Tips to Saving Money on Your Home Utility Bills

With today's economy in such a bad slump, expenses and costs of everything seem to keep rising while income seems to keep reducing. Look at any bill you have: your grocery expenses, the cost of buying new clothes, or even your mortgage interest payments, and you'll notice everything seems much more expensive than normal. With winter time now upon us, most of us are going to start seeing the shock of outrageous home utility bills as well.

In the United States we often have common home utility expenses such as electricity, water, and natural gas or propane. Most of these bills go up dramatically during the cold winter months, because of the costs associated with heating our home. Anyone who has been affected by the bad economy recently though is already dealing with financial problems brought about by reduced income, so the increase in the utility bills which will soon be coming is going to be especially hard this year.

Thankfully there are actually many things everyone can do which will help reduce the costs of those utility bills this winter. In fact, many things which can be done will actually save you money for the long term. Reducing the costs of your home utility bills is fairly simple to do, and it does not require major lifestyle changes. They key is to reduce our consumption of energy, and conserve as much as we can.

Reducing the amount of energy we consume in our homes is easily done by using energy efficient appliances or devices. This isn't overly helpful unless you are planning to replace a major home appliances soon. If you plan to buy a new refrigerator or stove soon for example, be sure to get the most energy efficient one you can afford. If you're not planning to replace any major appliances soon though, you can still start reducing your utility bills by being more efficient with your current energy usage. For example, if you still use standard incandescent lightbulbs, change those to the new energy-efficient pigtail versions. This one change alone will make a noticeable and drastic difference on your monthly electric bill.

Another excellent way to reduce the amount of energy you're using it to install timer control devices on your water heater and furnace.

Since your water heater and furnace do not need to run during the day when you're out of the home at work for example, you could have a timer which turns these items off or down very low while you're gone. The timer controls can be set to turn the furnace on 15 to 30 minutes before you get home from work, and the water heater can be turned on 15 to 30 minutes before you get up for your shower in the morning.

In addition to using timer controls, adjust the thermostat on both of these devices as well. Your water heater temperature does not need to be more than about 120°, otherwise it is hot enough to scald you. You can also comfortably turn your furnace down to about 60 or 65°, and simply wear sweaters to keep yourself from feeling to chilly.