Everyone should know how many miles per gallon their car gets, but many people do not. I didn’t even know my car’s MPG, until today when I calculated it out.

How to Find Your Official Gas Mileage

If you want the quickly know your approximate mpg, the good ol’ U.S. government has set up this website where you can look up your car’s gas mileage or compare miles per gallon for different cars. And just recently, the EPA has changed how it calculates MPG to more accurately depict real world driving conditions.

According to their site, my car gets 24 miles per gallon (highway and city gas mileage combined). Based on an average gas cost of $3.01 per gallon and average annual driving of 15,000 miles, that works out to a whopping $1883 each year just spent on gas! That’s not even counting car repair costs, rotating tires, or oil cost.

How to Find Out Your Own MPG

To find out your car’s actual gas mileage, you just need to do some simple mathematics.

1. Fill up your car with gas, and reset your odometer to zero.
2. Drive like normal.
3. Next time you need gas, pull up to the gas station and write down how many miles you’ve driven since you last filled up.
4. Fill up your car, and write down how many gallons o’ gasoline it took.
5. To find your car’s MPG, divide your miles driven by gallons of gas. Voila!

Using this method, I divided my miles driven by gallons of gas (426.8 / 14.454) to get my actual gas mileage ( 29.5 mpg! ). Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Update: (June 2010) Sadly, I wrecked my old car about a month ago in a weak little accident. But, my new car (a Toyota Yaris), gets over 40 miles to the gallon! Hot diggity dog!

How many miles per gallon does YOUR car get?

As far as I know, I’ve never had organic green tea. But that is all about to change, because Garden of Life is giving away free samples of their organic green tea. 4-6 weeks from now, I will be testing out the difference between “normal” green tea and organic green tea. The anticipation of that moment is killing me, I tell you.

Click here to get yourself a free sample of organic green tea. 4-6 weeks from now, you can have yourself a taste test of organic green tea versus non-organic green tea.

Most people now-a-days try to help out the environment, even if it’s by doing something small, like turning off a faucet while you brush your teeth, or not littering. But for some, that is not enough. By following the handy green tips below, you can turn yourself from a zero to an eco-hero.

1. Wear the Same Clothes for Days on End

I’m not saying that I’ve ever done this (of course not), but I’ve heard of people who’ll wear the same clothes without washing them, as long as they’re not too dirty. The average washing machine cycle uses about a kilowatt-hour of energy, not to mention all that water. And dryers are one of the top energy users in a house. The ultimate eco-hero will continue wearing his (or her) clothes until they are tattered rags, not even washing them once.

2. Don’t Use Napkins, Ever

Think about this one. If you use cloth napkins, you have to wash them. If you use paper napkins, you have to throw them away. But if you don’t use a napkin at all, you will cut your napkin-related environmental impact to zero! If you must wipe your hands on something, just use your shirt, which you should’ve already been wearing for days on end (see #1).

3. Hitch-hike Everywhere You Go

Driving alone is for suckers. And paying for gas? Not at today’s outrageous prices. All it takes to get from Point A to Point B is a thumb and a smile. You’ll meet tons of interesting people, plus who knows where you’ll wind up! Of course, if you’re fine with boring ol’ “do-it-yourself” driving, then this tip is not for you.

4. Shower in the Rain

Next time the skies darken and you hear some thunder, grab a bar of soap and run outside. It’s shower time. Environmental savings include lowered energy use, decreased water use, and increase of feeling one with nature.

5.Trash Buffet

This, perhaps, is what truly separates the eco-heroes from the eco-zeroes. Do you have any idea how much food restaurants send to landfills every day? I don’t, but however much it is, it’s too much. If you wander the back alleys behind a group of restaurants, you are treated to a veritable trash buffet of nutritional goodness, plus you help keep the landfills a little emptier.

If you can follow these five steps, then you will be an official eco-hero. Just send me an email and I will place you into the Eco Hall of Fame. Do you have what it takes to be an eco hero?

THIS OFFER HAS EXPIRED… 🙁 DANG

I don’t know how long this will last, but EnergyStar is giving away one free CFL bulb per household. Why are they doing this?

In addition to helping you save money and the environment, we also understand the concerns associated with switching to Energy Saving bulbs. Will the color be the same as a standard bulb? Will it REALLY save me money? We want you to try ours free to see for yourself. Along with your bulb you will receive additional exclusive savings throughout the store that will help jump start your switch to ENERGY STAR. We want to thank you for participating in our Free Eco-Bulb program.

3-4 weeks from now, I shall have a free CFL bulb. Hot diggity dang.

If you’re like me, you are always looking for ways that you can make money and help the environment. Welp, here is one such way that I will try soon, since I have two old cell phones sitting at home unused.

Why Cell Phones Hurt The Environment

Old cell phones should not just be thrown away in normal household garbage, yet Americans are getting rid of more than 100 million cell phones a year this way! Cell phones contain a lot of toxic materials, such as lead, zinc, and arsenic. When cell phones are thrown away in an ordinary dump, their toxic chemicals can leech out into water sources. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like too much arsenic in my water.

