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Green is my favorite color. I’m a nature nerd like that. 

Along with being the best color, it’s also a great lifestyle suggestion. From buying green to generating green, I’d bet my best bra that green is the only color that has the widest-ranging spectrum of emotions from green with envy to gushing green vomit, there’s plenty to say with this dynamic blue-yellow combo.

Now that I’ve established the superiorness of green, the color has become a running theme for my lifestyle. 

Going and growing green encompasses a growth of possibilities that are always a good idea. 

If frugal was a color, it’d be green. 

There are many options on Google that state with authority that there are wealthy people who are rich without ever being frugal.

That is not my fate. 

I didn’t grow up with that kind of money, so the chances of being showered with an inheritance that laughs in the face of Draco Malfoy is slim. Cute, minute, and exceptionally slim. 

I don’t gamble and I’m not rolling the dice on a lawsuit. 

Instead, I have to build wealth slowly over time with frugal habits. Slow equates to sustainable. Sustainable habits include: 

Maintaining a budget;

Buying secondhand;

Having free hobbies;

Increasing my income;

Using coupons and cashback; and 

Saving more than spending. 

I don’t forget forged habits. Instead, it’s a lifestyle that supports what I value – quality over quantity. 

Our planet is saturated with a bold blue and yet, it’s the lush green that’s built her reputation.  

Earth Day is an epic day, I vote it’s practiced every day. Similar to prescribing health as one salad or one glass of water, consistency is more powerful than intensity. 

Same, same when it comes to celebrating Earth Day daily. 

Buying reusable products is a way to encourage wallet growth, not at the planet’s expense.

As my disposable items have lived a shorter life than a fruit fly, I replace the items with something that lasts significantly longer.

From pads to plates, there are plenty of options for buying reusable quality over quantity. If local options don’t abound (holler fellow semi-rural areas), then the internet has more options than a plastic inmate in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. 

Similar to a sharp sword, the internet can clean or cut. The difference is the intention. 

Eating greens is more than just kale, spinach, and (the millennial fruit of choice) avocado. 

Having a healthy green lifestyle includes eating healthy. 

Unpacked fruits and vegetables are always more than prepackaged delights found in the frozen isles. 

The freezer isles hide their costs. Instead of being reflected on the sticker price, it’s embedded in healthcare. 

Cheap carbs laden with salt, sugar, and mystery ingredients that are longer than Rhode Island, taste delicious. Add in frequency and it will turn doctors visits into expensive counseling sessions.

Filling a cart with fruits and vegetables is more expensive because those costs are paid upfront with each visit to the grocery store. Whereas, payment for cheap food is billed in later months or years of medical appointments. 

I’d rather pay more upfront like a Costco trip. I buy in bulk to save on long-term healthcare costs. 

Growing and going green includes more than food and finances; it includes housing too. 

A home is one of the biggest investments I’ll ever make, outside of my freedom from the working world (retirement). 

Along with being expensive, it’s where I spend my time when I’m not earning my freedom. 

Since I spend so much time at home, it makes sense that there are ways to keep it green and lean at home too.

Using water wisely, from reducing use through modern ways like installing a low-flow shower head to traditional ways, like a brick in the toilet tank, is a way to protect one of the planet’s most finite resources – fresh water.

Water is rare and a way to respect that rarity is by conserving it. The same can be said for energy too. Energy is expensive because something has to be minded to generate it – it could be coal or natural gas. Even turbines and dams mine Earth’s energy and require large equipment to harvest, store, and transfer.

A way to respect finite resources is to use it sparingly. 

I tend to avoid things that have a high unnecessary cost like bar hopping, gambling, and smoking. I dabbled enough in those departments in my youth and wasn’t a fan of the final cost. 

That mentality leeched into other areas too and it doesn’t include an id or hangover.  

Going and growing green isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. 

As much as I’d like to land in the candy land of green, the only place it exists is in the scenes of a B-rated sci-fi film.

Similar to other lifelong journeys that involve wisdom and wrinkles, going and growing green is something to be practiced, not perfected.

Perfection leads to procrastination.

Instead, it’s small daily habits and big growth mindsets that keep green flowing into my life. One discounted avocado at a time.