Skip to main content

Featured

What I'm Reading This Week #30

Happy Final Friday of July everyone!  I will not be sad to see this month in the rear view.  The Mr finished the HOA minion's job by checking on the basement wall crevasse of missing mortar pretty much every waking hour after he "filled" the hole.  I gave him a bamboo skewer to see if it hit the long bottom we saw with the camera.  Nope.   source When he poked it, it drained away.  Every hour, he'd do the same and it kept emptying.  I had him check to make sure it wasn't pouring out the front of the house and thankfully it wasn't.  But if you figure that water has been etching away at the stairstep crack leading from the top of the hole then that goes down the entire length of the wall , so it had a long way to travel.  In the end not only did the Mr use one quart of the filler but had to buy another one and used 1/3 of the bottle before it finally started leveling off!!  If we'd left it to the HOA dude, an eighth of the bottle woul...
4 comments
CLICK HERE to continue reading

Hump Day Poll: Energy Savings



I am looking for all of the ways to save money lately and that included doing a bit of an energy audit in early February.  I never paid attention to what I used when.  If the dishwasher needed run, we ran it.  I was in a room, lights on, etc.

Now that we need to be cognizant of what money is going where I started not turning the light on in the living room during the day.  I set up for the day near the slider so I've been opening the blind all the way and it's been giving me enough light.  Unfortunately, our house faces south meaning the sun casts a huge shadow on the back of the house so we can't really harness the light well.  I checked the non peak hours listing for our electric company and it's 8pm to 6am.  So if the dishwasher needs run now, it gets put on the delay cycle until 8pm.  Washer needs run?  Set to 8pm to be switched an hour later or run at 5am with an email reminding us to switch it when we get up.  (Obviously, the night one saving more money.)  Hot water was my default setting on the kitchen sink, now I try to use that setting as little as possible and stick to nothing hotter than warm.  I try to unplug all phantom appliances like kettles, coffee pots, etc.  We've got our heat and cooling on a programmable thermostat.  (76 in day and 70 at night during the summer.)

I'm sure I can do more though.  

What money/energy saving practices do you do?

====================
Get posts sent straight to your inbox on Follow It. Some posts may contain affiliate links that help keep this blog running at no cost to you.  See the Disclaimer page for more info. All posts copyright Success Along the Weigh. All rights reserved.

Comments

  1. DawnMarch 12, 2025 at 6:17 AM

    I saw a challenge on Oprah decades ago. Unplugged everything not used and saved alot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Mr.March 12, 2025 at 8:03 AM

    These are all good tips. Waiting until after peak should really save a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  3. WoodsyMarch 12, 2025 at 8:28 AM

    Our peak hours go to 7pm during the week, so I've done that for years with waiting until then to run the washer and dryer, or weekends when you can run them at any time. We keep the thermostat between 62 - 65 at night during winter. I wash dishes by hand, unplug what I can, use cold water for laundry, and use those child safety covers in outlets around the perimeter of the house to block air coming in, either hot or cold. I no longer feel a draft in the living room or kitchen since doing that. During winter you could literally feel the breeze come through the outlets that were not used. Crazy. I got lazy about it this winter because I was trying to get laundry done while I worked, and our bill skyrocketed.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking the time to comment! I appreciate your time! (Heads up though...disrespectful or spam comments will be deleted.)

Popular Posts