“Turn off your lights!” “Were you born in a barn? Shut the door!” “Times up! Get out of the shower!” -me, to my kids-*
Just a few tweaks here and there can add up to big savings when it comes to your utility bill. Even if you save a little each month, that savings really adds up month after month!
We certainly aren’t perfect in this area, but we’ve been working on it and have seen some decent savings. We’ve lowered our bill up to $25 per month** (depending on the month), mostly by doing the following 3 things. Do everything on this list and you could see huge monthly savings. Let’s see how low you can go! (If you want to take it a bit further, see the bonus tips below.)
3 Best Ways to Lower Your Utility Bill
1. Adjust your thermostat
I know, I know – this seems pretty obvious, right? But this is one of the main things you need to do to keep your utility costs down. We keep our thermostat set higher during the summer (at 78 degrees) and lower in the winter (we’ve went as low as 62 degrees when gas was expensive, but now keep it around 67 degrees since gas prices dropped).
Are you literally uncomfortable with these temperatures? Just try it for a while and I promise, you will get used to it. Adjust your clothing accordingly and give it time, as your mind and body will get accustomed to your new indoor temperatures.(I wear a fleece jacket all winter since I get cold easily.)
Are you the person that still manually adjusts your thermostat? Stop doing that! Use a programmable thermostat and set it at temperatures that challenge your comfort a bit. After that, don’t touch it! If you’re uncomfortable, change your clothes, add a blanket, or turn on a fan so you become comfortable.
2. Use only LED light bulbs
Until we replaced all of our incandescent and compact fluorescent light bulbs with LED bulbs and experienced the savings first hand, I would’ve never believed how much difference this could make. Our electric bill dropped $10-$15/month after replacing all of our light bulbs.
Though the LED bulbs are still slightly more expensive, the prices have come down significantly over the past couple of years and the additional cost will more than pay for itself in short order.
When we were working on replacing all of our light bulbs with LEDs, we spread out the cost by looking for sales and rebates and picking up a few each month so we weren’t hit with the total cost of replacement all at once.
Plus – don’t forget to turn off the lights when you’re not in a room! This adds up faster than you think. Make it a habit!
3. Help out your furnace/air conditioner (or turn it off!)
First, consider if you need to have your furnace or air conditioner running at all. Are the temperatures outside moderate? If so, turn it off, open the windows and use fans as needed. We have a few months (spring/fall) when we don’t have to use our furnace or a/c (our utility bill drops 40% during this time).
If you do have your furnace or a/c running, help it out by doing the following:
- Close blinds/curtains during the sunny days when it’s hot and open them on those sunny days when it’s cold.
- Is the air temperature outside cool at night, but hot during the day? Open the windows at night and close them first thing in the morning to keep that cool air trapped during the day.
- Use ceiling fans and/or the fan on your HVAC unit to keep air moving. Remember, ceiling fans have a winter/summer switch – make sure you have it on the correct setting for the season.
- Limit opening exterior doors during extreme temperatures (and if you have an attached garage, keep it closed)
- On very hot days, don’t use your oven! In the summer, we use our outdoor grill and crockpot to keep the house from heating up. If we need the oven, we use it early morning or late evening.
- Add additional insulation to your walls/attic, weather stripping to windows/doors, and insulate electrical outlets with foam inserts.**
Bonus Tips
- Lower the temperature on your hot water heater
- Wrap your hot water heater in a water heater blanket
- Install motion sensor light switches if you have forgetful people living with you
- When appliances die or windows need replaced, replace them with energy efficient models (and check for rebates through your utility company)
- Change the filter and have your furnace/air conditioning unit checked/cleaned each year
- Get an energy audit from your local utility company. Some utility companies offer this service and provide a few free efficient light bulbs, hot water heater wraps, low flow shower head, etc.
- Install low flow water faucets/aerators
*I’m really not a mean mom, promise!
**Rates vary from region to region. We live in the Midwest, with extreme seasonal temperatures (-20 degrees F in the winter on up to 100 degrees F in the summer) and our electric/propane usage runs us an average of $115/month for a 1900 square foot house. Now you know 🙂 )
***We added insulation to our attic this winter and our house was so much warmer, plus the furnace ran less. And yes, we DIYed it (of course). We rented the machine – I fed the machine while my husband used the hose to blow in the insulation. Doing our entire attic only took a couple of hours on a Friday night – so, if you’re looking for date night ideas… 😉 !
