5 Easy Ways to Lower Your Electric Bill and Gas Bill

This post on 5 Easy ways to lower your gas and electric bill is sponsored by PG&E.  All opinions and words are my own

The weather is changing, and it is time to find easy ways to lower your gas and electric bill.  While there are lots of things you could do to save money that cost a lot, Sometimes you need no cost options to lower your gas and electric bill. There are simple things you can do that will make a big difference in your utility cost without it costing you a lot upfront.

 5 Easy ways to lower your gas and electric bill

Check your water heater temperature

One of the most natural things you can do is turn down your water heater a bit.  This won’t cost you a thing, and you may not even notice the change when you do it.  We turned ours down a bit when we first moved, and we saved at least $10 a month on our bill.

Do PG&E’s Home Energy Checkup for your home

I recently found out about this awesome tool from PG&E.  If you have PG&E be sure you log into your account and go check out PG&E’s personalized Home Energy Checkup to see how much energy you are spending in different parts of your house.  It also tells you tips on how you can fix the parts of your house that are costing you the most money.

It only takes about 5 minutes to take the short questionnaire and to get your results.  Here is how you can get your check up if you are a PG&E customer and lower your gas and electric bill today.

First, be sure you have an online account with PG&E.  If you don’t it is super easy to sign up for one, all you need is your phone number with the account and your account number.  If you have these two things, you will have access to your online account within seconds.

Once your account is set up, all you have to do is log into your account and click on ““My Usage and Ways to Save.”  This will take you to PG&E’s Home Energy Checkup questionnaire.

Fill out the survey as best you can.  At the end, you will get a report of how much electricity or gas usage is in your house or appliances.

You can even make a plan for how you will accomplish the tasks and where you can check it off.  We are going to be installing efficient showerheads so we can save water and the heating costs of heating it.

Turn off the lights

This is the hardest thing for us to do when we are looking for ways to lower your gas and electric bill, but only because we have kids that don’t like to do it. Turn off the lights when you are not in the room.  It doesn’t matter if you are coming back in the room, turn it off.  Those times when your lights are on, and no one is using the light add up.

One tip to make this happen when you have kids is to make it a habit from an early age.  Always tell them that we turn out the lights when we leave the room and have them help turn them out.  We also send our kids back to turn out lights out in their room.

Unplug unused appliances

This goes for microwaves, small appliances, lamps and even larger appliances like washers, dryers, and TVs.   It may seem like a small amount of electricity is lost, but with the amount of electronics in homes today, there are actually a lot of electricity lost.

If you want to unplug your TV, I recommend using a surge protector to plug in all the DVD players and electronics that go with your TV into it.  Plug in your TV also.  Then you can unplug everything all at once.

Open the blinds

One of the best electric saving tips I got from someone early in having kids, was to use the light outside as much as possible. This forces you to turn out the lights during the day. I have tried to apply this as much as possible.  It has saved us so much money, and it has taught my kids not always to rely on the lights during the day.

We tend to wake up and open blinds rather than turn on lights. The habit to turn on the lights has to be broken so give yourself some grace as you make that change.  If you do turn on lights, just turn them off and open the window.

Making small changes goes a long way.  Try out these ways to lower your gas and electric bill and find out how you can make a difference and save money!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of PG&E. The opinions and text are all mine.

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