Save Money on Heating Fuel Overnight

While brainstorming ways to save money on heating fuel costs this winter, one of the ideas that my husband and I came up with was to lower our thermostat at night while the family is sleeping.

We’d have to make an initial investment by purchasing new bedding and warm sleepwear, but would recover the money invested in fuel savings.  But would we really save money on heating fuel?

The answer is yes, and you can too.  Let’s break down the rationale behind bulking up to cut down.

SAVE MORE: 5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Live a Frugal Life

Is Bedding Really an Investment?

You may be wondering, "Is it a good move to spend money on bedding and warm sleepwear in the hopes of saving on heating costs?"  You bet!

The money spent on these supplies is a one-time investment, meaning you pay one time and you have something permanently.  Money spent on heating is not a one-time expense, but a recurring expense.

SAVE MORE: 13 Ways to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills

That means if you pay to have heat today, you have heat today only.  If you don’t pay tomorrow, you don’t have heat tomorrow.  With this in mind, we can see that making a one-time investment now in warmer supplies will allow you to lower your heating costs forever. What a winning equation!

Invest:  "To put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering potential profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value."

-Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc.

Learning What Our Parents Figured Out About Heating Costs

This isn’t the first time people have been concerned about saving on heating costs, and we can learn a lot from looking back about 30 years in the history books.  During the oil crisis of the 1970s, families were using similar strategies to reduce their use of heating fuel.  President Carter spoke publicly about reducing thermostat temperatures.

Zolton Cohen at HowStuffWorks wrote a great article about this very subject called "How to Conserve Energy at Home".  In it he said,

"Because space heating constitutes the largest energy expenditure in many homes, even a little conservation of heating fuel goes a long way toward achieving a lower utility bill. Dialing down the thermostat one degree during the winter can result in about 1 to 3 percent less fuel use, and a similar reduction in your heating bill."

1% to 3% may not seem like much of a savings for sacrificing 1 degree of heat, but remember that the price of heating oil is currently $4 per gallon and is estimated to reach $7 per gallon mid-winter!  This outrageous heating fuel price is forcing hundreds of families where I live (in Alaska) to sell their homes and move to warmer locations.  It’s a matter of survival; they simply can’t afford heating fuel any longer.

SAVE MORE: Top Energy Wasters in Your Home

With that in mind, every degree people can sacrifice will return great savings in energy costs and will definitely be worth it!

Zohan continued,

"A furnace or boiler has to maintain a differential in temperature between the inside of the house and the outdoors in order for the house to feel comfortable. On cold days that difference can be as much as 50 to 60 degrees (say, 20 outside and 70 inside). Any time the differential can be reduced, even by a degree or two, the heating system comes on less often, less fuel is burned, and savings result. The downside of turning down a thermostat, of course, is that the house is cooler. But Carter had a solution for that — simply slip on a sweater. That makes sense, too. Instead of turning up the heat to increase the overall warmth in the huge volume of space inside the house, you can simply increase your personal insulation to help retain body heat.

"Though dialing down might seem a hardship at first, after a while your body will adjust to the "new normal" house temperature and wearing sweaters and socks inside will become a part of everyday life."

The Ice-Simmons Family Turns Down the Heat

To put this strategy into action,  my family would have to do certain things before implementation:

• Buy additional comforters and blankets for everyone’s beds
• Buy and switch to flannel sheets
• Buy warmer socks and pajamas for all family members
• Teach toddler son to sleep under a blanket (he squirms around the toddler bed all night)
• Convince daughter to sleep under covers (she doesn’t like to make her bed in the morning, so she tries to sleep on top of the covers!)
• Convince family to sleep wearing socks

After completing the six steps listed above, we would be able to gradually turn down the thermostat at night to save on heating fuel.  So yesterday I went to Walmart, armed with a budget of $200 and determined to come home with warm blankets for every bed.

SAVE MORE: Top 13 Free Things to Stop Paying For Now!

Bedding Supplies Needed to Save on Heating Fuel  

The blankets and comforters were very reasonably priced, allowing me to come in under budget.  A down alternative blanket was the choice for mom and dad’s bed; cost: $33.

