The environment is on everyone’s mind these days, but how can you as an individual make a difference by going green at home? Many of us recycle and conserve in many ways already, but it’s very easy to do other things that can make us “green,” too. And there are other advantages to going green besides the benefits to the environment. Going green can actually save you money. It just takes a little adjustment to enjoy the benefits going green can give you.

One of the big ways you can save energy costs and go green relates to the energy it takes to heat your home. If you set your thermostat to 20 degrees Celsius or 68 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and to 25 degrees Celsius or 78 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, you’ll conserve energy and save money on your energy bills simultaneously.

You can also save energy costs if you can create shade in the summer at the west and east ends of your home. This can keep your indoor temperature several degrees cooler while the sun is at its hottest in the morning and afternoon. If you cook early in the day before the temperature is at its hottest or late in the day after it has cooled down, this will also reduce your energy needs because heat won’t be trapped inside your home, thus reducing your dependence on air conditioning. You can also use ceiling fans to circulate the air and help keep it from becoming too hot.

Polyethylene plastic bags, like those commonly offered by grocers, are manufactured using petroleum. As 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away annually, their disposal by burning presents a devastating assault upon the environment. By investing a dollar or two in re-usable cloth grocery bags, the amount of plastic bags wasted can be reduced along with their global warming impact.

Plastic water bottles, too, cause significant damage to the environment because they are not biodegradable; they spend years and years in landfills. Do your part to keep this from happening by buying every member of your family their own reusable water bottle and then filling it with tap water from home. (If you’re concerned about the quality of your own tap water for drinking purposes, filtration systems are still a very environmentally responsible and economic way to drink your tap water from home.)

Travel, too, is another thing you can easily adjust to help reduce your fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions, which negatively impact the environment. Use public transportation or carpool to get to work, and walk or bike shorter distances whenever you can. Reducing the number of cars on the road makes the air cleaner and also saves you money, because it’s much cheaper to take public transportation, to carpool and/or to ride a bike or walk where you need to go. In addition, walking or biking provides you a very effective form of exercise that’s easy to do.

When remodeling a home, opt for bamboo flooring instead of hardwood floors. Bamboo is an environmentally friendly, high yielding, self-replenishing flooring material. It only takes bamboo between 6 and 8 years to mature, compared to the 50 to100 long years needed for hardwoods. When installing bamboo flooring, only use glues that do not contain toxic formaldehyde.

Finally, dispense with paper bills whenever you can and use electronic bill paying instead. Many companies will in fact give discounts if you pay your bills electronically and opt out of getting paper bills in favor of electronic ones. When you must use paper products, choose recycled paper products, so that fewer paper waste products and up in landfills. In addition, choose paper products that have not been bleached, since the bleaching process is toxic to the environment.

Though some believe that going green is a painstaking process, the truth is that consciously doing so isn’t as difficult as it sounds. People who go green can feel satisfied about doing their part to nurture the earth and will find it rewarding to save a few pennies in the process.