Everyone should be driving to save gas, or more accurately, driving in such a way that you do save gas and therefore money while also helping the environment by creating less pollution. This is all part of being green and saving money. You kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. Your car lasts longer, costs less to run, and you feel good about the cleaner air around you, for you are now driving to save gas. Here are 5 great tips to help you.

1. Slow things down. At 70 miles an hour you are not driving to save gas. A car engine operates most efficiently at around 55 miles an hour. At that speed you will burn the gas you need and waste as little as possible. You will also get to where you are going just fine, so keep the speed down.

2. Every time you plunge your foot to the floor, or brake hard, you are not driving to save gas – you are wasting it. Sure, it may look macho, but everything about your car suffers, and so does your pocket. When you are driving to save gas you will drive gently. You will accelerate moderately and brake smoothly. Always anticipate the need to slow down so that you don’t have to slam the brakes on at the last moment, or corner harder than you meant to. Driving to save gas comes easy when you think ahead.

3. Keep your tires properly inflated. Your engine uses some 20% of its efforts just overcoming the resistance of tire rolling. That percentage figure increases when the tires are under-inflated. The amount of gas you burn increases too. Keep your tires inflated at the manufacturers recommended level at all times, and only then will you start driving to save gas.

4. Lighten the load in your car to a minimum at all times. We’re not talking about passengers here, but the junk that most people carry around with their cars. Go through the trunk and dump anything you don’t absolutely need. Do the same in the car’s interior. You will be surprised at just how much you have accumulated. It could be as much as 100 pounds. Carrying that much excess weight is not driving to save gas!

5. Only run your car’s engine when you actually need it. Consider this: it has been estimated that customers sitting in line in idling cars at Burger King waste an amazing 16 million gallons of gas a year. That’s certainly not driving to save gas! Starting your car uses about the same amount of gas as it will burn in one minute when idling. If you think you will be waiting longer than a minute, switch off. Driving to save gas is mostly common sense with a little thought. You can do it!

You shouldn’t be stuck thinking up ideas for green Christmas gifts. There are so many different ways to make excellent and interesting gifts and ornaments using existing materials, or things that are easy and inexpensive to obtain. Ideas for green christmas gifts are usually only limited by your imagination, so start imagining!

Gift baskets are popular and are easily made too, and one of the best ideas for green Christmas gifts. The basket can be recycled from a cardboard box, cut to size and shape as desired, and wrapped in something original. The artwork that your children produce in school or at home is ideal for wrapping gift baskets. If you can’t find enough old ones, have them make a few new ones. Any left over artwork can be shredded and laid in the bottom of the basket to provide a suitable crinkly base for the gifts.

The gifts that fill the gift baskets can be anything. However, some of the better ideas for green Christmas gifts are things like homemade jams, homemade cookies, and homemade maple candy, which can be cut into Christmas shapes. Other ideas for green Christmas gifts for your gift baskets can be produced by your children. An aluminum drinks can painted, or covered in an old photo or some kind of artwork makes a great pen holder. A sturdy shoe box, if suitably decorated, can become an attractive treasure box. Your children will love creating these ideas for green Christmas gifts.

Clay ornaments are easy to make and are definitely environmentally friendly ideas for green Christmas gifts. You can make the clay dough with flour, salt and water in ratios of two parts flour to one part salt and one part water. Mix well together and knead for at least 10 minutes, then roll out and cut to shape. You can use existing cookie cutters, or get more imaginative for better results.

You may wish to poke a hole in each ornament before baking them to make it easy for hanging. Make the hole larger than you need as it will shrink during baking. Then bake the ornaments in an oven at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for around an hour and a half. These excellent ideas for green Christmas gifts can be decorated in hundreds of different exciting ways and will look really great too.

Ideas for green Christmas gifts are all around you. They will save you money and help to save the environment. In that way you will know that you are doing your bit for the planet. Christmas is a Christian celebration, but people of other religions also know the importance of being green and saving valuable resources and money. As the Dalai Lama said: “We have a responsibility to look after our planet. It is our only home.”

The song tells of a white Christmas, but that refers to the weather and the Christmasy atmosphere that snow can bring. Planning for a green Christmas is all about being environmentally active and aware while saving money as well. In times of economic uncertainty that must surely be a good thing. And of course, if the weather brings a little bit of white covering too, then that makes a green Christmas perfect!

Exchanging gifts is a common practice at Christmas, and this is an excellent place to start our green Christmas habits. The gift wrapping paper sold in stores is usually not recyclable. Most of it is immediately thrown away to end up in landfills. This makes gift wrapping with store-bought paper expensive and very unfriendly to the planet – not what we want for a green Christmas.

A much better alternative, and one that close relatives will appreciate, is to use your children’s artwork to wrap gifts. You could also use your children’s comic books, or the comic sections of newspapers as a bright and colorful alternative, thereby recycling old paper. You can explain to the recipient of the gift in a positive way why you are doing this and perhaps make them feel guilty for not having a green Christmas as well.

It has been calculated by the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and largest environmental organization, that if every family in the country gift wrapped just three gifts by recycling existing paper they already have, the paper saved would be enough to cover 45,000 football fields. Now, that’s a green Christmas and a whole lot of trees saved too!

If you plan to hang a wreath on your front door. consider making one yourself. It’s easy and very environmentally friendly – and you’ll save money too. Go into the forest, or even a nearby park, and find evergreen branches and dried twigs. These can be wrapped in a circular fashion with cranberries strung together to add a splash of bright color. You’ll surprise yourself at how good you are, it won’t cost you anything but a little time, and the materials are all fully biodegradable. Your green Christmas can’t get much better than that.

There are many more things you can do to make this a green Christmas. Consider making your own cards, for example. Use your children’s artwork again – it’s perfect for this and grandparent will love it. You can use LED lights on your tree (which should be a real one that can be planted out later) and you will save 90% on your green Christmas electricity bill. If you start thinking about it I’m sure you will come up with other great ideas for a green Christmas.