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Family Budgeting – 13 Ways To Reduce Your Utility Bills

Webmaster | July 9, 2012 | no comments

As you likely know, the cost of heating and cooling your home always seems to go up and up.

When you add in the cost of water, sewer, and lights, you may be a very unhappy person when budgeting for these expenses.

Try implementing these 13 ways to reduce your utility bills.

Sure, some of them may seem hokey, or not worth the trouble, but over time, you’ll see significant savings.

1. Reduce your heating and cooling costs by keeping your thermostat at 60 degrees in the winter time and 78 in the summer months. Think 60 is too low? Put on another layer of clothing, or toss a blanket on while watching TV at night.

2. Lower your water heater temperature. Just be sure to keep it above 120 degrees.

3. Contact your local utility or state energy office to see if they offer free energy audits. An audit will likely amaze and stun you. With current technology, an energy auditor can tell you exactly where your home is losing energy and what you need to do in order to make your home as energy efficient as possible.

Your utilities may even offer rebates that can lower the cost of any improvements you need to make. In addition, you may be able to qualify for low interest loans for such projects. On top of this, you may be entitled to tax benefits when upgrading your home to increase its energy efficiency. Check with your tax advisor.

4. Replace your toilet with one that uses less water. In addition, replace your shower heads with low flow heads.

5. Make your home more energy efficient by adding insulation, caulking windows, using weather stripping on doors and windows, or even adding plastic on windows in the winter time. All of these projects can be handled as do it yourself projects.

6. Use fans and not air conditioners to cool your home.

7. Use clothes lines to dry your clothes. Not only is it expensive to operate a dryer, the heat wears out clothes faster. In addition, depending on the placement of your dryer, it could add a great deal of heat into your home in the summer months.

8. When replacing your washing machine, get a front loader. You’ll not only save a huge amount of water, you’ll also save up to 50% on energy use as well.

9. Take showers instead of baths. Limit the length of showers.

10. Replace all of your incandescent (old school) light bulbs with the newer extra efficient fluorescent bulbs.

11. Run your dishwasher only when completely full.

12. Fix leaky faucets and constantly running toilets.

13. Check with your utility to see if they offer any energy saving programs. For instance, some electric companies will offer to automatically shut off your household appliances during peak use hours each day. In return, they will offer you a lower rate for allowing them to do this.

Article by Bruce Guzman

About the Author : Bruce has been writing personal finance issues since 2008. In addition to his writing, Bruce also operates a number of informative web sites. You can check out his latest website here: Used Shipping Containers featuring Used Cargo Containers