Money Saving Tips to Add to your To Do List
It’s officially August, but it seems like my 11 year old was just counting down the days until school got out. Now we are counting down the days until she goes back. While summer is not officially over, it sure seems like it is. Back to school time has always been that unofficial end. Did you get everything done that you wanted to this summer around the house? While summer is still winding down, you still have time to get some of those projects done. Hopefully, some of those projects involve getting your home ready for winter. Yes, I know, I said winter. While I know that it is the farthest thing from most of our minds, winter will be here before we know it. I think we all make a mental list in our heads in the winter time about things we need to get done in warmer weather.
My list from this winter is still taking up space in my head with not much crossed off of it, with the exception of some efficiency tracking items. I finally installed WIFI thermostats in my home. The thermostats were very easy for me to install and give me more flexibility on heating and cooling my home. My system is a zone system, meaning that I have two thermostats, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Using the mobile app, I can view and compare what the temperature is on each floor so I can adjust as needed. I keep the thermostats a few degrees off each other and it seems to be working out great. One side benefit is that my 11 year old now thinks that I know every time she changes the thermostat when she’s too hot. I don’t actually know if she moves it, but that has been a great deterrent. I also have been using the program in the summer to schedule it so it will go up a few degrees while we sleep.
The other item I crossed off my list was adding spring loaded dampers to my bathroom vents. This is one of those things I noticed this winter, that if it was a little windy out, my louvers would allow air to enter the exhaust piping of my bathroom vents. After searching the internet, I found some inline, one-way spring dampers that I would put behind the louver and keep any air from coming in. Some of the better bathroom fans have a very nice system already, but many do not do a great job of keeping the air from coming into your home.
I finally added an occupancy (motion) sensor in my pantry. That light was probably the one that I would find was left on the most. When anyone would walk in, we always turned it on, but walking out, we apparently would forget to turn it off. Adding the sensor has stopped me from complaining about wasting electricity to my daughters in classic dad fashion. Both daughters were basically belly crawling on the ground one day in the pantry, and I asked them what they were doing and they told me trying to not make the light come on while they grab a snack. So not only am I saving money since the light never gets left on, but I actually created a game for them and didn’t even realize it! I still need to put one of the occupancy sensors in the closet, because I am bad about leaving that light on. I will however not be playing the same game of “don’t turn the light on” that my daughters do in the pantry.