I just read my dear hubby’s post about our energy bill reduction. He called me at work to tell me the energy bill had went down from $342 to $210 a month on the budget billing. I could hear the excitement in his voice. He is analytic, analyzing the numbers like he did in his post. As a woman, mother, and wife saving on the gas and electric bill means $132 more dollars a month that we can put on other bills, such as the house payment, groceries, or gas for the car.
We bought a fixer upper 4 years ago(2005). Like many people, thinking that real estate was always a great bet, we kept taking out the equity on the house and doing the repairs the house needed. As a result, we have a huge house payment. We were paying our bills on time, but lived paycheck to paycheck.
My husband is a realtor. I am a nurse. With our last child in high school everything seemed to be going good, until….The older adult children moved back in with the grandchildren,The real estate market tanked, and the health insurance my employer “gave us” increased to $800 a month for three people! It is no wonder how our family got into such a financial crunch.
All of these previously unknown situations occurring, along with trying to totally rehab a 90 year old home, made us take a long introspective. We had all been wasteful, actually spending money like we had it! Throwing away items that still had some useful life, just because it was more convenient. My husband has owned his own company for a long time and I had heard him say on several occasions that there are only two solutions to any financial issue: decrease expenses or increase income, but preferably BOTH.
We understood why we had a drastic decrease in income, so we decided first to take a look at lowering our living expenses. How could we decrease our bills? We decided we had to be more conscientious of our actions. We started paying attention to ways to conserve on resources and our budget.
We took out our checkbook and categorized our overall expenses, where were we spending money? The first category that hit us hard was “Dining Out”! Some $300 per month was spent at the local eateries. Whether it be the sit down restaurants or fast-food, we spent a large chunk to not cook at home! This spread to my ordering out for lunch everyday at work. On average I was spending $10 per day for lunch. snacks, and soda’s while at work. This added an additional $200 per month that was truly unnecessary. Just these two major items together would add an additional $500 per month to the money we would have for bills and expenses.
We took a strong look at our grocery expense. We thought since we were not eating out as much and I would start taking a lunch to work, that our grocery bill would necessarily skyrocket, but to our surprise, the increase was negligible. We started to compare store prices. We looked through the local store ads to start buying quantity of things we used that were on sale for a good price. Along with looking for the great price, we added the step of coupon clipping, which reduced the great price even more. Some trips we were able to save as much as 70% off what would have been our total bill. Extreme Couponing caught our attention, although we are not as adamant as those you see on television, there is great benefit to being a savvy grocery coupon shopper.
Then we looked at ways to cut energy costs. (This had started when the gas prices were going up to $4.00 a gallon.)We stopped unnecessary trips and no more leisure drives. If we were going to a different part of town we would do everything we had to do on that side of town on that one trip. Stores, Gas, Doctors appointment; we did our best to take advantage of having to be in a certain area of town. This saved us gas overall, although I don’t have the actual numbers, I am sure my husband probably does, somewhere!
We looked at things like the gas and electric bill because that was something that we could change. We started reminding everyone in the family to turn off the lights when they left a room. Then we started doing research and found that the CFL’s(Compact Fluorescent Lighbulb) were a lot cheaper to run than regular light bulbs. We took a couple of months to buy and replace with the new energy conserving light bulbs, so it did not cost a lot at once. We have replaced every bulb with energy efficient bulbs, along with only using lighting-and other electrical appliances-when necessary.
When it got cold outside we would walk around the house and find the drafts. It was easier to find the leaks on a windy day. We followed the drafts to the source and closed them up with insulation or foam. If it was a costly repair, we covered it until enough money could be saved to do the repair properly.Our living room has always been very cold in the winter or very warm in the summer. A cold draft came from under the stairway by our front door. We went downstairs and removed a flimsy piece of wood and found two huge holes where the electrical wiring went outside to the porch. The cold air was just rushing into the house like there was no wall at all. We used insulating foam to fill the holes.
Another thing we did was have a seamstress make us living room shades. They are a heavy fabric filled with an insulation. They work like putting a quilt over the windows: the shades keep the cold out in the winter and the cool in during the summer.They actually work quite well as a passive energy source, as long as you remember to open or close them based on the time of year. The living room is actually very comfortable now, no matter the time of year. The shades are worth every penny we paid for them.
We went through the house with some caulking and foam insulation and filled more cracks. We actually put plastic on a couple of old windows we hadn’t updated yet. We realize the plastic isn’t eco-friendly but when compared to how much energy we were wasting/using we think it is still eco-friendly. We are going to continue to use the plastic over these windows when it warms up so the summer heat doesn’t warm up the house. The plastic they have for windows now doesn’t look bad, you really can’t tell it is there, if it is properly installed and stretched with a hair-dryer.
When our grand daughter goes to bed our programmable thermostat turns the heat down to 60 degrees automatically. Pile on the bed covers! We are all in our bedrooms tucked in by that time, and actually we all sleep much better. The thermostat kicks the heat up to 65 degrees at 5:30 am to start to warm the house before we start getting up at 5:30 am. Of course this temperature works for us, but for some people 60 degrees in the house would be too cold. It’s a matter of preference, but it is much easier to snuggle under the blankets or put on a sweatshirt than to allow that excess energy to go out the windows. (or doors, or roof) During the day, after the grand-daughter goes to school the thermostat turns the heat back down to 60 degrees again, until she comes home from school and it will be go back up to 65 degrees. The programmable thermostat is wonderful and very helpful in conserving energy.
We take a walk through the house at bedtime to make sure everything is turned off. We make sure all the “energy vampires”, items that still draw power even when not in use) are turned off, like the microwave, LED lighting, and the TV in the front room. We use the computer Smart Strips so that they turn off all the peripherals on the computer and other electronic devices.
The bottom line is that we created our financial situation ourselves. But we know we can work together to correct it. We will be more conscientious of our spending and being wasteful. Just making simple changes helped us save money and energy. Yes, we can make the changes to do this and so can you! We have listed many money saving ideas on our site, so take a look and feel free to Contact Us with your stories or suggestions.