For my daughter’s blankets, I chose a comforter in queen size for her twin bed.  A queen comforter can be folded in half to exactly fit the width of a twin-size bed.  Effectively, for the $29 the comforter cost, she got two layers of blanket.

The same strategy was followed for our toddler son, with a $29 twin size Batman comforter wrapped around and underneath his toddler bed mattress.  Flannel sheets were also reasonably priced at approximately $20 per set.

I didn’t purchase any pajamas or socks that day, since I’m planning to catch the next sleepwear sale for flannel PJs for the family.  It helps to keep an eye out at the thrift store for kids’ warm sleepwear as well.

I’ll be watching for girls’ flannel pajamas and footed sleepers for toddlers at our local Value Village, hoping to add a few extra sets of pajamas to the kids’ jammies drawers.  As fast as kids grow, you should never be afraid to shop second-hand for children’s clothing.

SAVE MORE: How to Save 90% on Kids Clothes

All in all, we spent approximately $140 dollars on winter bedding for a family of four.  Not too shabby.  I anticipate spending another $30-$40 on heavyweight pajamas and socks, making our total expenditure $200.  We slept in our newly-insulated beds last night, and the whole family gave rave reviews!

Our thermometer went down 3 degrees last night, and everyone was warmer in their beds than on a normal night.  We were warmer even though the house was colder!

The "investment" made in warm blankets and sleepwear for your family is an expense you can feel good about.  Know that you will see those dollars come back to you almost immediately in the heating savings you’ll realize.

Warm blankets can be a good investment when you reduce your thermostat to save money on heating fuel overnight!

Reader, Suzi “PlainSister” wrote in:

“We heat and cook with wood, no backup, and do not heat our bedrooms at all. We have found that the fleece blankets with the longer nap used as sheets increase the warmth considerably, much better than flannel.

We also use a down/feather blanket over it and sleep warm and comfy. The down alternative blanket works well when the temps are not so cold at night.

We also live in the mountains between 6 and 7 thousand feet, so the nights are pretty chilly year round and the fleece for sheets works for every season. It is so much cheaper to live as we do rather than have to buy propane.

We live in an area that can get snowed in for months and there would be no way for the propane trucks to get in to fill tanks.”

Photos courtesy of stock.xchng.

Today’s money saving tip is a collection of small, but very effective, frugal methods for cutting down on household and grocery expenses:  how to save money by getting almost everything for free, including freebies and free samples.

You’ll want to start thinking of freebies as items on a 100% off sale!  We’d all grab up as much as possible if this sale was at a store, wouldn’t we?

Everyone loves getting things for free, and freebies and free items require very little effort to get a HUGE return.  Below, I’ve compiled a strategic list of frugal ways to save money using freebies, free items, free samples, free software, free coupons, free magazines, etc.

How to Save Money by Getting (Almost) Everything for Free

• Get news of freebies and free items before everyone else.  And Freebies For All brings you the best money saving free samples and freebie alerts regularly.  We offer a free subscription to our updates, and we’ll send you the newest info as soon as it’s published.  This means you get our VIP alerts and can request free items before they run out.

Action: Get our freebies RSS feed or freebies email updates now.  Need more info?

• Request freebies and free samples at AndFreebiesForAll.com.  Daily we bring you the best lists of free samples and free items to request in the mail.  No shipping charges, no credit card numbers, no fees; you request, and companies send you free stuff in the mail. New ones come out all the time and don’t last long. Readers write me frequently asking, “Do you really get anything good?”  In response I wrote a post called Does Free Stuff Really Ever Come in the Mail?, in which I listed out and took pictures of about half of the free stuff I got in the mail for 6 weeks.

Action: View our freebies and free samples here and start requesting now.

• Pick up free food and other items at stores by combining our printable coupons with store sales. It’s time to get good at watching for store matchups, when you buy things for free by using a manufacturer coupon together with a store coupon or store sale.  In some cases, the store will even OWE YOU money (called overage)! 

