If you haven’t yet started living a more eco-friendly way of life, but you have been mesmerized by seeing others do so, you could also change one or two things in your daily routine. Making more conscious choices of how you spend your money, and opting for more green living, does not only reduce our carbon footprint but also saves us money and bring us together with others.
Over the past decades, we have become especially fond of consumerism, only seeing where it leads us with the current pandemic. Life showed us the path to take and cut down on everything unnecessary in our lives. From the year 2022, we should build down what we have built up and haven’t served us. If we can, in return we will enjoy better health, relationships, and finances.
Here are a few useful tips which you could integrate into your life:
Sell Things You Don’t Need
2022 should be the year when you simplify your life as much as possible if you haven’t started yet. If you have, you could continue. We generally keep more things in our homes than we use. If you haven’t used something for half a year to a year, chances are, you are storing the item in vain, and not going to use it. Think about how much space you can free up, and how others could make better use of it, and list it on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, or Amazon…
Use Marketplaces for Purchasing Things
The same applies to your purchases, most things you need are available even brand new on the above-mentioned platforms, usually for a fraction of the product’s original price. If you look up your desired item on reselling sites first, you can save large amounts of money that you can use for things you need more, like replacing your laptop which suddenly broke down.
Offer a Flatshare
Do you own a property, or have rented out one with more rooms? Offering a flatshare is not only for college students! It is one of the best ways of saving money, while you can also help others, and socialize. Anyone can do it even in their forties, fifties, or sixties, provided they live alone, or their partner agrees to it. This type of saving can cut your costs tremendously, and give you better living standards.
Think of Ways to Earn Extra Income
What are your greatest skills that you could help others with? Giving online lessons can be in any subject, such as finance, music, languages, IT and technical things, self-development, marketing, you name it… You could even offer your services as a handyman. All you need to do is dedicate your strengths to serve others, and advertise your services consistently on the right platforms, whether it is social media or different advertising sites.
Create a Blog
You could share your passion by writing blogs about your favorite topics. If you haven’t mustered the courage yet, now is the time to step out of your comfort zone! With passion and consistent hard work, you have never had better chances to succeed than in 2022! Online presence is at a peak like never before. Whether it is finance, career, fashion, food, etc. creating a website, and sharing your tips could earn you a nice extra income in time.
Affiliate Marketing
Make sure to place adverts on your site to earn sponsorships. You could also do affiliate marketing if you like shopping and have good taste. It is a great way to earn commissions every time someone purchases something through your affiliate links. You could post your links on your social media platforms, and invite your friends and family members to encourage them to use the products or services.
Work Online Remotely
Not only because of the pandemic, but you could also earn a living remotely, by working green. Just think of the extra time used to get to your workplace, or the sometimes unhealthy circumstances of shared office space, like no fresh air or natural light, sitting in one place, breathing the same ventilated air, etc. You could use your saved time more smartly, by spending it with your family or friends, or on your hobbies. This is the reason why even hybrid work is more effective.
Travel and Live Green
Whenever you can, walk to work, or take a bike, or even motorcycle, or jump on public transport instead of using a car. Don’t leave on TV, light, Wi-Fi, and your gadgets when you don’t use them. It is better to turn them off for several reasons, including saving expenses, being more eco-friendly, and last but not least for health reasons. Opt for a solar charger to charge your phone, batteries, laptop, etc. Use eco-friendly tools, and stay in such accommodation.
Change Your Paper Bills to E-bills
Is anyone still getting paper bills? Those are quite outdated nowadays. Unless it is an important bank statement, they are of no use, when you can have all data stored online. They are bad for the environment (taking out trees for paper and delivering them) and take up space in your home. It could also save you some money if you have to pay for paper bills.
Conscious Spending
Research and spend your money on products and services provided by local or fairtrade businesses. Renting and borrowing instead of buying things could help you save larger amounts of money as well as contribute to a more sustainable life. Making more conscious choices like buying recycled materials, and donating to charity can also support your environment.
Green Banking
Are your bank ethical in investing and sustainability? How do your environment, nation, and country benefit from your chosen financial organization? A conventional bank can become a green one when it focuses on operations on environmental improvement. Green banks develop inclusive banking strategies which contribute to economical-friendly practices, and sustainable economic development.
Green Investments
Invest in ethical ISA stocks and shares, which are funds managed to conform to a particular ethical investment strategy. This allows you to invest your money in high ESG-rated companies. If you are tech-savvy, most investment apps and software offer you the choice of green investment options, such as Plum, Nutmeg, Wealthify, etc.
Community Investments
You and your nation could benefit from investing in local schemes that create tangible values in your local area. You could look up crowdfunding platforms such as Triodos crowdfunding, and abundance investment.
Green Pensions
By consciously opting to put your pension into sustainable investments that support our planet, you could save more than 2000 tonnes of carbon throughout your working life. You could find out from your company if they deal with pension providers who invest in a climate-friendly future? If not, you could also look for alternative pension companies. You could even switch your existing pension from other places to invest in an ethical savings account!
Bottom Line
These points indicate that making more conscious, eco-friendly choices benefit everyone by reducing environmental pollution and energy costs, conserving natural resources, providing economic benefits, leading to a healthier lifestyle, raising awareness in every age group (including children, and pensioners), and impacting change in our communities.
