Tips for saving money on utility bills

Tips for saving money can really help you stick to your budget. When you put your own money saving practices together with other people's, you can really save a load of cash!

One of your major expenses every month is probably your utility bills. Cutting back on these bills might seem impossible, but these tips will help you do it painlessly.

Save on heating

You've probably already got a lot of your own money saving ideas for heating. It's actually pretty commonsense!

If you pay too much for heating every winter, here are a few ways that you can cut back on this spending:

• Turn off the radiators in rooms you rarely use. If you have a large home, there are probably several rooms you don't use often. Even in smaller homes, though, the family might tend to gather in just one or two rooms during the day and evening. Switch off the radiators in these areas all day, and you can always turn them back on when you need to use those rooms.
• If you're not home during the day, turn the heat way down. The house doesn't mind being cold! If you are home during the day, try to stick to just a couple of the rooms in your home. You can heat these rooms efficiently with small space heaters. That way you aren't paying to heat the whole house when you aren't using the whole house!

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• Stop all the drafts you possibly can in your home. Use draft excluders on the doors and windows in the rooms you heat the most, like your living room. Run your hand along windows, door frames, and other areas that lead outside to see if any cold air is coming in. Get to your DIY store and get some sealant and plug these gaps to stop these drafts in the winter.

Tips for saving money on electricity

Some of the most basic tips for saving money on electricity are to simply shut off lights when you aren't using a room and to turn off appliances. Even if you turn things off, though, you could be wasting electricity without even knowing it. Here are a few facts you need to know about the value of unplugging electronics.

• Energy that's wasted when electronics are still on is known as vampire energy loss. Sometimes, electronics still sap energy to maintain remote control access or to give you blinking lights or digital clocks you don't really need. Even leaving small transformers such as your laptop power cable or phone recharger plugged in wastes energy.
• In the average household, vampire energy loss accounts for 22% of the energy used for appliances and 10% of the total household energy usage!*
• You can lose a lot of power through a power strip with multiple outlets that doesn't have an off switch.*
• In order to save up to 10% on your energy bills, start unplugging as many items as you can. To make this easy in areas like your entertainment center, plug all your items into a single power strip. You can then switch the strip off or just unplug it from the wall. This way, you only have to unplug one thing to actually unplug many of the electronics in your home. The same tactic can be used for the computer in your home office or even for the appliances on your kitchen counter.

Tips for saving money on water

Water is another major utility that you have to have in order for your home to function. There are lots of ways to save on water, including simply using less! Here are a couple of tips for saving money on your water bill.

• Get a water meter. In most places, you can get a meter for your water usage automatically installed by your water company. Basically, this will let your water company charge you for exactly how much water you actually use. For most properties, water charges are assessed based on the size of your home, but if you are very efficient or have a small family in a large home, you may be able to save money by having a metered fitted.** Note, however, that if you are a larger family of 4-5 people in a 3 or 4 bed property you may not be better off with a water meter.
• Once you switch to a water meter, you'll have more incentive to keep your water usage as low as possible. You can save water by shortening your showers. Use water-efficient settings on your washing machine and dishwasher, and don't run the tap when washing your hands or brushing your teeth. You can also save by fixing leaky pipes and taps, which can drip away literally litres of water a week if you aren't careful. You'll probably be surprised at just how much water you can save by these simple steps!

Shop around

Shopping around can save you money on pretty much all your utilities, including TV packages, electricity, gas, Internet and phone service.

Use price comparison services, which you can find on many websites, to determine which company is going to get you the absolute best deal. It's a good policy to shop for new utilities companies each time your contracts are about to expire, which should occur once a year or so. This is one of the best tips for saving money that people forget about.

* Source - Wikipedia

** Source - uswitch