I have turned over a new leaf when it comes to using electricity.
You know, like so many other things in life, a high electric bill sneaks up on you. Let me tell you a little secret…our electric bill was $171 last month. You might say, “Hey, that’s not bad.” But wait…there are only two of us living here.
Now, if you live in the South where you use air conditioning much of the time, this might not seem high to you. Or, if you live in New York or Connecticut, this most likely won’t seem high to you either. We do have some crazy high electric rates over here. Just call that another bargain of living in the Northeast.
For some reason, I got ticked off the other day. I started realizing how much wasted electricity we use. I guess that since we are using it, it isn’t being wasted, right? No. We are wasting it. Here is how:
- Filling the dishwasher with plates that have mere crumbs on them. We could easily just rinse them off
- Having our light timers set to shut off after midnight when we go to sleep around 11PM
- Putting my Jiu Jitsu gi in the dryer when I can easily hang it to dry
These are just a few examples. Did you notice that both the dishwasher and dryer were in those examples? That’s right. They were there because they are energy hungry appliances. Since they are so handy, many of us forget what they cost to run. I have contemplated the idea of putting a sign on each one of them that says “$2.50″ or something like that. I think that would do the trick. Of course I am not going to do that because I will surely make enemies with whom I live.
Yesterday, I also replaced our automatic outdoor light fixture light bulbs with CFLs. I know these fixtures call for regular incandescent bulbs and are only on for a few minutes, but the cheap bulbs these things came with burn out very quickly. I have used the CFLs in our previous house’s lighting fixtures with great success. I am not sure of the energy savings here, but I bet these bulbs are going to last longer than the other ones.
Can you think of any other quick and easy tips for reducing our electric bill? If so, please leave a comment.
CFL bulb in outdoor lighting fixture
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Hi. I found your site looking for grass seed information. As for the electricity, you might want to get a “Kill-A-Watt” device. You can plug things into it to see what is using the most power. You might be surprised to see what some older appliances are using. Older refrigerators and televisions can use quite a bit of power. EnergyStar.gov has pretty good information on where to look.
I have replaced all of the lights in the house with CFLs, but you might also want to look at the new LED bulbs as well.
I replaced my refrigerator with an Energy star model.
A programmable thermostat helps too. I have the Honeywell Vision Pro. Its a nice unit with auto switchover ( heat to AC and back ) and has different settings for the time of day and day of week. I also like that when we go on vacation, I can set the thermostat high and low for several days. Last time we went on vacation, I set the AC to 82 degrees and the heat to 58 degrees for 10 days. It all went back to normal the night before we got back. I also do this when we go out for several hours.
Your electronics can also consume a lot of power. Check them with the “kill-a-watt” both on and off. If you have something like an older plasma TV, it can consume a couple hundred watts just in standby. You could put things like this on a drop strip or maybe even a wall switch.
Sorry if you knew any of this already.