10 Best Ways to Save Money On Energy Costs (Frugal Living)

If you are like me, you are always looking for great frugal tips to help you save money on everyday spending. Energy costs can be costly so I’m excited to share these great tips for saving on your energy costs!

Over the years, I’ve discovered some awesome ways to keep your energy costs down. You can even get paid by companies to use less energy! Check it out:

10 Best Ways to Save On Energy Costs

1. Invest in Energy Star appliances. Depending on how many appliances you switch out, you can save hundreds of dollars each year in energy costs. You can also look for the Energy Star label on other products such as light bulbs and electronics.
2.  Turn off electronics when they are not in use. It can take some getting used to but shutting off lights when you leave the room, and not leaving the TV on all day or all evening can save you money on your electric bill each month. For an area of your home with many electronics (TV, DVD Player, Roku, etc) use an outlet strip and you can shut them all off at once.
3. Install a programmable thermostat. You can program the temperature in your home based on when people are home, sleeping, etc and save lots of money on your bills each month. You can buy a programmable thermostat starting at around $25 and could possibly even install it yourself. Or you can pay a handyman to install it for you. We own the  Nest Learning Thermostat and I will tell you, this thing is awesome!
4. Drying clothes or dishes account for a large portion of your energy costs each month. You can save by simply letting your dishes air dry and hanging your clothes to dry instead of using the dryer. Other ways to save money in the laundry room is to only run the washer for a full load of clothes and wash as much as you can in cold water.
5. To ensure your hot water heater is not working harder than it needs to and keeping it from using more energy than it needs to, keep the thermostat set to 120 degrees. The manufacturer default is normally much higher than this but 120 degrees is normally sufficient.
6. If you have a chimney, make sure the damper is tight and is not letting out any heat. This will bring immediate savings if there was an issue and only takes a few minutes to check and fix.
7. You can also test your home for other leaks, both water, and air. Water leaks will obviously cause your water bill to be higher and if your home has any air leaks you are letting out the heat or cool air.
8. Don’t forget to change filters in your air conditioning unit or furnace. Clogged filters will cause your AC unit or furnace to work even harder and in turn, will cost you more in energy costs.
9. If you cook a lot, you can save on your energy bills by cooking with small kitchen appliances instead of always using your oven. Find recipes that use or can be modified to use small kitchen appliances like a toaster oven, electric skillet or slow cooker. Even your microwave uses less energy, generally speaking than your conventional oven.  If you have been following lately, you know that I am IN love with my pressure cooker!! It has replaced my crockpot and I use it at least 70% of the week for meals.
10. If you live in California, you can sign up for OhmConnect and earn money for using LESS energy! I’ve been signed up for several months now and have already earned close to $40 back. Here is how it works: Ohm sends you a text for the times that you should reduce using your energy (usually two hours of the day) you earn points for every time that you participate! 2000 points = $20! So easy. You can receive your earnings via PayPal. Right now, you earn $10 just for signing up.

Doing one or a few of these great tips will keep your utility bills down each month and potentially save you hundreds of dollars, or more, each year!

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