Tip of the Week

Reserve a Table for Two—at Home

On average, Americans eat out about five times a week.

All those commercially prepared meals add up to big bucks. The damage for a reasonably priced dinner for two can be $40 or more, while the same meal prepared at home can cost less than half that. This month, try switching just one restaurant dinner a week for a home-cooked meal, and you'll likely have an extra $100 to go towards other expenses, like credit-card bills or those winter boots you've been eyeing.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Dim and Dimmer

The average household spends ten to fifteen percent of its annual electricity bill on lighting.

Install dimmer switches where dimmed lighting makes sense, like the dining room and hallways. Any lightbulb dimmed by 25 percent (including incandescents) will use roughly 20 percent less energy. Dimming one 75-watt incandescent by 25 percent for only 4 hours a day will save you 30 pounds of carbon over the course of the year. Start dimming around the house and watch the savings add up!

Save even more money with dimmable CFLs, which last up to ten times longer and use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Sweeter Treats

43 percent of the world's cocoa beans are grown in West Africa, where 284,000 children work on cocoa farms under abusive labor conditions.

This Halloween, choose chocolate that is sweet for the kids in your neighborhood AND the kids in cocoa bean producing countries. Look for the Fair Trade label on chocolate products, which guarantees that no children labored to produce the cocoa beans, and that the farmers earned a living wage for their crop. See our Chocolate Buying Guide for a list of Fair Trade certified products.

© The Green Guide, 2008

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