This is Earth Week and you’ll be seeing everyone advertising their green credentials this week. I’ve always wondered how I can help in a way that makes a meaningful contribution but won’t have my purse screaming. Last year I told you how to go green cheaply and save money. This, year I’m writing part 2.

Ten Cheap Ways to Go Green Cheaply

1. Participate in your town’s garbage recycling programs. This helps to divert tons of garbage from landfills and saves your town money which in turn saves you from paying higher garbage/property taxes.

2. If an appliance dies, consider switching to an Energy Star rated one. Before purchasing any appliance, check to see if there are special offers or rebates for that appliance. If you purchase an energy-efficient product or renewable energy system for your home, you may be eligible for a federal tax credit. Before starting any home project, see how if your changes will qualify for a tax credit.
3. Instead of tossing out unwanted clothing, donate your gently used clothes to your local shelter, Salvation Army or church. If you have the money to afford designer duds and want to sell it, consider selling your clothes to a consignment shop or on eBay. You might have something that someone else is willing to pay for. My brother once sold a pair of his “collectible” sneakers for something like $100 and he had worn them! I didn’t understand it, but I understood that $100 bill. If not, consider turning your old clothes into rags that you can use to wipe the floor.
4. Do you read a lot of magazines every month? Does a friend? Have you considered swapping? Various people in my office get different magazines and we now have a magazine recycling bin in the copy room where we dump our magazines every month and anyone can rifle though the bin for their favorite magazine. I’ve dropped my subscription to 2 magazines because of this casual exchange.
5. Are you still getting your bills in the mail? Back in the Ice Age when everyone had AOL my amorous mailman used to drop the mail off wherever he felt like it so that he could finish in time to visit the women on my street with whom he was having affairs. The result was that one of my neighbors ended up with enough of my mail to rack up 15K in identity theft spending. Since then I get all of my statements online and I pay all of my bills the same way. You save the cost of checks, envelopes, stamps and bail money for attacking your neighbor…allegedly. And you generate less trash.
6. If you’re still falling for it and spending a lot of money on bottled water don’t do it! Go out and get one of those cool metal water bottles that are everywhere. You’ll save yourself from toxins that the bottle can leech into your beverage if it’s heated and you save another bottle from sitting in the land fill for decades. Since plastic bottles are petroleum products you also reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
7. Have you eat vegetables? Consider planting your favorite vegetable. Last year I mad a ton of mesculin greens. I wasn’t the only one that benefited. My mom and coworker also received bags of the lettuce every week. My coworker had a bumper crop of Japanese cucumbers so we had a nice, unwaxed cucumber every week. If you live in a small apartment consider growing a planter with herbs. You can toss them in as you’re cooking or just use them to perfume your apartment.
8. Do you have a lawn? How do you water it? You can save money on your water bill by setting up a simple rain water capture system. I would go with a simple rain barrel with a spout at the bottom.
9. When was the last time that you checked the seal around your windows and doors? If it’s been years, go back and put some sealant or corking around all of your windows and doors. This will help to keep the cold air from getting inside in the winter and keep the warm air out in the summer. It should also lower your heating costs.
10. Consider switching to more natural cleaning products. Our ancestor’s did not have all the magical chemicals that we now use, and they made out okay. Try using things like borax, vinegar, and baking soda.

If you like these tips check out my eHow article on how to go green cheaply. Because the green you save might just be the green in your pockets.

So, the frugal blogosphere got a list of questions from Fru Blogger asking us to share our hard learned money lessons. I’ve got some lessons for you! Below are his list of questions and my answers. I hope we learned something.

1) What’s your “frugality story?” In other words, how and why did you become frugal?
If you’ve read my first entry then you’ll know that I had a business that went belly up. My parents were kind enough to lend me a good deal of cash to get the business off the ground. When I decided to close the business I knew that there was no way that I would neglect by duties and brush off my mom. I also knew that I was wasting money needlessly and needed a plan on how to get out of debt – including paying back what I owed my mom. If you don’t have a financial GPS or at least a roadmap of where you are going then it is very, very easy to get lost in the process. Plus, living paycheck-to-paycheck is scary.

2) What, if anything, tempts you to overspend, and how do you resist?
I’m not a big spender and I’ve learned to spend even less but have you ever walked into a Walmart?!! You find stuff that you didn’t even know that you needed just because it’s a good deal. I’m a “clearance”, “just reduced” or “50% off” shopper so I just stay at home and keep myself away from the temptations.

3) What personal finance or frugality habits were the hardest for you to adopt and why?
Writing down everything that I spent was the hardest thing to do. Small bills trickle out of your pocket and you don’t realize it but at the end of the week you’ve spent an extra $30 on things that you really didn’t need. That morning newspaper adds up when you buy one 5 days a week, every week, so I subscribed and saved 60% off the newsstand price. Writing down the little things was a hard, but very necessary lesson.

4) Have you ever taken frugality too far? How so?
Yes, I sure have. That’s why my new motto is “not all money is good money”. I did some surveys for the money and I realized that the SPAM and random marketing phone calls as well as the time that it took wasn’t worth the $14 check. No more survey taking for me. You have to draw the line somewhere.

5) What resources (blogs, books, websites) would you recommend to someone who’s newly frugal?
I bet you’re thinking that I’ll say Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It didn’t do anything for me. I needed an action plan! For the beginner I would recommend any of Suze Orman’s books. Suze is a no-nonsense woman with a straight way of speaking that gets right to the heart of the matter. I love that she dumbs things down so that every a girl like me can understand exactly what she is saying…Plus, I love that she gives her books away for a limited time every time she is on Oprah. Why buy the book when you can get it for free? That’s your first step into the land of frugality.

Cheers.