OK, all.  Summer is just—about—OVER.  Many of you probable have the kiddos back in school already.  I’ve got one down and one more to go.  And I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood to celebrate!!  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I had the time of my life this summer.  My girls and I had a great time hiking, swimming, visiting, camping, playing, and just lounging about in our own backyard.

But now that they are back at school (just about), I’m ready to do a little something for me.  I’m not much of a shopper, but I do love it when I get a great green deal…especially on little things that perk up my day.  So check it, there is a new website called Hip Green Deals that is right up my alley these days.  Here’s how it works:  HipGreenDeals.com has partnered with some of the top leading brands in the eco-fashion industry to give you (and me!) big fat discounts from companies such as The Andean Collection, BYOB, Moonrise Jewelry, and Priti Nails NYC.

HipGreenDeals founder and Green Parent Christine Altavilla had this to say about her desire to launch this great green business.

“As a new mom I found myself wearing the same black dress all too often in order to dress conservatively and hide the baby weight. I needed to freshen up my wardrobe but I wanted to be environmentally and socially responsible just as I was teaching my son to be. I chose to purchase a few key accessories rather than spending the money on new clothes.  Because eco-friendly jewelry is handmade, I tend to get many compliments and questions about where I make my purchases. I created HipGreenDeals.com to make eco-friendly shopping easy, fun and affordable for women like myself.”

Thanks Christine for making these great green deals available to moms like me!

Are the bills piling up?

by Ethan Ewing, www.bills.com

If you’re like many Americans, you’re probably looking for ways to trim costs while the economy is in a down turn.  According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average American home will spend $990 on heating this year.  Create a little breathing room in your budget with these 7 tips for lowering your winter energy bills.

1. Protect your system. Change furnace filters regularly to keep your air clean and to ensure maximum air flow. If your home, apartment or condo unit has an individual furnace or boiler, have it inspected by a professional. A furnace that works properly will be more efficient and less likely to fail. For maximum savings, ask the service person for tips on ways you can maintain your system yourself.
2. Turn down the heat.
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   If your health permits, lower the thermostat to 68 degrees (or even lower). For every one degree the thermostat is lowered, heating costs decrease by up to 5 percent. At night, or when the home is empty, lower the temperature as far as possible while protecting your health and the safety of pipes. If necessary, stay cozy with an electric blanket.

3. Program the temperature. Make furnace settings automatic by installing a programmable thermostat. These devices cost about $40 and are simple to install.
4. Save hot water energy. Turn the temperature on the hot water heater to 120 degrees – or, if yours is equipped only with a scale, turn it down a notch. Most people can save up to 10 percent of water heating costs, maintaining plenty of hot water (and the water will be less likely to cause accidental scalding). If the hot water heater is situated in a cool area, consider adding an insulating jacket to help maintain water temperatures and reduce heating time. Insulate the first few feet of pipe that transport hot water from the water heater. If you need to replace a water heater, consider a tankless or “on-demand” unit. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates these appliances are 8 percent to 34 percent more efficient than conventional hot water tanks.
5. Insulate. Carefully inspect your home for drafty spots where cold air can enter. The most common culprits are doors and windows. Install weather stripping and door sweeps to block drafts. Add old-fashioned “draft dodgers” for a quick fix at exterior doors. Other common areas for air leaks are locks, outlets, air conditioning units and recessed light fixtures.  Cover outside vents, including air conditioning units. If possible, install insulated electrical outlet boxes and light fixtures. Check out The Energy Star program’s free guide to home insulation.
6. Shop around. Those who purchase fuel oil have a choice of energy providers. Do compare prices to obtain the lowest rates.
7. Take a tax credit. In 2009, homeowners who add certain efficiency measures to their homes can take a tax credit of up to 10 percent of the cost of the materials used, up to $500 per home. Learn more about tax credits here.

Photo by woodsy

There’s still time to enter to win a Weatherproofing Kit from Niagara Conservation.  Click here to enter.

