Improvement #77

Eat it all! Save food, fuel, and cash.

If we all wasted less food - each as little as the weight of a slice of bread a day – we could feed 1.3 million homeless children three meals a day for a year. More people eat, you save money, and there’s less garbage hauled by trucks to dump in landfills.

Put leftovers in smart storage containers that keep food fresh longer so you’ll be able to enjoy every bite and never have ‘bad’ food to throw away again.

Improvement #79

Adjust your bedding and your thermostat..

In winter, when you’re toasty under a comforter you can turn the heat down a lot. Come summer, use a light quilt and choose our sheets that wick away moisture so you don’t get so sweaty.

For each degree you adjust your thermostat in winter or summer, you’ll reduce your energy use and utility bill from 3 to 5%.

Improvement #80

Bring your own mug, and a spoon maybe too.

Bring a mug or thermos to work or to your favorite coffee shop and fill that instead. All those paper cups – and heat sleeves, stirrers, sugar packets and napkins – make a lot of trash you use for only seconds. If we all used just one less paper cup per week, we could save thousands of trees a year and much less trash would need to be hauled by trucks and dumped into landfills. That means a lot less air pollution too.

Improvement #82

Let it air-dry, inside or out!

A clothes dryer uses a lot of energy, and in summer it makes your house hotter, and clothes can get wrinkly in the dryer anyway. Instead, just drape wet laundry on a line or drying rack and it dries very nicely. To help soften clothes after air drying, toss them in the dryer with no heat for a few minutes and you’ll save energy on ironing too.

By saving energy every time you skip a dryer load, you’ll save money too.

Improvement #83

Recycle it here - just as handy as the trash can.

It’s easy to recycle when you have a place to put that bottle you just emptied – such as a simple sorting system right in your kitchen. You can also put a second wastebasket for recyclables in other rooms, like one in the den for cans and bottles and another in your home office for paper.

Recycle and you help save trees, reduce energy needed to make new aluminum, and keep kilos of trash out of landfills each year.

Improvement #85

How covering leftovers lowers your electric bill.

When you put food in the refrigerator, cover it. Get food containers with lids or use matching-sized plates to cover bowls of food. Why? Uncovered food releases moisture into the air and that makes your refrigerator work harder during the defrost cycle. That uses extra electricity and costs you money. Plus, a lid keeps food fresher and your fridge doesn’t get so smelly.