Lowering Your Electric Bill Is Timely
The electric bill blues aren’t the kind of tune you want to be singing these days. In fact, you may find that saving energy and humming a green song might be a better fit. If your electric bill is giving you the blues, going a little green isn’t just trendy and conscientious – it can also put some extra green in your pocket.
After paying rent, many apartment renters find that their electric bill is the next largest fixed expense that they face. Instead of trying to find an apartment with a lower rent – and dealing with all the hassle of packing and apartment decorating – renters who are seeking to reduce their expenses might find more yield in reducing their electric bill.
Electric Bill Solutions
Cutting down on your electric bill doesn’t have to mean shivering winters. Here are our January electric bill lowering tips:
- Don’t heat when you don’t have to. If you’re curled up in bed or on the couch, why condition the air in the entire apartment? Reduce your electric bill by tweaking the thermostat and putting a space heater where it counts.
- Program your thermostat. Millions of dollars in electric bills come from heating and cooling empty apartments. A few minutes spent learning how to program your thermostat can save you a pack of cash on your electric bill.
- Dump those old light bulbs. The new compact fluorescent light bulbs are electric bill magic. They use much less electricity than traditional bulbs and last ten times longer. And you can take them with you when you move out!
- Clean your air filters. A dirty air filter makes your heater (and in summer, your A/C) work much harder, running up that electric bill.
- Insulate. Even renters with unresponsive apartment maintenance service can insulate to keep their electric bills low. Just find drafty windows and plug up the holes with easily-removed stick-on weatherstripping. You can also find inexpensive weatherstripping for electric sockets and light switch plates.
- Communicate. A lot of energy companies offer free services to keep electric bills – and thus electric demand – under control. If you see a lot of problems in your apartment complex, and you’re not getting a lot of help from maintenance, talk to your apartment manager. Maybe you can help them schedule for a free energy inspection that would point out the long-term savings that they could achieve with a few low-cost repairs. That in turn could reduce the electric bills for the management office and all of your neighbors. Heck, it might even make you a bit of a local hero.
Keep Tabs on That Electric Bill
Don’t just pay your electric bill each month. If that electric bill spikes, find out why… and keep whittling away at it. Fighting the electric bill blues isn’t just the green thing to do – it’s an easy way to knock your bills down!
