Quick Savings Tip: Go Paperless
Whether it be at the office or in your household, paper is used excessively without concern to how much it could be harming the environment and taking a bite out of your wallet. In 2005 alone, close to 100 million tons of paper and paperboard were used in American. We as a country use way too much paper and need to begin making better decisions in terms of whether to print something or not and consider available paperless options.
Paperless Office Solutions
Our business offices are probably where a good majority of the paper we waste each year is coming from. I already wrote about some Environmentally Friendly Printing Tips that could help you reduce reducing the amount of paper you are using. Paperless solutions just make sense in office settings. With computers on most of the day, there are many e-solutions that can also help reduce the amount of paper you are using in your office:
Emailing
Next time you want to print out a document to have revised by a fellow coworker, email them it instead. This will not only ensure that you are providing them with the latest document, but it can make the process of getting a document far quicker. If they need to revise the document, comments can be added in modern word processing software applications. This will make it easier to read any changes that are necessary and not require multiple copies to be printed. It also allows a person to maintain a copy of the file much easier. Whenever I receive something in paper form, it usually gets thrown on my desk and more difficult to find. If you have it stores in an email or locally on your computer, it will be much easier to find when you need to reference it.
Meetings
Wasteful printing for meetings is one of the more frustrating things that I often encounter. On most occasions, people during the meeting rarely look at the document you given them, especially when something is projected on the screen. Why not save printing multiples copies of something by simply showing it on a projection. Papers received during meetings just end up being shredded or tossed in the trash immediately after it is over anyways. More irritating is when what is projected is the same as the paper document given. Why do I need to see it in two forms when I can just listen more carefully to what the presenter is saying and take notes on my own pad of paper? Documents can also be sent upon completion of the meeting in the form of an email if a copy is desired.
Direct Debit
Instead of receiving paychecks every pay period, try switching over to direct debit. Not only will you save gas by not having to take it to get cashed, but you will be reducing paper usage. Why not just ask for all of your work related documents to be given electronic instead of having them sent to your house. Luckily my company stores most of my paperwork on the web so I can easily access them. If you company does not have electronic versions, you can try to ask them to switch over. You can even present ideas on how they could save money in the long term by switching.
Bills and Statements
Getting bills and statements in the mail is another huge waste of paper and an unnecessary one at that. Many companies are switching over to electronic solutions for paying and receiving your bills and viewing your statements. I have even heard of some banks and similar institutions giving better interest rates to consumers who go paperless. By switching over, you can also save 6.6 pounds of paper, reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to produce the paper and save around 4.5 gallons of gas need to mail bills and payments.
If you haven’t already pursued it with any companies you get bills or statements from, you should ask if they have a paperless option. Many companies are already pushing many customers to save money on their end. Jump on the opportunity to take this option as it could help make you life easier as well as reduce the amount of paper required to produce those documents.
Declutter
With no more bills or statements being sent to you, you can dramatically reduce the amount of clutter you have in your house. All your documents can be stored on your computer by downloading the documents off of the companies website or leave maintaining them up to the company. Regardless, the documents are not being kept in a file cabinet taking up more space than necessary.
Easier Tax Time
After just mentioning various green tax credits, going paperless can make your tax time a lot easier as with getting those deductions. Your bills, statements and receipts can all be stored on your computer and help make finding them much easier. It will also reduce any chance that you will lose any of these documents.
No More Checks
By paying bills online, it can save you money since checks are no longer necessary and you will not need to purchase another check book. On top of that, it will save you time. Bills can be paid in minutes. You can even reduce more time by setting up automatic payments. No more trips to the post office or stamps to mail your payments.
Comments
I am an amateur photographer. There is no doubt that the digital era made life so much easier for photographers. The Internet has helped too. One thing I know do is always print my photos using some online services. They are cheap and fast. If you have not done it before check out this place http://www.printrates.com for a list of good ones. I still have a photo printer at home but only use it when I need a print super fast.