HAPPY EARTH DAY

Today is the perfect time to shift your habits and look for better ways to be benefit the planet and your wallet.  Start celebrating Earth Day with these top 5 shifts.

Play Kitchen Chemist

The Shift: Replace your standard household cleaning products with home remedies—just like the ones your grandma used.

Save $$: Up to $200 per year or more.

Save the Planet: Avoid exposing your family—and our groundwater—to tons of toxic substances.

Here’s a recipe for 100% natural window cleaner. Mix the following ingredients in a spray bottle:

1-1/2 to 2 cups of water

1/2 cup white or apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup rubbing alcohol (70%)

1-2 drops lavender, cinnamon, clove or orange essential oil

Use this mixture—which costs about 25 cents to make—to clean all your glass surfaces. Extra credit for using newspaper instead of paper towels, which won’t leave lint or consume trees.

Run Cold

The Shift: Instead of setting your washing machine to wash and rinse with hot water, choose to wash and rinse in cold – or at least wash in warm and rinse in cold.

Save $$: $50 per year in water heating costs if you make the shift for three loads per week.

Save the Planet: Save upwards of 25 therms of natural gas or nearly 500 kWh, as 90% of the energy used for clothes washing goes to heating the water.

Good for You: Your clothes will look their best for much longer.

Incredible Edibles

The Shift: Plant an organic fruit and vegetable garden in your backyard.

Save $$: Up to $800 per year.

Save the Planet: Reduce environmental damage caused by conventional farming methods which use large tractors, chemical fertilizers, and toxic pesticides. Also save energy on food transport.

Shift It Tip: Almost anyone can cultivate a healthy garden–the key is not to over-think things. Visit www.shiftyourhabit.com for a step-by-step list of everything you’ll need to know to be grocery shopping in your backyard in no time:

Free Refills

The Shift: Use a faucet or pitcher filter and a refillable water bottle or canteen instead of buying disposable plastic water bottles.

Save $$: Up to $500 per year or more if you spend an average of $10 per week on bottled water.

Save the Planet: Conserve fossil fuels—plastic is a petroleum product, after all—as well as about 30 pounds of plastic waste per year. Even when plastic bottles are recycled, they aren’t recycled into new plastic bottles. They undergo something called downcycling, which means they lose their quality in the recycling process. As a result, they’re only good for things like filler for fleece coats, parking lot bumpers, or fake wood for patio furniture.

Good for You: While the Environmental Protection Agency regularly tests regional tap water, it does not do the same for bottled water. In fact, past studies have found some bottled water to contain high levels of contamination, including arsenic, synthetic chemicals, and potentially harmful bacteria.

Shift-It Tip: When shopping for a reusable water bottle, opt for aluminum, stainless steel, or glass instead of hard plastic. Many hard plastics contain Bisphenol A (BPA), which as I explained earlier has been shown to have a negative impact on reproductive health, especially for children.

Leftover Makeover

The Shift: Make new meals out of your leftovers.

Save $$: Up to $520 per year or more if re-purposing leftovers can save you $10 per week on food costs.

Save the Planet: Reduce food waste. Just because it’s decomposable, doesn’t mean it will decompose in a landfill.

Good for You: Bring the Thanksgiving sensibility to the rest of your life. Some things really do taste better the next day!

Take Out the Trash

The Shift: Pack a waste-free lunch. Assemble your kids’ lunches without using any disposable items or individually-packaged foods.

Save $$: Up to $400 per year or more for a two-child family.

Save the Planet: Reduce waste by 90 pounds per year.

Good for You: Simply by eliminating individually-packaged foods, you’ll be eliminating tons of preservatives, sugars, and sodium from your lunch, without even realizing it.

Turn Your Computer into a TV

The Shift: Cancel your cable service and watch TV shows online through the network’s website. It’s free and totally legal.

Save $$: Up to $900 per year or more on your cable or satellite bill.

Save the Planet: Computers use far less energy than the typical television entertainment system, so you’ll be saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well.

Shift-It Tip: Being intentional about the shows you watch will help you to manage your time more efficiently, and not get sucked into staring at the glowing box regardless of what’s on.