As a busy working parent, convenience matters a lot to me. But as I began looking at my family's lifestyle for both ecological and economic reasons, I saw how dependent on “disposables” we had become.

I began asking myself why we were using all this stuff, and came to realize there wasn't much of a good reason, honestly, except saving the trouble of doing a little more washing up.

What I also realized was that for every item I used once and then tossed, I was contributing to landfills instead of my savings account. The more one-off items I buy, the more I spend -- and of course, the bigger my carbon footprint gets.

Reusable items not only save me money, but also help cut down on the carbon generated through manufacturing new “throwaways.”

Here are three easy ways we were able to reduce our family’s footprint, both economically and ecologically:

Put down that water bottle

Buy one good stainless steel water bottle that your kid uses every day, refilling as necessary, and it's paid for itself in under two weeks. Plus, you have cut hundreds of plastic bottles from being produced (using carbon) and then needing to be recycled (which, of course, uses carbon), or worse, ending up in a landfill. Buy one bottle for each family member, and use a paint pen to decorate and label each one with the owner’s name. (12-ounce Klean Kanteen, $14.95 at kleankanteen.com)

Clean up the way you wipe up

Even buying at bulk warehouse clubs, a roll of brand-name paper towels runs about a $1 a roll; roughly double that if you buy at the grocery store. Rather than grabbing a paper towel every time the counter needs to be wiped down, I now use good old-fashioned dishcloths, which are inexpensive and can be reused over and over. Old t-shirts, cut into squares, work fabulously on glass surfaces and windows. I keep a roll of towels handy for the truly horrendous spill or mess, but now go through about one every two weeks, as opposed to two or three a week.

Say no to single-serves

It’s tempting -- with two kids -- to pack lunches for every morning, to grab the four-packs of individual pudding cups for their lunches, or the boxes of snacks packaged into one-helping bags. But such convenience costs: My son’s favorite fish-shaped crackers run about 80 cents per ounce when I buy ‘em in single-serve packages; 27 cents an ounce when in the 18-ounce box (and that’s not even the mega-warehouse sizes). So we switched to a refillable plastic container that gets washed every afternoon when he comes in, and stocked with new snacks the next morning. Voila!: The cost of snacking just dropped by two-thirds, and our garbage production is down to one recyclable cardboard box.

While each of these steps required a small investment in “reusables,” they quickly paid themselves off and we started saving money. Even though the eco-chic catalogs that pile up on my doorstep keep trying to convince me I need to spend and buy even more to save the Earth, these few smart adjustments to my family's "use and toss" lifestyle created significant savings for us both financially and environmentally.

Best of all, by cutting down on the amount of stuff we throw out, we also save on how many garbage bags we use!