How to save money by going green - Times Money Mentor (2024)

Going green isn’t just good for the environment, it can also be good for your wallet. Here we offer some top tips.

Making just small environmentally-conscious changes in how you shop for everyday products and services can save you hundreds of pounds a year.

In this article, we discuss:

• How can I reduce my carbon footprint?
• Should I buy an electric car?
• Are there any cycling schemes that I could benefit from?
• How can I buy sustainable clothing?
• How can you cut down on food waste?
• Can I bank ethically?

Related content: Guide to ethical investing

How to reduce your carbon footprint

Carbon emissions have a significant impact on the planet. In essence, they trap heat in the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise. This affects everything from humans and animals, to plants and oceans.

Helping the environment doesn’t have to cost the earth, in fact, it can actually help you save money.

1. Buy secondhand

As well as saving you money, buying second-hand will help reduce the amount of products that are sent to landfill. It will also impact on the carbon emissions involved in making new products.

There are the classic places to go: car boot sales and charity shops, but online is also coming into it’s own here. Popular sites where you can buy and sell goods from clothes and shoes to beauty products, toys, electronics and jewellery, include:

• Facebook Marketplace
• Gumtree
• Freecycle
• Depop
• eBay

A growing trend is for people to have “swap parties” with friends. This is where attendees bring clothes or other items they can exchange for something different.

The Covid-19 pandemic prompted a surge in young people swapping or sharing clothes in 2020, according to a survey carried out by Censuswide on behalf of the North London Waste Authority.

2. Switch to an electric vehicle

Transport is responsible for 24% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, according to official figures. To reduce this, the government is encouraging people to switch to electric ahead of a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK by 2030.

The government has introduced a number of discounts and tax incentives for electric cars. Find the full list of government grants and incentives.

Electric vehicles can also be tax-efficient. Discover how one Times Money Mentor reader bought a Tesla and saved himself £15,500 in tax’.

3. Kill your bills

Around 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from our homes, according to the Committee on Climate Change.

If you are wondering how to save money on gas and electric, and reduce your environmental impact, you might want to consider some of these energy-saving tips:

• Ditch the tumble dryer – Hanging clothes on the line is the cheapest way but it’s not always possible or practical. An alternative could be a heated airer for about £40 new, which costs an average of 4p an hour to run, compared to 35p an hour for a tumble dryer.
• Be cool – Washing clothes on cold, quick or eco-friendly cycles and investing in a high-efficiency machines helps save water and money on your water and electricity bills. Try to wear your clothes more often and wash full loads.
• LED bulbs – These are more energy-efficient than traditional halogen bulbs, meaning they last longer and are less expensive to run. The average household would save about £40 a year by replacing all their bulbs, according to The Energy Saving Trust. If everyone switched 100% to LED, 1.7m tons of carbon emissions could be saved every year.
• Heating timer – a timer and thermostat will help keep your home at a comfortable temperature, whether you have a gas or oil central heating system. It could save a typical gas-heated three-bedroom semi £70 and 300kg of carbon dioxide a year.
• Good insulation – Heat can be lost through gaps around windows, doors or the floor. Loft insulation could save you up to £315 on your annual energy bills, according to consumer group Which?.
• Boiler upgrade scheme – running from April 2022, will pay households in England and Wales to replace existing gas or oil boilers with an alternative low-carbon heating system. The government will provide grants of:
  • £5,000 towards the purchase and installation air source heat pumps and biomass boilers
  • £6,000 for ground source heat pumps

Check out more ways to save on your energy bills here.

4. Get on your bike

Cycling not only helps reduce your carbon footprint, it also saves you money on fuel or public transportation costs and is good for your health.

The government’s Cycle to Work scheme gives you money off a new bike and accessories and is operated through participating employers using salary sacrifice arrangements.

This is where workers agree to reduce their entitlement to cash-pay in return for a non-cash benefit. This reduces their tax liabilities because of the salary foregone.

The salary sacrifice, in the case of the Cycle to Work scheme, will reduce tax and national insurance bills for basic-rate taxpayers by 32% and for higher-rate payers by 42%.

