Save Money on Utilities

Ok so I mostly wan this blog to be about stuff to do with your family, But when I tried this I couldnt resist sharing. First a list of all the ideas we've heard before:

Put a water bottle in your toilet (saves if you pay the city utilities)
Switch to CFL's
Switch to Time of Day, During the nights and weekends the electric ity is cheap (about 1/3 the price)
Turn up your thermostate in the summer and down in the winter.
Etc.

Heres one I just heard of and decided to try. Our Electric bill is around $250- Dont panic its for our 4000 sq ft house. But still thats a lot of money every month! Thats $3000 a YEAR! Yipes! So I read on article and the woman said she saved by just pluing all her appliances into a powerstrip and turning it off when not in use. So heres what I did, I plugged my kitchen appliances, my microwave, my TV and DVD player into powerstrips and turned then off when not in use. I need to add a disclaimer: I'm not very good at remembering to turn things off, sometimes I'd leave the microwave on for days at a time. So what you realy want to know is did it work? YES it did!! Even with me foreting to keep them off all the time I still cut the bill by $50!!!. And thats just doing it in the 2000sq ft that my family lives in. I'm going to encourae my upstairs tenants to do the same and see if we can get the bill down even more.

Thats a savings of $600 a year! Thats a Bahama Cruise!



What are your tips for cutting the utilities bill?

Bountiful Baskets

If your like me Produce seems so expensive, but important for good nutrition. There's a great Coop called Bountiful Baskets that makes the Produce budget stretch much further. For $15 you get a basket, Usually 8 Items of Veggy and 8 items of fruit. Its always a great deal.

Besides the mix of produce in a basket they often offer additional Items. Their 9 Grain bread is AMAZING! They also offer things like flats of Strawberries, Boxes of Apples and Oranges etc. Its a great way to get things for canning at the best possible price.

Order Between 10am Monday and 10pm Tuesday. Each site holds 50-150 Baskets so order early if you want to pick up at a certain location. Once all the baskets are gone, there gone!


Also there's a website that has recipes for the items in the baskets, especially the more unusual ones. Also price comparisons so you can see what kind of a deal your getting. Basket 411.