Articles Written by Julie Hancher

There's nothing I dread more than receiving those damn credit card offers in the mail. Such lies and false promises - Free airline tickets, magazines, chateaus, daschunds...  They'll give me ANYTHING to sign up for another express ticket on the gateway to debt. Good news for you - You can opt out of Credit Card offers with OptOutPrescreen.com.  Because of a "Fair Credit Reporting Act", companies are allowed to give your name to credit agencies.  Which results in a  LOT of paper in your mailbox. Just take a minute, visit the site, and opt out of junk mail.

Want the best of the tropics with a twist of mad-artist-cutting-off-his-ear? The Philadelphia Flower Show's escape to "Hawaii: Islands of Aloha" is far off (March 4-11), but tempting us with early sales combined with the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Van Gogh Up Close collaboration. Depending on your price range and what you want, the packages differ. Here's a breakdown of how you can get the most bang for your buck:

6 Baby Steps to Eat Vegetarian:  (Helping a Reader's New Years Resolution) One of our readers asked: "I'm trying to eat less meat in the New Year and want to go vegetarian. Do you have advice?" Here are 6 lessons I learned along the meat-free way:

Now that you've hauled out the holly and looted the gifts from Santa, it's time to figure out how you're handling those dead Christmas Trees - in an environmentally friendly fashion, of course. The Streets Department has announced the 2012 Christmas Tree Recycling Program is running Tuesday, January 3 (aka today) - Saturday, January 14th. There is NO curbside collection, so here's the Sanitation Convenience Centers where to take your trees:

Good news for your recycling needs: The Philadelphia Streets Department & Mayor Michael Nutter announced you can now put carton containers (for milk, juice, soup, soy milk, broth, wine, etc) along with your single-stream recycling! Philadelphia Carton Recycling Rules The new “carton”...

Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, local consumers swarm businesses looking for the best deals. This holiday season, take a step back from the masses and try putting money back in

Are you still stuffed from those Thankgiving leftovers? (Considering my family decided to host Thanksgiving fashionably late, I'm still in a food-coma.) "Tis the season for parties and mountains of food... which equals lots of excess waste.   Between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, our food waste TRIPLES in the United States.  What can you do to cut back this statistic for the holiday season?

I know Mayor Nutter wants Philly to be America's greenest city by 2015, but we're surely making some progress as of late! Here's a roundup of the latest green movers & shakers:

Happy America Recycles Day! Since Infographics are SO hot right now, here's one courtesy of ReuseThisBag.com. Take a look and think of what YOU can be recycling today: (find out more, after the jump!)