Welcome! This is our 100 ways in 100 days series on saving money by reducing your expenses. If you are new here, consider subscribing to our RSS feed to get post as soon as they are available. Not sure about RSS feeds? For a description, and a brief tutorial, check our RSS Page.

When it comes to remembering details and daily routines, we are always in need of reminders. Whether it be paper, or electronic, we always have to keep track of things that need to be done around and for the house. This is how we originally remembered to change our thermostat while sleeping and while being away from home. Until we were fortunate enough to be able to purchase our(drum roll please)…programmable thermostat.

This will save you tremendously if you have a central heat/air unit. A difference of only 3 degrees can make a huge impact on your utility bill. Now, do not get overzealous and drastically change the temperature several times a day-this will make your unit work harder to try and keep up. We have settings that vary according to time of day, and we never deviate from these settings.

While no one is at home during the week, we have the temperature set 3 degrees above our comfort zone of 72 degrees. While we are awake and at home during the evening and weekend hours, we have it set to adjust down to 72 around a half an hour before we get home. Then, since we both like to be a little cool while we snooze, we set the temperature to 70 at night. Again, completing this action point allowed us not only to save money, but the time and hassle involved with remembering and changing the thermostat three times a day.

Action point: Find your perfect temperature for you and your significant other (if you have a significant other. If you can not agree with your significant other, here is that magic word that will save you a world of hurt…compromise!). Then research programmable thermostats at your local hardware store and try to find a way to fit that purchase into your budget within the next couple of months.

Have a great and wonderful day! If you enjoy this series, please forward to and tell your friends. Thanks again!

For an interesting book on creating you own electricity, and even selling some back to the electric company Click Here!

Welcome! This is our 100 ways in 100 days series on saving money by reducing your expenses. If you are new here, consider subscribing to our RSS feed to get post as soon as they are available. Not sure about RSS feeds? For a description, and a brief tutorial, check our RSS Page.

This one (as with many of the other tips that we have shared) has been preached all over the internet. We are simply trying to place all of these ideas into a single location, while picking the ones that we feel are the most relevant and the ones that we have tried.

When it come to electricity, I would say that this step was easily the third biggest energy saving tip that we tried. We have covered one already, and we will cover another in the near future. The price has come down considerably in the last year, and you can now get a quality CFL (compact fluorescent light) for around a dollar.

We have tried several brands, and most have worked fairly well as far a light output compared to incandescent bulbs. There is a difference to be noted though. For example, a sixty watt incandescent bulb was comfortable for us to read by; that was not the case with the CFL, and I hear that the LED’s are even a little fainter than the CFL’s. That was the bad news. The good news is that we now get the equivalent of a 100w incandescent bulb, and only use 23w with our CFL!! Now that may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but lets do a little math pertaining to our situation.

We have 37 light fixtures in and around our house. Some of these almost burn continuously, while others-such as in closets-rarely if ever get used. After doing about a half a month of collecting data, we discovered that we averaged around three hours a day per bulb. Now, that is 37(bulbs)X100(watts)X3(hours)=11100w per day average. That equals 11.1 kilowatts per day (1 kilowatt=1000 watts). In our area we only have one municipality electric system to get service from, and they charge an extortionate (compared to other companies just a few miles north of us) rate of a little over ten cents per kilowatt hour. That equates to roughly $1.10 per day just for lighting. The same figure with our replacement CFL’s [37(bulbs)X100(watts)X3(hours)=2550w or 2.55kw per day]? That would come to 26 cents per day! A savings of $25.20 per month!!

Action point: We highly recommend trying to change as many of these bulbs as soon as possible. Congress has already passed a bill that will do away with the incadescent buld by 2012 if I remember correctly. Only replace what you can afford to, but even if it is just one buld every couple weeks in a high use area, you should see the difference fairly quickly. Thank you for reading our articles, and have a great day!

For an interesting book on creating you own electricity, and even selling some back to the electric company Click Here!

Welcome! This is our 100 ways in 100 days series on saving money by reducing your expenses. If you are new here, consider subscribing to our RSS feed to get post as soon as they are available. Not sure about RSS feeds? For a description, and a brief tutorial, check our RSS Page.

Hello again, and thank you for reading our money saving tips. It is our greatest desire to see you decrease your monthly expenses by at least 20% with these 100 money saving ideas.

Washing only full loads of laundry is kind of like a double edged sword when it comes to slashing your utility bills-it cuts both ways! First, you will save on your water bill. By only washing full loads of laundry (or at least setting your washer to the correct water level) will lower the amount of water you use per article of clothing. Also, it will prevent extra time spent using the dryer (if you decide not to take action point three.

After we started doing this, we noticed about three loads a week difference in our laundry room. That saves water per wash cycle, and electricity for not only the dryer, but the washer motor as well. It will also save you some of that commodity that we are all too short on these days-time. That was an additional nine trips to the laundry room avoided (three to put them in the washer, three to place them in the dryer and three to get them out and fold or hang up), and also time saved by placing more clothes in their proper place at one time.

Action point: For the next four weeks only wash full loads of laundry.

I know we say it often, but we really mean it: Have a great day!

For an interesting book on createing you own electricity, and even selling some back to the electric company Click Here!

Welcome! This is our 100 ways in 100 days series on saving money by reducing your expenses. If you are new here, consider subscribing to our RSS feed to get post as soon as they are available. Not sure about RSS feeds? For a description, and a brief tutorial, check our RSS Page.

This action will only apply to those of you who do your laundry in-house. If you use coin operated laundry, or a laundry service (why are you doing this if you are trying to save money?), this will only help if you someday begin to do your laundry at home. If you can not use this tip, read no more; just be sure to check back tomorrow!

Now, for those of us who can benefit from this. Your clothes dryer is one of the most energy eating appliances in your dwelling. Whether it be gas, or electric, drying your clothes naturally will make a tremendous difference in your utility bill. Remember how we told you that we had gradually brought our electric bill down by $45 over a five month period? Well, the month that we started doing this caused an $18 drop. Nearly half. Now I will grant you that our dryer is not the newest, most energy efficient model, but I know that you will see a noticeable difference if you try this as well.

One thing that we found though (just a personal issue) is that we could not tolerate the way the clothes felt so stiff after being air dried. We tried fabric softener in the rinse cycle, but nothing seemed to help. We eventually compromised and let our clothes air dry most of the way, then we placed them in the dryer with a dryer sheet for about ten minutes just to soften them a little. Drying for ten minutes is still a lot cheaper than drying for an hour a load. Let us know how it affects your bill once you start implementing some of these actions.

Action point: For one month hang clothes either on a line outside (if available), or on door jambs, shower curtains, etc. inside the house and see the difference in your utility bills. Another aspect to consider is that during the winter time, due to the drying of your inside air by heat, this will add some much needed humidity to your dwelling. In the summer time, this same humidity is removed by your air conditioner! Have a great day!

For an interesting book on creating you own electricity, and even selling some back to the electric company Click Here!