Surviving the Recession – Money Saving Tips from your Highlands County Realtors – Tip #1 – Your electric bill
Your A/C -for the first 26 years of my life (which is almost half of my life but keep that between you and me, okay?) I lived in a non-airconditioned environment. Yes, these days they sell portable room air conditioners in Germany but in the good ol’ days, millions of Germans made it through hot summers without air conditioning. I’m in no way suggesting you retire your A/C unit – this is Florida, after all! However, does your home need to be a constant 78 degrees while you are at work all day long? Do you need to cool the entire home at night if you could get away with just cooling the bedrooms with more energy efficient window units? Do you really need to run the A/C at all once daytime temps drop down into the 70’s?
Your Hot Waterheater – purchase a timer (at Home Depot for around 30 bucks) and set it for an hour in the morning before everyone gets up and takes a shower and another hour at night. Unless you are trying to break the world record in continuous showering or dish washing, there is really no reason why your hot water heater should heat water 24 hours a day.
Your Light Bulbs – Replace your incandescent light bulbs with flourescent light bulbs (CFL). Each bulb will save about $30 over its lifetime and pays for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75% less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.
Your Computer – turn it off when you are not using it for an extended amount of time! Home electronics use energy even when they are in “stand by” mode.
Your Pool - Instead of running your pool pump for 4 hours a day, try and see what happens if you only run it for 3 hours. If it doesn’t go green, try out 2 1/2 hours. Still not green? Try 2 hours. Increase the frequency but cut down the length of each run time. No kidding, we run ours for 2 hours each day, 15 minutes each time. It’s crystal clear.
Your Clothes Dryer – the Florida sun dries your laundry for FREE! No, it’s not as convenient as your dryer because you have to hang up your laundry and take it down but when you look at it, hanging up laundry and taking it down is nothing more but a free workout. By not using your dryer, not only will you lower your electricity bill, you can also cancel your gym membership! Two for the price of one, I’m loving it!
Give it a try for 4 weeks and see how much money you have saved when you get your next electric bill.
We hope this article about Surviving the Recession was helpful to you. If you have more tips and tricks about saving electricity, we’d love to hear from you……please comment.