Quick Green Tips From 0 to 60 Dollars

While the homeowners on Renovation Nation spend thousands of dollars greening their houses from top to bottom, there are plenty of eco-friendly changes you can make in your own home without making a huge dent in your household budget. In fact, it is easy to make a few green changes to your home in fewer than sixty seconds while spending zero to sixty dollars. Plus many of the suggestions below will actually save you more money in the long run than you initially spend.

$0  Though you might not be able to afford to replace your appliances with new energy efficient ones this year, you can still conserve a tremendous amount of energy with a few changes to your lifestyle. For example, cleaning the lint filter in your dryer after every use enhances its performance and causes it to use less electricity per load. Also, setting your dishwasher's drying cycle default to "air" instead of "heat" and using the short cycle for everything but your dirtiest dishes will conserve energy while getting your crockery just as clean as before.

$15  Buy three recycling bins and place them beside your most frequently used trash can to make it easier to recycle aluminum, glass, plastic, or other recyclables.

$30  Purchase a programmable thermostat timer to avoid heating and cooling your house unnecessarily, like when no one is home. Also, just say NO to the draft by also implementing these inexpensive tips to conserve energy and lower your heating bills.

$60  Wait until a good sale and buy eight or ten fluorescent light bulbs to replace your regular, energy sapping ones. Fluorescent bulbs might be slightly more expensive, but they rarely need to be replaced and require less energy to light up your life.

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