Two trends that seem to be everywhere now are going green and cutting down on your expenses. Both are rather similar in concept; by cutting back now, we can ensure a better future for ourselves (or our children). You have to have an eye towards life yet to come in order to be motivated to save money or the Earth.
They also require some sacrifice on our part. It’s more fun to party, buy expensive things that will just sit on the shelf, and to just throw away anything we don’t need than to worry about the costs to our pocketbook and planet. How can we overcome our less caring nature and start to focus on the future?
First, know yourself and your motivations. It’s easier to commit to a plan to ‘green up’ your life or to get your finances in order if there’s some strong rationale you have to do so. You might look to your faith for reasons to protect God’s creation or to not be a borrower. If your family feels strongly about having financial security or saving nature, you can turn to them for support on your decision. One big motivator for many parents is protecting and providing for their children’s future; these could be all the motivation you need to save money and the planet.
Once you have your motivation, start small. Don’t try to cut your expenses or your emissions to the bone in the first month; much like trying to go on a crash diet, you’re going to feel deprived if you change too much at once. Instead, trying making a few changes at first, to feel out where you can make cuts without too much trouble. Cutting down on eating out, using less electricity or decreasing your driving won’t be enough to save the planet (or your financial future) all on its own, but will be easier to handle at first, and will give you encouragement to take on bigger reductions in the future.
Since we’re trying to do two things at once, it’s good to find ways we can work on both goals simultaneously. If you can find methods that will be good for the environment and save you money, you can kill two birds with one stone, improving two areas of your life at once. In addition to the already mentioned areas, you can also purchase energy efficient appliances or make an effort to drive no faster than the speed limit; both methods will help to reduce your expenses and carbon emissions over the long term.
Of course, there are situations where saving money comes at the price of increasing pollution, or where the environmentally best solution costs more money. Buying organic food, for example, can be significantly more expensive than traditionally grown food, while decreasing the impact on the environment. On the other side of the coin, shopping at a ‘big box’ department store can cut your expenses significantly, but the environmental impact of shipping the items around the planet is substantial.
For these circumstances, the only thing you can do is try to do the best you can, according to which principle you value more highly. If you are a die hard environmentalist, you’re obviously going to make different trade-offs between cost and environmental principles than someone who wants more than anything to live frugally. This goes back to our first point; if you don’t think about what you are really want to accomplish, your values, and your priorities, you’ll end up facing situations where you have to choose between the two without the guidance of a prior decision.
Follow these simple steps, and you’ll be able to go green and keep yourself on the right path financially.
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