Just to get you started, here’s an easy way to save electricity:  Turn off your lights when you leave the house, go to bed, leave a room, leave your office at work for more than a half hour.  Turn off your ocmputer monitor, plasma TV, excess electronics, phone charger – just go around and take a look at everything that’s plugged in, and unplug it, or shut it off.  Do that every day for a week and see if you don’t lower your power use.

There are plenty of simple ways to incorporate alternative energy into your lifestyle.  Some small examples are solar deck rail lights, solar powered attic fans, and other similar products now available on the market. You can find many, many other options to start to reduce your use of fossil-fuel generated electricity.

Post you best idea here too – combining our efforts is the key to making small changes into big ones!

Starting small is best. If you’ve already changed your lightbulbs to CFLs, perhaps starting to change your driving habits in small ways can be a next step.  With gas prices over $4 a gallon, you can take steps that are also kind to your wallet.

Try this to save on gas: Drive 60-65 on the highway, and speed limit everywhere else.  Cars run most efficiently at 60 mph, and you can save a whopping 20-30% on fuel by sticking to that speed.  Keep your tires properly inflated – pick up a tire pressure guage on  your next shopping trip, they cost $1 or so.  This can save $$ in fuel costs also.  Same for getting your car properly tuned up – efficiency is the key.

As for miles traveled, try to reduce, even just a small bit, just skip one or two trips a week. Dust off that bike!  Get your sneakers on for short walks and trips around town.  Skip a trip you don’t really  need to make, or combine trips instead of making three or four each weekend.

Getting started with a few simple steps will get you thinking about other ways to cut back.  Just the few things above could cut your fuel use by 20% or even better, an awesome start!

What else are you doing that’s easy and simple? Post a comment with your ideas here any time.