FINANCES: The Electric Bill

And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward..."

Luke 12:42

I am in a love-hate relationship with our electric company. Just about everyone I know has frustrations with the power bill regularly increasing due to energy costs in our area. This is probably true all over the country. We live in the South and don't have the fuel costs of the North in the winter which is a blessing. Our family survived Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan in 2004 with NO electricity for a total of 11 days so don't get me wrong--I am very grateful to have electricity and am glad we live in a modern age and country where it is readily available to us. But, to save $$ in the family this is one of the largest variable costs that you can affect by doing a few things to reduce this monthly expense:

• Get a free energy audit by your electric company
• Work on a few of their suggestions each month i.e. attic insulation as you can
• Turn down the temperature to 120 on your water heater
• Use a toaster oven rather than the large oven when you can
• Reduce the time your pool pump is running to 6-8 hours especially as the weather gets cooler
• Set your air conditioner thermostat to 78-80 degrees and keep it there
• Raise the A/C thermostat to 85 when away from home 4 hours or more
• Run ceiling fans only when someone is in the room
• Try not to run the washer/dryer every single day
• Purchase Energy Star appliances
• Close your blinds before the hottest part of the day arrives
• If any windows face west toward the setting sun consider shutters or tinting to keep out the heat

These are just a few fairly simple things you can do which I have been implementing lately. We had an issue with our bill this month being exceptionally high but the meter was faulty and the electric company had been estimating it on the low side for 7 months. Ugh! I'll be watching the August bill very closely. It's one of our hottest months in Florida so I'll be sure to set aside extra savings for this as well.