Are looking for how to save money on electric bill without spending a small fortune first, here are twelve simple tips for you to try out today.
If you’re like me, your electric bill is one of your biggest living expenses each month. How to save money on electric bill becomes a challenge in order to lower expenses.
Many people give tips for lowering their electric bill that require even more money and even hiring others to perform tasks around your house.
Here you’ll see that you can get some real savings out of making several small and inexpensive changes around your house.
After learning these helpful tips, you’ll have some quick things to implement right away.
This post is all about how to save money on electric bill and twelve simple ways to get started today.
Table of Contents
Take advantage of natural light
A great way to save money on your electricity is to take advantage of any natural light that comes into your home.
Instead of turning on the lights in your home, allow the sun to come in and light your rooms.
There are many benefits to using natural light in your home including the killing of bacteria and your exposure to natural vitamin D.
Use LED light bulbs
One of the best tips on how to save money on electric bill is to use LED bulbs. There are many different types of bulbs available, and they all use different amounts of electricity to run.
According to the Department of Energy, LED bulbs use the least amount of electricity, and they need to be changed less often than incandescent bulbs.
LED’s have been found to be up to 80% more efficient than using incandescent bulbs in your home. It costs roughly $1.32 to operate one LED bulb, as opposed to $6.60 to operate one incandescent bulb.
This can lead to a very significant savings on your electricity bill.
Through Amazon, you can pick up a pack of 24 LED bulbs for only $20.
Use cold water to wash your clothes
There is more than one advantage to washing your clothes in cold water. To begin with, you can avoid using hot water, which will lower your electricity bill.
According to one calculation, washing your clothes in hot or warm water will cost an average of $.68 a load. On the other hand, washing on cold averages about $.04 a load.
Another advantage to washing your clothes in cold water is that they will last longer, fade less, shrink less, and come out with fewer wrinkles. This can also cut down on the amount of ironing you need to do, thus saving more electricity.
This tip will not only save money on your electricity bill, but it can also help you save money on purchasing new clothes.
Line dry your laundry
Similar to the benefits of washing your clothes in cold water, there are multiple advantages to line drying your clothes.
According to Saving Electricity, the average savings per year by line drying is around $193. That is significant savings.
Other advantages to line drying include saving on dryer sheets, it doesn’t heat up your home, and it’s gentler on clothes, so that they last longer.
Implementing both washing your clothes in cold water and line drying could potentially save you up to $1.13 per load on average.
Turn off or Unplug any game systems
One surprisingly high use of electricity in your home might be gaming systems. I was shocked a few years ago to learn just how much power game systems use, even when they aren’t in use.
This article by Living Energy shows that just two hours of gameplay a day can add up to $29.50 a year to your electric bill. However, in standby mode, your game system can still use up to 15 watts.
By turning off or unplugging your game consoles, you can save up to 1411 watts per week.
If you’re using a gaming computer, the amount of energy used is even more shocking. One researcher found out that graphics cards can use between 300 and 500 watts alone.
If you’re like me, this information is staggering. By making the change to turn off your game systems when not in use, instead of just leaving them in standby mode or unplugging them could lead to a large amount of savings each month.
Air dry your dishes
My family started using this money saving technique about 10 years ago. Instead of turning on the heated dry feature on the dishwasher, we leave it off. Once the dishes have finished, we open the washer and let them air dry.
According to this homeguide, you can save about 15% of your dishwasher’s energy usage by making this simple change.
{RELATED POST: Save More Money with These 5 Unconventional Tips}
Use task lighting when possible
When possible, it can be a great electricity saver to use a lamp, instead of full room lighting. The savings would be based on the number of bulbs you normally use in your overhead lights.
If you opt for using a single bulb, instead of 4-6 bulbs at a time, you can save quite a big. If you pair that with using a lamp with LED lights, you can save even further.
This highly rated lamp from Amazon has four brightness levels and a USB charging port.
Change your air filter regularly
The air filter’s job is to collect the dust and particles that would normally clog up your air conditioning system. By changing it regularly, you keep this from happening.
If your system becomes clogged, it doesn’t work as efficiently, which means it has to work harder to heat and cool your home.
This guide suggests you should change it on a regular basis based on what type of filter your system uses. If you’re using fiberglass filters, it’s recommended you change them every 30 days. If you’re using the pleated air filters, they can last anywhere from 3 to 6 months.
The manual for your HVAC system should give you the recommended changing schedule for best efficiency.
Use timers on electronics that plug in
Of all of the ways discussed on how to save money on electric bill, this is the one that I like using the most. Using timers is a quick and cheap way to make sure that electronics that plug into the wall don’t stay on all of the time.
You can simply plug a lamp or other small device into a timer, which then plugs into the wall. You can set it for the number of hours that you’d like that item to be on.
This ensures that the item shuts off at the normal time that you leave the house or go to bed.
On many timers, there are two sets of controls, so you can have the item on for a period of time in the mornings and a different period of time in the evenings, if you want.
These wall timers also have an on/off switch, so if you need that item on or off outside of timer hours, it is a quick flip of the switch.
These timers available on Amazon are great for indoor use year round.
Turn off unused lights
Well, if you’re like me you might have heard your mom say this to you over and over when you were a kid…turn off the lights when you leave the room. All of those reminders are completely valid, since the Department of Energy reports the cost to light your home makes up about 20% of the electricity used.
If you opt for switching out your bulbs to LED’s, you’ll already save money, but you can further reduce your electric bill by being sure to turn off all lights when not necessary.
If you are using incandescent or halogen lighting in your home, you could be spending an additional $24 a year by leaving 10 bulbs on for just one extra hour a day. This may not seem like much, but often if bulbs are left on, they are on for a lot longer than just one extra hour.
In this case, follow mom’s advice and turn off the lights when you leave a room.
Use a Crock-Pot instead of the oven
An excellent tip for how to save money on electric bill is to use a crock-pot or slow cooker instead of your oven. This tip can also save you time on a busy day.
According to one source, the average crock-pot uses approximately 120 volts, and over the course of 8 hours of cooking, it will use only .9kWh. That is quite a bit less electricity than your oven would use.
In addition, using a crock-pot will not heat up your home, so it will also save money by not needing to run your air conditioner to cool your home down during cooking.
Check out this highly recommended digital crock-pot shifts to the warm setting after the cook time is complete.
I’m also trying new recipes in this Taste of Home Slow Cooker cookbook, if you want to try them out with me.
Shop around for lower rates
This tip may or may not work in your area, but if you are able to choose your electricity provider, this can potentially save you considerable money.
I live in Texas, and here we have the opportunity to choose our electricity providers. One thing that is obvious when choosing a provider is that there are large discounts offered to new customers.
Unfortunately, most continuing customers are not privy to those savings.
To use this information to your advantage, you can sign up for an introductory rate with a different provider each year.
If your area allows you to choose your provider, looking into changing providers for the best rates could be an excellent way to save money on electric bill.
I hope you try out some of these tips on how to save money on electric bill.
Do you have other ways that you use around your home to save money on your electric bill? I’d love for you to share them with us in a comment below.
