Utilities can take up a large portion of your budget. You may be wondering, how can I save money when I need to keep the lights on? Well, I have some good news for you! There are many steps you can take that will have no effect on your day to day activities but save you money on your electric bill. Below is a list of 8 ways you can save money each month by being smarter about your electricity and other utility usage.
1. Automate Your Savings with a Programmable Thermostat
Programmable thermostats are a thing of beauty! Letting you program the temperature in your house for when you will and won’t be home can be just the change you need to jump start your savings. Per the Department of Energy, just a 1 degree change on your thermostat for 8 hours a day can save around 1% on your electric bill. Set your thermostat 10 degrees different than normal when you are gone for your work day, and you are looking at a 10% savings. That is huge money every single month!
Don’t have a programmable thermostat? Trying picking one up! The Honeywell Home T5 Plus Thermostat is one of the best programmable thermostats on a budget. While spending slightly over $100 might seem counter-intuitive, the savings you will see will pay for that 10 fold in no time! Go jump start your savings!
2. Analyze Your Utility Bill
When is the last time you took a look at your electric bill? Do you know that you could have serious savings on your electric bill just be analyzing the bill and questioning any of the random charges you see? If you don’t know what the charge is for, call your utility company and see what they have to say. There could be something that could be negotiated down or removed all together. Any smalls savings will add up and compound into debt freedom and the life of your dreams!
3. Not Using It? Unplug it!
Have you ever heard of energy vampires? These are items that continue to use electricity even when seemingly not in use. That cell phone charger you leave plugged in all day every day? Yup that is continuously adding to your electric bill. There are so many energy vampires that they could account for upwards of 20% of your electric bill each month! Ouch!
But what can you do to stop these energy vampires from sucking the money from your wallet? The easiest thing is to just unplug it! It can’t be drawing power if its not attached to anything!
An easy way to turn everything off at once is to hook your electronics into a power strip. Just hit the off button on the power strip and power will stop being taking by everything plugged into it! Need some new power strips? Look no further than this GE 6 Outlet Surge Protector. It is just what you need to get the job done!
If you want something a little more fancy, there are what is called smart power strips. These power strips automatically detect when a device is not in use and cuts off power. Super easy as you can set it up and forget it. While more expensive than their basic cousins, the smart power strips leave nothing to chance. If its not in use, your power bill isn’t increasing. Take a look at the Bits Limited Smart Strip 7 Outlet Surge Protector.
4. Energy Efficient Appliances
A great way to save money on your electric bill is done when purchasing your appliances. Look for the energy efficient tag on appliances before buying. You can save upwards of 30% on your bill compared to your old, non-energy efficient appliance by switching. This will add HUGE savings to your electric bill each month.
Don’t forget your light bulbs! Per energy.gov, you could save between 25% and 80% by switching light bulbs in your home to those with the energy star. Such a small change, but not so small savings!
5. Take a Trip to the Basement
When you go down into your basement, is it the warmest part of your house in the winter and coolest part in the summer? If it is, your duct work is leaking out valuable air and making your system work harder to keep up with the demand in the rest of your house. How can you fix it? Insulate your duct work! It’s not as hard as it sounds. Get some duct tape and get insulating. In our basement, I have used a foil insulation product like this Double Bubble Reflective Foil Insulation from amazon. It is an easy upgrade to make to your home and can save serious dollars every month.
6. Take a Trip to the Basement – Part II
Is the water coming out of your faucet scalding hot? Do you need to be singed every time you turn the water on? I don’t think so! The good news is you can control it! Just go to where your water heater is, mine is in our basement, and turn the max temperature down! Not only will this save some skin from pain, but will also save on your electric bill as the water doesn’t need to be heated as high, using less energy. Turning the temperature down just 10 degrees can save you between 3% and 5%. Another easy change that won’t effect your life in the slightest, except for less burns!
7. Choose Renewable Energy
Have you ever received mail from a renewable energy company? I know I have! I even signed up for one! These companies offer to let you use clean energy to power your home, instead of the dirty alternatives. But how does that save you money?
Currently, we use Arcadia Power to supply the energy for our home. We signed up to use the community solar project they had on offer, which saves us $3.00 per month. That isn’t a ton, but on our last bill of $150, it is still a 2% savings. Any way you can save even a dollar will help in your battle against debt!
If your state offers multiple power suppliers, Arcadia Power has a price alert system. What does this mean? If Arcadia power is able to detect that you can receive a lower price from a different power generator, they will switch you over. This could be a huge potential savings, if it is applicable to you.
8. How You Clean Your Clothes Can Add Up!
The settings in which you wash you clothing on can really add up on the utility bill. An easy way to save money on your electric bill is to wash your clothing with cold water, instead of hot. You could save over 75% of the electricity in a cycle! Typically, washing machines spend the most energy on warming up the water to use in the cycle. If they don’t have to do that, then BAM! instant savings.
Is it a nice and warm sunny day outside? Try hanging your clothing out to dry! Drying clothes in a machine can easily cost you upwards of 40 cents an hour. By drying your clothes the old fashioned way, you are saving yourself some real cash!
Just the Beginning
The above tips are just the start of saving on utilities. No matter what you do, and how much you save, following any of the tips above will help you on your journey towards debt freedom.