Learn How To Save on Power Bills – 10 Helpful Tips!
When it comes to cutting back on expenses, one of the best ways to do so is to save on your power bill. Saving electricity bill is a lot easier than you might think, and doesn’t require the same personal sacrifice that cutting back in other areas would.
But, if you follow these tips… BEWARE of MUCH LOWER POWER BILLS, seriously you may just faint when you get your next bill! 😉
This of course begs the question of just how much money one can actually save. Well, this would naturally depend on how much you’re paying for electricity in the first place. While this might not be the best way to save money for an apartment dweller who only pays about $50 a month, this could be a godsend for someone who’s monthly electricity bill is $150 or more (which is most anyone living in a medium-sized home).
Now, there are many different tips to save on electric bill costs. While I’m sure that most out there will lower your energy bill some, not all of them are worth the effort. Take this example:
One reads about unplugging appliances to cut down energy bills. So they take up the habit of constantly unplugging and plugging in their appliances.
They keep this up for a while and at the end of the month, are disappointed to see very little (if any at all) change in their electric bill. This is because that while unplugging your appliances will save some energy, it’s not worth the trouble.
Therefore, what you need to learn is how to have a cheap electric bill EFFECTIVELY. This is what you’re about to find below. Keep reading and you’ll find a list of tips on how to cut down energy bills effectively.
Discover How to Save on Electricity Bill with these 10 Tips…
As we’re only going to be looking at the most effective ways to get a lower power bill, we’re going to be focusing on only a few key areas. Those would be:
- Heating & Cooling
- Water Heating
- Large Appliances
Other areas such as lighting and general (smaller) appliances could yield some savings, but they typically don’t cost all that much to begin with, and are not really worth much attention. They of course could be addressed at a later time to further optimize one’s home.
The reason the three aforementioned areas were selected is because combined, they make up about 80% of your monthly bill. So effectively reducing the amount of electricity spent on them would have the greatest impact on your overall bill.
OK, so let’s get onto the tips themselves:
Save on Electricity Costs with Heating & Cooling
1. Close air vents in unused rooms. This is good for both summer and winter as there is no sense in cooling/warming rooms that
are unused. Just be sure to close the doors to those unused spaces and to not close the vents in the room containing the thermostat.
2. Keep the filter clean. Regular cleaning and/or replacing of the filter ensures not only that your a/c system is operating easily, but also that the air in your home is clean.
3. Get a programmable thermostat. It lets you pre-program your a/c so that it turns on and off whenever you want it to. No more leaving it on all day by accident. You can also set it to adjust the temperature at night for better energy saving.
4. Installing an Electric Saver in your home is another great way to save. It will recycle the electricity that your a/c & other motor drive appliances currently waste and by doin g this you need less energy supplied from your utility company.
You can save 15% on your whole energy bill with just this one.
Reduce Electricity Bill Costs by Tweaking your Water Heating 🙂
1. Get your water heater proper insulation. While this may not be such an issue with newer water heaters, it definitely is with older ones.
insulate-water-heater
If you touch your water heater and feel warmth, you need insulation. You can get it at your local home improvement store, either in sheets you’ll need to cut down to size, or as pre-sized jackets you just slip onto the heater.
2. Wash clothes and dishes with cold water. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need hot water to get a good wash. In fact, hot water makes stains set more thoroughly and causes shrinkage. As for dishes, if you need hot water to deal with heavy grease, only use it for a moment.
3. Ensure you have NO leaky fixtures. If hot water is leaking, that’s an easy way to add $30 or more to your bill. Way cheaper to just fix the sink than to keep paying out.
Save on Electric Costs with Large Appliances
1. Set your fridge so that it is only about 40° and freezer to 32°. This is plenty cold enough to keep food fresh and any colder is just a waste.
2. Unplug your TV, stereo and disc players when you’re not using them. These types of appliances still draw some electricity even when turned off. This is especially true of newer models as they never fully turn off (they usually keep a little red light on all the time). As an alternative, you can plug these devices into a smart power strip, which will essentially do this for you automatically. This also can be applied to microwaves, other small kitchen appliances and anything else that doesn’t need to be constantly hooked up to electricity.
3. When washing clothes, a lesser number of large loads rather than a larger number of small loads will save electricity. The size of the load doesn’t much affect the amount of electricity used, so fewer loads will use less electricity.
With the above tips all in full force, you could easily start saving 20% or more on your monthly power bill. This may not seem like much, but think of it this way: every 5 months, you get 1 month of electricity for free. Also, look at it in terms of yearly savings. 20% of a $200 electric bill adds up to $480 yearly savings. Not too bad for when the holidays come around. To learn more on how to reduce electric bill, click here!