Living on a limited budget as we do, we here at The Thin Green Line are sensitive to the fact that all too often, doing the right thing is not the cheapest thing.

Which is why we wanted to make you all aware of a couple of ideas out there in the idea-o-sphere (if this becomes Webster's new word of the year, we hereby formally lay legal and binding claim to it. Stuff THAT in your "truthiness" and smoke it Stephen Colbert!).

First of all, we'd like to tell you about an incentive from an industry long thought to be bereft of soul and all human feeling, unless of course you've been in a car crash or had your house burn down.

Yes, you've guessed it, we're talking about the insurance industry, which took us completely by surprise last month and announced discounts for folks who try to make their house more green.

According to this helpful release provided by the folks at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, at least one company, Donegal Insurance Group, will provide you with a 5 percent discount for installing solar electric panels on your house and another 5 percent discount for installing geo-thermal heat pumps to heat and cool your house.

(Shown at right is a geo-thermal plant, just a weeeeee bit bigger than the kind your house would use.)

And, if you own a small business, the state is offering 2 percent fixed interest 10-year loans for projects that reduce waste, pollution or energy use. The loans can be used to pay up to 75 percent of the cost, up to $100,000.

Click here for the link to that program.

If heating your hot water with the sun is your bag, consider that homeowners are eligible for a federal tax credit on solar heaters of up to 30 percent of the installed system's cost, with a cap of $2,000.

In this Feb. 9 Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, Amherst professor Larry Hunter argued that solar hot water is cheaper, simpler and more energy efficient than photovoltaic (in which solar energy is used to generate electricity for your house) and deserves a bigger slice of the stimulus pie.

Of course if you're devoted to photo-voltaic, The Thin Green Line has a morsel for you as well.

One of the frustrating things about being the first on your block with anything is you don't have a lot of bargaining power with the seller...unless if you got your whole block to buy it.!

Voila!

And so we bring you this link to a New York Times Magazine article about an entity called 1BOG.

So long as you are not so sensitive to the wave of "socialist" accusations sweeping out from the far right shouting machine, you may find savings from the "collective" purchasing of solar power. Just think of it like pitching in with your neighbor to share the cost of a fence dividing your two properties.

This how the Times described the company: "Owned by Virgance, a for-profit company based in San Francisco, 1BOG aims to make money by collecting what amounts to a referral fee from the solar installer, and some of the incentives it offers to consumers involve straightforward middleman functions: mastering the details of state, local and federal incentive programs that drastically lower costs; vetting solar-installation companies; and so on. Solar panels are, after all, a big-ticket item that few consumers know much about. (Costs vary, but under normal circumstances a $20,000 price tag is not unusual.) Finding the best installer and getting a fair price can be intimidating and bewildering."

Having seen "Obama-mania" sweep the country, the company collects customers through a campaign. "When 1BOG starts a “campaign” in a city, it relies on its consumer participants to recruit more consumer participants," the Times reports.

They've even hired a former Obama campaign coordinator to help. Whether or not this results in 1BOG-o-mania, it's too soon to tell.

In its first venture, with a group of 41 homes, it garnered a 20 percent discount in the price of installation, no small figure when you figure it can cost as much as $40,000 to install a 4.5 kilowatt system.

So far, the nearest the company has a group is Washington, D.C., but there is also one started in Bergen County, N.J., so Pennsylvania might be next.

We'll let you know...

In the meantime, consider this. If you think none of this affects you because you're just fine with the way things are, know that things will not stay the way they are.

The Obama administration and Congress are already moving toward regulations to reduce carbon emissions into the air, that means coal, currently the cheapest of the fossil fuels.

When coal gets more expensive, your electric bill will go up.

As this New York Times article shows, those worst hit by the price jumps may well be those least able to afford it.