What Can You Do With Old Cell Phones

Instead of throwing away old cell phones, you can use them as a crude yet effective hammer. Either that, or you can donate your cell phone or sell them. Look for donation areas at your local schools, grocery stores, or even your church. They will go to needy people, or maybe even an old person who’d like to be able to chat with their friends.

Donating cell phones is a great way to reduce their harmful impact on the environment. But even better than donating them is selling them! But who would buy an old cell phone? Cell For Cash or SellYourCell, that’s who. They offer between $2 and $200 depending on the model of the phone and how old it is. Even if you get the bare minimum, $2 is a heck of a lot better than just throwing away your cell phone and hurting the Earth.

Where do the Old Cell Phones Go?

It turns out that a lot of the old cell phones go to Latin America or the Caribbean. A lot of these countries are developing, and it’s cheaper for people to get cell phones as opposed to telephone companies running cable every which way through the country. They already have good wireless networks, so there is a demand for cheap cell phones down there. You can be happy that your old cell phone will be used by someone who really needs it.

I’m about to go out of town, but once I come back, I’ll actually try out one of those cellphone-selling sites and see if I can get rid of my old cell phones in an eco-friendly (and profitable) way. If anyone else tries it out, let me know how it worked out.

Maybe you want to cut down on your water use for environmental reasons. Maybe you want to save some money on your water bill. Either way, here are three simple ways to save water in your bathroom (and save money on your water bill).

Navy Shower

Navy showers are a great way to save on your water use. What is a navy shower, you may ask? I may answer that it’s a shower where you turn on the water, get yourself all wet, then turn the water off. You then soap yourself up, scrub some shampoo into your luscious hair, and then turn on the water just enough to rinse yourself off. This uses a lot less water than a bath (average water use for a bath is 35 gallons!), and also a lot less than a normal shower (2-minute navy shower uses about 4 gallons, while a 10-minute shower uses about 20!). So go ahead and try a navy shower today.

Bottle in Your Toilet

Fill up a 2-liter bottle (or 3-liter, if it fits) with water or sand and put it in your toilet’s water tank. Each toilet flush can use about 3 gallons of water, but by using the bottle method you can cut that down by a little less than a gallon. Also, don’t go flush-crazy — about 40 percent of the water used in an average U.S. house went down the toilet.

Turn off the water when you brush your teeth

This one is simple. The average person brushes their teeth for 90 seconds, and the average faucet puts out 2 gallons a minute. So turning off the water when you brush your teeth can save almost 3 gallons of water.

There you have it. Three simple ways to save a lot of water in your bathroom. Try them out today, and if you’re not fully satisfied, we will issue a full refund. Thank you for your time.

What if there was a way to help the planet, your country, and your wallet all at the same time? Welp, there is. It’s called the Kurrent. It’s the weird-looking car to the left, and it’s now available in the U.S. BUT it’s not street-legal in all states, and in the states it is legal in, you’re only supposed to drive it on roads that have a speed limit of 35 MPH or less. Still, that’s the normal speed limit in most cities, so you could probably drive this around in your city. To be on the safe side, you can check to see if it’s allowed in your state by emailing localrules@getkurrent.com

How Does It Help The Planet?

I’m glad you asked. Since the Kurrent is “refueled” by plugging it into a standard American outlet, it doesn’t use up gasoline, which is a non-renewable resource. Less gasoline equals less drilling to get oil. Also, it is a zero-emissions vehicle, which means that no CO2 or smoke comes out of it. It just whirs around using electricity.

How Does It Help My Country?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are more cars on the road now than ever before. Traffic jams are the norm now, and parking in cities has gotten so bad that people don’t even really expect to be able to find a parking space. But with this lil’ car, you don’t take up as much space, so you can maneuver in and out of traffic with ease, and fit into small parking spots.

Since this car doesn’t use gas, it means less of a demand for foreign oil. Less foreign oil means more money stays in the U.S., which is a good thing. It is a patriotic thing.

How Does The Kurrent Help My Wallet?

Excellent question. First, you can buy a brand new one for the low low price of $9,800. That right there is a pretty good price. But wait, there’s more. You won’t have to fill up at the gas station at all. No more money towards gas. Period. And it’ll only cost two cents a mile to run with electricity from your house, so that’s even more savings.

Also, if you own a Kurrent, you qualify for a alternative fuel/electric vehicle federal tax credit. That’s more money in the bank for you.

It can’t all be good news…

No, it can’t. First, this car doesn’t go much faster than 35 miles per hour, so it’s only legal (in some states) on streets with a 35MPH speed limit. You can’t drive this thing on the highways, just in cities and neighborhoods.

Another disadvantage for some people is its size. Although it has 7.5 cubic feet of trunk space (enough for trips to the grocery store), you won’t be able to pack too much into this car. Also, do not get this car if you are planning on towing big things, like boats or trailers.

All that being said, I wouldn’t mind getting a used Kurrent one of these days (or a used Smart Car). And if you do a lot of city or neighborhood driving, you should consider getting a small electric car. Not only will you have a really quiet, smooth ride, but you’ll be a money-saving, environmental, patriotic machine.