Action:  Print out our newest printable grocery coupons weekly, or use our handy coupon printer in the right sidebar at And Freebies For All.

• Put away your full size products and replace them with samples.  You might laugh about this and think it sounds silly, but let me tell you that I didn’t buy toothpaste from the summer of 2008 to July 2009!  My family has been using up the free samples and toothpaste I “bought” for free at the grocery store all this time.  The fact is that if samples are out where your family will use them, they’ll get used up (instead of getting lost in a drawer or closet somewhere).  And using these free items means you’ll be buying products less frequently, saving you money in the process.  See how I replaced all shower items with free samples here.

Action: Once you start receiving freebies, put your full sized products in the pantry and replace them with samples. Once the samples are used, put the full sized bottles back.

• Get free magazines to score free coupons for other products.  Magazines often have valuable health, beauty, and grocery coupons inside.  But you don’t have to buy magazines to get them- just request our free magazine subscriptions to start receiving more magazines than you ever thought possible!

Action: Request free magazine subscriptions whenever they become available.

• Use free alternatives before buying ANYTHING.  I wrote about this before in Top 13 Free Things to Stop Paying For Now.  From toothbrushes to envelopes, there is so much free stuff available to us that we often take these things for granted.

Action: Make a list of current items you pay for, then brainstorm ways for getting the same things free.  Read our reminder list of free things to stop paying for.

• Get kids’ clothes and shoes for free by trading them on Swap Mamas. This free community allows you to post and trade just about anything – making it a great way to get all the kids’ items you’ll ever need for free (while getting rid of outgrown clothes yourself).  If you can’t find what you need there, check Craigslist for free clothes people are giving away.  Still no luck?  Read our tips for how to save 90% on kids clothes and get them nearly free.

Action: Create a free profile at Swap Mamas and start trading for free clothes and other items.

• Don’t pay to rent movies anymore – get them from Redbox for FREE or borrow from the library.   Redbox kiosks offer free new release movies constantly. There are free codes all the time, frequently for special events and holidays and some codes that are particular to certain stores.

Action: Visit AndFreebiesForAll.com regularly to get Redbox promo codes for free movie rentals.

• Cancel your cable and watch TV online.  YouTube and Hulu have made it ridiculous to pay for cable services.  Watch your favorite TV series online at those video sharing sites or directly from the networks’ sites (Fox on Demand, CBS, and more). 

Action: Call the cable company and cancel your subscription as soon as possible.

• Stop paying for long distance on your phone; switch to free voice over IP services like Skype.  Talk to anybody anywhere for free using your computer.  How could you justify paying the phone company for long distance now?!

Action: Cancel your long distance phone package (if you have one).

• Use free video conferencing on Windows Live Messenger.  Stop spending money to print and mail pictures, videos, and long letters to your relatives!  You might not have known that Live Messenger has free video conferencing built in right from your chat window, but it does.  Now Grandma and Grandpa can see and talk to the grandkids for free as often as they want, without spending an extra penny.

Action: Download Windows Live Messenger here for free.

In a recession, we’re all concerned about keeping our expenses as low as possible and finding all the ways to save money on household items.  Print out this list or bookmark this page and work your way through the frugal tips to get you on the road to saving money and getting almost everything for free!

Check out Frugal Friday  at Life as Mom and Super Saturday Savings at Money Saving Mom . “Oh yes it’s free” sign by koka_sexton. How to Save Money By Getting Almost Everything For Free was originally published on HomeEverAfter.com on April 9, 2009.

Sometimes I think I’ve gone off the deep end of frugal living and that my husband is going to tease me.  Sometimes I’m right!  Then there are the other times, like this week when I wanted to figure out how to save money on trash bags…

After a recent grocery shopping trip, I told my husband how much our box of kitchen trash bags cost.  I usually buy the Great Value brand of trash bags at Walmart, which also happen to be the cheapest price for the most trash bags.  Best value or not, that didn’t keep me from noticing that our box of trash bags cost $13!  I had just spent $13 on something to intentionally throw away. 

