We live in a world now when energy efficiency is a common goal by consumers and manufacturers alike. With low energy appliances, light bulbs, and low flow toilets being the norm, the question remains… have you hit rock bottom on your energy bills? Is there more that you can do to cut down further or have you bottomed out?

Well, if you haven’t actually gone ahead and switched to low energy lights and appliances, definitely put them on the list. But if you have and you need some fresh idea, here are a few things that you might have actually missed. These are small tricks, but over time they add up to great savings. My English grandmother used to always say “Look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves”.

Energy Savings

Brick Your Toilet

Most toilets tanks are pretty large. When the toilet is flushed, all the water from the tank is emptied out and honestly, you don’t always need quite that much. A very easy way to go ahead and prevent as much water being used is to put a brick in your toilet tank. This removes the need for the volume of water equivalent to the brick, thereby saving you on your water and sewer bill.

Unplug Your Battery Charger

It’s so easy to just leave your phone charger or your battery charger in all the time. Just pop something in to recharge and it’s good to go. It’s true that while those are in their dormant states, they don’t use a lot of energy, but it’s still a small trickle especially if the charger has it’s own little LED light so you can conveniently find it again.

Play with your Thermostat

If you’re lucky enough to have a thermostat that controls zones of your house, make sure you go ahead and use it! If not, then try keeping your house about three or four degrees warmer in the summer and go ahead and use a ceiling fan or a stand alone fan in the room that you are in to knock off those few degrees. This prevents you from cooling your entire dwelling when you’re sleeping, or watching tv.

Don’t Dump Water Down the Sink

Do you have a tendency to empty half drunk glasses of water down the sink? What about ice? Instead, use that water to water your house plants, or throw on the garden, or even throw it in the washing machine in preparation for the next load. My houseplants are watered almost exclusively in this particular fashion!

Household Shortcuts

Less Detergent

When doing laundry, your clothes will retain a small amount of laundry detergent every time you wash them. To save a little money and stress your detergent for longer, go ahead and use a a quarter less detergent, or just half every other wash or so. You can also water your detergent down to create the same effect.

Recycle, Recycle

Recycling is not only much more environmentally responsible, but the act of doing so can help in little ways. In our house, when we started avidly recycling, we realized that we were taking out our trash about a third of the time, meaning that we were saving two or three trash bags a week.

Dishcloths over Paper

Dishcloths are great for mopping up spills, can be thrown in with your regular laundry, and last for a very very long time. Ditch your paper towel habit and save your money.

Tupperware over Ziplocks

I’m the worst offender in the ziplock world. I often find myself reaching for my handy dandy plastic baggies when pretty much everything can fit into one of the numerous tupperware containers that I own. Go ahead and make your tupperware easy to get to, then hide your ziplocks somewhere inconvenient so that you can try to break this habit.

Don’t Forget!

Don’t forget that these little things take time to add up but it’s well worth the minimal effort that they take! Happy saving.