Go Green Savings: Live in a Smaller Home
Welcome to another edition of Blog Swap a collaborative endeavor by members of the Yakezie Network, the world’s largest network of personal finance and lifestyle blogs. Each blogger writes on the same topic. Today’s topic is, “Best Go Green Method to Save Money” After you finish this article, please stop by my site, Retire By 40 to read Tushar’s take on this topic!
Ask yourself this question – What’s the best go green method to save money? Tough question? Let’s put it another way – What do you spend the most money on every month? It’s housing.
IMHO, the best way to save money and the environment at the same time is to live in a smaller home. There are numerous environmental benefits to living in a smaller home.
Go Green Saving
building material – Smaller homes use less resources to build. You will reduce your environment impact by using less concrete, timber, drywall, insulation, PVC pipes, plumbing, flooring, wiring, etc… All these home building materials have high environmental impact and the less we use them, the better it will be for good old Mother Earth.
Furnishing – You’ll need less furniture in a smaller home. This save money and help the environment by using less resources. I know a few co workers that purchased large 3,000+ sq ft and they buy so many frivolous things to fill up the house. There is an endless amount of unnecessary products that you can buy like pool table, Foosball table, ping pong table, arcade machines, kegarators, wine fridge, 4th TV, gold plated toilet, etc… As you can probably tell, most of my friends are immature men.
Energy efficient – You will use less energy to heat and cool your smaller home. We used to live in a 2,000 sq ft house and we spent over $200/month every winter on the gas and electric bill. Now we are living in a 1,000 sq ft condo and our bills hover around $60. You will also save electricity by using less lighting and having less electronic gadgets in general. In a big house, you’ll have electronic gadgets in every room sucking vampire power and running up the bill. Electricity have very high environmental impact. All power plants from coal, dam, and nuclear have their own unique problem and we should minimize electricity usage as much as possible to Go Green.
environmental friendly upgrades – Since a smaller home cost less than a larger home, you can spend the saving on environmental friendly upgrades. Bamboo and cork flooring are great renewable material that are comfortable and beautiful. You can upgrade to a water efficient toilet to save water. Upgrading to a heat pump is a great way to reduce your bill. If you have a lot of money left, you can even get a green roof and grow vegetable on it.
Everything Finance’s Thoughts: If feasible, moving into a smaller home would be great. But in this real estate slump, buying is easy but what about selling your big mansion first? Thats the bummer.
Living in a smaller home lessen our environmental impact continually and I think it is a great way to save money. What do you think? It’s a big commitment to downsize, but it’s worth it in the long run. Could you live in a tiny house pictured? How about 1,000 sq feet?
photo credit – flickr nicolas.boullosa
I agree, my husband and I live in a small apt in London, not sure of the sq. footage. We can't buy a ton of stuff as we don't have place to put things we don't need, which is green and saves us money. We don't have a dryer, no room, we have a dorm sized fridge and the same sized freezer using much less elec. than American ones. We have few kitchen appliances as we just don't have the space.
We really think about what we buy.
I am always looking for a way to both save money and have a positive impact on the environment. I think a commitment to living in a smaller home is a great way to accomplish both. Thanks for the article.
The picture might be a bit extreme, but the idea of a smaller house is hard to argue with.
My fiancée and I have committed to living in a 1000 sq. home for the next few years. We think it is more than enough room for us. I also don't mind chopping wood in the summer (yes this is probably the remnants of my adolescent Rocky Balboa fetish) so we get a very good price on that method of heating. It isn't even that big of a sacrifice for me because as a minimalist I'm not sure what I would do with more room anyway! Since I also prefer living rural, I was able to purchase my house last year for 95K. I figure that in initial price savings and mortgage interest, this will make close to a half-million dollar difference to my life versus that of many of my friends who chose to live in suburbs where they will constantly have to "compete with the Joneses."
I. Couldn't. Agree. More.
As someone who moved from 3100 sq. ft. to 1800 sq. ft. I can say that it not only saves money in mortgage, it saves money in energy bills. It also reduces time spent cleaning, and money spent furnishing. And it's good for the family to be in closer quarters.
I have no regrets switching, and hope others will see the same light.
I think I'd prefer to live in a small house.
Thanks for hosting my post!
Rent out your big house and pick up a smaller home for a song. ;)
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