As a frugal mom, this disturbed me, and it bounced back and forth in my head all day.  How can I save money on trash bags?  It seemed like such a waste to spend so much money on something to hold our trash and then go to the landfill.  Then I looked over at my overflowing container of plastic grocery shopping bags… 

Even using reusable shopping bags most of the time, we still accumulate tons of plastic grocery shopping bags in my house.  You probably do too.  If only there was a way to use those little bags for kitchen trash like I do in the small trash cans in every other room of the house, I thought. 

Then the light bulb started to flicker above my head, and I realized the solution to my money wasting trash bag problem! 

The Frugal Tip: Save Money on Trash Bags with a 2nd Trash Can

As you can see in the picture at left, we now have TWO trash cans in the kitchen: a tall one and a small one!  I found an extra small trash can in the kids’ room that rarely gets used, and moved it to the kitchen next to the tall trash can. 

The family now has instructions to put all trash in the small trash can unless it won’t fit.  Bigger items go in the bigger trash can. 

Having this smaller trash can may not seem like a big money saving system, until you consider the data:

• We normally take out 2-3 large trash bags per day.
• Since we started this new system on September 26th, we’ve taken out 9 small trash bags but only ONE large trash bag.
• This means in 4 days, we saved between $1.36 and $2.04 on trash bags.  That’s between $10.20 and $15.30 a month, just on trash bags!  That extra $122.40 to $183.60 savings per year sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

In 4 days that we would have thrown away 8-12 large trash bags, we threw away only 1!  The free plastic bags that we’re trying to get rid of have been the ones going out the door, not the large trash bags that cost 17 cents each.

Of course, I don’t intend to let it go on as long as a year, because hopefully I’ll run down my stockpile of plastic shopping bags by then (and I use reusable shopping bags most of the time).  But for right now, using this second trash can is using up my extra free resource and saving my family money.

Now I realize this double trash can system may seem a little strange.  Remember that frugal living is all about using your money and your resources wisely, and don’t be afraid to try out new home systems that might seem a little strange or unconventional.  Keep thinking of creative frugal solutions for your home!

Read more of our frugal articles before you go.  Photo by IS World Media.  Be Frugal Today: Save Money on Trash Bags is linked to Frugal Friday, Works for Me Wednesday and 11th Heaven.

While we can’t eliminate laundry from your list of necessary housework items, we can help you save money on laundry with these frugal laundry tips.

Laundry can be as expensive or as inexpensive as you want it to be, depending on what measures you take to cut the costs.  Not all tips are right for every family; just choose the ones you can work into your current system today and enjoy lower utility and laundry supply bills!

Here are 13 different ways to save on the cost of doing laundry, ranging from quick and easy to long-term solutions. 

13 Ways to Save Money on Laundry Costs

1. Buy Energy Star rated appliances.  That Energy Star emblem means they use less energy in a more efficient manner and will cost you less to  use.  When replacing old or worn out appliances, check first for the Energy Star on your replacement choices.

2. Cut dryer sheets in half.  One box lasts twice as long when you cut the sheets in half.  As soon as you open the box, break out the scissors and enjoy cutting your dryer sheet expenses by 50%!

3. Dilute laundry detergent in the bottle with water.  Save your empty laundry detergent bottles.  When you open a fresh one, pour half into the empty bottle.  You now have 2 bottles half full of detergent waiting to be filled with water.  You can fill water all the way to the top or 2/3 full, depending on the savings you want.  Diluted detergent will get your clothing just as clean, and if you’re used to filling the cap (or your family members are), this trick will save you.  Most of us use more detergent than recommended or necessary anyway.

4. Use less detergent and liquid fabric softener.  Are you strong enough to skip the diluting and just use less?  More power to you!

5. Clean the lint trap before every load of laundry.  A clean lint trap lets your dryer work more efficiently and dry clothes faster.  Spend the extra 20 seconds and empty it before you start the dryer.  Plus, a clean lint trap cuts down the risk of a dryer fire – how about that! 

