I know I have been reading lately about how everyone has been saving power. How have you saved power mainly? I want to really start saving money on our power bill and could use all the tips you can hand out to me. Please feel free to share as much power saving tips to me. Are you unplugging things? Lights off at certain times? Etc. How much money are you saving on your power bill? The summertime is coming.

Well for me I know that I make it a habit to always shut the lights off in rooms that we are not in and during the day we try not to use the lights as much as possible and if we need light then we just open the curtains. I do unplug somethings as well when they are not being used.

__________________
SAHM to Elias 3/00, Camdyn 7/03 and Teagan 5/08

I don't know how much savings these are b/c I really have always done them but I know our bill is less many of our neighbors. Some things we do in addition to morrismomaof2's ideas are to
-line dry- especially in summer
-use fans/windows if at all possible
- I plan meals and try to limit indoor cooking. Use grill frequently and make several meals at a time - like boil pasta for a dinner tonight and make extra for pasta salad later in the week. Can even freeze pasta salad and it turns out okay. I make sun tea rather than boiling the water on the stove
- If running a/c make sure all doors/windows are sealed efficiently. If you are gone during the day, turn the thermostat up so you aren't cooling empty space
- Close blinds in windows getting direct sunlight, during the day so that the heat isn't entering home so much.

I'm sure there are a ton more ideas out there. HTH!

A few other ideas include .....

If you have an electric hot water heater see if you can insulate it and check the the temp...with little ones I have it set at 120 degrees.

I have some lights on timers so I am not walking into a dark house but do not need to leave big lights on

I only wash full loads of clothes and in cold water if able

Only use the dishwasher when it is full ... also open the door when the wash cycle is done and air dry

Turning off lights when not in use ... if able get the more energy efficient lightbulbs ... yes they are upfront a little bit more however, they use less wattage than traditional for the same output and will last years longer.

Do not leave the television on for company. If you are not watching it turn it off.

If you are cooking in the oven one meal make the sides to go with that meal in the oven .... for example if you are making a roast chicken have baked potatoes, roasted veggies that way you are using the same amount of energy for the entire meal instead of also using the stovetop.

HTH

I use the toaster oven 90% of the time when I need to bake something (rather than the big oven) and I stopped making cookies & brownies. It was bad for our waistlines and our power!

__________________

Change your computer powersettings so that the computer will turn off the monitor after 5 minutes of non use, go to sleep after 10 minutes of non use and 15 of non use go into hybernation - better still every time you leave your pc , put it to sleep. - the monitor and the pc will use less electricy that way.

We turn off our hot water heater when we leave for work, and then turn it on when we get back - apparently it uses 40% of your electricity bill. So for me its pointless to have hot water available when no one is at home or needing to use it anyway.

Make sure your television is turnned off properly and not at the remote , as it is actually on standby - therefore wasting electricity - we turn all of it off at the switch.

If you can rather use celing fans than standing fans as they use much less electricty than the standing fans - air cons of course need more, however we dont have to use them here.

Make sure your freezer has been defrosted lately, that thick crust of ice surronding your freezer uses more electricity than when there is little or no ice. We found out our thermostat of our fridge was broken and was running for like an hour instead of a few minutes to keep the fridge cool - when that was fixed we noticed a diffrence in the electricy consumption of the house.

How do you turn it off? I had no idea it uses that much electricity.