Ways to cut your electric bill

I thought I'd share a few ways we have adopted to try to keep our electric costs down.

I have trained Robert to turn the lights/tv off when he leaves a room. He still needs some reminding, but he is doing a good job. Bobby, however needs more reminding than Robert.

We have dual thermostats and we have replaced the ones that came with house with timed units. We turn the downstairs heat off at night and the upstairs heat off during the day. This works out well. We have gas as our source of heat, so this helps keep the gas bill at a decent cost as well.

I use only cold water in the washing machine. But I refuse to give up my scalding hot showers!

We have stopped using the heated dry and hot wash start on the dishwasher. Instead, I open the dishwasher when it's finished washing and let the dishes air dry.

I saw a woman on Oprah a few weeks ago who had cut her electric bill by over half by unplugging her electronics when she was not using them. (this wasn't the only thing she did - she was pretty extreme) We forget that if something is plugged into the wall, it is still using electricity - even when it's not turned on. This prompted me to go around the house and unplug things we don't use often. We are hardly ever in our living room and dining room so I unplugged the lights in that room and also in our guest bed room.

By being mindful of our electricity over the past 6 weeks, I have managed to cut the electric costs. We just got our statement and it went from $119 last month to $89!

Now that daylight savings time is here, I am hopeful that we can get our costs even lower.