6. Line dry your clothes.  String up a line, buy some cheap wooden clothes pins, and you’re in business.  Zero energy use and it costs exactly $0 to use.

7. Create a hybrid drying routine.  Maybe you don’t like line drying because of the possible clothing stiffness.  Maybe you can’t use a clothesline because of space limitations, like living in an apartment with no yard.  If you can’t convert wholly to the clothesline method for whatever reason, create a hybrid routine that still has you using your electric dryer, but only half as much.  Hang items to dry over shower curtain rods, hang from ceiling fans, or clotheslines for part of the time, dryer for the rest.  Get soft clothes with half the energy use.

8. Do less laundry. Wear jeans more than once, use bath towels more than once.  Sweaters and jackets can also be worn more than once if you wear them layered with a shirt underneath.  Make sure you hang up clothes that can be worn again so that they’re not washed by mistake.

9. Double up 1/2 loads of laundry and only dry full loads.  Put your half load of washed whites in the dryer and let them wait until your next half load is complete.  Dry as one full load and cut the energy cost in half.

10. Dry loads back to back if possible to keep the dryer from heating up again (save time and energy).

11. Double spin clothes in the washer.  After your washing machine is done, turn the knob to “Spin only” and spin the clothes a second time.  The centrifugal motion (spinning) helps to get extra water out of the clothes, which in turn take less time to dry in the dryer.

12. Use vinegar in the wash instead of fabric softener (1/4 cup).  Smaller loads need smaller amounts, unless you want to smell vinegar on your clean clothes!  This cheap alternative to liquid fabric softener will save money on your laundry supply budget for certain.

13. Wash in the coldest temperature recommended for your clothes.  Save your water heater from firing up to heat the water when possible.  Cold wash temperatures will also help to preserve the fibers in the material of your clothing, meaning it won’t wear out as fast.

Frugal challenge:  Choose a few of these great money-saving frugal laundry tips today, and see how much you can drive down your laundry expenses!  Subscribe today to get more money-saving articles delivered to your for free.

Originally published June 26, 2008.  Photos courtesy of MorgueFile.

We talked about how to save 90% off kids’ clothes by shopping thrift stores out of season last week.  To make this strategy work, you’ll have to make an estimate of what size your child will be wearing at a certain point in time.  Always guess a bigger size instead of smaller, and if the clothes happen to be a bit too big, they’ll be able to grow into them.

The store sales and clearance schedule below lists the best times and places to buy kids’ clothes for the best price.  “Do not buy” indicates when the clothes will be at their highest prices of the year.  Bookmark or print out this list for future reference.  To all you mommy bloggers- if you like this list and think it will be helpful to others, please link to it for your readers!  The permalink is:

http://www.homeeverafter.com/buying-cheap-kids-clothes-store-sales-clearance-schedule. Thank you for helping support this site!

Kids’ School Clothes 

Buy long-sleeved shirts, jeans, pants, sweaters and other fall / winter type kids’ clothes in spring and summertime.  The best time to buy school clothes is April or May, when stores are trying to make room for summer clothes.

• Best time to buy at thrift stores: spring and summer.
• Do not buy: August or September.
• Retail store clearance time: April, May.

Halloween Costumes

For the best prices on kids’ Halloween costumes, look for them to appear at thrift stores all year round or at garage sales during the summer.  Consignment stores are a great source for cheap Halloween costumes as well.

• Best time to buy at thrift stores: November-August.
• Do not buy: September or October. 
• Retail store clearance time: November 1st-7th

Christmas Costumes and Themed Outfits

Retail stores start putting out cute kids’ Christmas outfits, like santa suits and elf costumes, around Thanksgiving time, but you’ll pay the highest prices possible if you buy them then and there.  eBay stores have super clearance sales on kids’ Christmas clothing the week after Christmas.

Winter photo by by fotologic.  Santa suit photo of Truett Ice-Simmons ©Danelle Ice/IS World Media.

How to Save 90% on Kids Clothes

We’ve got a frugal tip today that will cut your budget for kids clothes by 90%.  Holy thrifty savings, batman!  We take thrift store shopping a step further and show frugal moms how to get the deep discounts that not many other people are finding. 

