6 Best Sustainable Practices for Apartment Living That Save You Money
Embrace sustainable apartment living with 6 simple tips. From reducing energy use to cutting food waste, see how green habits can lower your bills.
You look at your apartment and think you can’t make a real difference for the planet—you can’t install solar panels or collect rainwater. But sustainability isn’t about grand gestures; it’s about smart, daily choices that add up. The best part is that the most effective changes in a small space also happen to be the ones that put money back in your pocket.
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Your Guide to Sustainable Apartment Living
Living in an apartment presents a unique set of constraints. You don’t own the walls, the windows, or the major appliances, which means big-ticket eco-upgrades are off the table. This is actually a blessing in disguise. It forces you to focus on efficiency and consumption—the two areas where you have total control and can see the fastest results.
Forget about a total green renovation. Instead, think of your apartment as a closed system. Every watt of electricity, drop of water, and scrap of food you bring in or throw out has a direct impact on your wallet and the environment. By optimizing these small, daily flows, you can achieve significant savings and drastically reduce your footprint without ever picking up a hammer.
Lomi Composter: Turn Kitchen Scraps into Soil
Food waste is a huge problem in apartments. You can’t just start a compost pile on your balcony, and municipal composting programs are still hit-or-miss. This leaves you with one option: tossing food scraps in the trash, where they rot in a landfill and produce methane. It feels wasteful because it is.
The Lomi electric composter solves this problem brilliantly. It’s a small, countertop appliance that uses heat and abrasion to break down food scraps—from coffee grounds to chicken bones—into a nutrient-rich, soil-like material in a matter of hours. There are no odors, no pests, and no mess. You simply fill it, press a button, and empty it a few times a month.
Turn food waste into fertilizer in just 3 hours with the Ouaken Electric Composter. This compact, 4L countertop composter reduces waste by up to 90% and features an odor-eliminating carbon filter and auto-cleaning function.
Let’s be clear: a Lomi is an investment. But consider the tradeoffs. You eliminate smelly, leaking trash bags and reduce your contribution to landfills. More importantly, you create a valuable resource. That "dirt" it produces is perfect for houseplants or balcony container gardens, saving you money on potting soil and fertilizer. It closes the loop on your food waste right inside your kitchen.
Kasa Smart Plugs: Cut Your Phantom Power Drain
Control your home appliances from anywhere with the Kasa Smart Plug. This mini Wi-Fi outlet works with Alexa and Google Home for easy voice control and offers convenient scheduling features via the Kasa app.
Many of your electronics are secretly costing you money even when they’re turned off. This "phantom power" or "vampire load" comes from devices in standby mode—your TV with its little red light, your game console waiting for an update, your phone charger plugged into the wall. It’s a slow, constant drain on your electricity bill.
Kasa Smart Plugs are a simple and effective fix. You plug one into an outlet, plug a power strip into it, and connect all your entertainment center or home office devices. Now, you can completely cut power to all of them with a single tap on your phone or a voice command. Better yet, you can set a schedule.
Imagine a schedule that automatically kills power to your TV, speakers, and chargers at midnight and turns them back on at 6 AM. You’re asleep, so you don’t need them. This simple automation erases 6+ hours of phantom drain every single day, across multiple devices. The savings aren’t massive overnight, but over a year, they absolutely add up, and the plugs quickly pay for themselves.
High Sierra Showerhead: Lower Your Water Bills
Your shower is likely one of the biggest consumers of water and energy in your apartment. The energy part is key—your water heater is working hard to heat every gallon you use. A standard showerhead can use 2.5 gallons per minute (GPM), which is a huge waste.
Replacing your landlord’s cheap, inefficient showerhead with a low-flow model is one of the highest-impact changes you can make. A model like the High Sierra Classic Plus uses only 1.5 GPM, but it doesn’t feel weak. Instead of just restricting flow, it atomizes the water into large, heavy droplets that feel like a much stronger spray. The installation takes five minutes with a wrench and is completely reversible when you move out.
The math is simple. A 10-minute shower with a standard head uses 25 gallons. With the High Sierra, it uses only 15. You save 10 gallons of water and the energy required to heat it, every single day. This single, inexpensive upgrade lowers two utility bills at once.
