No matter how much money you may have it is important to all of us to save as much as we can. After searching around the internet and finding the same old ideas on how to cut your electric bill I decided I was going to come up with some ideas of my own. We all know how we should turn off the lights in the rooms that we are not using and raise our thermostat in the summer, lower it in the winter, and so forth but I knew there had to be more that could be done to lower our electric bills. This is what I learned.
Putting up dark curtains on all the windows in your home. This will save you a ton on air conditioning in the summer and you can open the curtains in the winter to let the sun warm your home. If you live in an old drafty house like I do it is best to leave them closed in the winter in order to keep your heat from escaping. I invested in thermal curtains for my entire house finding them at a resale shop for about one dollar per panel.
Buying a few fans will help air circulate in your house, keep you cool in the summer, and help to keep your heat from rising to the attic in the winter. I purchased 5 fans for my house from the dollar store we have here in town, each fan cost me about 15 dollars and I have been able to raise my thermostat to 75 degrees this summer. Sometimes even that seems to cold and we have to raise it even more.
I have also started hanging my clothes out to dry. Since it is summer and the sun is free, there is less damage to our clothes and they smell so amazing when they are hung out to dry I decided to give it a shot. I now get more laundry done on laundry day because it takes less time for them to dry, I am getting more, and I have cut my electric bill by a few hundred dollars each month.
Did you know that even though you have turned off an appliance it is still using electricity? When you turn off your television, computer, or are done charging your cell phone unplug them. Do not leave the cell phone charger plugged into the wall, unplug anything you are not using and you will see a huge drop in your electric bill.
I now wash all of my clothes in cold water and do my dishes by hand. I am saving money by not having my water heater fill up several times per day, and by not having to replace clothes as often. By doing dishes by hand I am once again saving on my water heater having to fill up, saving all the electric used by the dish washer, and the air conditioning needed to cool the house after the dish washer has run.
If you look around your house, you will be able to find things that you can change in order to save money on your electric bill. Remember, even the smallest of things do add up over the period of a year so any change you can make will help you in the long run.