Weatherproofing 101: Doors

by Mark Furst, Grading Spaces

Most issues with doors are due to gasket problems, either missing pieces or the door itself being poorly adjusted and not hitting the gasket right. A common leak point is at the top corners where the vertical and horizontal gaskets don’t meet up accurately and leaves a gap. Often, I find that the latch of the door isl oose and I’m not able to pull the door tight up to the gasket. Sometimes this assembly can be simply tightened, other times it makes sense just to install a new latching mechanism as cheaper latches tend to loosen up internally. Cats and dogs can be hard on a gasket if they claw at it. A simple fix I have done to my own back door is to stick a foam strip to the door that hits the existing gasket and seals up any voids in it. This is simpler and cheaper than replacing the gasket itself, just make sure not to use a foam that is too stiff to allow the door to close properly.

The threshold at the bottom of the door is an area that often leaks. Many quality doors have adjustable thresholds that can be raised or lowered to touch the door and create a seal, but is sometimes not adjusted after installation. If the door does not have this, the fix can be a bit more involved. Simply sticking a gasket to the bottom of the door will fail quickly. Usually the best fix is to install a sweep strip on the inside of the door that touches the back of the threshold. These usually have oval slots so you can slope the sweep to accommodate for doors that were installed out of square, or a floor that’s not level.

If the gasket at the bottom of the door is failing, sometimes the culprit is the hinges and their attachment to the framing itself. With the door open, push on the edge of the door towards the hinges. IF there is any movement, the hinges screws need to be tightened. Sometimes inexperienced door installers will not run a screw through the hinge and jamb (frame) and then on into the framing which holds the door in place much more securely than the screws only in the jamb. Occasionally, the screws will be stripped out and need replacing. Getting the next screw size up usually can work, just make sure that the screw head will fit flush into the hinge or else it will not allow the door to close completely.

Sometimes I find an interior door being used as an exterior one. This will be very inefficient, both thermally (it will be uninsulated) and airwise (gaskets will, typically, not be adequate) and if you have this, I would recommend replacement rather than trying to fix it up. The best exterior steel or fiberglass doors can be very efficient with R values up to R15, which is comparable to the walls into which they are installed.

As with windows, the area around the unit can be as leaky as the unit itself. Check the gap between the jamb and the framing. It should be filled with low expansion foam to prevent air movement.

Weatherproofing 101: Windows

by Mark Furst, Grading Spaces

Photo by PM22

And the winners are:

Here are your random numbers:

9
7
16
24
4

Timestamp: 2008-12-05 18:06:29 UTC

Congrats and thanks to all for entering!

by Ethan Ewing, Bills.com

Thanksgiving kicks off the holiday season in the United States, and with it begins six weeks of fun, feasts and festivities.  With its emphasis on being grateful for all we have, Thanksgiving provides the perfect opportunity to make life greener — and a bit more frugal — in this time of economic turmoil.  Here’s how to green your Thanksgiving Day.

Give back. While most Americans will have a more luxurious Thanksgiving than our forefathers celebrated when they arrived in the New World, some cannot afford to prepare a special Thanksgiving meal. Give to those less fortunate by partaking in a smaller meal and donating to or volunteering with an organization that provides a Thanksgiving meal for others.

Go local. Celebrate gratitude for the local environment by exploring what local foods you can find. In New Mexico, enjoy local pine nuts instead of almonds in your stuffing. In the south, use in-season foods for dishes such as fresh pecan pie, mashed sweet potatoes and gumbo. In the northwest, take advantage of seasonal vegetables including beets, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. Or find a quick refrigerator pickle recipe for locally grown cucumbers or bell peppers instead of buying prepackaged.  See if you can select a turkey from a local farm (try your local natural foods market or visit localharvest.org to locate farmers). You will discover new pleasures and avoid the environmental pollution generated by trucking your food from distant locales.

Get out the good china. Or at least forego plastic and paper ware to reduce waste. If you are short on place settings, borrow (neighbors, family and guests usually are happy to share), or look on Craigslist, eBay or at thrift stores for extras you can reuse. By avoiding items that are particularly Thanksgiving-themed, you will be able to use them throughout the year – and if they are not breakable, even take them along to summer picnics and pool parties. For more napkins, make your own or purchase a stash of bandanas in colors you like from a hobby store.

Make connections. Help guests minimize vehicle pollution by carpooling. Connect guests who live near each other and suggest that they share a ride to Thanksgiving dinner.

Decorate with reusable plants. Collect some attractive houseplants into an appealing centerpiece by gathering them in a large basket, bowl or even a box decorated with fabric or paper. Small plants chosen for the occasion could be given to guests as favors when they leave. Or gather a fall-themed bouquet from your yard, or ask guests to bring autumn leaves, berries or branches to build a centerpiece.

