Making the World A Better Place (One Lightbulb at a Time)

How many Boldmans does it take to change a lightbulb? How about 18 light bulbs? You see, as of recent, my beautiful wife, Rachel (who now blogs here) and I have been doing our part to help out our dear old Planet Earth. During the past month, we have managed to:

• Change out 18 or so of our incandescent light bulbs for new energy efficient CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) Bulbs. And you know what the best part about this is? Walmart just came out with a generic brand of these bulbs, so they are now roughly 30% cheaper than they were even a few months ago.
• Since Rachel is now a full-fledged Stay-at-Home Mom (except for the fact that Zeke is being a little stubborn and hasn’t been born yet), we have decided cut back and go down to just one car.
• Since we only have one car now, I got a bike that I now ride to work as often as possible (usually 3 or 4 times a week). We figure that this saves us money on gas, and it helps save the environment by not burning so much fossil fuel.
• We have stopped buying those cases of bottled water and are instead opting for filtered tap water. We figure that it’s just about as good, and if we really need to take water somewhere, we can use a reusable water bottle.
• And last (so far), but not least, I’ve managed to reduce the amount of water used in one of our toilets but putting a full bottle of water in the tank. It may not sound like much, but that means that we are using 20 oz less water each time we flush that toilet. I keep meaning to do this to our other toilet, but I keep forgetting.

You know what the funny thing is? Even though we had to by my bike and those new CFL Bulbs, in the amount of money we’ve saved in the last month alone, we’ve already recovered at least 75% if not 100% of the cost. You see, our power bill has gone down at least $30 per month since a few months ago (and it’s hotter now than it was then), and we’ve saved at least $300 by not having a car/insurance/gas payment.

So, all in all, we’ve broke about even in under 30 days and helped the environment quite a bit. So here’s the big question that I know is on everyone’s mind… Why isn’t everyone doing things like this? I mean, I can understand it if the average family needs two cars, but when such small things like the light bulbs make such a significant difference, why not just go ahead and give it a shot? While Kermit the Frog may have said, “It’s not easy being green,” I think I may have to differ in opinion. It’s actually been much easier than I would have thought. Sure, maybe we’ve got a little bit further to go before we can consider ourselves and our home environmentally friendly at least I can say that we’re no longer environmentally hostile.