I’ve been looking back at some of the changes I’ve made
over the last year to reduce my expenses and free up more cash to pay towards
debt. Besides the food bill which I
looked at last post, the energy bills are also a big chunk of the monthly
budget. To cut energy costs I made the
following top five changes:
#1: Cold water washing: This was an experiment at first to see if cold
water washing would get our stuff as clean as using hot/ warm temps in the
washer. I was pleasantly surprised to
find that I couldn’t tell any difference in the cleanness of the laundry and
have noticed that our darks are staying darker which can also be due to my next
change…
#2: Line drying: Our washer and dryer are out of
the way in a corner of the basement so we hung a couple clothes lines from the
ceiling, put a stackable flat racks for sweaters, and a folding rack for the
smaller stuff and started letting our clothes air dry. Sheets and towels still get tossed in the
dryer. It’s more work but it saves
electricity and is also easier on our clothes.
#3: Thermostat battle: The one thing we did that
is still a constant battle for me is turning the thermostat up in the summer
and down in the winter. The summer’s not
too bad for me but S hates it when the thermostat is set at 78. During the winter we have the opposite
problem where I’m freezing at 60 and he’s loving it. But in the name of savings we have toughed it
out as much as possible.
#4: Smaller energy items: We switched all our
bulbs to compact fluorescents and have been making sure we turn off the lights
when we absolutely don’t need them on (which is a lot harder to do than I would
have thought). We are also turning off or
completely unplugging more of our smaller electronic items when not in use.
#5: Cook wiser: This is probably a teeny amount of
savings but we’re trying to be more aware of the energy we use in the kitchen
for cooking. Like when I heat up the
oven I try to use it for multiple meals instead of just the next one we are preparing
to eat. This has actually been really
helpful in having lunches ready for work and already prepared dinners for the
nights we are too busy to cook. Also, we’ve
been making sure we’re using the lowest temp on the stove or oven required and
using the right size burner on the stove.
Because we’ve only lived in this place for a year and I
implemented all the changes when we moved in plus we moved from Florida to
Massachusetts where energy costs and consumption are different, it’s hard for
me to estimate how much these things have actually saved. However, the elderly gentleman who lived in
our place before us shared some of his previous year’s bills with us before we
moved in to help us budget so I’ve been comparing the costs. Our January bill for electric was $114 and
gas was $69. His bill from last January
was $162 for electric and $147 for gas.
His bills for April were $170 and $33 while ours were $77 and $11.
I know it’s not really accurate but using his cost as a
baseline means we saved around $120 per month by making relatively minor
changes to our lives or at the very least we are $120 smarter about how we use
energy!
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