Many people want to live a “greener” more natural life, but think it’s difficult, takes too much time, or is too expensive. None of these are true and with just a few simple adjustments, you can start living more naturally and feel better about how you live. Most of these will even save you money! So without further ado, here they are:

1. Use a wash rag instead of a sponge for cleaning dishes
This is possibly the simplest way to reduce waste. Every week or so we throw out sponges and grab a new one to clean our dishes with. You can’t really wash them to use them over and over again so they end up in the landfill. For those of you using biodegradable or natural sponges, good for you, but they still have to be produced and discarded which still takes resources.

With a wash cloth, you can wash them over and over again and are good for a long time. They take less resources to make and when they’re done, are completely biodegradable. When you don’t have to keep buying sponges, you end up saving money as well. Don’t worry about losing that scouring pad on the other side of your sponges either, the wash cloth is totally safe for dishes yet can “scour” most stuck on food better than a sponge.

2. Use stuff in your pantry for cleaning around the house
Do you have vinegar and baking soda in your pantry? If so, you already have powerful cleaners in your house. Both vinegar and baking soda are natural products and of course don’t contain the man-made and caustic chemicals that most cleaning products have. Not only are those store-bought products bad for the environment, they are bad for you too and can be absorbed through the skin and fumes can be inhaled. Vinegar and baking soda can even work better than most store-bought products and can be used for any surface.

For more tips on how to use vinegar and baking soda to clean with, check out Vinegar Tips and an About.com page about it.

3. Use cleaning cloths and fabric mops instead of sponges and swiffers
From the swiffer lines of floor cleaners to the toilet cleaning wand with their disposable cleaning pads, we waste a lot material just to get our houses clean when we really don’t have to. Next time you go to clean your bathroom, kitchen or any surface in your home, consider grabbing a wash cloth and a fabric mop along with your natural cleaners listed above. You won’t be throwing away anything at the end, you can wash them and use them again later, and you never have to worry about not having a sponge available. Not to mention, you’ll also save money by not buying things you’ll just throw out for a few days to a week of clean.

4. Use reusable plates and silverware and avoid disposable ones
In our dishwasher age, the excuse that throwing away the plates and silverware is simply easier doesn’t make sense anymore. Using regular plates and metal silverware that can be washed and reused over and over again is much more economical not to mention reduces waste by a huge margin. Besides, setting a table with china and silverware looks better anyway.

5. Use cloth napkins instead of paper and towels instead of paper towels
This one is a no brainer, but most people still refuse to use them and like the convenience of throwing away a paper napkin at the end of a meal and prefer to rip off a sheet of paper towel for spills and cleanup, but cloth towels absorb more and you can throw them in the wash when you’re done. Setting a table with cloth napkins looks nice and classy, and when you’re done, you can throw those in the wash as well. Less waste, nicer presentation, what more could you want?

6. Use cloth bags for grocery shopping
When you go grocery shopping, the bags you get at the checkout line are basically created to make getting groceries from the store to your house easier and are used for around 20 minutes, depending on where you live, and then discarded. The world uses almost 1 million bags per minute, and according to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually and it takes about 12 million barrels of oil to make those. That’s a lot of production and waste for something we use once and throw out. Sure, there are recycling programs available for those bags, but what’s the point in using something for that short of a time when you could use a cloth bag and eliminate the waste?

Cloth bags are stronger, hold more and are ethically better. You can’t use the excuse that they’re hard to find with websites like ReuseableBags.com and The Cloth Bag Company, and plethoras of them at your local grocery store. You can even go to the Swye store and pick up one or several of them.

7. Buy in bulk, use tupperware and avoid single-serving packaging
In our “single-serving, use and toss” buying culture, we don’t often think about our waste; In the trash, out of mind, but buying single-serving packaging uses much more unrecyclable packaging, and creates a vast amount of waste. It is far better to buy in bulk and use tupperware (not single-use plastic bags) and you have the added bonus and freedom of deciding how much is a “single-serving.” The same goes for microwave dinners and lunches. The plastic trays those come in are far from recyclable and not to mention can leak some pretty noxious chemicals when heated.

Read more here and here.

8. Use a lunchbox or cloth bag to carry your lunch
As a continuation of number 5, as well as something else to think about, instead of grabbing that paper bag for your lunch or going out to the deli ad getting that corned beef on rye (you still have to throw out the plastic bag and the sandwich wrapping, consider packing your own lunch and using a lunch box or cloth bag to carry it.

9. Make your own food and drinks
Many people say they want to know how to cook and would love to be able to eat well, but just don’t have the time or think it’s beyond them to make food like they see on Emeril, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Cooking is far easier than most people think, all it takes is practice. Before you know it you’ll be thinking of ways to make different dishes and creating delicious meals your family would be proud of. You can also cook up big stews or pots of sauce that you can save and heat up later. In fact, you can take them for lunch the next day in your tupperware and reusable lunch box.

Find some great easy to make recipes on the Food Network and Epicurious.

10. Buy natural soaps shampoos and detergents
It has been proven over and over again how bad the chemicals in our cosmetics are for us. With all the products offered by Lush Cosmetics and Toms of Maine, there’s no excuse for them being hard to find or too expensive. Besides, being in good health should be worth spending just a little more.