Things My Parents Taught Me: Some Simple Ways to Live a Greener Life

Inspired by the upcoming film NO IMPACT MAN, a story about a family that goes off the grid for a year, I decided to write a blog about some simple lessons from mom and dad that go a long way in being green. While NO IMPACT MAN'S extreme lifestyle is inspiring, there are also simple things all of us can do every day to make a difference.

1. Don't Individually Wrap in Plastic: Watching NO IMPACT MAN get angry at seeing cookies wrapped in plastic at the Farmer's Market of all places might be my favorite moment of the whole trailer. It's estimated 1/3 of all waste in California alone is created by packaging of food and goods. In addition to buying local to avoid packaging, invest in a reusable lunch box, and maybe a good set of Tupperware for those few items that you need to keep fresh. Savings.com has a 10% off Tupperware coupon to get you started.

2. Save Leftovers, Freeze Everything : According to the New York Times about a pound of food per person is wasted every day in America. So save those leftovers, or re-purpose them. Leftover mashed potatoes can make for delicious potato pancakes. My personal favorite is when mom used to make those amazing soups, using a turkey or ham bone as the soup stock, and anything that needed to be eaten in the fridge ended up in the pot.

3. There's no Shame in a Good Hand-me-Down : Being the only girl in my family, I used to get a lot of long-distance hand-me-downs from cousins and aunts (which I still do). If you don't have kids yet, you can still have a fun, adult version of giving and receiving hand me downs. Do a clothing swap party. Your girlfriends will thank you. When you do buy new, think about shopping with companies that are considering their environmental footprint, like Patagonia. Shop with a 60% off coupon from Savings.com and you will feel good supporting a company that manufactures with recycled materials.

4. Don't Buy Paper Towels Ever :If each home simply replaced one roll of their traditional paper towels with a reusable dish cloth we could avoid wasting 3.4 million cubic feet of landfill space each year, and prevent 864,000 trees from being cut down. If you have to buy paper towels, buy recyclable ones (that goes for toilet paper too). According to Ideal Bite "[F]or every ton of 100% recycled paper that is bought, about 4000kWh of energy and 7,000 gallons of water are saved. It also avoids releasing 60 lbs of pollutants into the air."

5. Why Pay for Water When It's Free? :Not only is bottled water less regulated than the water flowing from your tap, but the resources and energy used to manufacture the plastic is mind boggling. According to Tree Hugger 1.5 million barrels of oil in the US alone goes to manufacturing plastic bottles for bottled water. Invest in a good, insulated thermos to transport your water. When you stop shelling out a $1.50 a bottle, you could also be saving over $600 a year.

Got any great green living and money saving tips from your Mom and Dad? Leave them in the comments. Also, check out our weekly top ten green deals and follow me on Twitter @CoupieSavings for awesome fashion deals.