How much do you pay for utitilities each month? It seems like I am paying a fortune and I am tired of it! This month alone I paid $60 to water, $350 to power and another $40 to garbage. For the purpose of this article, I am not even going to talk about the phone bill. The stupid thing is, I know how to get these bills down, I have just been really lazy about it lately. That is changing now though! Here are my 5 tips for saving money on your monthly utilities that I plan to go back to ASAP, because I know they work.
- Turn the heat down. I hate being cold, but I think I hate being broke more, so the heat will be turned down ASAP. Even a drop of 5 degrees is going to make a big difference in our monthly bill.
- Unplug everything! Seriously, I have been reading lately about people who literally unplug everything in their homes unless they are using it. Some of these people pay just $20 per month on their power! While I don’t see us getting down that far, I am certainly going to be unplugging some stuff!
- Line dry our clothing. I have recently joined some budgeting groups on FB to get some fresh ideas on saving money and I see a lot of people using drying racks in their homes instead of a dryer. I think I can get behind that idea to some degree. I mean, I have 3 kids so there is only so much room I have to dry indoors, but once summer hits I will definitely be utilizing the clothesline more.
- Request a smaller garbage can. I know that I need to be more vigilant about my recycling and then I can request a smaller garbage can which would save me about $10 per month! I can think of a lot of things I can do with an extra $120 this year.
- Use less water. Turn off the water while brushing, take a 5 minute shower instead of a 10 minute one, etc. Every little bit helps, right?