Go green with the drinks. Look into locally crafted wines and beers, or those made organically. Serve tap water instead of bottled water; make it more elegant with lemon or lime wedges. Choose larger containers to minimize waste.

Do not overdo it. Cooking enough to feed an army will only result in waste if your “crowd” is more like a handful. Be realistic about what you will eat at dinner and what you can consume in leftovers. Send some
leftovers home with guests, and freeze some to enjoy later. If you know you will have too much left,  investigate your community to see if you can donate extras to a soup kitchen. Or invite other family or friends to share in a post-Thanksgiving weekend meal.

Combine cooking. Plan your cooking to use the oven all at once, rather than heating and cooling the oven many times over the days ahead of the meal. Heat up contributed dishes in an already-hot oven after you remove the turkey instead of firing up the microwave. Try cooking side dishes in a toaster oven instead of in the large oven.

Wash it up. Resist the temptation to run the dishwasher with just a few items in it and run it only when full. And because using a dishwasher is usually more efficient than hand washing, no need to feel guilty about a
stack of dishes on the counter — let them wait for the next dishwasher load.

A greener Thanksgiving is easily within reach, and by taking it easier on the planet, you might find it easier on your wallet at the same time.

1. Live below your income. Do not spend more than you earn. Those who are hooked on plastic can withdraw enough cash each week to cover necessities — even groceries and gasoline — and put the credit cards away. Ewing noted that a recent study by Visa found that people who pay for their food with a credit card spend 30 percent more on average than people who pay with cash.
2. Focus on needs, not wants. Americans need to understand their income and their necessary expenses, and account for these needs before spending money on any wants. Think like your elders: A new shirt for the weekend, new home décor and a flat-screen TV are not ‘needs, food, home  payments, utilities and medical care are needs. To avoid confusing the two, put off purchases for at least 24 hours whenever possible to think about them carefully.
3. Stay home. In the 1940s, only about half of larger companies offered paid vacation time. With automobiles slower in those days and air travel not a given, most families seldom traveled on vacation. Save an average of nearly $2,000 per year by skipping the far-away vacation. Talk, play games, work on a project or watch a movie to relax instead of heading for the amusement park or the airport. Think “staycation.”
4. Eat in. In 2000, Americans ate an average of 4.2 meals per week at a restaurant; in your grandparents’ time, an occasional restaurant meal was a rare treat. With the conservative assumption that each restaurant meal costs $7, the cost for 4.2 meals per week would mount up to $127 per month, or more than $1,500 per person, per year. For a family of four, costs could soar over $6,000 per year. Learn to cook a variety of foods and use convenient tools such as a slow cooker to save time, money and calories.
5. Skip the alcohol. Have dinner with your grandparents, and odds are good that they most often drink water, iced tea, coffee or soft drinks. At home, choosing iced tea instead of a cocktail will save 50 cents to a dollar per day. In a restaurant, the savings could be $5 or more.
6. Choose regular coffee. You will not find most children of the Great Depression slugging back lattes. Not only could it ruin their sleep schedules, it would cost twice as much as a cup of coffee. Your best bet is to make a cup of tea or coffee at home and take it with you. Second best is to forego the coffeehouse cachet for a respectable — and cheaper — cup of Joe from a fast-food establishment or doughnut shop.
7. Do not shop for entertainment.
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   Online or in person, it is all too easy to start adding items to a cart because you are bored. Read a good book (get an old-fashioned library card) or learn a useful hobby instead.

8. Keep the old car. A car is transportation, not a fashion statement. Better yet, carpool and/or own only one vehicle per family to trim transportation costs even more.
9. Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Do not throw out a bottle of shampoo simply because you are tired of the fragrance — use it up. Keep jeans past their fashion prime. If your shape of your turkey platter is not perfect for Thanksgiving, does it matter? And do you really need color-coordinated, fabric-lined baskets for your linen closet, or would old boxes work? Think twice before spending by reciting this mantra of the frugal home.

Saving is a state of mind, and there’s no time like the present to get in the mindset. If your grandparents are still living, give them a call (fortunately, phone calls are more affordable than your grandparents might think they are) and ask for a few more tips.

