Don’t Let Your Electric Bill Zap Your Budget

This post will focus on your electric bill. Electricity can be one of the biggest expenses that you will discover as a home owner. Here are a couple of tips that will help you be more energy efficient in your home. I will go over the personal finance basics regarding one of your larger utility bills. Hydro bills can be very high in the summer, with air conditioners raging. If you’re in the north and use baseboard heaters, you will discover that hydro bills skyrocket in the winter as well. Here’s 3 tips to help reduce your hydro bill.

Are You Using that Computer? – I work at a place where the computers are always on. They don’t even get turned off on the weekends. A little research in personal finance basics will reveal that a computer uses as much electricity per hour than a 14 watt compact fluorescent lamp for a full day. My work’s last hydro bill was $700 for one month. They could lower their expenses by at least 27% by switching the computers off for evenings and weekends.

Is Your Home Energy Efficient? – Easy tasks like putting a plastic heat barrier on your windows in the winter can significantly lower heat waste, and for goodness’ sake, keep your door shut. Ever heard your parents say “I’m not paying to heat the outside?” Sounds like they understood a common sense thought to personal finance basics. find other ways to make your home more energy efficient. You’ll not only leave less of an environmental footprint, but you’ll save tons on hydro.

Sometimes I Swear We Live in the North Pole – When you are looking to further your practical skills in personal finance basics one way is to look at how much energy your air conditioner consumes and reduce it if you can. For instance, try to use a fan instead of the air conditioner. Another excellent way to reduce consumption is by setting the thermostat up by 2 degrees. With heating for example, if you lower the heat by 2 degrees you can reduce the home heating costs by 5%.

I hope you’ve found these tips useful. I’ll mention it again, that as a financial consultant I teach a lot of personal finance basics to people looking to reduce living expenses. It’s important to maintain a comprehensive budget so you know where your living expenses are and to motivate you on ways to reduce those costs. If you haven’t searched Google for budget tools yet, you can now, or try the one in our resource link. See you in Part – 4.