Energy Saving Ideas for Your Home

It is never too late to start pinching those pennies.

With the soaring prices of food and the outrageous prices of a gallon of gasoline these days we all need to start watching our pennies somehow. We have electricity to heat our homes during the wintertime but that can be very costly. When the temperature outside is severely cold my husband and I do turn the heating unit on and place the thermostat at around 65 degrees and leave it there but when the outside temperature is above freezing we do not use our central heating unit.

The main resource that my husband and I use to heat our home during the colder months is our fireplace. The glow of the fire is relaxing and we sometimes roast some marshmallows over the open fire.

Firewood is very reasonably priced if you begin purchasing the fire logs several months before cold weather pops in. Stocking up on the firewood when it is cheaper saves a lot of money down the road too.

If the temperature outside is not that cold as to build a fire but there is still a slight chill in the air I will wrap myself up in a cotton throw and stay warm enough so the central heating will not have to be turned on.

My husband and I have a few alternatives for keeping our home warm and also a way to natural bring light into our home without the use of any electricity. There is a little amount of light that comes from our television but that does not give off enough so what we do is use candles at night.

When we are sitting in the living room we have three to four candles lit and place them in several spots around the room that we are in. When we do need to go to another room in the house we grab one of the candles that are lit and take it with us to the other room. I keep a nightlight in my bathroom and use that when I take a shower. I know where all of my parts are to get them clean so why do I need a big light on to take a shower? During the day there is enough light coming in through our bedroom window anyway so there is no need to flip on a light.

During the day in the wintertime I open up the blinds to our balcony and let the sunshine in and this gives me plenty of light to do the things I need to do around the house. When the temperature gets really cold out and we do not want to run the central heating unit what we do is build a big roaring fire in our fireplace. Having a fire going in the fireplace adds coziness to the atmosphere and also puts out plenty of light and our home stays cozy and warm.

Another way to have light for our home that we have found works well is we purchased several oil lamps and a few lanterns from our local Wal-Mart. They are very inexpensive and the container of Oil lamp is only $2.97. I have even purchased a few small oil lamps off of eBay. The oil lamps add d�©cor to any room too.

Although candles do bring some light to the room we have found that we like the glow from the oil lamps and lanterns much better. They seem to brighten the room much more too and they are easier to carry from room to room. Keeping a supply of candles is always a great idea anyway because you never know when a power outage will come or how long the outage will be.

Now when warmer weather approaches we use the candles some and the oil lamps and lanterns only when the sun goes down and the inside of the house begins to get dark. During the day in summertime I open up a few windows to get a breeze circulating through the house. We usually sleep with our central air on but we always keep the thermostat on 82*. We have found that this setting works well for us.

While the temperature is not into the 90’s or higher I use a Wind Machine fan and these are great. They keep the air circulated throughout the house. We stay cool and comfortable enough during the summertime using the Wind Machine fan a lot in the mornings and well into the afternoon. Once the temperature inside the house has cooled down we use floor fans to circulate the air and have found that the central air does not come on quite as often.

There may be a lot of people who may think that we are some crazy folks for using oil lamps for a source of light when all we have to do is walk over to a wall and flip the switch to turn a light on but we are just trying to save money on our electric bill and this has proven to work for us. We just cannot afford to pay an outrageous electric bill when there are other resources available for bringing light into our home. You may be surprised at just how well it does work.

Now don’t get me wrong, we do use our central heating and air conditioner just not all of the times like most people choose to do. A lot of people may think that the idea of using candles or oil lamps for lighting resources is crazy but we do all we can to keep our electricity bill down so that when we do use it the bill will not pack a punch to our checkbook. Every little way of saving money is worth the effort even more so now with the high cost of just about everything right now.