Monday, June 15, 2009

Additions to my Green Fund

It's been months and months since I've added to my Green Fund. It grew so quickly when I first started separately saving the money I save by going green. That huge growth curve continued over the holidays.

Then it slowed down considerably. One, I'd made so many changes and deposited money saved into my jar. I couldn't keep adding money that I had already saved. Does that make sense? What I mean to say is I'd already made the bigger changes that helped the fund increase (lowered the thermostat, turned down the water heater, etc.) and while most months I can still include a few dollars to the fund, it's not the $40-$60 it was in the beginning.

At any rate, I've been keeping a general list of green savings and now it's time to add them up and put that money into my recycled jar. Here's what I've got...

$13 - energy savings
$12 - didn't buy 409 four times (made my own)
$15 - didn't buy hand soap (made my own and used old soap pumps)
$20 - didn't buy random cleaners, but used natural home made recipes instead
$6 - haven't had to buy a ream of paper or envelopes
$3 - have actually been remembering my reusable grocery bags!
$10 - an arbitrary number since calculating how much gas, energy, emissions I save by doing errands only once during the week
$15 - an arbitrary number because 95% of the time I only use cold water for laundry
$2 - an arbitrary number for the one time I hung my laundry outside on the line to dry (it's only been dry/warm enough once to do so in the two months I've had the line up!)
$5 - an arbitrary number for the gifts I've given recently that I've made myself, thus I don't have to drive, search, etc. to find a gift (or use a plastic gift card)
$15 - didn't buy paper towels or paper napkins
$10 - recycled ink cartridges and bought reused/recycled replacements
$20 - reusing and not having to buy gallon Ziplocs all the time

Grand Total...... $141.00 Woohoo!!!

I'll go to the bank today for cash to deposit in my Green Fund!

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