Being The Change is a piece of cake!

My wife and I have taken up many of the "Be The Change" challenges, and to both our surprise, implementing some of the ideas on this site was a piece of cake - and fun too!

To list some of our lifestyle changes for the better:
* We've converted our car to run on nothing but electricity (see www.KiwiEV.com if you're interested)
* We've installed a hot water cylinder wrap (almost half of your power usage is just for hot water!). The rule is, if you can feel warmth off your hot water cylinder, then you're wasting lots of money!
* We've replaced every single lightbulb in the house with the low power 20W fluorescent lights.
* We're now growing our own herbs and vegetables in our little garden (just had our first batch of big juicy tomatoes too!)
* We've stopped using the kettle for making cups of tea, instead use the microwave (less wattage and much less time to heat a cup of water)
* We now turn off all non-essential appliances (TV/DVD/Washer) at the wall. People told me this can save power but I didn't believe them - turns out it saves quite a bit!

So we no longer burn petrol or diesel for our transport, our power bill has reduced from $120 a month down to $80 a month, and our grocery bill has reduced a little with some of our own veges.

All of these changes are not only good for the environment, but also our wallets. We're now looking for more ways to cut back on waste; this week we're going to build a compost bin and I'm putting a "No Junk Mail" sign on the letterbox.

Doing your bit for the environment is actually pretty good fun. :)