Summer heat is encroaching speedily.
You know how it feels and you are aware that you will spend more on electricity.
Well, it’s time to put things in order. If you fail to organize yourself, situations will plunge you into an unexpected hell of hot expensive events.
How can you avoid skyrocketing electric bills during summer and save money?
This and other questions are well answered in this article. We have compiled a comprehensive report of cool hacks to save money this summer. Read on.
9 Ways to Save Money on Electric & Bills in the Summer
Install More Fans
One of the most effective ways to save on electric bills during summer is investing in a stand, box, or ceiling fans to cool your home. It helps you to reduce energy costs.
When you use fans to cool your house, you can adjust your thermostat settings by up to 4 degrees without interfering with your comfort levels. Also, remember that fans consume a substantial amount of energy, so always remember to turn them off when you are not in the room. When used currently fans can be a brilliant way to stay cool without running AC on full power. In fact, they’re so much more energy-efficient than many people opt for fans over AC completely if their home is built suitably to allow airflow.
Check out this video on how to keep your house cool using a fan:
Learn to Customize Your Thermostat Settings
Depending on the climatic zone you live in, Departments of Energy in most countries around the world recommend that you optimize your thermostat at 78 degrees. This will enable you to save up to 10 % of your energy consumption annually.
Sometimes you may find that the 78 degrees proves too warm and you are always at liberty to adjust it to suit your comfort. The point to keep at the back of your mind is that any rise in temperature beyond 72 degrees amounts to increased savings in energy consumption.
On this tip, also consider investing in a programmable thermostat. This will enable you to automatically program a warmer setting when no one is at home. It equally allows you to set it to cool the room when you came back. With the advancement in technology, wireless thermostat remotes are now available. There is also software you can install on your smartphone that will allow you to run the thermostat wherever you are.
Upgrade Our Appliances and Air Conditioning System
Getting a system upgrade is one of the most profound ways to take your summer energy savings to a new level.
Undeniably, heating and cooling are the greatest consumers of energy in your home. So, investing in an efficient system is the smartest way to tone down energy consumption and increase your savings.
When it comes to upgrading your air conditioning system, go for certified and reputable suppliers. Your new air conditioner should be checked to ensure that it has a Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER). Such systems save more than 15% of total energy expenditure which is way better than other old systems.
Use Water Sparingly
Usage of water usually increases during summer.
Be it watering your compound lawns or taking more showers. One of the best ways to reduce outdoor watering costs is by watering plants, grasses, and flowers only in the evenings and mornings.
This ensures that water does not evaporate during the day’s summer heat. This saves a lot of water and consequently saves on your expenses on the same.
Also, opt for low-flow water fixtures. This technique applies to showerheads, outdoor sprinklers, and toilets. It is a secret of making your home more energy-efficient during summer and saving more cash.
Shower And Wash With Cold Water
Well, this may sound a little crazy but it is worth doing.
After all, summer is a warm season. So, why not use cold water for your showers during the day and save on energy?
Consider changing your laundry routine. Wash and rinse your clothes with cold water. Energy experts note that this behavior could save you more than $200 on rough estimates per year.
That’s a lot of money. Plus you should also consider hanging your clothes outside to dry in the sun for extra savings.
Keep Your Fridge Cool
Your freezer and refrigerator are some of the most energy-consuming appliances at home. So learning how to optimize them is a great hack to saving money during summer. Here are the tricks:
- For the refrigerator, optimize the thermostat to between 36 and 38 degrees
- For our freezer, adjust it to between 0 and 5 degrees
- Check on the door seals for both appliances to ensure that they are working efficiently and that there are no heat leakages.
- Fill the fridge with food, even if it is jugs of water so that less air space is created in it.
Monitor Your Seals And Blinds
Most people often think that the only way to keep the house cooler during summer is kicking up the AC. Well, obviously just running more AC is just going to cost you more money. If that’s you, then consider some other options to stop cool air leaking out and hot air flooding in.
Before the sun hits your house, close your south-facing shutters and blinds to stop your home from overheating. Always spend some time walking around the house and close curtains and blinds. This prevents excessive heating in the room.
If you’ve got AC, then be sure to check for broken seals and holes that could be allowing cold air to escape and allow hot air in.
If you don’t have AC, with the blinds closed, you can then open up your windows to create airflow through the building for a nice cooling breeze.
