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There's no excuse to living green! It's better for the environment and often for your wallet as well.
Take water bottles for example. It's much cheaper (and healthier) to use a reusable water bottle and water filtration system than it is to buy cases of water each week.
But buying reusable is just one part of living green. Some other things to consider are what we eat, what we wear and how we get around.
If you've watched Cowspiracy, you'll know that a vegan/plant-based diet is the best for our environment and arguably the single most important thing we can do to minimize our ecological footprint. And vegan staples like oats, rice, pasta, beans and potatoes are some of the cheapest foods, so there's little to worry about money-wise as long as you centre your diet around whole foods and limit processed foods.
In terms of fashion, the cheapest way to be eco-friendly is to hit up your local thrift shop.
And for getting around, using public transit is both cheaper and more eco-friendly than driving a car.
Ok. But what if you want to eat out? What if buying second-hand isn't really your thing? What if you need to drive somewhere?
Discount cards!
Toronto's Live Green Perks program, for example, offers hundreds of deals on eco-friendly products and services from local businesses. You can get discounts on everything from restaurants to car-sharing services to museums. As if that wasn't cool enough, a tree is planted for every 20 deals claimed!
Find out if your city offers something similar. If it doesn't, we recommend looking into other types of discount programs, such as student discount cards or store-specific discount cards/rewards programs.
For example, one of the eco-friendly brands we list, United By Blue, offers an online rewards program. Of course the downside is that it's online only, so you can't use it for purchases made in person at one of their retail locations. But we're not complaining! Most stores don't offer rewards programs at all, so it's great that at least on of the eco-friendly brands we list has one.
One thing most stores will offer, though, is a discount for subscribing to their emails. While the discount is usually one-time use, by subscribing you can stay up to date with all their deals and sales.
All in all, living green is cheaper than you might think. Sure, there might be a few things that cost more, even with discounts factored in, but you don't have to strive for perfection. The important thing is to do what you can.
Comment below how you save money being eco-friendly!
Written by: The Change District