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Living green can save you money

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As a follow up to the post I wrote about whether the Live Earth concert would make a difference in the way people live I thought I’d write about one of the comments on the Go Smell the Flowers site that inspired my post in the first place.

One of the posters seemed to believe that changing over to a green life style would cost a lot of money and might discourage people from making such changes.

Well as someone who has changed her own life style over the years to live in a greener manner I can tell you that a green lifestyle can actually save you money.

Sure the energy efficient light bulbs cost more, but they last four or more times longer than regular light bulbs and barely make a blip on your energy bill so you’ll end up saving money by using them. Plus, if you’re a little bit afraid of heights like I am you won’t have to stand on chairs, step stools or ladders as often to change bulbs.

We compost our food scraps and then use the compost. We also add grass clippings, a small amount of paper product and leaves collected in the autumn to keep our compost going then we use the compost on our garden each spring. The compost is rich in nutrients and acts as a natural fertilizer for our garden.

Growing your own food is cheaper and less fattening than buying processed food or even veggies and fruit that have been transported from the other side of the country. The fruit and veggies that you’ll grow will be full of nutrients and fresher than those you can purchase in a store, plus the act of gardening is good exercise.

If you have a small space you can grow veggies in window box planters – whether they are mounted in a window area or not. If you compost you can use the compost that you’ve made on your own to fertilize your home grown veggies. Once you purchase your initial materials the cost of growing your own food is very low.

Hanging your clothes outside on a line to dry in the sun is cheaper than running the dryer and your clothes smell fresher. Our dryer is very old and uses a lot of energy – we save a ton of money by not using it very often.

Walking, or biking more often is good for you and doesn’t cost you a cent.

Taking public transport is cheaper than paying for gas and insurance for your car and has a lower C02 footprint.

Buying a re-usable bag to bring to the grocery store has an initial cost, but if you shop at a store that charges 5 cents per plastic bag you’ll save money in the long run and keep plastic bags out of landfills.

The law says we must recycle here in Toronto – at least if you are a home owner. The city provides the various recycling containers that we use so it doesn’t cost us any money to perform this task.

If you convert your house to an alternative power source it will be expensive, but in the research I’ve done on this I’ve learned that many homes in my city that have converted actually make surplus energy and the local energy company ends up buying it back from them. So in the long run that saves money or possibly even makes you money.

All of what I’ve mentioned above can save you money and I don’t find them difficult to do at all.

Do you have any more tips or ideas?






Replacement parts for lawn mowers and outdoor equipment

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So how are you lawn mowers holding up now that summer is here and the grass is growing?

Many of the new lawn mowers that you can buy these days have many parts don’t they? Some come with all the accessories that you could possibly need and others have accessories that you can purchase separately.

I’m bringing this up because I wanted to tell you about an online store called Mow Part. They sell lawn mower parts. All kinds of lawn mower and outdoor equipment parts.

I actually wish I knew of Mow Part about two months ago. We had an old trimmer of my parents and last year the part that holds the trimmer line cracked rendering the trimmer unusable. We’d already had some trouble finding the type of trimmer line that worked in that old trimmer too. Now I know that if I’d visited Mow Part I probably could have replaced the trimmer part and even found the correct trimmer line for it too. Believe me – I would have purchased a year or two’s worth of trimmer line!

I think this store carries pretty much everything you could possibly need for your lawn mower or other outdoor yard related accessories. They carry tires or wheels, chute covers, trimmer parts, snowblower parts, filters, repair manuals, carburetor parts, fertilizer spreader parts, and the list goes on and on.

If you have outdoor equipment bookmark this website. At some point in the future you might need replacement parts for your mower and now you’ll know exactly where to find it.

Thin leafed poor blooming azaleas?

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How did your Azaleas, and Rhododendrons do this year? Did they bloom well? Is the foliage lush and full?

If you azaleas didn’t seem to do as well this year as they have in the past, or if the leaf coverage is rather thin you might want to be proactive and take some measure to help them get healthy so they’ll bloom well next season.

Apply azalea fertilizer in the spring. You might want to give your plants one light dose before they begin to bloom, perhaps just as they come out of dormancy, and another dose shortly after they’ve finished blooming. Fertilizing will encourage better growth and the plant should get fuller looking.

Lightly pruning blooming branches and bringing the flowers indoors or lightly prune immediately after the blooming season ends.

You’ll be cutting off some of the new growth, but when pruning takes place near the beginning of the season it actually encourages new growth. By pruning, fertilizing and watering regularly throughout the season your azaleas should be stronger the following year.

You might even want to thin some of the older branches after the blooms fade in order to shape the tree for the following year. It make take a few years to prune your azalea into a nice shape that shows off it’s fullness as you do not want to prune too much off at once.

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