How Recycling Can Increase Your Savings at Home

Managing a modern household is no easy task. Often, the most difficult thing to do is to reset your family members’ priorities, especially if it means changing up their daily habits.
Understandably, this applies to the idea of becoming more eco-friendly inside the home. Having a “greener” home constitutes several different choices, from teaching your kids to segregate waste properly to decreasing single-use plastic to recycling. The lifestyle change will mean unpacking a lot of habits you didn’t think twice about before, as well as doing things a little more mindfully.

But these choices will eventually add up and affect your household for the better. One major upside is that you’ll be able to increase your household savings. Buying quality items, buying secondhand, or increasing an item’s life cycle will allow you to set aside more cash for a rainy day—and inspire more caring attitudes toward Mother Earth in the process.

That said, here are some ways to practice the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) in your own home, and how these can augment your savings.

• Buying secondhand furniture

Though furniture is always a good thing to invest in, you don’t always have to go running to the department store when you need new tables or chairs. There are some great deals to be had if you buy furniture secondhand. Moreover, buying furniture secondhand means that it’ll be used longer and not populate your local landfills.

• Recycling paper at home

This is one of the easiest ways to start a greener lifestyle in your household. Get your partner and kids to write and print on clean recycled paper, instead of having to buy more paper by the ream.

• Using compatible printer ink

On that note, you should also consider recycling printer ink and buying remanufactured cartridges instead of OEM cartridges. Instead of accumulating branded cartridges at a higher cost, you can easily order compatible ink cartridges and calibrate them to your printer type. You’ll save on ink without sacrificing the print quality on your paper documents—and you’ll also save on the amount of metal, plastic, and oil used to manufacture new ink cartridges.

• Refurbishing your electronic devices

Though some technologies age and become obsolete quite fast, several of your gadgets could benefit from being repaired instead of thrown away and replaced. If you’ve broken a device like a drone, it’s easy and much more cost-efficient to get your drones repaired instead of buying new ones.

• Using reusable shopping bags

 Have a tote bag or net bag ready with you when you do your weekly grocery shopping. Some groceries charge up 5 to 10 cents per additional bag. You can save money both on your part and on the establishment’s by opting to carry your groceries out in your own bags.

• Recycle old clothes

 One type of waste that’s been increasing over the years is fabric or textile waste. It’s a good idea for you and your kids to get creative with your old clothes. You can use old clothes as rags; repurpose them into bags or mats; or, if they’re still usable, donate them to charity organizations.

• Purchase rewriteable CDs and DVDS, or share a USB device

Another method to lessen e-waste is to be more efficient with your storage devices. Instead of buying single-use CDs and DVDs, you can opt instead to keep using rewriteables, or better yet to invest in USB devices that you can share amongst your family members.

“Going green” may not seem too easy at first, but sooner or later your household will fall into step. It’s never too late to get a head start on saving up for the future—as well as saving the future of the planet.

Are you reusing and recycling at home?
What are your favorite tips for living greener?
Share your thoughts and comments with us.

“Shared on Homestead Blog Hop 279”