Six Tips to Help You Save Money on Your Utility Bills

Electric bills can be huge in the summer and the winter, water bills are excessive when you have to water the lawn and you can pretty much always count on a high cable bill. That’s the bad news. The good news is there are ways to bring all of your utility bills down. Here are a few tips:

Electric

If you live in the certain parts of the Southwest, you know summer temperatures can hit 115 or higher. This really stresses your air conditioner and runs up the electric bill. Depending on where you live, your monthly electric bill can run several hundred dollars. If you live in the northeastern part of the United States, then you are familiar with below zero temps. This makes your heater run and run. No matter what time of year, electric bills are high for everybody. What can you do to lower your electric bill and raise your bank account?

• Change your air conditioning filter: According to EnergySavers.com, not changing your air conditioner filter is the single biggest contributor to a high electric bill; you can lower your energy consumption by up to fifteen percent and save $9.00 per month, or $108.00 per year if you change the air conditioner filter once a month.
• Turn the thermostat down in the winter: A high number on the thermostat in the winter means a higher number on your electric bill. Turn your thermostat 68 degrees (or lower) during the day, and then lower it more at night, suggest US News & World Report. Every degree lowered full time cuts down on 3 – 4 percent of your electric bill. Lower it three degrees and save thirty dollars per month.

Water

Obviously, the less you use, the less you pay. You may not think you are using much water, but there are basic habits that add to your water bill big time.

• Don’t leave the water running: When you’re brushing your teeth; when you have to step out of the kitchen for “just a second;” when you turn on the shower and then undress and get a towel out, it adds up. Only use the amount of water that you need and do simple things like turn the water off after you have wet your toothbrush.
• Take shorter showers: It’s nice to take a long hot shower in the winter; it’s even nicer knowing you can save 4,000 gallons of water by reducing your shower time by four minutes, thereby saving around a $100 annually.

Cable

Ah, cable. You can’t live without it, and you can barely pay the bill. It’s going to be high every single month if you don’t cut down somewhere.

• Cut all of your Pay-Per-View channels: When you can watch movies, concerts, and TV Shows for around eight bucks on Netflix, what are you still doing with Pay-Per-View? PPV events you have to order can cost up to twenty dollars for one event, plus you’re paying on average $4.95 per month. Get a Roku and get Netflix and other streaming services for much less than a premium cable bill.
• Watch your bill: When you first signed up for cable, the company had the best deal on cable in the entire state, country, world, the universe! What you think you might be getting for free, might actually be expensive. Also, call your cable operator (if you can get in touch with them — cable has notoriously bad customer service) and see if you can haggle your way into a better price per month. Do you really need three digital receivers? Tell them you want to return one or two and have them adjust the bill right then. You can get more channels for the same price at a new promotion rate. There are all kinds of ways that you can save money. Does everybody in your house have a smartphone? Tell the operator to drop the landline phone and take the charges off. You can save up to fifty bucks for just that one adjustment if you play it right.

You can save money on your utility bills. It takes dedication and a cooperative household, but it can be done. Just think; you can use the money and go buy extra data for your smart phone! Oh, the technology of it all.