17 ways to reduce your energy bill
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- Get a home energy audit every couple of years with your power company to find ways to cut costs.
- Check with your utility company for rebates whenever you install energy-saving equipment.
- Add more energy-efficient insulation to your attic, with the appropriate R-value, or resistance to heat flow, for your climate and the type of heating in your house..
- Turn down your home thermostat two degrees and save 24 kilowatt hours a month. It might not sound like much, but it adds up.
- Buy a programmable thermostat, especially if your home is vacant most of the day. Set it to turn on a half hour before anyone arrives home.
- Adjust your thermostat to a comfortable temperature and wait. Turning your thermostat up or down dramatically wastes energy and increases your heating costs.
- Lower your hot water thermostat 10 degrees, but no lower than 120 degrees. You’ll still get all the hot water you need and save 25 kilowatt hours a month.
- Fix leaky faucets — one drip a second is 20 kilowatts a month.
- Invest in weather-stripping kits if you’ve got drafty doors.
- Trade your standard candescent bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs. They are more energy-efficient, last for years instead of months, consume little power and generate little heat.
- Turn off your computer when not in use, or use the energy-saving “sleep” mode.
- Seal energy leaks. Caulk over cracks and small holes around windows and exterior walls. Look carefully around plumbing pipes, telephone wires, dryer vents, sink and bathtub drains and under countertops.
- Participate in your power company’s special energy-saving program. Some programs shut down electric appliances for short bursts of time during peak hours. You hardly notice the difference — except in your bill.
- Buy major appliances that sport the “Energy Star” sticker. That shows the appliance meets or exceeds standards set by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Consider a front-loading washing machine. They use 50 percent less energy and one-third less water. Plus, they remove far more water in the rinse cycle, and that translates into big savings in dryer time.
- When building a home or replacing a roof, select a roof based more on energy efficiency than on how it looks. Light-colored roofs, such as white, galvanized metal or cement tile, do the best job of reflecting the sun, and cool quickly at night.
- Landscaping with the right mix of trees and shrubs can lower your energy bills by blocking winter winds or the summer sun.
Save money by walking
If a purchase is over $20 I make myself walk away for a determined period of time. The larger the expense the longer I wait for the purchase. It keeps me from buying things on a whim. Sounds simple but it is sometimes hard to do. I know if I still want the item after the time has passed — and I can afford it — then I purchase it.
Courtesy of Maggi Edgewater
8 unique ways to save money
Buy cheaper underwear - Do you really need that designer underwear that nobody sees but yourself? Okay, so maybe it makes you feel sexy when you’re dancing in front of the mirror, but do you really need it? You can usually get a 3 pack of underwear for the price of a single pair of designer undies. Do yourself a favor and save some money on your skivvies.
Find hand-me-overs - These are basically hand-me-downs, but I like to think of them more as hand-me-overs. Not everyone has two older siblings like me, so sometimes you have to get a little help from your friends. Talk to your friends and find out if they have anything they don’t need and save yourself some money on things like furniture, dishes, silverware, pots and pans, etc.
Read at the bookstore - Are you constantly buying books and magazines? Save some money by visiting your local bookstore and reading there. Many of them have comfortable sitting areas and some even have complimentary coffee. It’ll also give you a reason to get out of your apartment every once in a while.
Save the condiments - Grab some free ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, and napkins from fast food restaurants and then you don’t have to buy them from the grocery store.
Eat late - Go to a restaurant near closing time. Instead of throwing out their leftover food, some places will offer it to you for free. This varies from place to place, so your mileage may vary.
Eat ramen again - Some of you probably just cringed. However, if you’re reading this, you’re probably a broke grad student like me and want to get to the point of ramen-free living. Ironically, eating more ramen now will help you get to that point faster.
Get free stuff - People are always giving away free stuff on college campuses. Of course, they’re usually trying to sell their product to you too, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy it. Just pick up some free pens, shirts, notebooks, etc. and now you have school supplies for the semester.
Stop driving - Start walking or riding your bike to school. Depending on your campus, this may or may not be feasible. With the rising price of gas, you’ll definitely save some money by limiting your driving. It’ll also help you keep in shape!
courtesy of Broke Grad Student
How to keep heating costs down
Regardless of whether you heat your home with an electric space heater that gets electricity from a natural gas-fired power plant or with a little blue flame inside a high-efficiency furnace, skyrocketing natural gas prices will make it more expensive to keep your toes from turning into icicles this winter.
