52 Money Save Ways: Week 9: Watch Your Electricity

52 Money Save Ways: Week 9: Watch Your Electricity

We are back for another week of Money Save Ways tips that will help you “trim the fat” from your spending habits and keep more money in your wallet. This series of Money Save Ways tips is to accompany the 52 Week Money Challenge. If you are following along, this week you should deposit $9 into your savings or $44 if you are doing it in reverse.

52 Money Save Ways: Week 9: Watch Your Electricity

It’s a classic money saving tip, but you may have shrugged it off as it’s no big deal because it is so simple and you didn’t think it would make much of a difference, but trying to cut your electricity use in your home can really save you a lot of money in the long run. One winter, we did this and saw our bill go down by $30 simply by being conscious on how much we were using.

There are several ways you can watch your electricity use, and depending on the season, these can change but here are some to get you started:

Unplug when not in use. It may seem silly as far as saving electricity, but if you have appliances that are plugged in when you are not using them such as the TV, Toaster, Coffee maker and even your washer and dryer, you are paying for it. Electricity continues to run through these appliances even if you are not actively using them just simply because they are plugged into the wall. Get in the habit of unplugging, even if it is just when you go to bed at night or leave the house and you will start to see a couple dollars come off your bill each month.

Use fans to distribute heat and cool. In the winter, use fans to help point heat in the right direction and in the summer, make sure cool air is moving around the house effectively by using fans. Don’t make your air conditioning work harder by not giving it a leg up. When we did this, we found that our home stayed cool and the air conditioning didn’t need to kick on all day.

Weatherize your home. People often think of weatherizing as something you really need to do in the winter, but if your home is sealed well, you will see it stay cooler in the summer as well. Simply applying new weather stripping on doors as well as making sure to check for leaks of air can make a huge difference. One trick to check for these leaks is to get near suspected ones with a lit candle. Blow the candle out. If the smoke does not go straight up like it should, you have an air leak.

Shut off when not in use. This means everything from the lights to electronic devices. A lot of people keep their computers on all the time, only putting them on “sleep” mode when they are done for the night or day. Turn them off and you will not only be saving electricity, but the fans inside your computer as well. Don’t run the TV as background noise. Instead, if you like to not sit in silence, run a radio. It uses much less energy.

I hope these tips can help you save some money on your electrical bill this year. Make sure you come back next week for another Money Save Way Tip. To see previous week’s tips, click on the links below. Make sure you download the 52 Week Money Challenge Tracker as well.

Are you still doing the challenge? Just joining? You can still jump in- we’re just in week 8. Check out the first post 52 Week Money Challenge to learn more how it works and to get started!

• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 8: Turn Off The Tv
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 7: Drink More Water
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 6: Maintain your car
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 5: Reap the Rewards
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 4: Practice the Waiting Game
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 3: Buy Seasonings in Bulk
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 2: Buy Your Clothes Used
• 52 Money Save Ways: Week 1: Make Lists
• 52 Week Money Challenge
• 52 Week Money Challenge Tracker (Printable and Electronic Versions)