That’s right, if you normally spend $20 on a pair of jeans for your little one at the department store, we’ll cut the price down to $2.  Does it sound too good to be true?  Keep reading.

I’ll be writing about shopping for my daughter’s school clothes at the thrift store soon.  Call me frugal, but even second-hand prices seem high to me, especially for pants your child may be able to wear for only a few months before growing out of them.  There had to be a way to get better prices from the thrift store, I thought.  That’s when I came up with this tip that changed my kids’ clothing buying for the rest of my life.

Buy Kids Clothes at Thrift Stores Out of Season

The big secret to thrift store shopping is to outsmart their pricing strategy.  Even at thrift stores, the pricing is designed to mark prices higher on items that are in demand.  A Batman Halloween costume for your little tyke might cost $8 at Goodwill during October, but if you found it there in April?  You’d probably pay a dollar for the same costume!

Knowing the price strategy of thrift stores is key to deciding when to shop for which items.  At back to school time, the “school clothes” (long sleeve tops, sweaters) will be at their highest prices of the entire year.  Jeans and winter coats will be marked up significantly, because the store knows you need them, and your only alternative is to pay an even higher price at a retail store.

You will have a large selection of clothes to choose from at thrift stores when shopping out of season.  Think about it – when do you donate your kids old summer clothes?  Most likely in the winter time when decluttering boxes of old summer clothes!  People always donate things when they are not likely to be used, and for clothes, this means at the wrong time of year.  Since thrift stores know that you are not likely to buy summer shorts in the dead of winter, you can normally pick them up for about 50 cents.

By using this handy tip to shop for a summer wardrobe of shorts, tanks and swimsuits in the middle of winter, you’ll be able to pick up kids clothes for up to 90% off retail prices.  Check out our thrift store buying schedule next week, with the optimal times to buy all types of clothes and other items for the best savings.  If you like, we’ll send you new articles for free so you don’t miss it.

Check out Frugal Friday for more great tips. Unique thrift store photo by back_garage. Summer kids photo ©IS WorldMedia 2009.

Vampire taps might be sucking the energy out of your home right now!  Chances are, they’re inflating your energy use and raising your electric bill, silently draining the money out of your household budget.  We’ve talked before about vampire energy taps in these articles:

Top Energy Wasters in Your Home and

Are Energy Vampire Taps Costing You Money?

What is vampire power?  I know Halloween is just around the corner, but vampire energy taps don’t have anything to do with dracula or evil undead creatures!  A vampire tap is an electrical device that uses electricity while plugged into an outlet, even if it’s not turned on or in use.  Vampire power means you end up paying extra for electricity that you’re not even using.  Frugal families can cut down on vampire energy waste and reclaim their energy savings, starting now.

October 30, 2008 is the first ever National Vampire Power Awareness Day as launched by Best Buy.  Home Ever After has proudly partnered with Best Buy in their campaign of educating people on ways to lower energy bills and save electricity.

Vampire Power Facts:

• In a typical American home, 40% of all electricity used is from products that are turned off, as reported by the Department of Energy.
• An average American house has between 20 and 40 vampire taps in use.
• How much do vampire taps cost you? Every watt of energy costs $1 per year, and those watts can add up fast.
• $1,000: number of dollars in electricity wasted in the average house each year!

Fight Vampire Energy Right Now:

1.  Unplug your electronics when not in use (yes, this includes cell phone chargers).

2.  Use a power strip that’s easy to turn off when you leave home or go to bed.

3.  Switch to Energy Star products and appliances; they use less energy when turned off and save you money.

4.  Watch the spooky video below to find out typical products that drain your power:

We have a lot of control over our budgets when it comes to grocery spending, even though it might not seem obvious at first.  Most people enjoy saving money on necessities so that they can splurge on their chosen little luxuries for their families (like family vacations or a new game system).  That’s what frugal living is all about!  These tips for saving money on groceries are a good starting point to get you cutting your grocery bill down drastically.

