Green and Saving

So, in this month's mortgage bill from those people that don't seem to want to just forgive all debt and GIVE me my house, I find this "Green for Green" statement. In it are all kinds of tidbits on being a better green consumer... some are even kind of smart. I liked the part about the new CFL (compact fluorescent bulb) light bulbs (I say new in a relative sense). Some of the facts they state are:
1. A single CFL has the life expectancy of 10 standard incandescent light bulbs.
2. If everyone changed over 1 light bulb from incandescent to CFL (yeah, just one bulb), you could save as much as $30 on your next energy bill.
3. Each CFL prevents 450+ pounds of greenhouse emissions gas over its lifetime. Now, I'm not jumping on the global warming bandwagon here, but I do believe that we should take care of the earth that God has given us to watch over...

So, want to know more? Go to http://www.energystar.gov/. I liked this quote from them:
"If every American replaced one light bulb with an Energy-Star qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year."
3 million homes. That pays.
*I feel as though I MUST mention here that CFL's contain Mercury... i.e. don't break them and don't throw them in your trashcan when you're done with them.

Another little something they had was a way to recycle your old decrepit cell phone(s). http://www.flipswap.com/ - they'll find your local retailer and give you a way to send in for free your old phone for money (or you can do it for a tax break instead). Yeah, more savings!

And this was another neat little website gadget... http://www.shipgooder.com/
Talk about making it easy... these people prompt you for the origin & destination zip codes along with a package weight & then they return you a page with all the rates from the top shipping companies... DHL, UPS, FedEx, USPS... all on one page. Yeah, even more savings!