If you're like me, change isn't always easy to embrace. Old habits are hard to break and sometimes it's just easier to keep doing the same thing ineffectively as it would be to learn and apply a new technique or routine to the same task. Perhaps you think this way about changing some habits to adopt a more 'green' or eco-friendly lifestyle. Living green simply means taking the earth's ecology and resources into consideration when making decisions. There isn't a certain point a person reaches when he or she can say "I am now living green". It's an ongoing process that can take time before you see any noticeable changes. But, as with any lifestyle change, "eating the elephant one bite at a time" is the way to adopting meaningful, lasting change. I didn't 'become green' overnight; it's been a process, probably 15 years in the making. Here are some easy ways I found to start living green that don't take a lot of effort or cost. But it reaps great rewards not only by increasing your awareness of the resources around you, but your pocketbook can also reap big rewards by 'going green'...

1. Recycle. Everything. You. Can. As a kid growing up in Northern California, I was repeatedly exposed to the commercial showing someone throwing a bag of trash from his moving car, and the old Indian guy with a tear running down his wrinkled cheek that reminded us the earth is ours to take care of and we should be more sensitive to keeping it clean. That's really neat, I always thought...fast forward about 20 years and I'm living in another state and in a city that has mandatory recycling. What nonsense, I say! What a pain in the neck! All the time I'm going to spend separating my cans and bottles from paper items - aargh! And having to learn what the little number printed on the bottom of the container means! I kid you not - I was a reluctant recycler. But the threat of the recycling police overshadowed my reluctance and over time, I became a consistent recycler and proudly displayed my overflowing bins of paper and plastic and glass containers to my neighborhood every Thursday morning. I continue to do it to this day; it's become a hard habit to break.

There are so many other things to recycle besides paper and plastic: clothes (I give the good ones my kids outgrow to another mom friend whose kids are a little younger and smaller than mine; her kids love them and think it's Christmas, and I am happy to just not throw them out.) furniture (people are making a killing selling furniture to consignment stores and resale shops these days), toner and ink cartridges (Office Depot actually gives you $3 for each toner or ink cartridge you bring in - money you can use to buy something else!), electronic recycling, and the list goes on. I even use recycled paper in my printer when I'm printing by turning the sheet over if it's something I don't need.

2. Make and use compost. Continuing on with the recycling thought, you can recycle some foods by turning them into compost. Ok, well that doesn't really sound appetizing, but composting benefits the environment, your garden and wildlife in a number of ways:

Wildlife benefits because your soil is richer and supports a good population of worms and mini-beasts. This helps feed the birds.

Bees, butterflies and other beneficial insects also are helped indirectly.

And of course, you get to enjoy some pretty amazing flowers and vegetables.

Another important reason for learning how to compost is that uncomposted waste adds to global warming. Waste food gives off greenhouse gases which rise through the atmosphere and then trap sunlight, making the earth as a whole warm up. When you compost waste, the material components are broken down in such a way that the potential greenhouse gases are contained.

To learn more about making compost, visit http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/earthkind/ekgarden11.html

3. Turn off the lights! When I started making a bigger effort to turn off lights in a room that nobody was using, my mouth dropped in amazement when I opened my next electric bill - what a difference! From that point on, I became my father and admonished my kids to turn off any lights they were not using directly. And I eventually replaced my regular incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL's) According to www.cflbulbs.com, if every household in the U.S. replaced just ONE incandescent light bulb with an energy efficient CFL, it would eliminate the equivalent of the emissions created by one million cars. And that's only one bulb per household! And since most homes have 15-30 bulbs, think of the impact we could make on the planet just by changing a light bulb! And CFL's have come down in price quite a bit; Office Depot offers a box of 3 CFL bulbs for $5.99 and I saw some brand-name CFL's at Dollar General yesterday for $2 each. Given the potential for big energy savings, I'd definitely recommend installing as many CFL's in your home as possible

Another way to save energy is to reduce 'phantom energy' usage. There are gadgets out there that can cut off power to appliances when they're in standby mode. (In other words, when they are sitting on the counter, plugged into the wall, but not being used.) Research shows that the average household has up to 12 gadgets left on standby or charging at any one time. Generating that electricity puts roughly 27 million tons of CO²-equivalent emissions into the atmosphere (more than 3.7 million cars worth) every year. There are way too many gadgets available to list here, but a good place to find them is www.currentenergy.com.

4. Don't do as much laundry. This isn't to say stop wearing clean clothes, but rather reevaluate your outfit at the end of the day. If you can make it through the day without spilling coffee on yourself, or haven't sweat too much on your clothes, you can simply hang them up right after you take them off, and get at least one more wearing out of them. Not only will this save water, and reduce your overall water bill, but not washing your clothes as much will protect and preserve the color and wear of the clothing, making it less likely to need replacing, and thus, saving you even more money.

5. Use recyclable totes when you shop. You've seen them before. The tote bags that look like they've been made out of jute rope. I have a bunch of these that I use mostly when grocery shopping, as I hate having to find something to do with those annoying plastic bags when I get home. If you can find a good use for the plastic bags, more power to you. But I prefer to just not deal with them period. One caveat I have for acquiring the eco-friendly totes, though; I refuse to pay for them. So many companies and businesses now give them away as promotional items (see my hub on advertising novelties) that I have decided I will make due with the ones I have before I will actually pay for one. However, if buying them is the only way you'll ever start using them, by all means, go ahead.

I've now listed five ways to start 'living green' that won't break the bank, or make you think too hard about changing some habits. Even though I have already put the above tips into use, I still have some "green living" goals that I want to achieve in the near future: building a rainbarrel for my garden, finding more ways to reduce 'phantom power', and installing a radiant barrier and other weatherization improvements in my home.

There are so many ways to live a more green lifestyle - these are just a few. Keep educating yourself and you will begin to find ideas that you can easily put into place without much effort yet make a hugely positive impact on our planet!