13 Easy Ways to Save on Groceries

1. Leave the kids at home when you shop for groceries (if possible). Comparing prices takes concentration. Someone begging for items which are not on the list can be distracting and drive up your grocery bill!

2. Check the price per unit. Select items based on how much each unit (ounce, pound, etc.) costs, not the whole package. Many stores make your job easier by having the unit price on the shelf’s sticker. If not, carry a calculator with you and do your math. The larger package is NOT always the better deal.

3. Stick to the perimeter. Whole foods (the bakery, dairy, meat and produce) usually line the outside walls of the store. Try to stay out of the middle (where the packaged, processed convenience foods are). Those “middle” foods are more expensive and have less nutritional value than whole foods.

4. Make a menu plan for your meals and stick to it. No last minute runs for full-price ingredients when you find out you’re missing what you need for dinner!

5. Base your menu around a few key ingredients. Fewer unique ingredients means fewer things to shop for.

6. Always shop with a list. Don’t get distracted; only buy the things you need.

7. Buy generic. For most items, generics are comparable quality to name brands, but cost a fraction of the price.

8. Use coupons. Clip them from magazines, newspapers, or print them online.

9. Combine coupons with sales whenever possible for extra savings.

10. Get rainchecks if sale items are sold out. Don’t let the store hassle you about it either; it’s not your fault if they don’t have a proper stock of their sale items. Get a raincheck and lock in the sale price for your next shopping trip.

11. Buy staples in bulk, just make sure you’re able to properly store them.

12. Switch from soda to water. Soda is not good for you and it’s expensive. Water is a free healthy alternative. Need I say more?

13. Buy produce from local produce stands or farmer’s markets. The food is fresher, grown locally, and costs you less since the grower doesn’t have to pay to ship it to a grocery store.

13 Ways to Save Energy and Cut Utility Costs

1. Switch to CFL bulbs.  We hear it all the time, and for good reason.  Energy Star compact fluorescent bulbs use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer than regular incandescent bulbs.  They also create 75% less heat, meaning your air conditioner bill goes down.

2. Buy blackout panels to hang behind your curtains.  Blackout panels are heavy duty and block out heat and light.  Less sunshine coming into your house means a cooler house that’s easier on the air conditioner expense.

3. Use icepacks to keep cool.  Gel icepacks available at any drugstore are inexpensive and energy efficient.  Try putting an icepack in a towel or even inside your pillowcase (right behind your neck) for all-night cooling while you sleep.  When we discovered that our daughter would rather sleep with an icepack than with a fan blowing on her all night, we were all in favor!  Put them in the freezer in the morning and they’re ready at bedtime.

4. Turn the lights off!  Turning out the lights when you leave a room is a great habit for the entire family to start.

5. Stay in or stay out.  Sound familiar?  As parents ourselves, we now know why our parents were always telling us, "Either stay outside or stay inside, but quit opening the door!"  Keep that expensive cooled or heated air where it belongs – in the house.

6. Seal your doors and windows.  Weatherization is as important for summertime as it is for wintertime.  Don’t let your expensive heated or cooled air escape through drafty window or door seals.  Weather stripping is cheap and quickly installed.

7. Unbundle or switch to the basic plan.  Cable, home phone, cell phone – many people pay for extra services on these plans that they don’t need and may not even use.  Do some research with your provider to see how you can cut down your bill.

8.  Unplug cords when items aren’t in use.  Many electrical items are always in standby mode and use energy 24 hours a day in, even if they’re not in use!  View a list of common energy vampire taps.

9. Use power strips that can be easily turned off before bedtime or before leaving the house.

10. Clean under your refrigerator.  The dust bunnies that accumulate under your refrigerator actually make it work hard to do its job.  Take a vacuum to your refrigerator vent regularly to keep dirt from building up.

11. Clean out your dryer’s lint trap.  A full lint trap causes a dryer to work harder than necessary, using extra energy and taking longer to get clothes dry.  Empty the lint trap before every load of laundry and take the vacuum to it for a thorough cleaning once a month.

