops!
Ooo, e-books can also be cheaper than print. Saves trees, saves gas, ink and money. I find a lot of free ebooks by best selling authors when they’re doing promos.
An accounting matrix would be a good idea. I’d have to look into it. Julie – I have actually been considering an e-book for a while now, just busy. Maybe this experiment will motivate me
Great idea Jennifer. Let me know if I can help!
I’d love to see the math on whether growing your own organic garden is cheaper than purchasing in season organic produce. Obviously I’m probably not going to have backyard tomatoes in December (at least not here in the North East), but my summer homegrown tomatoes taste way better than store bought, even organic store bought. I was disappointed last year when I did the math on how much my garden was costing me but I forgot to take into account that I was growing organic produce and compare prices accordingly. I still didn’t break even, but it was my first year and I’m still learning. Hopefully eventually I’ll save money by growing my own. I’m focusing on growing as many of the dirty dozen that we regularly eat as I can. If only I had room for more fruit trees.
Also, try:
-Reusable menstrual cup, saves the cost of tampons and/or pads. Buy a Divacup or something online w/a coupon code and save some big bucks.
-Upcycle almost everything. This will cut down on your recycling and trash pickup cost. You will also reduce your need to buy trash bags. Old jars can now hold your homemade broth, instead of buying envelopes make envelopes using old magazines or magazine. We cut down to one trash bag every 2 months because of this.
-Don’t use trash bags. If you aren’t throwing wet stuff away, unless your local municipality requires you to, you don’t need to throw things away in trash bags.
-Reduce food waste with food preservation methods. Make vinegar with apple and pineapple scraps, candied citrus peels with orange, lemon, and lime peels, make homemade broth from veggie scraps, make your own pickles, the list goes on.
-Make homemade gifts from upcycled goods and/or homemade food like pickles, homemade peanut butter, soda tab jewelry, etc.
-Make your own powdered laundry detergent.
-Make your own hair products. Hair gel is simply gelatin and hot water. Protein treatment is mayo (can be homemade). Hair conditioner – coconut oil and olive oil mix (btw…these are the only oils that have been PROVEN to penetrate the hair shaft and condition)
-Make your own deodorant using 1/2 cornstarch, 1/2 baking soda, essential oil. Eliminates money and product waste.
-Make tooth powder instead of purchasing toothpaste. Will eliminate waste and is SUPER cheap.
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