It’s Earth Day. Get Some Real Green

Unless you live on another planet (literally), you know that today, April 22, is Earth Day. You might also be aware that April is Financial Literacy Month. If the first observance doesn’t move you to change your energy-consumption lifestyle, maybe the second one will–unless you’ve got cash to burn during the current economic crisis.

The fact is, many of the habits that we practice in our every day lives not only waste energy and harm the environment, they also waste money–I’m talking thousands of dollars a year. I don’t know about you, but I could use a few extra thousand each year. Here are just some of the things you can do to get it:

Make today’s bottled water the last one you buy. Save that one bottle, and refill it with tap water for drinking each day. In most areas of the country (especially the New York metro area), tap water is just as good, if not better, than bottled water. If you have been buying a typical 1.5 liter bottle of water each day, you can save up to $1,000 a year or more by switching to tap. You’ll also reduce the number of plastic bottles that end up in landfills (where they’ll take 1,000 years to break down), not to mention the fuel that’s burned to transport bottled water to your local grocer.

Install a programmable thermostat. We just put one of these in at my house, and it works like a dream, automatically heating or cooling the house depending on the time of year, and whether the

house is likely to be empty or not, or whether we’re all in bed. Why run the heater or air-conditioner while you’re at work and the kids are at school? Why have the heat on over night while everyone is in bed? It’s far less expensive to break out the flannels and quilted comforters. You can easily save $300 a year or more; according to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average American family spends about $1,900 on home utility bills each year.

Ease up on the hot water usage. Don’t use the dishwasher if it’s not full; wash dishes in the sink by hand. Only wash full loads of laundry. And instead of long baths, take short showers. Check the thermostat on your hot water heater; keep it under 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Estimated savings: at least $200 a year.

Go out and buy some surge protector power strips. Instead of plugging your home electronics (TVs, DVD players, digital recorders, etc.) into wall outlets, plug them into the strip. When you’re not using you’re not watching, listening to and/or playing with your gadgets, hit the off strip on the power strip. You’ll save on the electricity that your home electronics use when they remain plugged in even when they are turned off. If your house is like mine (three TVs, a DVR, a DVD player, a VHS tape player, a CD player), this tip is good for at least $300 a year.

Let’s see: Changing just four habits equals close to $2,000 saved. Hey, if you make $40,000 a year, that’s a

5% raise! Go talk to your boss (if you still have a job) and see if they are planning to hook you up with a 5% bump in salary this year. And that’s just for starters: there are plenty of other environmentally friendly, cost-saving energy tips on the Internet. Start at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy web site. Also check our BEing Green section at BlackEnterprise.com, where it’s Earth Day and Financial Literacy Month all year round.

And will you please turn the lights off when you leave the room? (By the way, switch to energy efficient fluorescent bulbs to save even more money.) You heard what mom said: we don’t own the electric company!

Alfred A. Edmond Jr. is the editor-in-chief of BlackEnterprise.com