I think we can all agree: financially speaking, the last couple of years have been pretty crappy. But, somehow, I feel more empowered than ever.

Because we all have less money in our wallets, the green that we do spend has got to count. This realization, coupled with a decision to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle, has brought me to a place of change.

The more I have learned over the past few years, the more I have come to understand that the issues facing the planet go far beyond recycling Perrier bottles and composting organic veggie scraps. But helping the environment isn’t about becoming an activist either; it is about little choices, choices that we make every single time we make a purchase.

Shopping is a very powerful means of making a statement. Ellis Jones, author of The Better World Shopping Guide, calls it voting with your wallet. Think of every dollar as a vote. When you make a purchase, you are casting your vote in support of a company and that company’s business and environmental practices. And, as President Obama will tell you, each one of those single votes can add up to something pretty powerful.

When I was laid off last year I worried that my decreased income might affect my efforts to spend my money in an eco-friendly way. After all, I had been ordering $15 eco shampoos and buying $7 all-natural toothpaste, which could not continue with no J-O-B on the horizon.

So, with nothing better to do than spend an hour at the drugstore reading shampoo labels, I decided to look into whether it is possible to be eco-friendly and budget-friendly at the same time. And, happily, I found that it is. Green products are appearing on the shelves of stores that you shop in already and often they don’t cost a cent more than traditional products. This to me felt like a huge discovery.

And this brings me to the good news: Eco-friendly companies are sprouting up every day, which means it will only become easier and more affordable to buy everything from baby products to building supplies from an environmentally-responsible retailer.

If you lead a simple life, you do not have to spend more to be eco-friendly. If you are fancy, you do not have to give up life’s little luxuries to be green. And by no means do you have to wear Jesus sandals or eat twigs for dinner in order to do your part. In short, you can be green and be yourself. You just have to know what to look for and what to avoid.

To that end, I volunteer to do the research for you. What you’ll find here at Eco to the People are products that my team and I have tried and tested and found to be wonderful, as well as some stupid-easy, step-by-step ways of reducing the waste in your life.

Ignorance is bliss, truly, but once “going green” becomes personal and not just about big ambiguous concepts like global warming, it feels like a responsibility to make a change. We at Eco to the People hope this site will be a resource and that it will inspire you to use the power of your dollars for good not evil. Happy reading and happy, healthy shopping!

~Heather O’Neill