In this day and age, money can be very tight so it’s always a good idea to figure out a way to not spend money needlessly and then it can be freed up for more important expenditures. One easy way to save money is to look at your overall household bills and see which ones can be shaved a bit. Consolidating your internet, phone, and cable services is one quick way. Call your provider and see what bundles are available or shop around – lots of companies provide incentives if you switch to them.
Other bills such as your home heating and cooling bills can be looked at to see which months cost you the most money and therefore offer the larger possibility to save the most money too. When it comes to paying those home heating and cooling bills, here are a few ways to get them down that won’t break the bank in order to make that happen.
- Take a look at your thermostat and where it’s positioned. Make sure that it is not placed in a drafty area or on a cold outside wall or even too close to another heat source. This can affect the ability to give out a correct reading. So if the thermostat is near a heater, it can think that the overall temperature of the house is too hot, so it will crank up the air conditioner unnecessarily.
- If you are going out or away for a few days in row, turn the thermostat right down. If it is the dead of winter, you don’t want to turn it off. Then you have a risk of pipes freezing which you certainly don’t want to happen, but keeping the temperature way lower than you would need it to be when you are there, just makes sense. There is no point in keeping the house warm if you are not in it.
- Set the thermostat and leave it. Turning it up and down and up and down waste energy. So try to pick a temperature that you can live with and leave it alone while you are home. When you are going to sleep, it’s a great idea to turn it down a few notches and just put an extra blanket on your bed. That will save a lot of money over time.
- When you are going to have quite a few people over, especially over the holiday season, then believe it or not, it’s a great idea to let them heat your house instead of your heater… and other than feeding them, it’s free! Lots of people together in one room while generate a significant amount of heat, so it’s a money saver if you just turn the thermostat down a few notches before them come over, then just leave it down when you head off to sleep. The money you save on your home heating bill if you entertain a lot might even be enough to pay for a housekeeper to clean up afterwards!