Today’s guest post is from Jeffrey Davis, the senior editor and co-founder of The Fun Times Guide to Living Green. His site is all about helping people discover simple, FUN, and easy ways to live green…because eco-snobbery sucks.
Don’t be fooled by the naysayers among us who would have you believe that it costs MORE money to live green. No, no, no. it costs way less!
That’s right, LED bulbs (screw CFLs), 100% organic food, alternative energy, and hybrids all save you money. You might find yourself finding this little tid bit of life-altering information hard to believe.
…and that’s ok.
Let me show you what I’m talking about.
The EarthLED ZetaLux LED light bulb costs. $49.99. Your average incandescent bulb cost around $1.99. There. How is it hard to see that living green actually saves you money?
Mmmm, maybe it’s because people only factor the price of an item into how much that item actually costs. This is something we MUST stop doing…for our own sake and the Earth’s.
Let’s go back to the light bulbs
The average incandescent has a life of around 1500 hours and consumes 60 watts of energy. The average LED bulb has a life of 60,000 hours and consumes 6 watts of energy. If you tracked the cost of running the light bulb for 60,000 hours and the energy cost was $.23 per KWh, here’s what you would have spent:
If you used the incandescents, they would have cost you $821 (plus the cost of the 40 bulbs you had to buy). If you used the LED, it would have cost you $82 (and no, that’s not a typo).
So I’ll ask you again, which one actually costs more?
How about your food?
Once again, it’s a complete and utter myth that eating organic food costs more. Is this price point of the food itself higher? Yes, but think of what it saves:
- The lack of pesticides, chemicals, and other toxins may stave off chronic illness in later life
- Giving the body the nutrients it needs WILL keep you healthier, keeping medical bills and insurance costs lower over time
- If the food is locally grown you keep the money you spent in your community, ultimately increasing your own quality of life
- And much, much, much more!
But hey, if you don’t want to eat organic, that’s cool. You’ll just be doing the morticians of our land a huge favor. Yup, you heard me. I’m acquainted with a master herbalist who knows a mortician that told her they now require 60% less embalming fluid when embalming a corpse.
Why?
Because we’re embalming ourselves while we’re alive! Yikes!
So go right ahead, keep on eating all those processed foods. At least you won’t require as much formaldehyde when your diseased and unhealthy body dies after a violent struggle at that ripe old age of 63.
Oh my, that wasn’t too harsh was it? ;-)
The truth is, once more, that living green only costs more if all you think about is the initial price point. In the long run living green saves us lots of money and saves the planet at the same time.
Here’s the kicker, living green doesn’t have to be hard or boring either. If everyone could just take a few FUN and small steps, it would add up to a HUGE difference. Visit me at my place, The Fun Times Guide to Living Green for some great ideas to help get your journey started…or maybe even keep it going.
