10/13/10

Many of us donate bags of clothes to charity without getting a receipt for tax-deduction purposes because sorting clothes can take too much time. The general rule of thumb is easy: Your clothes are worth about 30 percent of their retail price when you donate them. Simply separate your clothes into piles of $5, $10, $25, $50 and so on when estimating what you originally paid for the items. Separate them according to price in a shopping bag and get a receipt for 30 percent of the total retail cost for your donation.

10/12/10

Many people complain that the extra cost of energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs prevents them from making the switch at home. With CFL bulbs becoming more common, stores are promoting them in unusual ways, including giveaways at the holidays and "buy one, get one free" deals. Keep looking for promotions to take advantage of these deals.

10/11/10

If you forget your reusable bags when visiting a grocery store, believe it or not, the least green choice is to buy a new reusable bag. It takes multiple uses of a reusable bag before you start to "save" in energy and resources by replacing disposable plastic and paper bags; and by not reusing a bag, you actually negate any environmental savings. If you forget your bags, the greenest choice is to choose plastic over paper. Pound for pound, plastic bags use less energy and resources to make than paper ones.