I am always on the look out for ways to save money. Unfortunately, many of our monthly bills are on a set rate and cannot be changed no matter what I do. The one place I can save is our electricity bill. We just bought our first home, and I'm worried about the cost of electricity because it's much bigger. Our last place was a two bedroom apartment, and our electricity bill was about $100 a month. The previous owner here was paying about $150 a month, but didn't have as many electronics as my husband and I do, which concerns me. These are some of the ways I plan to help keep our electricity bill at a reasonable rate.
Unplugging
When I was a young child my father would tell me to turn off the light in a room when I left it. This was his way of controlling the how high the bill got. As an adult, I still try to turn the light off when leaving a room, but I know I have to do more to really make a difference. One of the things that usually gets overlooked is the amount of electricity items use when they are off. My husband and I plan to keep things we aren't using unplugged to prevent them from wasting power.
Turning off the television
I am the guilty party here. I always have the TV on, even if I'm not really watching it. We have a large plasma television that uses a lot of energy, which can be costly. When we got the TV I noticed our average bill went up by about $5 a month. To help keep our bill on the lower end, I plan to turn off the TV when I'm not actually watching it. I'm not sure how much of a difference it will make, but even a dollar or two savings will be worth it.
Learning to live at 72 degrees
This one is going to the most difficult for me. I cannot stand to be hot, I loathe it. It changes my mood in a split second, which makes me and everyone around me miserable. In the winter time I'm perfectly happy leaving the heat off and cuddling under a blanket, so we don't use much power then. Summer time is a completely different story. If I had it my way (and I usually do), the thermostat would be set at 68 degrees, but I know that would destroy my budget here. Our power company recommends setting the thermostat to 72 degrees and leaving it there to save money in the hot weather months. As much as I don't want to, I'm going to follow their advice. It will take some getting used to, but I'm hopeful it will save us some money along the way.
There is no way to know exactly how much money we will save by making these changes. However, if we save just $5 a month that's $60 a year in total savings. I can use that money to pay another bill, or for an evening out with my husband.
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