4 Tips to Save Hundreds On Your Energy Bills

With electricity being a necessity, you might think it’s impossible to save money on your energy bills. However, with 4 simple tips, you can save as much as $400+ each year with a few easy installations and behaviors. Don’t worry; we won’t be providing you with advice that harkens back to the Dark Ages to save a buck or two.

In this blog, we’ll break down 4 tips on how you can reduce your electrical consumption without increasing discomfort:

According to the Annual Electric Power Industry Report, Arizona residents pay around $136.70 on average for their monthly energy bills. But did you know that you can save up to 11% on monthly energy costs by air sealing your home? That’s approximately a $180.44 yearly reduction.

Most homes have conditioned or heated air leaking outdoors through cracks. Air leaks also allow outdoor air to enter your home. The more air leakage your home has, the more energy you’re wasting on areas that don’t need it. Effective air sealing involves caulking and weatherstripping your home.

You can also avoid wasting conditioned or heated air by sealing your air ducts. Leaky air ducts can reduce your HVAC system's efficiency by up to 20%. Fixing leaks and loose connections in air ducts can save you hundreds of dollars.

Killing energy vampires is much easier than using garlic to protect yourself.

Any time you keep your hairdryers, curling irons, electric shavers, coffeemakers, microwaves, toaster ovens, smartphone chargers, and desktop computers/laptops plugged in, they consume electrical watts. And even when not in use, they’ll still consume energy, which can increase your monthly energy bill by an extra 10% ($164.04) a year.

For example, let’s say you leave your smartphone charger plugged in with your fully-charged phone still on it. This scenario consumes 2.24 watts of power on average. If you need to calculate the cost, multiply the watt by 9 for the kilowatt-hour (kWh) consumption over a year. Arizonans pay $0.1227 each kWh, so 9 x 2.24 = 20.16 kWh. You’ll end up paying $2.40+ a year.

While each appliance consumes little in costs individually, the bill increases over time with 40+ energy vampires since most homeowners leave multiple appliances plugged in. Buying a watt-meter at a home goods store can help you measure energy consumption.

To save up to 10% on your monthly energy bill, we recommend unplugging your appliances and devices when you aren’t frequently using them. You could also combine several onto a single power strip so you can easily cut power when you need to.

One of the easiest ways to save money is to switch all of your incandescent lightbulbs to LED lights. According to the Department of Energy, the average household can save $225 a year with this small but powerful tip. If you don’t want to switch every fixture, just installing Energy Star certified LED lightbulbs in five of your most frequently used light fixtures can save you $45 each year.

LED lightbulbs are light-emitting diodes that use 75% less energy than incandescent, are more durable, and last up to 25 times longer, saving you money on frequent bulb replacements. You can also set timers and dimmers on these lights to save even more money.

Programmable thermostats can help save you money on energy bills. They do so by allowing you to program a schedule that turns up or down your thermostat for set hours. For each degree change over 8 hours, you can save as much as 1% on energy costs per year.

For example, if you’re at work for an 8-hour timeframe, you can program your thermostat to increase the temperature from 70 degrees to 75 degrees during the summer, saving you 5% ($82.02) a year on cooling costs.

So long as you make sure that your pre-set schedule is at least 8 hours long, even small changes in temperature will help you save money with little effort.