Hope you all had some great time this weekend and are ready to discuss some more money saving tips.
Each month, our utility bills get a chunk of our paycheck. While some things cannot be improved upon, when it comes to energy savings, we can clearly be smarter about it. I’d like to start an article series and slowly prepare us a list of the best things we can do to save money on energy each month.
1. Use economic light bulbs
Here in Europe it’s pretty difficult to find a ‘regular’ light bulb. Most of the ones we can buy now are the ‘economy’ ones, which we initially hated (we dislike change), but then saw their use. The electricity consumption is way lower than with the old type and the light they produce is still very good. We didn’t believe they work this way, until we saw some changes in our electricity bills.
2. Get modern energy efficient appliances
My folks had some older appliances at home (the fridge, washing machine etc.) that we changed with some new ones few years ago. All ‘A Class‘ when it came to being energy efficient. We didn’t really care too much about saving money on our energy bill, we were just happy to get some new stuff. And yet, after a month, the electricity bill really made us smile, the new appliances were clearly not using as much energy as the old ones.
3. Don’t have all the lights turned on
Many people have all kinds of lights in their homes and love using them all. While it’s good to have some very bright lights turned on when you’re entertaining or need to really see well, if you really need less lighting, turn off some of them.
4. Have you left the room? Turn off the light!
For many years we didn’t really care about this, but it does make sense now, as we’re trying to pay less for our electricity consumption. If we’re leaving a room to eat or take a bath for instance, we’ll turn off the lights until we return. Whether it’s 5 minutes or an hour, it does make sense to not use the lights as long as no one is there.
5. Wash the clothing when you have a full load
We do love clean clothes and will never advise anyone not to wash theirs either. Still, it doesn’t make sense to run the washing machine with 3-4 blouses, so make sure you have a full load, which is not too difficult to accomplish when there are at least 2-3 people in the house.
6. Use the dryer only when it’s needed
We don’t use a dryer here for 2 reasons (it takes too much space and we love hanging our clothes to dry). If it’s spring, summer or early autumn, your clothes will dry in few hours. And smell FRESH. Even in winter, while they take a bit longer to dry, they’re still smelling amazing and saving you money by not being dried in a machine.
7. If you’re using your PC, don’t keep the TV tuned on
There’s an issue I usually have with people who keep their TVs turned on all day. Maybe because I personally hate it, but still .. if you’re reading, using your PC or doing anything else than watching TV, turn it off. You can turn it on when you really need it. Cutting down hours upon hours of having your TV turned on and ignored by the entire family will clearly make a change in your electricity bill.
These are the first tips in our ‘how to save money on electricity‘ series. Please feel free to share your own tricks.
We do all of these things. It’s really easy to get a power strip for all electronics that is turned completely off when not in use. We use the CFL bulbs but I’m really interested in the LED variety. They are expensive but last forever.
Great to hear about it. Even small changes in the way we use our electrical appliances can really make a big change in how much we spend each month.
I wish that I had some way to auto-program the lights in my house to turn off each night at a certain time. My kids have an awful habit of leaving them on, even when nobody is in the room!
They’ll learn as they grow 🙂
The ‘kill switch’ wouldn’t be a bad idea though …
My fiance always has the TV running in the background of whatever he is doing, and I can’t stand the noise. It’s so loud and distracting!
I also hate noise, especially when I’m working or reading. When I do watch something on my laptop I always keep my headphones on, so that I don’t annoy anyone else in the room. Looks like our significant others don’t care about our comfort as much as we do about theirs 😀
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