If the title of our article resonates with you, you are not alone. The average American spends 115 dollars a month on electricity bills, many of us even more. We’re talking about a lot of money here, which you could use on other things rather than this constant headache-inducing shocker at the end of every month.
Luckily, you have wound up in the right place. In this post, I will guide you through systemic changes you can make to your energy use across several fronts, which, when applied, will leave your utility bill a fraction of what it once was.
We all know that we could control the utility bill by plugging out everything that uses electricity.
But you don’t want to do that because the trade-off in comfort isn’t worth it.
Well, that’s the (incorrect) popular perception anyway, believe it or not, but you can decimate your bill without necessarily having to sacrifice your daily comforts.
Tips to Drop Your Utility Bill
We all know to turn the lights off when we’re not in a room. Going a bit deeper than that, here are some easy changes you could make which will make a dent in your bill without you having to work too hard.
Lighting
Replace all of your current light bulbs with LEDs. While you might scoff at the upfront cost of buying a couple of dozen light bulbs, this is most certainly a change you want to make. Incandescent light bulbs cost more than four times as much as LEDs to run, making the swap a change that will pay for itself in no time.
Laundry
Laundry is a significant consumer of electricity in most households. Here are some easy tips by which you can help keep its cost under control.
- Using dryer balls will increase the contact between wet clothing and hot air from the dryer, meaning the dryer has to run for less time leading to savings.
- Cleaning lint out of your dryer’s exhaust semi-regularly with a lint removing kit will increase airflow, allowing the dryer to run more efficiently.
- Probably the best thing you could do with the dryer, though, is to forgo it entirely and line dry your laundry instead. Smaller, quick-dry items certainly do not need the dryer, and you could extend that argument to a lot more than just gym clothes.
- Make sure you wash your clothes with cold water. While in the past, warm water was somewhat of a necessity for getting stains to come off, modern scientific advances in detergents have made that “no longer the case”. Using cold water comes at little to no trade-off in the effectiveness of your wash and saves money on heating.
- Avoiding peak hours by doing your laundry early in the morning or at night is another change you can make to cut costs.
Windows
Many people are surprised to hear how significant an impact your window situation can have on energy costs. In the summer, heat comes through, leading to extra costs in air conditioning, and in the winter, heat should be encouraged to come through to decrease reliance on heating.
Using window shades and placing plants near windows to block out the sun, prevent heat from coming in during the summer, and clean out your windows by removing oils and residue to allow for sunlight during the winter will lead to better temperature regulation without costs.
Tankless Water Heater
You will have probably noticed from these tips by now that hot water costs quite a lot, and making sure you are not using as much as you have to is a rather important thing to do.
Another way to deal with it is to solve the problem at its core by making hot water less expensive. Install a tankless water heater instead of the regular water heater with a tank (which loses heat to the surroundings, constantly driving up electricity costs).
Tankless water heaters heat water on-demand, as it’s needed. This method of doing so can cut hot water costs by over 50% and is certainly worth considering as an investment. Lastly, tankless water heaters have an exceptionally long service life which ups the value of installing one as a long-term investment.
