Posts Tagged ‘Lower costs’

I never think about the light bill, until I have to pay it. 3 computers, 2 fridges, 1 satellite radio, 7 rooms and 2 electric heaters (not by choice!) can really run up your bill. My addiction to all things bright was sucking my earnings.

So when my light bill hit $268.00, and they wouldn`t take my right arm as payment, I decided I was going to go green. Why give away my money to them when I truly didn`t have to?? Here are 8 ways to cut that bill.

1. Let your PC sleep- Your pc comes equipped to utilize energy in an efficient way, It`s called sleep mode. Many debates have been sprung on the subject, whether or not sleep mode affects performance. In my humble view, it doesn`t!! If you do maintenance defragmentation as you should on your pc, it will work for you as it should. Engineers added it to pcs because they knew it could handle it! If you still feel you don`t want to set your computer to sleep, then shut it off.
2. Your computer`s friends need sleep too!-That`s right, that huge printer, scanner, monitor, wireless network and everything else you connect to your pc and an outlet will pull energy. I have those in a separate power surge protector and I disconnect that from the wall.
3. Disconnect your cable box from the wall- Deemed an “energy vampire” because even in its idle state it can suck more than 60 watts of electricity (I don`t have the exact figure for this one, I believe it`s twice that amount). The bill became lower in May when we started doing that. It was probably the one thing that got us hooked on being greenies.
   

   The figures don`t lie.

4. Change the light bulbs-After switching from incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient light bulbs the bill dropped dramatically in May. They are bright, and last up to 10,000 hours. Incandescent 100 watt bulbs have a life of 750 hours. You may pay more but you get more light out of the bulb, plus a lower bill.
   
5. Energy vampires are lurking!!-If you are not using it, disconnect it completely. Appliances in its “off” state will suck up to 60 watts or more in electricity.
6. Buy HE appliances-I don`t mean Manly! I mean “High Efficiency.” I couldn`t afford to buy ALL high efficiency appliances, but I started the process.  You may want to take a look at the chart. Between April and June, I used the local Laundry mat to see how much I could save. Then I tried washing them out and drying them home from July to August. Summer ended and I rather do my laundry at home, so I gave myself a high efficiency washer on September. It remained low.
7. Let the sunshine in!- I open up the window shades and let the sunshine in. Besides being a natural mood enhancers, sunshined rooms in my home a toastier than my darker rooms. My studio is now in a room that catches the morning sunlight and the other side gets the afternoon light.
8. Check your local company for greener energy sources-In the 90`s, Pennsylvania participated in a program that allowed you to choose what green energy company would provide your energy and you could even cost compare. Make the call or visit their respective websites.

Of couse no technology is perfect. When it comes to light bulbs, I am perfectly aware of the warnings on the box. Until we(Americans) manufacture our own energy efficient ligh bulbs, then I will switch. Oh, and if you don`t believe, that`s my bill and I will send it to you so you can pay it.

Resources

• Incandesent light bulbs will be banned by 2010 in EU
• Energy Vampires Watts Chart
• New Technology
• DUH!! The smartest are usually the dumbest
  
• Vampire Appliences suck 3 billions a year
  
• Low standby energy appliances
  
• Energy Star Website
  
• Electricity Saving Calculator
  

One of my loves is paper and I print quite a bit. After seeing the rising cost of paper, I started wondering if paper was cheaper and what quality was available, if I bought recycled paper vs. virgin paper (all new wood fibers).

First I found that there are some “qualifications” to what you would call recycled or earth friendly papers.

• Recycled content paper-paper milled with a percentage of recycled paper, calculated from 10% to 100% of pre-consumer (paper not disposed by consumers) or post-consumer (paper recycled after purchased, used and disposed of by the consumer)
• Forest Stewardship Council paper-”managed” forest have a few trees cut down to avoid overgrowth and used in the paper industry, producing “virgin” paper.
• Sustainable Forestry Initiative paper-Same as above
• Paper produced carbon neutral-These companies reduce and offset (reduction through energy diversification) their carbon emissions.
• Paper produced using wind power-Paper mill is powered using wind power.
  

  Carbon Neutral Resource Energy

• Tree Free content paper-Alternative fiber source is used in the paper
• Elemental Chlorine Free paper-Adding chlorine in the paper making is done to brighten pulp, resulting in brighter, whiter paper.

Okay that was a mouthful! Now is that helping in any way the forests? Here is what I found:

• Space is saved in our landfills when we recycle paper products more than any other materials and each piece of paper can be recycled up to five times before the fibers become too weak . 1(Yesterday I watched a show that said seven times)
• 44 million newspapers are disposed of each day here in the U.S. Sadly it`s  like throwing 500,000 trees into a landfill each week. 2
• Recycling one ton of paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil and 7000 gallons of water! 3
• If  one person was to reuse a paper grocery bag for just one trip to the store, we would save 60,000 trees. 4 Imagine the trees we could be save if we all chose reusable cloth shopping bags instead! (Cited in part-Leah Thorpe)

The bottom line-$$$

Virgin Paper Prices 

Recycled Paper Prices- BTW, It`s $99.85 for 2500 sheets of recycled paper to $144 or virgin paper, same quantity.

Quality

I only could tell the recycled from the virgin when it hit my wallet. There was not quality difference.

When you are better informed, you can make better decisions. Having an ecofriendly business can cut cost drastically and relieve some of your monthly expenses. I really dislike a stuffy sales person who undermines the possibility I have researched this prior to purchasing paper. Just for fun, play dumb and cross check what information you get. You just might surprise yourself!

In my next article, I will show you how went from having a 260 dollar monthly light bill to a 60 dollar light bill-Pretty impressive huh??

Resources

• Buy Eco Friendly
• Trees as a renewable resource
• Hybrid Trees
• Trees and Paper
• They still think recycling doesn`t save trees
• Wind Power isn`t perfect