elleandsam

It's the end of another quarter which means power and gas bills are here.  It also means a lot of families are suffering bill shock.

With the price of utilities going up and up and up, what can you do to try and reduce your bills?

Short of buying a solar panel, I have gathered some tips to help you reduce your next bill.  Some will cost you nothing and some will cost you a little up front, but they will save you.

We just reduced our last power bill, our power costs us $3.70 a day for a family of 4 and our power consumption is under the average for our area.

So here are my ten tips, I hope they're helpful and I hope they save you money on your power.

1. Turn it off!
Items on standby are still using power and so are still costing you money, even when you aren't using them.  Pull the plug and turn it off at the wall.  This includes your washer and drier.  At first it seems a little tedious remembering to constantly turn everything off, but it soon becomes a dollar saving habit.

2. Are you watching that?
If you're not watching your TV, turn it off.  A TV mindlessly blaring away in another room with no one watching is power wasted and money down the drain.  This includes your phone charger as well, if it's not charging your phone then turn it off.

3. Lights off when you leave the room.
It's pretty easy, flick the switch when you walk out.  This includes the porch light.  Which leads to...

4. Get solar lights for outside.
They automatically switch on when the sun goes down, don't waste power and apart from the initial outlay cost you nothing.  You can buy cheap lights from discount warehouse type shops or you can buy fancy expensive lights from hardware stores, including lights with motion detectors.

5. Know when it's peak and off peak.
Did you know that your power costs you different amounts and different times?  Different companies dictate different hours as peak but generally the times when most people are home are peak.  So boiling your kettle at say 6pm will cost more then boiling it at say 10am.  So think about what you don't need on in peak times, especially between 4-8pm.  Turn your TV off when you eat dinner, that's half an hours power saved.  Play a board game instead of watching a movie.  Wash your clothes in the morning instead of at night.

6. Hang your washing on the line.
Save your drier for wet or humid days, turn it off at the wall at all other times.  It really will save you.

7. Wash in cold water and chose a quick cycle.
The shorter the cycle, the quicker it's finished, the less time it's on, the less power that's used.

8. Newer appliances use less power.
Older appliances chew through power.  We switched an old fridge off at the end of last quarter and it has saved us approximately $4 a day!

9. Set your air conditioning to 25 degrees.
This is a comfortable temperature.  Keeping your room too cool will cost a lot in power and in turn you'll end up with a bigger bill.  Make sure you keep your filters clean.

10. Use a fan instead of an air conditioning unit.
A fan costs approximately 1c an hour to run, an air conditioning unit costs about a $1.  If you have it on 5 hours a day that is a $4.95 difference a day, or almost $35 a week!