As a parent, I am always trying to impart lessons unto my children about how they can be better citizens and productive members of society. Now that they are older, I think it is important to teach them that they have to do their part to conserve energy and take care of our planet so that it will be here for generations to come. Saving on our power during the summer is key which is why I love that Direct Energy savings is arming consumers with the tools that they need to help them conserve energy.
In our home, there are certain things that we do to encourage our kids to save energy and engage in greener living. Although it may not seem like much, the following are ways that every home can do their part to take care of Planet Earth:
- Teach your kids to take showers instead of taking baths. By setting time limits on the amount of time that they spend in the shower and encouraging them to turn the water off while they are brushing their teeth, water can easily be conserved in your home.
- Make sure kids help you turn off all the lights in your home whenever you leave the house. You’d be surprised how much energy could be saved this way.
- Instead of drinking bottled water which wastes thousands of plastic bottles every year, get reusable water bottles for every member of your family.
- Don’t use plastic bags when you go grocery shopping with your children. Instead, buy reusable bags and keep them in the car for whenever you go to the supermarket.
- Model recycling in your home and teach children which items go in which trash receptacle. It’s important to reduce and reuse in every home.
- Plant a vegetable garden with your kids to teach them about horticulture and about where our food supply comes from.
Direct Energy wants you to be an empowered consumer and has created tools and partnerships to help you do just that by managing your energy usage. They are the only energy provider to be a part of Plenti! The Plenti program lets you earn points at one place and use them at another, all within a single rewards program so that keeping track of your rewards is simple.
The best part is that new customers will be able to earn 1,000 Plenti points at enrollment when they sign up for Plenti at and link their Plenti card number to their Direct Energy account. Existing Direct Energy customers will also earn 1,000 Plenti point when they sign up for Plenti at and link their Plenti card number to their Direct Energy account!
You will receive a $75 pre-paid gift card when you sign up with Direct Energy. Use promo code LIVEBRIGHTER75 – valid until August 15th! This is your chance to #LiveBrighter and let your energy shine through!
Let’s Discuss: What are some of the ways that you encourage your children to conserve energy through greener living?
Disclosure: This is a sponsored campaign created in collaboration with Direct Energy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
© 2015, Tough Cookie Mommy. All rights reserved.
If my boys would just shut off lights when they leave a room, I would feel a lot better about our energy costs. It drives me bananas.
We have 4 little girls living with us and this can be tough. We are teaching them to keep the televisions off when they are playing on electronics. My 10 year old says she needs background noise and I tell her to get a job.
We have always recycled in our house. In addition, we do try to always turn lights off when we leave a room and have energy saving night lights on in the hallways at night rather than leaving a larger light on. We all try to take short showers and not have the shower on maximum.
We recycle a lot, too. It’s important to teach our kids.
These are awesome tips and we’re already doing this in our home. Saving energy and water is very important.
These are great tips! I am always encouraging my boys to do their part around the home. Especially conserving energy. Our lights don’t go on until its dark outside, they are better at recycling than me!
These are great tips! We also do lots of gardening and recycling in our house as well.
My kids love their reusable water bottles. We also recycle, compost, and am a stickler about turning off the lights.
I think my family does most of these things already. I hate having plastic bags in my house, and we do have a garden this year (even if it is a little sad from all of the heat we’ve had!)
We just started our own garden this year. It was a great way for my kids to learn how to grow things organically. We also recycle everything we can, and make sure to always take reuseable bags to the grocers.
I recycle whatever my building will allow and take some other things like plastic bags (I know-bad of me) to the places you can have them recycled-usually in the supermarkets. At the beginning of the summer I buy the large size Dunkin Donut plastic cups. Right now I have three of them which I fill with water and put n my freezer. I either then just add some hot coffee or tea and voila-iced! Those cups are made to last let me tell you!! (and so do those straws). Lights out if I am not in that room!!
These are fantastic tips for kids…and adults, too! We are big recyclers! I’m sure that will continue when we have kids.
My kids use reusable water bottles. They love them, and I love that I’m not spending money on wasted bottles. We do most of these things but have lots to work on!
We’ve also switched to using reusable water bottles. We don’t buy bottled water anymore. Saves us money and it feels great that we’re not adding more to the waste.
We do a lot of these things. But we can always be better!
We started living greener when we were still in the Midwest. Since moving to the west coast, we have kept it up…plus some. 🙂
I need to start turning off and unplugging everything when I leave. It’s a bad habit to leave everything draining power. These are good ideas.
What a great article. We teach our children too the importance of being green and resourcefulness. I think it is so important to start at an young age.
We are always talking about turning off lights and fans when we leave rooms… but more important, is shutting off water when brushing teeth. My daughter loves to mess around with her toothbrush, so we are adamant about making sure she shuts off the water when she’s playing.
I wish we lived in a warmer climate so we could garden more. We do what we can.
These are great tips. Especially to model example to our kids. When I go grocery shopping I use a cart and old small duffle bags.
I love these tips, we already are teaching our toddler to turn lights off!
Reduce, reuse, recycle! We try to do that in our household as well as using “greener” products 🙂
I agree we need to be teaching our kids how to live greener. I try to get my boys to do this and we started with recycling our cans and plastic bottles.
We constantly remind them to turn the lights off when they leave a room. We also recycle together and do lots of DIY with things we would have thrown our otherwise
My kids have always been big on recycling. We have led lights to save in electricity. We set a time limit for showers.
I’m right up there with the lights being left on from the kids and our computers are always on. my husband insist that they don’t drain as much energy as I am saying it does. Everything that is pluged in to a outlet drains energy even if we leave toasters pluged in and not in use.
sighs.
Thankfully, my kids are really good with energy conservation as it was part of their school curriculum and we practiced it at home. The $75 gift would be a great incentive for every family that needs the extra help.
I gotta say, we didn’t always recycle some things. Growing up we always recycled cans because we earned money for them. Now, we also recycle paper and plastic. It’s part of my son’s 4-H project too!
Greener living is always nice! Every little bit can help.
I agree it is very important for every parent to teach their kids about doing their best to conserve energy so the future generation don’t have to suffer much. I have always taught my kids to turn off lights that are of no use for that particular time period & made sure they check every room when we leave home.
Sounds like a quick way to earn points. I’m impressed…and curious too. Thank you for sharing!
We use reusable water bottles and try to limit how much water we are wasting. I recently started a veggie garden that my kids help me with and I teach them about recycling and repurposing things as well.
We recycle and repurpose all the time. All of our outdoor furniture and basically our whole outdoor living space is made from recyled pallets and bricks from old houses.