Gas Saving Tips That Can Put Real Cash In Your Pockets

These days everyone is talking about the cost of gas and how to save on it.  The easiest way to cut gas costs is by cutting gas consumption. Slowing down, avoiding stop and go traffic, and other principles of sensible driving will pay off in real savings.  But exactly how much?

The figures will vary from car to car and truck to truck, but assuming a midsize car being driven 20,000 KM a year and paying $1.40/liter for gas, here’s what you could save:

Drive sensibly. Around town, sensible driving can save up to 114 liters of gasoline per year. That’s equal to $159.60 a year.

Avoiding rapid acceleration, rapid braking and speeding can lower gas mileage by up to 33% at highway speeds. If you’re a very aggressive driver, losing your “lead foot” can save you up to 303 liters of gasoline a year for an annual savings of $424.20.

Keeping your tires properly inflated to the manufacturers recommended psi could save up to 76 liters of gasoline per year for an annual savings of $106.40.

Using the manufacturer’s recommended grade of motor oil could improve gas mileage by 1 to 2%- for an annual savings of $53.

Choose the Right Vehicle. If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets better gas mileage whenever possible. If you drive 20,000 KM a year, switching 10% of your trips from driving a car that gets 20 mpg to one that gets 30 mpg will save you more than $90 per year.

Reduce your trips for shopping and errands by walking, bicycling, using public transportation and by combining trips. A reduction of just 5% can save up to $141 per year on gasoline costs.

Form a carpool. The average commuter can save $366 a year by carpooling twice a week with two other people in a vehicle that gets 20 miles per gallon – assuming all three commuters share the cost of gas.

Telecommute. A worker who telecommutes–works from home via phone or internet — twice a week would save about $551 a year in gasoline costs.

Knowing that a few changes in your driving habits can add up to real dollars can be a terrific incentive to drive with more sense!

“Save Gas, Save Money, Save The Environment”

Gas Saving Tips courtesy of http://www.stretchyourgasdollar.com

Did you know…Simple Tips For Living Green

Did you know…

If every North American home with a PC received and filed their bills and statements electronically, it would save an average of 700-900 pieces of paper and 200 envelopes per year.  That’s 275 billion pieces of paper.

If every taxpayer chose to save their return as a PDF and e-file with the government, that would save another 5 billion sheets of paper.

If North America’s 26 million weekly online shoppers chose to save their purchase receipt electronically instead of printing it, that’s another 1.35 billion sheets of paper.

Saving 280 billion sheets of paper annually equals 34 million trees saved.  (The average pine tree yields approx. 8,333 sheets of photocopy paper).

One tree generates the daily oxygen requirements for three people.

Here are some other things you can do to help…

• Print or photocopy documents two-sided.

• Revise documents on screen using “track changes.”

• Use fax coversheets only when necessary.

• Print colour only when required; colored paper is harder to recycle.

• Purchase products with no packaging, less packaging or reusable packaging or recyclable packaging and check to see if anyone can reuse packaging before discarding.

• Give your newspaper or magazine to someone else after you finish reading it.

For more green living tips or to learn how you can help make a difference, visit www.earthday.ca

Free For All - Why Giving It Away Makes Sense

Here’s  an article that I found interesting that discusses a new trend of giving away instead of tossing it in the garbage so next time you decide you don’t want something anymore freecyle it!

First watch the video and please think before you throw anything out.

Free for All—Recycling Unwanted Machines

Just in time to save cash-strapped consumers comes a movement to encourage “giving away usable unwanted items to others instead of depositing them in landfills”. (Wikipedia) Called “freecycling” or “free recycling”, this concept offers a socially conscious, environmentally responsible way to eliminate overhead.

Many of us have seen perfectly good furniture and other items set out at the curb for the garbage men to take. Some of us “went shopping” at the curbs, when we were in college.

Registered in the United States, The Freecycle Network (TFN), sometimes known as Freecycle, is a non-profit organization. TFN has organized a worldwide network of “gifting” groups: With a worldwide online registry, including groups in Brazil, Columbia, Singapore, and Slovakia, the organization coordinates the creation of local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits which offer and receive free items for reuse or recycling. Promoting gift economics as a motivating cultural outlook, the official tagline of TFN is: “Changing the world one gift at a time”.

As of February 2006, TFN passed the 2 million member mark; it has a global organization of over four thousand local chapters. As of this writing, the membership was an impressive 6,626,000 in 4,726 communities across the globe. Hundreds of similar groups worldwide have replicated TFN’s original idea. TFN now has a number of corporate sponsors, including its first, Waste Management, Inc. For information about a community near you, visit http://www.freecycle.com.

A wide variety of products are freecycled, from computers to copy machines, from televisions to toasters, from food to fuel to cars to paper goods. Whatever you have that you want to dispose of, there is someone who can make good use of it.

Another, similar group is www.takemeimFREE.com. Started by an executive who wanted to eliminate excess warehouse space and did not want the items to end up in a landfill, this group believes that reusing items is “good for the economy, the environment, and all of us”.

Not only does freecycling make sense, but we believe this movement will gain momentum and grow rapidly, fueled by the needs of individuals and businesses to do more with less.
Source: “The Herman Trend Alert,” by Roger Herman and Joyce Gioia, Strategic Business Futurists. (800) 227-3566 or http://www.hermangroup.com. The Herman Trend Alert is a trademark of The Herman Group, Inc.”