15 Techniques to Help Lower Your Electric Bills
There’s nothing “electric” (as the kids say) about opening a $200-plus electric bill. In fact, few sights drain your energy, optimism, and checking account like a perennially inflated utility bill.
The most depressing part about paying out the nose for lights is that, by and large, we can’t live without electricity. Thisis particularly true for those who must survive the Florida summer or the Montana winter. Nobody is asking you to embrace year-round hot yoga or a Scandinavian degree of cold tolerance.
Even $20 saved per month can be a windfall over a decade, so it’s worth exploring every available bill-slashing technique.
1. Fewer Cycles, Lower Bills
Your dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer should be packed tighter than a subway car at rush hour. When it comes to appliances that require long run times, high heat, and a substantial amount of power, less use is more money in your bank account.
Some other laundry-specific tips include buying higher-quality liquid detergent (rather than pods) and using less per cycle, minding the heat settings, and utilizing a drying line if your lifestyle enables it. The dryer is particularly cost-ineffective, so letting the wind dry your clothes is a frugal move.
2. Use Your Television’s Auto Power-Off Settings
It’s terrible for your sleep quality to doze off with the television on. This habit is similarly destructive to your bank account.
Ideally, you’ll ditch the habit of sleep-watching and retreat to a dark room (replete with the blackout shades that are saving you money). If you insist on falling asleep to reruns of The Office, get familiar with your TV’s sleep timer. Television manufacturers included the sleep timer feature for a reason, and it’s to spare you the cost of an all-night Office marathon you’re not even watching.
3. Consider a Change of Bulb
Personally, you couldn’t pay me enough to swap amber-colored Edison bulbs for the harsh, sterile glare of white LED bulbs. However, others don’t mind the look of LEDs, and may even invest in the bulbs that change colors at your whim.
The average household can save about $225 per year by switching to LED bulbs from less energy-efficient alternatives. While $225 does not go as far as it used to, it can quickly snowball if invested wisely.
4. Consolidate Your Chargers
The modern American cannot live life without a cadre of chargers. Laptops, cell phones, back massagers, and countless other daily-use items require a charger. Yet, those chargers spend most of their existence plugged into the wall with no device to transfer the power to.
Plugged-in chargers cost money. If you can consolidate your chargers in a dedicated area of your home (and plug them into a single power strip), you can reduce the number of dispersed chargers slowly sapping your energy bill budget.
5. Stop Saving Your Screens
Train yourself. When you see the light of a screen that’s not being used, you should have the same sensory response you’d experience if you saw a baby crawling towards an unfenced swimming pool.
Something is horribly wrong if the iPad or MacBook screen is glowing with nobody in front of it. Whether it’s a screensaver, a malfunctioning computer mouse, or a misaligned power setting causing the screen to activate, nip it in the bud. Active screens are actively pumping your power bill.
6. Weather-Proof Your Home
Vietnam veterans may still have lingering anxiety when they hear the word “draft.” Homeowners should develop a similar response to the word “draft.”
Hot air leaking in and cool air leaking out of your home (or the inverse during the cold season) is a frightening prospect. Whether you install new weather stripping, apply tape to window slots, or hire a pro to thoroughly weatherproof your home, make drafts a thing of the past.
7. Utilize Power Strips With Switches
Power strips are one of the greatest investments one can make. They extend your wall outlets and multiply the number of devices you can power from a single source. Power strips also stand between a sudden power surge and the lives of your electronics and appliances.
Power strips also make it far easier to save money on electric bills. Merely flip the switch on the power strip, and as many as six devices immediately stop drawing power. It’s time to strip the unnecessary charges from your electric bill.
8. Don’t Charge Your Devices Beyond Their Limits
The term “push it to the limit” should not apply to your laptop or iPhone. While the cost of charging personal electronics is relatively modest, why pay a cent more than you need to?
When you need to charge your phone or laptop, plug in the charger, power the device up, then unplug the charger. Leaving the charger plugged in and locked on your device longer than you must means wasting money.
9. When Upgrading Electronics and Appliances, Consider Energy Efficiency
Not all electronics and appliances are similarly efficient. When it comes time to purchase a new refrigerator or television, do some homework regarding the relative efficiency of each prospective product.
The Energy Star designation is one of the tip-offs that an energy-dependent device or appliance is specifically designedto reduce your electric bill. However, you may do general research into the energy efficiency of a given product, as the Energy Star certification is not always a relevant consideration.
10. Incentivize Family Members to Save You Money
If regularly turning off the lights in the unused upstairs game room saves you $100 annually (by your crude estimation), make the savings work to your advantage.
Say you challenge your kids to see who can turn the lights off the most times per month. Paying the winner $5 per month leaves you $80 in energy savings once you account for the winner’s cut. Plus, you’ll save on a future knee replacement by making the kids climb the stairs rather than doing it yourself.
11. Consider Solar
Solar remains a somewhat controversial technology. There is disagreement about whether or not solar power is adequate for the purposes it’s proposed for and whether the investment in solar panels justifies the financial rewards.
The cost can be worth reducing energy bills for those who can achieve near energy independence with solar panels and batteries—specifically those who live in small spaces. Do your research, seek honest solar brokers, and determine if an upfront investment in solar tech could produce long-term savings.
12. Test Your Temperature Limits
While the estimates vary by year and source, it’s generally accepted that lowering your thermostat by one degree can increase your electric bill by about 3% per month. The inverse may be true in the winter for those who use electric heat sources.
By this logic, learning to live at 76 degrees rather than 72 degrees would produce a 12% decrease in your energy bill. Whether these savings are worth the relative discomfort is a case-by-case consideration. We just present the information. Do with it what you will.
13. Black Out
The phrase “black out” takes on a different meaning as you evolve from a carefree college student into a bill-paying adult. We’re not referring to the last frat party here, but instead, we are talking about the type of shades that can save you double-digit percentages on your electric bill.
Blinds, blackout shades, adhesive film, and shutters are among the many barriers that can decrease your home’s internal temperature. Reducing the burden on your A/C unit always pays dividends, making strategic shades a sound investment.
14. Unplug Devices You Never Use
Admittedly, unplugging devices that you regularly use is pretty impractical. For many plugged-in items, like lamps, the “off” switch is sufficient to stop the energy draw.
However, some items like chargers, printers, televisions, coffee makers, and gaming consoles continue to draw electricity even when you turn them off. If you don’t use these devices often, it costs you nothing to unplug them. In fact, it might actually save you some money.
15. Take Ad-Fan-Tage of the Fan
If you’re not a fan of fans, you’re rooting for the wrong team. Consider switching allegiances to the Miami Dol-fans or the Carolina Fan-thers as football season gets into gear.
The financial difference between fans and air conditioners isn’t close. Fans use about 1% of the energy that your air conditioner does. The money that buys you 15 minutes of air conditioner use would cover an entire day and night of fan time. Turn the A/C down a few degrees and put the fan on full blast—you won’t notice the difference now, and you absolutely will when the energy bill arrives.
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