5 Ways to Decrease Household Expenses

1. Turn Your Thermostat Down (Way Down)

 

 

Many people have heard the rule about turning your thermostat down by 2 - 3 degrees in the winter and up by the same amount in the summer. However, depending upon where you live, you may be able to get away with even more drastic cuts to energy consumption.

If your thermostat is set for 72 degrees for the winter for example, can you stand to roll it back to something like 65? Some people are naturally prone to getting colds, so living this way might not be the best idea for them. For others who are relatively healthy, this simple move could save you hundreds over the course of the winter. Pulling the thermostat up to 78 or 80 during the summer could do the same thing. Of course, turning your heating and cooling units off altogether during the milder seasons of fall and spring is how you could find yourself saving loads in energy bills and saving your cooling and heating appliances some wear and tear.

Practicing this method has reduced my energy bills by about 70%. I used to pay around $150 per month in gas and electric when I lived alone. Then, after starting to monitor the thermostat more closely, with the help of my husband, the bills came down to between $90 and $100 per month, with another person living with me. In theory, my energy bill should have (nearly) doubled, but it went down, just by taking this simple step.

 

 

 

2. Get a Wood-burning Stove

 

Many models aren't exorbitantly expensive, and you can burn things besides wood in them (nothing dangerous like Styrofoam, of course!). A wood-burning stove is a great way to heat a room without the added cost of gas or electric furnaces. The value goes up if you have a home with only a couple of people living in it. Heating the living room, for instance, and having everyone do the majority of their activities there (watching television, playing on a computer, talking on the phone, doing homework, etc.) instead of in their own rooms means everyone is able to share each moment of available heat, instead of spending extra money to make sure that multiple rooms are comfortably heated all at the same time. Also, if you can get by one burning fallen branches, twigs, and leaves from your yard, you wouldn't have to spend much, if anything, on actual firewood.

My grandmother has a model like the one below. She has a relatively small living room area, but it's just her, and she's chronically cold, so the stove has really helped her be able to be comfortable without sky-high bills.

 

 

3. A Manual Mower

Using a manual lawn mower (or "push mower ") may not sound very attractive at first, but your wallet will be thanking you later. Because you don't have to buy fuel for an automatic mower, you'll be saving money. An added bonus is that a push mower allows a chance for you to incorporate exercise into your home maintenance, so you're killing two birds with one stone. Depending upon how fit you are and what kind of time commitment you're willing to make may determine whether or not using a push mower is really a feasible step. Most people have one yard or another that could be mowed relatively quickly with a push mower (usually the front yard). Feel free to then use your automatic mower for the rest of your property. Even this change can cut your fuel costs by as much as half, depending upon the size of your property.

I got one for my home when I first bought it since the property is only about a tenth of an acre, and most of that is the home itself. The most maintenance needed is a blade sharpening, and I still haven't needed to do that in the nearly 4 years I've been using the mower.

 

 

4. Hang Dry and Cold Wash

 

Washing your clothes in cold or warm water, as opposed to hot, decreases the energy used to heat the water. And hanging your clothes, inside or outside, to dry instead of using the dryer is a great way to reduce the cost of operating the dryer for multiple loads of clothes.

 

 

5. Day of Energy Sin

 

Pick one day during the week (strangely enough, this usually ends up being Sunday for most people) on which you can go (relatively) wild with the energy usage. On this day, the laundry gets done, TV shows on your DVR get watched, home-wide vacuuming is completed, and hot meals for the week are cooked. This way, you have one day to get it all done, then you don't do it throughout the week. In this manner, you save money because you don't do laundry every single day, or vacuum individual rooms all throughout the week, or use the stove to cook meals all throughout the week. When we get into the habit of doing these energy-consuming activities every day, we're likely to use much more energy than we would if we confined it all to within a single day, and made the energy used on The Day of Energy Sin last all week long.

Let me know if any of these tips are part of your bill-saving routine, or if there are any others not mentioned here that you swear by.