Piggy Bank
This Old House has a great article for DIY Tips for Saving Money. Here are a few of their tips and a link to read their article
Shorten your dryer-vent hose. First, disconnect it and vacuum it out. Then trim the hose length so that it's just long enough for you to pull the dryer a few feet out from the wall. A short and unobstructed line makes your dryer run more efficiently.
Cost: Free.
Savings: $25 a year on electric, gas, or propane.
Bonus: Your clothes will dry about 20 percent faster.
** Better yet - dry your clothes outside on a clothesline or during wintertime/ raining on a indoor drying rack. Nothing smells better than clothes that have been dried outside!
Close closet doors to lower the square footage you're heating (and cooling). Shuttering closets along exterior walls also helps to insulate the house.
Cost: Zilch—although it may take a few minutes for your clothes to reach room temperature before you put them on.
Savings: About $50 per year off your energy bills.
Bonus: You and your guests won't see closet clutter.
Plug in a SmartStrip. Three-quarters of the energy that electronics burn is consumed when the equipment is turned off. Rather than unplug items after every use, hook them up to a SmartStrip surge protector, which automatically kills power to electronics when you turn them off and returns it when you switch them back on.
Cost: $31 for a seven-outlet strip at SmartHomeUSA.com.
Savings: As much as $240 per year in energy costs.
Bonus: Two always-hot outlets ensure that slow-to-reboot devices like your digital cable box can be left on all the time.
My favorite money saving tips are to use it up, make do or do without.
- Learn to cook! You can save so much money and home cooked foods are much better for you than processed foods.
- Make your own household cleaners- they are cheaper and better for the environment.
- Make saving money a priority - even a few dollars or spare change adds up over time.
- Learn to become more self sufficient. The less you depend on consumerism and the more dependent you become on yourself the less money you really need to live on.
Grow a garden, Learn to preserve your food - Get back to the basics of life.
4 comments:
These are some great ideas. I probably do need a couple of those smart strips. I was air drying most of my clothes, but here lately I have been lazy. And the house has been too chilly to get them dry in a reasonable amount of time.
Save money on toilet paper. If people really want to get serious about saving money then they should add Bathroom Bidet Sprayers to all their bathrooms. Available at www.bathroomsprayers.com with these you won't even need toilet paper any more, just a towel to dry off! It's cheap and can be installed without a plumber; and runs off the same water line to your toilet. You'll probably pay for it in a few months of toilet paper savings. And after using one of these you won't know how you lasted all those years with wadded up handfuls of toilet paper. Now we're talking green and helping the environment without any pain.
Great ideas - thanks for a great reminder!
Kris
I agree with everyone that these are some great ideas. The added advantage to using a laundry drying rack in your house or apartment during the winter is it will add much needed moisture to the air. Saving you the expense of running a humidifier.
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