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Hump Day Poll: Hobbies

My mom had a ton of hobbies.  She was a scrapbooker , cardmarker, diamond art  maker, slot machine jockey, bingo player, cross stitcher , occasional sewing thrown in when I was a kid to save money.  She loved being creative.  I also love being creative but haven't done much on that front.  I suppose you could say my Etsy shop is about as creative as I've gotten lately but hobbies that become something you depend on money for, it becomes less fun and more job.  (Not that that's producing anything right now anyway since I've not done a single thing with it yet this year because of the house chaos but I digress.)  I have this bad habit of going full force into ideas and pooping out on them.  I still have a bin full of stuff to make risers for stuff like soap, tea kettles , etc waiting for me to do something with them.  I have drawers full of stuff for craft projects that rarely get touched and then inherited a bunch of Mom's stamps and card m...

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?

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Comments

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

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

    ReplyDelete
  3. 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.

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