Great tips Amanda! We have ticked back our thermostat during the winter months to save on heating cost. One tip I have used with my kids with the electric bill is I’ve showed them the bill. The understand how much it cost each month. So when I tell them to turn the TV off or unplug a power cord that has nothing plugged into it they have a good sense for the reason why and it’s not dad just being “crazy” again. 🙂
Thanks, Brian! Love this “…they have a good sense for the reason why and it’s not dad just being “crazy” again.” My kids think I’m being crazy a lot! 🙂 I really like the idea of sharing the bill with them to show them differences in usage (maybe then my daughter would turn off her lights!).
I’m constantly telling anyone and everyone to close the refrigerator. Not just at my house, but anywhere. My brothers are some of the worst offenders. When we are all home together like at the holidays I always see them sitting there with the fridge open… Such a waste!
Ahh, yes, the refrigerator door! I’m familiar with this problem? 😉 I do my best to stop it when I see it.
These are solid tips Amanda and ones that we have been using at our house as well. A few comments:
– LED’s are awesome and they don’t get hot to the touch which is a nice bonus
– installing ceiling fans makes such a huge difference and it’s usually an easy DIY job
– lowering the thermostat in the winter is tough to do when you have a teenage girl running around complaining that she is freezing and that “NO ONE!” keeps their house that cold
– programmable thermostats like you mentioned are a huge effort saver
Have a great weekend!
Thanks for the comments, Jon! We use our ceiling fans most of the time to keep the air moving, no matter what the season (and we’ve installed several- it’s not hard at all!). I get complaints about the cold in the winter too (and I may have been known to state my discomfort a time or two) – I put an extra blanket on their bed and tell them to wear a jacket (I’m sooo mean!).
You have a wonderful weekend as well!
Great list of tips, I sometimes play a game with myself to see how long I can stand it without the heater on and we don’t have AC so that really saves us a lot of money in the summer (although at the expense of our comfort sometimes.. renting life isn’t so glamorous when the house doesn’t come with things like AC – but that saves us money on rent too).
Another thing that really saves quite a bit is buying those adapters that attach to power draining appliances that sit on standby mode (I have no idea what the proper name is for these handy adapters); I am so glad we have one for our TV! It even has a timer box that you can set for a max of 3 hours – the little timer lights up and counts down until everything is switched off if there hasn’t been any use of the TV remote for the set amount of time – genius if you’re prone to falling asleep in front of the TV.
I also always make sure to turn off other appliances at the wall (the ones that we don’t have standby adapters for), such as the washing machine, toaster (not sure how much it helps for these appliances that don’t go into standby.. but surely it helps with safety too). Don’t forget the printer – if you don’t turn the printer off you’ll probably notice it’s always sitting there idle, waiting to be woken up by a print job sent through the airwaves.. costing you precious energy and money!
Jasmin
All great tips, Jasmin! Thanks so much for adding these! Though I’m pretty good about keeping appliances and electronics unplugged and turned off, I am guilty of the printer being plugged in all the time (and it’s really not used that much!). I am going to turn that off now!
I do the same with the heating/air conditioning in our house. We don’t run either in the spring/fall months, but I like to see how long I can go without using them. When I get several complaints from other family members, I do turn it on, but just enough to be a bit more comfortable. 🙂
I’m glad you found my printer tip helpful! I’m also glad I’m not the only one who plays the “avoid the heating/cooling as long as possible” game.
Jasmin
LOL, I am constantly telling our kids to get out of the shower too!! I have to admit I’m a baby about air conditioning and heating. I don’t have much tolerance for cold or heat.
Hi Laurie! Oh, the shower. Don’t even get me started on the length of the showers around here :)! I can take the heat pretty well, but I get cold really easily, which means fleece jackets and 3 pairs of socks in the winter (+ a blanket!).