The great news is that the essence of going green is to buy less stuff. That doesn’t mean that you have to give up stuff entirely and live like a monk. But it does mean that it can pay big (for your wallet and the planet) to be more discriminating about what you buy.

Take, for example, clothing. I have written several blog posts about the eco-benefits of organic clothing. Yet, I cannot afford to fill my closet with all of the latet eco-fashions. My compromise? I only buy a few new things each season, and what I do buy has to be organic and sweat-shop free. I usually set a budget and stretch my eco-dollars to the max by looking for great green bargains. I look for end of season deals, overstocked merchandise, and most of all, COUPONS! (Try Couponers.com for some great green deals!)

My favorite great green bargain? My organic cotton cords that I got from Patagonia for $15. What’s yours?

Blog post for Parent Bloggers Network.

Here’s how to make your back-to-school shopping a little greener:

Put your wallet away. Save money on school supplies by not buying them! Before you head to the store to buy new pencils, notepads, and binders for a new year of school, check to see what’s hiding in your closet from last year. A binder filled with recycled paper can be customized year after year to suit your child’s interests (just redecorate the cover with stickers, fabric, or markers.) And you probably already have enough pens and pencils lying around the house to fill up a pencil case.

Aim For A Waste-Free Lunch. One of the single best ways you can “go green” and reduce waste is to make your child’s lunch waste-free by using reusable containers to hold her meal. Skip juice boxes and let her pick out a cool thermos or reusable bottle to bring instead. Pack it all in a reusable tote or lunchbox. (Try the cotton lunch sack, ECOUsable water bottle, and bamboo utensils from ECOBAGS, the bento boxes from Laptop Lunches, or the super cute animal shaped lunch boxes from Gigglefish. Enter now to enter our August contest for a free Waste-Free Lunch Kit from ECOBAGS.

Borrow or Rent Sports Equipment and Instruments. If your child has a passion for the piccolo or a flair for football, it makes sense to invest in the equipment they need to play. But if they will be trying a new instrument or sport this year, consider borrowing or renting their gear until you can gauge whether or not they will stick with it. It will save you money and keep your closet from becoming a hobby graveyard!

Buy Green. When you do need to purchase new stuff, look for eco-savvy supplies that contain recycled non-toxic, or organic materials. Here’s a guide:

Backpacks: If possible, update and reuse last year’s backpack by adding or removing fabric patches or designs. If you do need a new one, consider an earth-friendly brand that uses recycled materials such as those from Ecotech, Osprey, or EarthPak.

Paper: Recycled paper is good, 100% post-consumer recycled paper is better, and 100% post-consumer recycled paper that is processed chlorine free (PCF) is the gold standard. Look for brands such as Dolphin Blue, Greenline Paper, and New Leaf Everest, or browse Treecycle’s extensive selection of recycled papers.

Pens, Pencils, and Art Supplies: Minimize waste by purchasing reusable writing supplies whenever possible. Of course, that can be tricky, especially when it comes to little kids that are unlikely to hold on to the same pen from one day to the next. So if you purchase disposables, look for greener options like Pilot’s BeGreen pens and pencils made from recycled materials or check out Green Earth Office Supply or Greenline Paper for a selection of eco-friendly writing supplies such biodegradable cornstarch pens, recycled lunch tray pencils, or soybean crayons. And check out my previous on greening your child’s art supplies.

Notebooks and Binders: Mead’s recycled notebooks and day planners can be found at major retailers. For recycled binders, check out the selections from Sustainable Group and Green Earth Office Supply

and Greenline Paper.

No Home Depot in your area? Check out Earth 911 to see if there is a fluorescent bulb recycler in your area. You can also recycle CFL light bulbs at IKEA (as long as you buy them there as well) under their “take-back” program.

Another CFL recycling option is utilizing a mail-back program like the one offered by Lightbulbrecycling.com. For about $120, this company will send you a postage-paid plastic bucket which can hold about 30 CFL light bulbs. When the bucket is full, simply mail it in and they’ll make sure the bulbs are recycled properly. It’s a tad on the expensive side for the average household (and personally it would take me years to go through 30 bulbs) but might be a good option for a small business owner.

Now, you already know that CFL light bulbs are better for the planet and better for your wallet than traditional incandescents. And with all of these recycling options, there are no more excuses! Save energy, money, and the planet by switching over to CFLs.