Saving money on utilities

Whether you own or rent your home/apartment, chances are you pay your utility bill. Chances are, also, that you've seen a website or television commercial about saving money on your utilities. I had seen them a hundred times, and dismissed them every time, until I started working as an apprentice electrician.

As i learned about watts, amps, volts, and how they interact I started to see a larger picture. Why would the power company want you to save money on your bill? Lets look at how your bill works before we go further. You get charged, in the US, based on your kilowatt hour usage. That's a fancy way of saying how many thousands of watts you use per hour. How much energy is a kilowatt? Most items will tell you their wattage somewhere on the device, but 1 Kilowatt hour is like running your laptop and the dishwasher at the same time for 1 hour.

Somewhere on your bill it will list the price you are charged per Kilowatt hour. We are fortunate in our area that our prices are still low, at $0.0724 per kilowatt hour. At that rate I could leave on 10x 100 watt light bulbs (1 Kilowatt) for 24 hours a day, all month for $52.00. Most people do not use only 1 Kilowatt per hour, at least not while at home. However, between items that run while you are at work and the things you turn on when you get home, you slowly build up Kilowatt hour usage over the month.

The next thing on your bill is your fees. Every utility company is different, and you may have some of these fees, all of these fees, or more fees than I am about to list. The monthly customer service charge is a good place to start; ours is currently $12.50 per month. This fee is simply for having a meter on my property. If you have a workshop in your garage, and there is a second meter to supply power to that shop, then you would get charged this fee twice.

A late fee, obviously, is for making a payment late. It may be called an "Arrears", and whatever you owe will be added to the next month's bill. There may be other fees, but essentially a lot of your bill every month is spent on the right to have electrical power on your property. Most municipalities and cities require that you have electricity turned on in order to live in a house.

So why the push for you to use less electricity? Most utility companies would like their uses to scale back during "peak hours", or the hours when most people are off work, so that they can spend less on energy production. The problem is that, through their recommendations and lists of ways to save money on our utility bill, we saved too much. The power companies in my area are now going to raise their rates because we as homeowners became too efficient.

So, should you try to save money on your utility bill by becoming more efficient? The answer is still yes. Not only to lower your monthly bill, but to help the environment too. Put weather stripping on your doors and windows, turn your thermostat a few degrees colder in the winter and warmer in the summer, and turn off/unplug items when you aren't using them. You will notice a difference on your bill, and saving money is the easiest way to get more money in your pocket.

So turn off the lights, open the blinds, and let nature pay to illuminate your life today. If you haven't yet switched to LED bulbs, they have never been cheaper. Open the windows and let in the fresh air. It doesn't matter what your first step is, just take at least some small step to decrease your electrical demand.