January 15th's Tip
Bill Paying: For bills that the option is available, turn off paper statements and either pay the bills online or set up auto payment.
For a record of your bills, check to see if there is an option to save your statements to PDF, then you can organize them on your computer. If you choose this option, remember to backup the statements off of your computer (USB flash drives are useful for this purpose), just in case you lose computer data.
A tiny but this can save quite a bit of paper if you consider how many sheets are used for each bill, and that you are also saving a check and an envelope (then add in the footprint that goes into mailing the bill and the payment!).
Contribute
We are looking for reader submitted tips for Eco-Friendly Friday so we can share some even we may have not heard before. If you've got a unique or informative tip and want to contribute to Eco-Friendly Friday, shoot us an email. Be sure to include your URL if you want a link to your site included with your tip!
January 15th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Man I love the layout of this website; very clean yet engaging! Good eco-tip, btw; also for saving paper you can take old scrap pieces of paper and cut them into squares and keep them next to your computer or phone for scratch paper!
January 15th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Apart from being good for the enviroment it also saves a lot of mess in the house
Most banks offer .PDF statements which you can save on your computer, but make sure to always make a backup, either offline or online.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Have been doing my bills/payments like this for years and it took a bit of adaption in the beginning but when your used to it it saves time, money and the environment
January 16th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
i guess we are responsible for the future of our kids. it can be done by doing tiny stuff like using both sides of a paper, bringing your own bag when you shop instead of using the plastic/paper bag.
January 16th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
I would love to turn off my paper billing but my cellphone provider is kind of unreliable when it comes to electronic alerts and emails so I don't trust them to send my bills online yet. It's a shame, but yes they truly suck.
Happily, I get my CC bills online with no problems.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I will try to do it with my mobile and internet provider. I hope, provider will don't send a paper bills anymore.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Thanks for sharing these tips - they tend to simplify my everyday practice!
January 18th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Nice tip. Our company has been trying to go green and it feels good to know that it's a step in the right direction. The biggest mess about going green, however, is that you have to remember to backup everything.
Remembering to save your bills (and other information) to pdf is extremely important.
January 19th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Great tip!
For those companies who don't offer PDF, you can take a screenshot of the online bill and receipt by using the shift/printscreen command and pasting it into a graphics program. You can then save the image.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
BJ, VERY good tip! Thanks for suggesting it!
January 26th, 2010 at 9:31 am
A very good tip to save our forests. I started now to pay my internet bill online through Paypal which is easy, hassle-free and cost-effective.