Strategies To Reduce Or Eliminate Your Utility Bill

Saving Money In A Fluctuating Economy

As of 2020, there are many excellent aspects of the economy which have great potential; but that potential isn’t likely to immediately impact the public at large. For the rest of us, we’ll have to tread water in the difficult circumstances we’ve been contending with for the last decade. Thankfully, there are ways you can save even on the budget you have.

In this writing we’ll briefly explore a few ways you can cut living costs down at home to increase the spending power of the paycheck you already generate. These options may themselves take a little time, and a little discipline, but the end results will speak for themselves.

Energy Maximization

Look at your energy consumption. You can cut that down extensively. The average is $111 a month for most Americans. That’s $1,332 a year. You can totally eliminate that cost and simultaneously expand home equity. Before going so far, figure out what kind of energy you’re using, how much, and average monthly costs.

Sites like energybot.com provide a detailed breakdown of electricity costs to help give you an idea the way in which you’re getting charged each cycle, and where you might cut things down on your own. It’s hard to know what to do or where to go when you don’t know the way your electricity is being charged.

You can do little things like turning off lights when you leave a room, or installing illumination of the water or weight variety. Some camping lamps at Walmart for twenty bucks literally generate electricity from water. A popular model is the “Hydralight”. If that weren’t surprising enough, you can also get gravity lamps for about $70 using a weight to generate electricity.

For $1,332, you can get 19 gravity lamps, or 66 water-powered flashlights. Set them up strategically and use them properly, and you can totally cut utility bills for nighttime lighting. But that’s not feasible for other things which are necessary throughout the day; like power for computers, or power to cook with. For that, you’ll need something more powerful.

The Solar Angle

A solar array that has 31 panels with 100 Watts of hourly energy production, or 3.1 kilo-Watt hours, is going to be worth between $10k and $30k depending on the state you’re in, and the panels you use.

If you do the job DIY, all you need are about $3,100 in panels (which can be acquired at wholesale prices for around $100 per 100-Watt panel), and $1,900 in cords, batteries, and surge controllers. Golf cart batteries work excellent. Essentially, you mount the panels, connect the cables, and network them together through the surge controller into your battery array, then out the power inverter.

Honestly, the hardest part is putting the panels in, while the most complicated part is networking everything together and plugging it into your home’s energy system. But there are online tutorials everywhere which can help you get the job done. And as a last resort, there are always contractors and installation experts you can lean on.

If they work hourly, you can do the hard stuff than have them come in for a few hours to check your work and make sure everything is plugged in, saving on installation costs. Property value will spike between $10k and $30k, there’s a distinct likelihood of a tax credit, and you’ll be able to totally avoid your utility bill. Do the whole job under $10k and you will definitely profit.

Maximizing Energy Efficiency

For $5k, you can save $1,332 a year on average; which means in 3.75 years, going solar directly profits you.

Buy a generator and look into either wind or water energy as a backup. Between cutting down energy usage, replacing traditional options with sustainable ones, and alternative energy like solar, you can reduce your utility bill by half, or eliminate it entirely.