1. Using the grocery bags for trash bags. We began putting these in our smaller trash cans around the house, rather than purchasing additional bags for this purpose. We take the extra ones we have to our kids’ daycare or recycle them at the store on our next visit.
2. Filling our recycle bin full every week. Our recycling service is included in our weekly pickup at no extra cost. Often times, we could go 2-3 weeks before filling it up and putting it at the curb. Now, I make a concerted effort to recycle anything that has a symbol on it.
3. Sign up for paperless bills. Some companies are really great about this, but others do not offer this as a service. Others, like T-Mobile, don’t make it that easy to sign up for it. I’ve been in the process of getting that bill set up for months. I think at this point, rather than trying to take care of it online, I’ll have to contact customer service. I estimate at this point we have 10 bills with this setup.
4. Switch out regular light bulbs for more energy efficient bulbs. According to the package, it looks like I’m going to save money too, so that’s always a bonus.
5. Use the schedule feature on the A/C. We keep the house at 78° F during the day and turn it down to 76° F at night.
6. Wash full loads of laundry. This one is not hard in our family, since there are four people in the house. I can usually get all of the stuff done in 4 full loads for a week. Along those same lines, we only run the dishwasher when it’s full.
7. Shower during commercials. I’m the only one in the house trying this one out right now. I like to have the TV on when I’m getting ready and such. It’s very easy to get in the shower and use too much water, so I limit my shower to the commercial time. I don’t miss any of my show and I’m keeping myself to a specific time of water use.
8. No bottled water. I’ve never been one to drink bottled water because it’s supposedly better than tap. It was more for convenience. Anyway, in my effort to reduce our contributions to landfills, we’ve started using reusable plastic bottles. The kids got to pick out one they liked and all that goes in them is water. (This helps with the stickiness factor if I let them put juice in them.)
9. Purchase products with less packaging. I recently began purchasing a new organic cereal that advertises using 10% less packaging. It may not be much, but I like that they’re making the effort.
10. Wood blinds throughout the house. This one goes along with using as little A/C as possible for us. We’ve got the room darkening shades and it makes a huge difference. Our front room gets afternoon sun and it used to get so hot in there. The shades are a tremendous help.

It’s a start for a family not used to thinking about these things. Mainly, they’re easy things that just required a change of mindset. It’s really not a lot of extra work. Things that are easy to change, seem to stick better in our house.