Whatever your heating source, you can take some simple steps to keep your bill from burning a hole in your wallet this heating season.
Be a draft dodger
Drafty rooms are the enemy of a warm house.
One culprit: Your duct system. The consumer’s guide from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, or EERE, says that unsealed ducts in your attics and crawl spaces lose air and uninsulated ducts lose heat. Both waste energy and money.
Get a professional to check your house for air leaks.
But if plopping down several hundred dollars to find some air leaks doesn’t sound like a fun way to save money on heating, you can accomplish roughly the same results with a little time and a box of incense sticks. Light an incense stick and walk through the house, moving the stick near spots where the walls meet your floors, windows, doors and the ceiling — preferably on a windy day.
Once you find the leaky culprit, seal it up with caulk, spackling compound or foam weatherstripping that you can buy from any hardware store. Within a year, it will pay for itself in savings.
Stopping a draft has more effect than any other home improvement when it comes to heating and cooling.
Ask for help
Once you have the drafts under control, you can turn to the utility company for some help keeping the sting out of your bill.
For example, Florida Power & Light offers a program known as “on call” which involves installation of a box on major appliances, such as the air conditioner, furnace or water heater. The box allows the company to switch the appliance off during times of high demand on its system and can save you anywhere from $10 to $63 a year, depending on what major appliance you choose to have cycled on and off. The company says it will only switch each appliance off for a maximum of 15 minutes at a time and rarely has to commandeer your heater.
Senior citizens, low-income and unemployed customers also may be able to get assistance from their state public service commission or the utility provider. In Michigan, for example, all state-regulated natural gas and electric utility companies offer assistance and/or shut-off protection programs to assist families in need. Low-income homeowners and renters may be eligible for the Michigan Home Heating Credit.
What debt settlement companies don’t tell you
1. Debt settlement may not be right for you
Debt settlement is a niche solution that’s right only for a small segment of the population, says Charles Phelan, founder of ZipDebt.com, who coaches consumers on do-it-yourself debt settlement. But don’t expect to hear that from a debt-settlement company. “People working the desks at the debt-settlement companies are working on commission and have the incentive of bringing as many people as possible,” he says.
You could be a good candidate for debt settlement if you’re heading toward bankruptcy, but don’t qualify for filing Chapter 7, Phelan explains. (Under Chapter 7, most of your unsecured debts are written off, but you’ll most likely have to sell some property including your home). “Most people who can qualify for Chapter 7 in all likelihood lack the cash flow to make debt settlement work for them,” he says. Debt settlement, in other words, might be a viable alternative to Chapter 13, which sets up a three- to five-year schedule with your creditors to repay your debts. (For more details on qualifying for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, read our story.)
Likewise, if you can scrape up the cash to pay off your debts in a debt-management program, where you work with a debt-management company to pay off your balances in full but with lower interest rates, then debt settlement isn’t the best solution.
2. Your credit will suffer
Creditors don’t settle unless you’re severely behind on your payments. That means one thing: Debt settlement is damaging to your credit. Just how damaging it is depends on your track record. If you’re already behind on payments, your credit will suffer less than if you’ve managed to avoid delinquencies and credit charge-offs.
3. You could get sued
With bankruptcy, creditors have to stop collections efforts as soon as you file. That’s not the case with debt settlement. Even if you inform your creditors of your efforts to settle, they won’t stop trying to collect, Phelan says. Worst-case scenario, they could sue you for the amounts you owe. Should that occur the only way to avoid a black mark on your credit record would be to pay off the debt in full.
4. There are tax consequences
Debt settlement is a taxable event. Any forgiven balance that exceeds $600 is taxable income, says Linfield. “Sometimes that tax event can put people in worse shape than they were in to begin with,” she says. Consider this: If your tax rate is 15%, $5,000 of forgiven debt will carry a $750 tax liability. That’s a debt that the IRS won’t forgive. (Read our story for advice on what to do when you can’t pay your taxes.) One exception: If you’re insolvent — namely your assets are less than your liabilities — you can petition the IRS to waive that tax liability by filing form 982.
5. Our services might be illegal
While the laws regulating debt-settlement companies vary greatly by state, it’s worth noting that 12 states currently prohibit for-profit debt management. Since debt-settlement companies are for-profit entities, they’re not allowed to practice there. Those states are Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming. If you live in one of those states, remember: It is illegal for for-profit debt-settlement companies to contact you and work with you, even if they’re based in another state. “Many companies do it anyway,” Linfield says. “And that’s a big red flag.”
Courtesy of SmartMoney.com