Do Some Outdoor Dining
Summer is an ideal season to dine out and relax. Taking a break from your kitchen room during summer is a great tip for saving on energy bills. And you will not only save on the energy use to run the same appliances, but you will also save on air conditioning costs. Remember your kitchen appliances emit heat which can lead to an increase of up to 10 degrees of the house temperatures. So, steering clear of the kitchen equally saves on cooling costs.
Always Remember To Unplug
Your electronics suck up a lot of energy if they stay plugged in. So, to save on these summer costs, always remember to unplug them when they are not in use. Energy experts note that this is an easy way to save even up to $100 annually. Your TV, chargers, computers, and other small electronic appliances should be unplugged when they are not in use.
5 Other Ways to Save Money in the Summer
Stop Your Gym Membership
The world is my gym, the hills, the trees, the lakes.
This is especially true in summer when I can grab my mountain bike and ride off into the hills.
If you’ve got a gym membership, you might want to consider getting rid of it over the summer, especially, if you spend most of your time on treadmills and bikes.
With such great weather, you can get all the healthy benefits of exercise for free in the great outdoors rather than pounding away in the gym.
You’ll be saving yourself a decent sum too.
The average gym membership is now costing around $500 a year, even if you only stop for the 6 months of summer that’s a tidy $250 in your back pocket.
Plus, there’s a ton of extra benefits to exercising outdoors including:
- Natural antidepressant
- Challenges your body more
- Provides mental relief
- Reduces stress and blood pressure
- Improves Vitamin D absorption
- More stimulating to your mind
Look for Free Things to Do
Summer is always a time for adventures, especially if you’re trying to keep the whole family entertained (and tire the kids out).
The only problem is that being out and about takes its strain on your wallet. Spending gets out of control quickly if you don’t plan what you’re going to do. The cost of trips to theme parks or going to the beach seem to add up once you’ve paid for parking, entry lunch and souvenirs!
Hold on though.
There’s plenty of free things to do in the summer to help you save money. Adding to this, if you take a packed lunch and even walk to your destination you can get away without paying a penny.
Check out this list of 40 free things to do in the summer for some inspiration.
Travel on a Budget
Travel doesn’t have to be expensive.
In fact, last weekend I was reminiscing about some of the amazing camping trips my family took during my childhood.
They were simple inexpensive holidays but still fun-filled laugh-a-minute adventures. Nothing fancy, nothing costly, just friends and family having a brilliant time.
Now, I know that you might turn your nose up at camping, and that’s fine.
There’s still plenty of other ways to travel on a budget, you’ve just got to be a little savvier.
Another way to save money on holidays is by house sitting. Lots of people heading away on vacation need people to look after their homes either for added security or to take care of pets.
Websites like housesitters.com are filled with people looking for you to look after their cats and dogs while staying in their house.
The best bit is that it’s completely free, you don’t pay anything to stay in someone else’s house.
Plus, there are awesome opportunities all over the world from New York to London!
Grow your own food
Food is one of life’s unavoidable expenses.
Every month it takes hundreds just to keep the family fed and watered. Over the summer though, you can help reduce expenses by growing your own food.
If you have a little garden space and a can-do attitude then it is incredibly satisfying to grow your own veggies.
Wouldn’t it be great to pop outside and pick fresh tomatoes and salad leaves for lunch?
You can pick up fruit and vegetable seed for less than a dollar at your local garden center and get growing. You save money and get the amazing health benefits of growing your own food.
Ride a bike
My final quick tip for saving money over the summer is to abandon your car and start riding your bike.
Let me ask you a question. How often do you use your car? and how much do you pay for gas?
Does it feel like your always hopping in and out of your car from going to the store, sending a package or going to work?
It can be a difficult habit to break but most of us can get by just fine by riding a bike, especially when there’s sunny weather.
If you really want to save money this summer, start walking and cycling as much as possible. A 20 minute journey on a bike to the store might seem like a chore at first, but it’s really not that bad.
In fact, if you’ve been reading this article then you know I’m probably about to tell you about all the health benefits of exercise. I won’t though, as that’s pretty obvious.
The equation is simple. Ride a bike, save money.
Enough said.
Final Words: Saving Money in the Summer
Now that you are acquainted with energy-saving hacks for the summer season, challenge yourself every other time to live by them.
Consistency yields immense results.
You might want to do some upfront upgrades to maintain save money in the long run, like installing fans or adding blinds.
Along with reducing your electric bills, you can bolster your savings by making small lifestyle changes such as cancelling your gym membership and even growing your own fruit and veg.
I’m not kidding when I say that if you take many of the actions above you could save THOUSANDS of dollars over the summer.