The cost of the bike and accessories is also spread over time, and is deducted from your payslip over a typical period of 12-24 months.

Read more about salary sacrifice schemes, which includes the Cycle to Work scheme, here.

How much can be saved through Cycle to Work?*

*Example of basic rate taxpayer employee saving at 32% (20% income tax and 12% national insurance) over two-year term.

6. Buy from a sustainable clothing brand

Fast fashion is one of the biggest threats to the environment. About 921,000 tonnes of used textiles are thrown away in UK household waste each year worth around £140m, according to government figures.

Globally, the fashion industry is estimated to account for 4% of annual global carbon emissions.

Ideally, you should look to make do and mend your clothes or buy second hand.

If you are buying new, then shop with sustainable-clothing brands that use materials that may have been recycled or made using renewable energy. This reduces waste and is more environmentally friendly.

While the upfront purchase can be more expensive, the items are made to last. So theoretically you won’t have to replace them so often and they will save you money in the long run.

Tips to buying sustainably

• Shop at small, independent and local brands
• Invest in good-quality, clothing and homeware that is built to last
• Search the brand’s website to see where the clothes are made and how they are transported
• See if they use environmentally friendly materials such as organic cotton, hemp and soya fabric
• Check if they pay the living wage and whether they donate a percentage of their profits to charity

7. Small changes add up to big results

If you are looking for more inspiration on how to make small tweaks to your everyday living, here are some suggestions.

• Use reusable coffee cups and bottled water – an easy way to cut down on plastic and single-use packaging and some cafes will offer a discount to those who bring their own cups. Replacing plastic bags, plastic bottles and paper towels with more durable items will also cut down on waste and save money.
• Use water butt in garden to water plants – water is collected from rainfall in the butts, reducing the amount you have to use from the mains supply. The water can be used to wash cars or windows too.
• Work from home – saves around £300 a month on transport, petrol and other-work related costs, according to comparison website Confused.com (taking into account higher energy bills). You could be eligible for working from home tax relief to help with the bills.
• Carpooling or sharing car journeys – cuts both transport costs and emissions. Almost two thirds of trips are taken by lone drivers so the government is looking at ways to increase the number of people travelling in each vehicle by 2030.
• Buy in bulk and decant – great for all sorts of products from shampoo to fabric conditioner and hand sanitizer. Buying in bulk tends to work out cheaper and produced less plastic waste.
• Use soap – just as effective as shower gel at keeping you clean but comes without the plastic and is much cheaper.
• Cut the disposable razors – Buy a razor where you only need to replace the blades and not the handle, use an electric shaver or a zero-waste razor.
• Group delivery items together – When buying online, group items for delivery together as much as possible, to reduce packing and the environmental impact of multiple transport deliveries.

8. Cut out the food waste

According to WRAP, we throw away 6.6m metric tonnes of food every year worth almost £400 each. Bad for the environment and bad for our wallets

• Plan your meals – Write a rough menu each week and only buy what you need.
• Cook in bulk – Cooking big batches of food and then freezing it, cuts down on food waste and saves money. No more unhealthy microwave meals or takeaways when you can’t be bothered to cook!
• Rescue food – You can use apps like Olio and TooGoodToGo, where you can buy excess food at a fraction of the full price that stores and cafes would otherwise have to throw away.

9. Invest and save ethically

When you put your cash into acurrent accountor savings account, it doesn’t just sit there. The bank or building society will lend it out to businesses that are looking to grow or need support.

Ethical banks and building societies, such as Triodos and Ecology Building Society, will look at a businesses green credentials first.

It is also possible to use your money for good and to make some at the same time.

At its simplest, ethical investing is about wanting our investments to do more than make money. There are several ways to invest ethically, such as choosing ethical funds, or buying shares in companies that you think fit your vision of what is “ethical”.

NOTE: Everyone’s values are different, so there is no one fixed definition.So check carefully if the investment or pension provider’s idea of “ethical” matches yours.

Find out more about it in our Guide to ethical investing