Most of us have at least put some thought into going green and living a more sustainable, eco-friendly responsible lifestyle. While some companies are really making an effort to fix this need by releasing better, healthier or just less harmful products onto the market, there are many that have to charge more to cover their overhead. This has left many with the misconception that responsible consumerism means spending more cash.

While at the base price this might be true, you don’t have to get caught on the bottom line. If you have ever been to sites like TheDailyGreen or GreenerChoices, you know that every little bit helps. For finances, the same principle can be applied. Sometimes it is as simple as finding the right ways to do eco-friendly shopping to lessen the load and keep your cash in your wallet where it belongs. But where do you start looking?

1. How to get free shipping deals for eco-friendly products

Sometimes you just can’t find what you need in stores, but when buying online you might find that shipping costs are a beast to be reckoned with. Cut your costs by checking out FreeShipping.org, a coupon site that is dedicated to showing you deals from around the web, from sites that – you guessed it – have no shipping charges. They have an eco portion of the site that you can check out.

Not only a source for free shipping deals , but for coupons and free giveaways, FreeShipping.org is a fantastic site filled with great offers, contests and huge deals of eco-friendly products.

2. How to shop using in-store paperless coupons

Two words: paperless coupons. A lot of stores are going this route, but CouponSherpa has taken it to a new level. You can use a mobile app to get the coupons to your phone, which can then be used in stores. With this being the largest coupon site on the web, they have tons of green eco-friendly deals for you to find, and an easy to use search engine.

Besides featuring green coupons regularly, they also have Eco-Frugal Life Guide which is full of green money-saving tips.

3. How to shop for green product makers

From Olive&Myrtle to MyEarth360, Pristine Planet has a ton of offers for well known green eco-friendly product makers all over the web. They also have a great collection of promo codes, and they update often. Definitely a must for anyone looking for a new favorite.

Any more sources of green coupons online? Please share your thoughts!

This is a guest post by Annie Wallace of Viral Mom, a new mom, frugal housewife and mommy blogger sharing her way to blogging success.  If you’d like to guest blog for this blog, just contact us.

It is estimated that unwanted electronics represents 1.9 to 2.2 million tons in the US alone. The majority of these products, about 1.5 to 1.9 million tons, were discarded in landfills with only 345,000 to 379,000 tons recycled. The end result isn’t pretty. E-waste is toxic and 40% of heavy metals – such as lead, mercury, cadmium – in our landfills comes from the disposal of electronic equipment. 

Here are 9 cool web services which pay you for trading in your phone (or other old gadgets) you have lying around.  In order to help you pick one, we did a head to head acid test by picking 3 phones and comparing payouts from trading in each phone, from each site.

The Acid Test

• 1 high end: iPhone 3G (2nd Gen) 16GB
• 1 mid range: Blackberry Curve 8310
• 1 low end: Nokia 1110

All slightly used but good working condition.  All carrier unlocked.  All with the box and everything that comes with it (chargers, manuals, cables etc)

1. How to get the best trade-in deals quickly: BuyMyTronics

BuyMyTronics first started of as BuyMyBrokeniPod.com several years ago when we first wrote about them a couple of years ago.  Since then they’ve gone from strength to strength and have expanded to cover all forms of consumer electronics and they have one the highest payouts around. 

It has a brilliant search-as-you-type interface which makes it absolutely a breeze to find whatever you’re looking for and the payout rates are among the best.  I guess a good testament to how their service is, is that if you go back to that old post we did 2 years ago, all the other services we wrote about have shut down, while BuyMyTronics now turns over a million dollars in revenue, and have expanded into multiple categories (all that while being 100% windmill powered too). 

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD206
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD65
• Nokia 1110 USD0

2. How to come together as a group to recycle gadgets and combat e-waste: RecyclingFundraiser

RecyclingFundraiser is a service which also takes in all kinds of electronics, and even accepts jewelry for trade-in!  What I really like about them is the fact that they mainly promote community recycling.  In fact they have a whole resource library for running your own recycling fundraiser, so now you can help the environment, raise awareness about e-waste and trade in for cash to help another good cause at the same time.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD75
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD25
• Nokia 1110 USD3

3. How to get store credit with your old gadgets : C.Exchange

This service has pretty decent payouts, and also ties into a large selection of retailers including Radioshack and CompUSA for store credit.  Just a note that when I tested, I noticed you in many cases, you get a better payout opting for cash rather than store credit.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD191.74
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD57.39
• Nokia 1110 : NA

4. How to get money even when your friends trade in and recycle gadgets: EZTradein

EZTradein is like a typical trade-in site, but it also has an affiliate program which offers 3% of all sales made to the center coming from your affiliate link.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD106
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD48.78
• Nokia 1110 : NA

5. How to get the best trade-in deals and help plant a tree: Flipswap

Flipswap or Greenphone offers some of the best trade-in prices as well.  They also have a separate program which ties up with retailers and plants a tree for every transaction made with their instore program.  This is expected to result in 250,000 trees planted in 2009.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD230.75
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD49
• Nokia 1110 USD USD5.60

6. How to recycle gadgets and help a good cause: YouRenew

Aside from the typical trade-ins, YouRenew will also donate towards a Renewable Energy Certificate, or plant a tree on top of paying you for your goods. 

