How To Reduce Your Home Energy Expenses

When you find ways to save money on your daily expenses, you make more money available for saving and investing, two of my favorite activities.  One oft-overlooked area in which to save money is your energy costs.  Here are some tips for lowering your electric bill to give you more money to save and invest in more productive areas:

Switch To A Laptop

The monitor alone of your desktop computer uses more electricity in a week than running a laptop two to three times as long!

Reduce Phantom Energy Consumption

Many of the appliances and electronics in your home draw electricity even when they’re turned off and not in use.  Consider your microwave, coffee maker, dvd players and anything else with flashing lights or digital clocks that are plugged in and turned on even when not in use.  You should to unplug these electronics to prevent them from drawing electricity.  Well, maybe unplugging your alarm clock would be a bad idea, but there’s no reason you can’t pull the plug on many other major appliances when they’re not in use.

Energy Efficient Appliances

While it doesn’t make sense to run out and replace expensive appliances with newer, energy efficient models if the old ones are still working fine – as your older appliances stop working and need to be replaced, make sure you’re replacing them with the energy efficient types.  Most carry an “Energy Star” logo, and will show you the average savings in both energy consumption and cost to run.  Many energy efficient appliances can use less than 30% of the energy that’s required by older models to operate (although some critics maintain the Energy Star label is a sham).  There are tax rebates for purchasing many Energy Star appliances.

Wash In Cold Water

You can wash your clothes in cold water instead of hot and you won’t need to run the electricity to heat the water.  Clothes washed in cold water come out just as clean as those washed in hot water.

Hang Clothes To Dry

If it’s warm and dry enough outside, you can reap significant savings hanging your clothes to air dry rather than running your dryer.  You can even hang clothes outside in the winter, as long as the temperatures are above freezing.  When you must use the clothes dryer to dry your clothing, make sure to keep the lint trap cleaned out.  If the lint trap isn’t cleaned out frequently, the dryer has to work much harder to dry the clothes and will require more energy to get the job done.

Check For Drafts

In the winter, stand near each of your windows to see if you can feel cold air slipping through.  If you do, not only are you letting cold air in which causes your heat to run more, but you’re helping to heat the outdoors as your warm air slips out through the cracks!  Use caulk to seal the windows, or purchase inexpensive plastic sheets that can be shrink wrapped with a blow dryer to your windows during the winter months to help seal out cold air and seal in warm air.

These are just a few tips for saving on your household energy use and reducing your electric bill.  If you are consistent with turning off lights and monitoring energy use, you’ll notice your electricity bill decrease – put those savings to good use!