reduce my environmental footprint

My husband and I have been carpooling for a long time now. I’m not even sure I remember when we started. Maybe since February? I spend double the time on the road now because of it, but we save so much money by leaving the truck parked in the driveway except when we need it.

One of the first things we did in our new home when we moved in last year was to get a new controller for the heat pump and furnace. We have it set to stay within a specific temperature range at different parts of the day and week. During the workweek we save money by not cooling the house when we are gone. In the winter we only use the furnace when it gets really cold. It’s saved us a lot of money. Hopefully it will be an added feature when we sell our house at some point down the road.

Almost all the light bulbs in our house are Compact Flourescent. The only ones that are not are the few that were left from the old owners and the chandalier in the kitchen (CFLs aren’t small enough yet for the size needed). When we paint the next few rooms, we will change the light kits to those that don’t show the bulbs so that we can change them to CFLs and still have the asthetic that we want. Some of these bulbs came with us from Texas, so even though they may cost more, they sure do last a lot longer.

Oh yeah! The coolest car in the world! It’s gets 60 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway. Our car has the cool package which includes GPS, bluetooth, advanced sound system and this cool key system which means I never have to use the key. We’re saving gas money since I have a 50+ mile round-trip to work each day, using less gas, and emitting fewer greenhouse gases. I feel great about this.

Kansas City has one of the best recycling programs that I’ve heard about. When we moved into our new house, I knew that we were going to be restricted to 2 bags of trash a week. What???? In Texas, you had an unlimited amount of trash and the trash people came twice a week. Kyle and I produced 2-4 bags of trash a week at the apartment. How were we ever going to do this? Then I got the information about the recycling program. You can recycle everything! Cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, newspaper, plastic with a number 1 or 2 on it. Since we got our recycling bin last week, we’ve only used 1 bag of trash. It’s amazing! I think I’m making great strides with this goal.