AeroGarden Sprout: Grow Fresh Herbs Indoors
Grow up to 3 plants indoors with the AeroGarden Sprout. Its efficient LED grow lights promote rapid growth, and the soil-free hydroponic system makes gardening simple and convenient.
Think about the last time you bought fresh herbs. They came in a plastic clamshell, you used a few sprigs, and the rest wilted into a sad, slimy mess in your fridge a few days later. It’s a cycle of wasted food and wasted money.
An indoor hydroponic garden like the AeroGarden Sprout lets you break that cycle. It’s a compact, self-contained unit with a built-in LED grow light and a water reservoir. You pop in some seed pods, and in a few weeks, you have fresh basil, mint, or parsley growing on your countertop. You harvest only what you need, when you need it. Nothing goes to waste.
Give your indoor plants the light they need with this full-spectrum LED grow lamp. It features a built-in timer with auto on/off and a flexible gooseneck for easy positioning.
The initial cost is a factor, as is the small amount of electricity for the light. But compare that to spending $3-$4 on a plastic box of herbs every week or two. The AeroGarden provides a continuous supply of fresh, flavorful ingredients, eliminates food and plastic waste, and brings a little bit of green life into your apartment. It’s a win for your wallet and your cooking.
Stasher Bags: Ditch Single-Use Kitchen Plastic
This 4-pack of Stasher reusable silicone bags helps you reduce plastic waste. Made with food-grade silicone and a leakproof seal, these versatile bags are dishwasher, microwave, and oven-safe.
Single-use plastic sandwich and freezer bags are a constant expense and a source of endless plastic waste. We use them to pack a lunch, store leftovers, or marinate chicken, and then we throw them away. It’s a habit that costs us money and clogs up landfills.
Stasher bags are the perfect replacement. Made from pure platinum silicone, they are endlessly reusable, incredibly durable, and shockingly versatile. You can use them in the freezer, microwave, dishwasher, and even in boiling water for sous vide cooking. They seal tight and don’t hold onto stains or odors.
The upfront cost is higher than a box of Ziplocs, no question. But one Stasher bag can replace hundreds of disposable ones. You’re not just buying a bag; you’re buying a permanent solution. After a year of not having to buy plastic bags, they will have paid for themselves, and you’ll have prevented a mountain of plastic from ever entering the waste stream.
Honey-Can-Do Rack: Air-Dry Clothes for Less
The clothes dryer is one of the most energy-hungry appliances in any home. If you’re using a coin-op machine in your apartment’s laundry room, you’re feeling that cost directly—a few dollars every single week. Even if you have an in-unit dryer, it’s driving up your electricity bill.
A simple, collapsible drying rack is the answer. A sturdy model like the Honey-Can-Do gullwing rack provides a ton of drying space but folds down flat to be stored behind a door or under a bed. The process is simple: run your clothes through the spin cycle one extra time at the laundromat to remove excess water, then hang them on the rack at home.
The tradeoff is time and space. It takes longer for clothes to dry, and the rack takes up floor space while in use. But the savings are immediate and direct. You can completely eliminate the cost of using a dryer. For small apartments, you can set it up in the bathtub overnight to keep it out of the way. It’s a small change in routine for a guaranteed financial return.
Combining Practices for Maximum Impact & Savings
None of these practices exist in a vacuum. The real power comes when you start stacking them together to create a more efficient, self-sufficient system within your apartment. The small changes reinforce each other, and the savings start to compound.
Think about it this way: The soil from your Lomi can be used to grow herbs in your AeroGarden, which cuts down on your grocery bill and plastic waste. The money you save on your water and electricity bills by using a better showerhead and smart plugs can be put toward the initial investment in reusable Stasher bags. It becomes a virtuous cycle where one smart decision enables the next. Sustainability isn’t about doing one thing perfectly; it’s about doing many things better.
True sustainable living isn’t about deprivation; it’s about intelligent consumption. By adopting these practices, you’re not just reducing your environmental impact—you’re taking direct control of your monthly expenses and creating a more resilient and resourceful home, no matter how small.
