5 Ways to Give (and Save) Green During the Holidays

Start off the year on sound financial footing by avoiding the temptation to overspend at the holidays. A backlog of holiday bills can quickly derail your financial resolutions, whether your goal for the New Year is to increase your contributions to a retirement savings account or build an emergency fund.

"It's a misconception that it costs more to be environmentally conscious", says Linda Mason Hunter, author of Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home (Melcher Media, 2005). "Going green is not about consuming, so you save money right there. It's all about reduce, reuse, recycle."

Try these gift-giving ideas that can help you go green or help you save green—and some that do both.

"It's a misconception that it costs more to be environmentally conscious."

– Linda Mason Hunter, author of Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home

Idea 1: Give an experience

Landfills are full of well-intentioned gifts that eventually lost their luster while many intangible presents continue to be treasured. Think of a skill, service or experience you can provide yourself, such as:

Offering to do a morning of yard work
Offering to design a Web site for a friend
Planning an outing to the zoo with a child

Idea 2: Shop at home

Hunter has been known to look through her family's collection of books, CDs and DVDs for selections she knows close friends would enjoy receiving as gifts.

Idea 3: Donate to a cause

"Last year the favorite gift I gave was to my granddaughter, who was 9," Hunter says. It was a donation to the World Wildlife Fund to adopt an arctic polar bear. And it didn’t cost anything for gas to drive around town shopping.

Idea 4: Build for the future

Most kids receive plenty of toys at Christmas. Instead of adding to their haul, consider a donation to a 529 plan or other college savings account.

Idea 5: Try new ways to wrap gifts

Americans throw out 25 percent more garbage around the holidays, and gift wrap is a major culprit. Hunter's favorite substitute? "Get wonderful ribbon, and then all you need is a plain box." You'll save money on wrapping paper, and even recipients who are newbies to going green are more likely to save and reuse a pretty ribbon.

"There's a wonderful phrase: Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without," Hunter says. "The greener my life gets, I find I pretty much have everything I need. I just need to go searching in my house to see what will solve my problem."