The Experiment

My husband and I decided to conduct our own “experiment” this past month and see how we can be more environmentally friendly and save some money around our house.

Here is what we did, and what we found…

I really don’t need to run hot water while brushing my teeth. I now don’t feel like I have to rush my dental hygiene routine because the water is running.  So, I brush a little longer, and save some water.

I’ve started collecting the drips of water that come from our outdoor garden tap into a bucket to use for watering my plants.  My plants love all the extra hydration in our sunny climate and are growing like crazy.

My husband had a beer fridge.  We are a household of 2. 1 fridge for food, and 1 for beer seemed a little excessive (but probably not if you ask most men).  While the fridge was stocked with beer on most days, we’ve decided to combine everything into 1 fridge and shut down the energy hog. We noticed that the “mysterious” humming, rattling, ticking and excessive heat coming from that area of the house has stopped.  And my husband is drinking less beer.

All non essential lights and “ghost” electricity has been turned off during the day.  It’s amazing how many lights I’m capable of turning on and leaving on without even realizing it.  By simply turning off the light or power strip when I leave a room, this saves not only money but the amount of power we as a household are using.

I decided to plant Garlic.  We use it in almost every dish we cook so I figured why not pop it in some soil and see if it grows.  It does!  Fun!

While watching a local news program’s garden segment, there was an interesting idea of using the tops of egg cartons to plant seeds.  Once the seeds have started to sprout, you simply cut the top segments apart and plant the segment in a pot or your garden.  The carton will biodegrade.  Easy and cute!

So the hardcore results after 30 days?

Our energy bill was cut by 80$, our water bill dropped by 30$, my garden looks beautiful, is completely organic, and we are finding more ways every day to help our environment and our personal wallets.

I’d love to hear any other ideas!

By: Mel Knight

Garlic

My Seeds

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