12. Line dry your clothes.  Nothing like solar energy for cheap utility!

13. Replace old appliances with Energy Star appliances.  The Energy Star rating means they operate more efficiently while using less energy, which means utility savings for you.

Thanks to stock.xchng for the photo.

Vampire taps are in all of our houses right now and chances are, they’re costing you  money.  Many electrical devices use energy in “standby mode” 24 hours a day, even when they’re not in use.  A little extra energy may not seem like a big deal at first thought.  However, each extra item using electricity tacks on a little to your electric bill, making your cost higher for items you aren’t even using!

Common vampire taps include:

• Electric razors and electric toothbrushes
• Computers, monitors, external modems and hard drives
• Fax machines, printers and scanners
• Cell phone chargers
• Telephones and answering machines
• Stoves and microwaves
• Breadmakers and rice cookers
• Clock radios and cable boxes
• TVs, VCRs, DVD players and DVRs
• Game systems (Wii, PS, Xbox)
• Stereo systems and security systems
• Baby monitors
• Washing machines
• Battery chargers
• Vacuum cleaners
• Electric lawnmowers
• Garage door openers
• Power tools

What can you do to eliminate energy waste from vampire taps in your home?

First, unplug items you aren’t using.  It seems like a great idea to just unplug everything, but that can be a hassle, especially for hard-to-reach outlets.  One suggestion is to plug multiple cords into one powerstrip (or surge protector) that you can switch off as needed, like before going to bed or leaving the house.

For items that are occasionally used, like power tools, only plug them in to get a full charge when you’re going to use them.  Store occasional use items unplugged at other times.

• Energy Quest Room
• Energy Hog

13 Free Things to Never Pay For Again

1. Toothpaste. There are so many toothpaste samples out there that you could never use them up before more became available! Toothpaste is one of those products that frequently goes on sale and, combined with coupons, can be gotten for FREE or for just a few cents.

2. Movie rentals. Use Redbox rental kiosks if they are available in your area. You can find promo codes at our site And Freebies For All  good for free Redbox rentals! Also, local libraries usually have a decent selection of VHS and DVD to borrow for free.

3. Books. Bookstore can be tempting with all those crisp new books, but will you really read them more than once? Borrow books from the library for free and save your house from more clutter. Trade old paperbacks in your local library’s exchange program for new (to you) books.

4. Shampoo & conditioner. Shampoo and conditioner are widely available in sample form. Combine sales with coupons to buy them free or nearly free. If you have a traveler in the family, make use of the hotel travel size shampoo and conditioners. If you don’t use them (or only use a little) while on your trip, take them home with you. Waste not, want not!

5. Magazines. With so many free offers online, it’s easy to find some magazine that will appeal to your interests without paying a subscription fee. Find a friend to trade old magazines with and get a fresh batch of reading material for free.

6. Lotions, bodywashes and perfumes. A little sample requesting goes a long way with these products. If you receive bath and body gift packs as presents, you’ll be sure to have a large stockpile.

7. Rubber bands. Save the rubber bands that come from the grocery store to hold your produce together. Examples: radishes, spinach, asparagus, greens and many more.

8. Trash bags. Use your large stockpiles of plastic grocery bags to line your small trash cans and diaper pails.

9. Gift bags and wrapping paper. Keep gift bags you receive to reuse for your gift giving. Also, get creative by using newspaper, aluminum foil or brown paper from grocery bags as free wrapping paper.

10. Toothbrushes. Cleanings at your dentist’s office mean free toothbrushes and floss at each visit. How fast can you wear out a toothbrush, really?! Coupons combined with sales often provide free toothbrushes as well.

11. Envelopes. Reuse the return envelopes from bills and junk mail for mailing your own correspondence. Why buy more envelopes while throwing available ones in the trash?

12. Storage containers for food staples. Here are 40 cool ways to use those free empty milk jugs!

13. Straws, napkins, and condiments. When you get fast food (which we all do sometimes), save the extras to use later. Chinese restaurants often overload you with soy sauce packets in your takeout, so why not save them to use in cooking?