Saving Money on My Electric Bill

One of the things I noticed when working on the first budget was how much money we are spending on electricity. My electric bill for last month was about $280! That is more than double the amount we budgeted for groceries, so it is time to figure out ways to make that number a little smaller. Here are some strategies my family is going to try in an effort to reduce our electricity bill:

Adjust the thermostat.

I am guessing one of the biggest reasons the bill was so high was our use of the air conditioning. I like it cold, sometime too cold! At night, we lower the air to 70 degrees (it used to be 68), and then we raise it during the day. I am fortunate enough to have a programmable thermostat in my house. I have it set to go up to 73 about an hour before we wake up, and then 78 after we leave for the day. It goes back down to 73 about an hour before we get home, and 70 at 8:00pm.

First, we are going to raise each setting by one degree. So at night it will be set to 71, and then 79 while we are at work. I am also raising it an hour earlier in the morning, and turning it down an hour later at night. We will see how this works.

Keep the blinds closed during the day.

Keeping light out will keep the temperature down inside, and will probably make the air-conditioner work less. We aren't home during the day anyway, so we might as well keep the blinds closed. In the winter, it may be wise to do the opposite.

Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs.

While it's probably not going to make the dent in my bill that the thermostat will, everything I have read leads me to believe that it will help. When we bought our house, we decided that whenever a bulb dies we will replace it with a fluorescent one. So, we have been buying them when they go on sale all along. We check the hardware store circulars each week, and every now and then their are some pretty good sales.

It's only been a few days but the one thing I have noticed is that these bulbs give off much less heat. Maybe this will help with the air conditioning as well.

Turn the lights off when leaving the room.

Duh.

Charge the cell phone in other places.

I am not sure how much of a dent this will make, I am still looking around online to see if anyone has studied this. For now though, I will charge it in my car.

Here are some other things I saw online about saving money on electricity:

http://www.howisavemoney.net/save-money/5-tips-save-money-electricity/

I'll add more as I see them...

We'll see at the end of this month how much this helps. If you have any other ideas, please share in the comments!

Comments

[click4credit]

i have read in other blogs/ sites that turning off appliances is not enough. You have to unplug it as plugged appliances still consume electricity even when turned off.

[Business Electricity]

I am very glad to see these lovely and excellent detail. Wonderful posting !!