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD179
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD55
• Nokia 1110 : NA

7. How to sell in bulk: Gazelle

On top of the usual gadget trade-ins Gazelle also caters to volume selling so if you’re an organization, school or business, you may be able to get a better bulk deal there.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD196
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD48
• Nokia 1110 : USD0

Other online recycle centers:

8. MyBoneYard

A basic recycling site.  Average payouts.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD148
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD51
• Nokia 1110 : USD0

9. ecoNew

Econew ties into a few retailers but it’s not as flexible as some of the other services here.

Acid Test Results:  What you get for trading in

• iPhone 3G 16GB USD85
• Blackberry Curve 8310 USD51
• Nokia 1110 USD0

VERDICT:

Bottom line:

The top two choices when you want to recycle gadgets, based on payout seem to be BuyMyTronics and Flipswap, both which give the best trade-in rates based on our acid test. 

However, do check out the other services as well because most of them offer their own unique spin.  No matter what you pick however, give yourself a pat on the back for keeping one more gadget out of the landfill.

In conjunction with Blog Action Day, here are 3 tech-savvy ways to help with one of the most serious issues of our generation – Climate Change.

1. How to have fun while saving the world

Carbon Rally is a eco-community where people can discover and commit to small, positive actions over time. People on the site could propose great ideas for saving energy and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and the community would choose the best ideas to address climate change to pursue as a team.

The collective impacts are tracked, and it can show the power of many people getting the job done together.  You can ˜compete’ with friends or people from around the world to take up these small challenges and see how you can make a difference.

2. How to easily find green products

Ecoseek is a search engine for eco friendly and green products. Their mission is to connect consumers with eco-friendly products, manufacturers and local earth-conscious retailers.  Here you’ll find everything from baby products to furniture. 

All items listed are tagged to show how it’s eco friendly.  For example, you’ll be able to gauge whether it’s recycled, manufactured in a sustainable process, organic etc.  All so it’s much easier for you can make an environmentally conscious purchase.

3. How to easily find carpool buddies on facebook

Carpool is a facebook app which allows you to cut down your carbon emissions by sharing rides.  It’s quite robust in functionality and allows you to:

• view rides in your network
• search them
• manage your frequent locations using Google Maps
• determine how far a detour you need to drive to pick someone up
• Track all the rides you’ve shared, and the miles you’ve traveled and calculate your reduction in CO2 emissions

Always a useful green app if you want to help cut down your carbon footprint when you travel.

Remember, green vanity apps are important, but they don’t mean anything until you do something about it.  Go out, and change the world, and address climate change!

Are you participating in Blog Action Day?  Tell us your blog post in the comments!

Printing web pages can be very ink intensive when you’ve got a fancy page at hand.  Yes, there are some basic measures you can take to save ink using selective printing- but here’s how you can automate the process!

Greenprint is an interesting piece of freeware that scans through whatever you want to print and helps to optimize the print layout.  With just a few simple clicks you can eliminate extra pages, remove selected images, and just tweak it so that you’re not wasting paper and ink.

Here’s WSJ tech guru Walt Mosberg running through a quick review of the product so you can see it in action.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zeK-6EjfQM[/youtube]

When it was first released it was paid software only, but now there is a 100% free version available for download, so not only will you be saving money from your pocket, but saving the environment as well.

Still not certain about optimizing your printing? Consider this:

1. 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree (and those add up quickly)
2. Global paper products consumption has tripled over the past three decades and is expected to grow by half again before 2010
3. Production of 1 ton of copy paper uses 11,134 kWh (same amount of energy used by an avg household in 10 months)
4. Making one single sheet of copy paper can use over 13oz. of water– more than a typical soda can.
5. 4281 acres of rainforest are lost every hour worldwide
6. If you filled an Olympic-size swimming pool with ink it would cost $5.9 billion
7. A single mature tree can release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings

What other ways do you save ink and paper? Tells us in the comments!