This is definitely an area where people throw away money. I watched my electric bill go up year after year and I have seen the difference since I have been more on top of it. Better light bulbs, a better air conditioner, shutting the power surge that my cable box is on every day… my bill has actually gone down. From summer highs of $250, to $170 on average this year. Very exciting. Great tips, Amanda…
Thanks, Linda! I love that you’ve been able to save so much. Your savings is very impressive – $80/month is a huge! I admit, though I have the electric and gas bill under control, I need to work on my water bill (maybe a future post!) – it seems to be creeping up on me year after year, but rates have been steadily climbing too.
I just hear my mom yelling all those things to me haha. Great tips and they can make a significant difference in savings!
At least I know I’m not the only one! Thanks, Stefan!
I bet it’s a struggle over there without A/C during the summer? It’s been so hot here this summer, for once!
All great tips. Even just turning down the thermostat by one degree can make a huge difference to the bill, and makes no noticeable difference to the temperature.
Insulation is so important, as you mentioned. We are lucky because we have a new house so the insulation is top spec.
Thanks, Francesca! The A/C definitely makes life more comfortable here during the summer. Yes, even small little changes can make a big difference!
Great job lowering your utility bill by $25 a month! I haven’t heard of switching light bulbs to LED light bulbs.. until today that is :p I’m always looking to save a few dollars here and there and I think that these are great tips! Every time that I come home, I try to use less air conditioner than I need to to save money but living in the south during the summers have made that exceptionally difficult. Time to go to the library to save on my electricity bills!
Thanks! You really should try the LED bulbs – I think you’ll find they pay for themselves in short order. Going to the library to save electricity – that’s one I hadn’t though of, but I suppose that helps 😉
A lot of people suggest opening the windows, and I wish I could do this! With allergies, though, the worst thing you can do is open your windows. So we keep ours shut year-round, which obviously isn’t ideal for our furnace/air conditioner, but it does help with our health.
We save a lot of money by putting our thermostat down since we both work 9-5. This is an especially big win in the Winter!
Oh yes, turning down the furnace during the winter saves us a ton. We buy propane, so we like to see how long we can go between fill ups, so we keep the house a bit cool in the winter (at night we keep it in the low 60s, during the day 66-68, depending on who is home).
Too bad about not being able to open up the windows. But, I understand, it is much better to keep the windows shut then to be miserable!
Very helpful, Amanda!
We need to change our lightbulbs to LED Bulbs and work on temperature setting. I’ll have to go do some convincing — maybe this article can help.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Francis! The LEDs really do help! Go slowly adjusting the temps so it’s not so noticeable. Eventually, everyone will get used to it!
These are great tips. Sometimes in the summer, though, a microwave or crock pot just won’t do the job so we got a toaster oven- it’s much more efficient than our actual oven and is perfect for ‘real’ cooking in the summer.
Yes, Julie! That’s a great point. We do use the toaster oven sometimes, as it heats up more quickly than the oven and really doesn’t tend to heat up the kitchen.
We put our ceiling and floor fans to work, especially since we live in an apartment building and like to muffle out the sound of our neighbors. Living in a small space has also allowed us to spend less on utilities. A few square feet makes a huge difference in the utility bill, we found out.
Thanks, Alexis! Fans can really help keep the air moving and I understand wanting to muffle sounds, particularly at night. Great point on the square footage. A smaller living space tend to have smaller bills!
Such foreign concepts! We don’t have thermostats, furnaces, A/Cs here. We have a fireplace and use a portable heater in the bedroom. We’ve only lived here a few months and need to work through replacing the bulbs in the various rooms. I try to be good about turning things off at the wall and I mostly do. That said I’m willing to pay whatever it takes to keep warm in winter. Planning to add more roof insulation which will hopefully help with bills next winter.
I suppose with mild temperatures, no A/C or furnace would be necessary. I use our portable heater in the winter if propane is more expensive than electricity, but sometimes it gets so cold, the little heater just won’t cut it. Adding insulation would definitely help keep the bills lower!
Recently my 3 year old son spent a weekend at his grandparents’ house. Apparently he spent the whole weekend scolding good grandma for leaving lights on because she was ‘costing money’. He’s learning well :).
Wow! What a smart little guy! You’re teaching him well early. I’m sure grandma got a kick out of his response! 🙂