8 Easy Ways to Cut Your Energy Bill

Thank you PG&E for sponsoring this post. Follow PG&E on social for more useful energy efficiency tips to save money!

A few days before Luke was born, we moved into a new house. There are so many expenses when it comes to buying a new home. Everything can add up really fast. One of the main concerns hubs and I had was the electric bill. This house is bigger than what we had before, so we immediately started researching ways to make our house more energy efficient and in turn save money on our energy bill. It’s been about two months and our bill has been drastically less than our last two houses. Here is what we did in our house to save money.

1. Keeping Blinds Closed
This was a big one for us. The heat from the sun shining through makes our house much warmer and therefore the air is on longer. Closing the blinds makes a big difference. The past few cold days we’ve had, I’ve kept them open to help heat the home a bit as well.

2. Program Your Thermostat
If you’re at work all day or when you’re sleeping at night, you can get away with turning the air up (or heat down) a bit. If you program your thermostat, you won’ t have to mess with it often. Ours is set for each day of the week and times of the day. We also leave our upstairs thermostat off as much as possible.

3. Use Convection Ovens
They take less time to heat up and cool down. They’re perfect for casseroles and small dinners.

4. Change Air Filters
I set a reminder on my phone to change the air filters monthly. Replacing them consistently will help your air conditioner run better and last longer.

5. Unplug Appliances
If they aren’t in use, unplug them.

6. Use Cold Water For Laundry
and really anything else you can use it for. Do you laundry that needs hot water in bulk and the smaller loads using cold water.

7. Take Quick Showers
The less you use hot water, the more you save!

8. Look at your BILL!
A lot of energy companies will come out to your house to do an assessment if you think your bill is too high. Pay attention to it every month. Also, call and ask them what discounts they have. Ask them how you can save on your bill.

While doing my research on how to save money, I came across Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E). I found lots of information about how to become more energy efficient. On their site, I read that being energy efficient saves you money, time and improves your quality of life. It also reduces outages, puts less strain on natural resources and reduces emissions that can harm the environment.

If you head on over to the PG&E site, you can find lots of tools to help you save energy and money. Whether you’re planning a new home improvement project, looking for everyday saving tips, shopping for new appliances, need energy saving ideas or are looking for information on plug-in electric vehicles. You can find this and much more on their website.

PG&E is hosting a photo challenge contest, you will definitely want to enter! All you have to do is follow PG&E on Instagram to be entered to win one of seven $100 Home Depot Gift Cards! #PGEhome #PhotoChallenge

You can also follow PG&E on Twitter and YouTube.

How do you save on your energy bill?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Comments

Leah says

November 22, 2014 at 3:55 am

Thanks for this post! I'm a poor college student in my first apartment so I'm all about being as energy efficient as possible. And I'm in Ohio, so I have the opposite heating/cooling problem!

Happy Hiller says

January 17, 2021 at 9:42 am

Great suggestions! Thank you for sharing your insights with us!