Do you always dread receiving your monthly electricity bills because you are almost sure that what you are going to find in there would not be pleasant to you? If YES, here are 12 bad habits you must break to save more money on electric bills.
Before i go further, i want you to know that you are not alone. In fact, you are just one of the millions of consumers who steadily complain about their energy bills every month.
However, most consumers don’t realize that they are mostly responsible for the huge energy bills they get every month. You get bills for what you use and the only way to stop getting those huge crazy bills is to break some of the habits that you have formed over the years that lead to energy wastage and eventually, huge bills.
Saving More Money on Electric Bills – 21 Bad Habits You Must Break
- Stop Leaving Appliances Plugged in
Those appliances that you do not use, but leave plugged in, are consuming energy and adding to your electricity bills. Whether you are using them or not, as long as you plug them in, they are consuming some energy, so make it a habit to always unplug your electrical appliances and plug them in only when you need to use them.
2. Reduce the Number of Gadgets you Buy, and Stop Unnecessary Charging
You may have a mobile phone, laptop, tablet, portable game system, electric shavers and toothbrushes and other devices that need to be charged using electricity.
The more devices you have, the more electricity expenses you would incur because you would have to keep charging them. It is best to choose devices that are battery or solar-powered so you don’t have to use electricity to charge them, but if you can’t find alternatives, you can conserve electricity by charging your devices only when the batteries run down and unplug your chargers and adapters whenever you are not charging.
3. Turn off the Lights When You are Away
Make a habit of turning the lights in your room off as soon as you step out of the room. Room lights should only be on when you need them for seeing and when you are present, otherwise; all lights should be switched off during the day.
4. Stop Washing Partial Loads of Dishes and Clothes
Your dishwasher and washing machine consume energy each time you use them and the same amount of energy that would be consumed when washing partial loads is consumed for full loads. You can reduce the number of times you use your dishwasher and washing machine by waiting until you have a full load before you begin your washing cycle.
5. Always Reset Your Thermostat
If you use a manual thermostat, you should always try to reset it frequently so as to save energy. You can save up to 15% on your home energy bills just by resetting your thermostat when you wake up, before going to bed and before leaving your home.
6. Don’t take hot baths daily
A hot bath helps you relax, no doubt but do you know that a 10-minute hot shower would have you consume 20 gallons of water? And that’s even when your shower is set to ‘low flow’. Now imagine how much energy that would be required to heat up such volume of water every day or maybe twice in a day for one month.
7. Close Your Microwave Door
Do you often forget to shut the door to your microwave oven when you take out your food from it or when you are using it? Well, this right here is another reason why your energy bills are through the roof. When you leave the door open, you consume 23 watts more energy than when you close the doors.
8. Use Energy Saving Appliances
There is a new trend amongst manufacturers of electric appliances. They understand that their consumers have been dealing with challenges of consumption of electricity and in response; they have started manufacturing power-saving versions of their appliances.
You may consider changing your electrical appliances to power-saving versions to save more on your electricity bills. Some traditional appliances also have their energy saving modes so you can check to see if your appliances do and consider switching them on.
9. Keep Your Windows Shut When Your AC is On
If your windows are left open when your air conditioning system is on, it leads to a waste of energy and high electricity bills so make sure your windows are kept shut whenever you need to use your AC.
10. Replace your light bulbs
Incandescent light bulbs consume a lot of energy so consider replacing them with LED or CFL bulbs. These versions are more expensive but they help you save significant amounts of energy eventually because they don’t use a lot of energy. You should also check properly when you are purchasing your light bulbs and avoid buying bulbs that are too big or too bright for the rooms where you intend to use them.
11. Use Dimmer Switches
You don’t need your bulbs to be bright at all times; sometimes, you just need a little bit of light to prevent the space from being too dark. If you use a dimmer switch, you can reduce the amount of energy your light bulbs would consume by dimming the lights from time to time.
12. Use Motion Sensors for Exterior Lights
Most of the time, you have to leave your exterior lights on for security purposes and at other times, you need them for easy navigation around the house.
With a motion sensor, you wouldn’t have to keep all your light bulbs on just for this. The sensor would automatically detect when there is movement around the house, and would switch the bulbs on to allow you see what is going on outside or move around the exterior part of your house easily.
13. Plant Trees on the Sunny Side of Your Home
You can protect your home from the harsh rays of sunlight in summer that generates so much heat and increases your need for a cooling system. If you can plant some trees to provide shade on the sunny side of your home, you would be able to significantly reduce your energy consumption.
14. Stock up Your Refrigerator
You probably didn’t know this but an empty refrigerator consumes a lot more energy compared with when you fill it up with stuff. Make sure your refrigerator is always fully loaded. Even when you don’t really have much stuff to put in it, fill large containers with water and place them in your refrigerator to occupy the empty space so as to reduce energy consumption.
15. Turn off Your Oven Before the Meal is Cooked
When your food is almost done, you can switch off your ovens, microwave ovens or electric stove and allow the heat to finish off the cooking. You can save considerable amount of energy this way.
16. Avoid Opening Your Refrigerator too Many Times
Before you begin preparing your meal, you should first take out all the ingredients that you need to use from your refrigerator. It is more energy efficient to do this than to keep opening and closing your refrigerator door each time you need to take out one ingredient.
17. Use a Lid on Your Pot Whenever You need to Cook
Don’t cook without the lid on your pot as covering it up helps heat to accumulate faster and reduce cooking time and this translates to energy saving.
18. Keep Your Washing Machine Temperature on Cold
Don’t waste unnecessary energy by using warm water to wash your clothes. Your detergent would lather up just fine whether you set your washer’s temperature to warm or cold so it’s better to use the cold mode so as to save the extra energy that would be required to heat up the water.
19. Air-Dry Your Light Fabrics
If you have clothes that can dry up easily in the sun, don’t use your dryer for them, save some energy by air-drying them instead.
20. Adjust Your TV Screen to Lowest Contrast
The brighter your TV screen, the more energy it would consume. You should consider adjusting your TV’s brightness levels to a lower contrast to save up on energy consumption. You should do the same for your computer screen and basically, any appliance that has a screen and uses electricity in your home.
21. Don’t Forget to Turn Off the Water Heater as Soon as You Leave the Shower
A lot of people often forget to do this. When you are done with your shower, you should turn off the water heater because if you don’t do so, it would continue to consume energy and that’s a lot of avoidable extras on your electricity bills.
In conclusion, if you follow the tips in this article and do away with these habits, your electricity bills should reduce significantly; but it also helps to engage the services of an energy auditor to take a look at your home and see if there are other specific adjustments to make that would help to reduce your electricity bills.