At Home? 10 Simple Fixes to Spend Less Each Month

A lid on the pot

Ten home fixes that help you spend less each month, simplest first. Number ten: a pot lid can mean eight to 14% less heat. That's one energy page's figure for covered pots and pans. With the lid on, the food heats up faster.

The pot should just cover the burner, no bigger and no smaller. Once water boils, the lowest setting that keeps the boil is enough. Burners go off a few minutes early, and leftover heat finishes the job. Small amounts heat up in a microwave instead of the big oven.

By our count, this fix costs nothing, because the lid is already in your cupboard. The oven only needs preheating for baking. A flame that climbs up the sides of the pan only wastes energy. Next, a button most dishwashers already have.

The dishwasher's air-dry setting

Number nine: the air-dry setting, fifteen to 50% less energy for the machine. If your dishwasher has it, you pick air-dry instead of heat-dry. The eco or energy-saver program helps too. You scrape the plates instead of rinsing them first.

If you must rinse, cold water does the job. Full loads and the shortest cycle that fits help as well. Without an eco program, you match the program to the load. Say Maya's machine uses fifty cents of power a load, twenty loads a month.

By our count, fifteen to 50% of her $10 a month is a dollar fifty to $5. If practical guides like this help you, subscribe. Every official page is linked below. Next, something you do with the curtains at sunset.

Curtains at sunset

Number eight: curtains closed at sunset, eighty to $90 a year on one energy page. That's the page's figure for an average home that does it every evening. You open the curtains when the sun is out and close them before dark. Closed curtains keep the day's warmth from escaping through the windows.

In hot weather it flips: you close them by day to keep the heat out. Then you open the windows at night for the cool evening breeze. Daylight through open curtains also means fewer lights on. By our count, eighty to $90 a year is about $7 a month.

Your own figure depends on your windows, your weather and your heating. Next, a rolled-up towel and a door.

Blocking draughts

Number seven: blocking draughts, which one page's method counts at 15% of the heating. You feel for draughts with your hand near the edges of windows and doors. A rolled-up towel at the foot of a door costs nothing. Bigger gaps take a door snake, a weather strip or a sealant.

Hidden gaps often sit behind kitchen and bathroom cabinets. Good draught proofing keeps the home's temperature steadier. Sealing inside comes before sealing outside, as one page notes. Say a home spends a thousand a year on heating.

By our count, 15% of that thousand is a hundred and fifty a year. A room with a gas heater keeps the vents it needs. Next, the doors of the rooms you don't use.

Heating only the rooms you use

Number six: heating or cooling only the rooms you use, 50% in that same method. That's 50% of the energy tied to this habit, not of the whole bill. You close the doors and vents of the rooms nobody is using. Heating the whole house can be costly, as one page puts it.

It works for cooling too, in the rooms you're in. Bathrooms, and bedrooms during the day, are the usual ones to close. A layer of clothing or a hot water bottle warms you before the room. By our count, 50% of that same thousand is 500 a year.

Older people and young babies may need a warmer room, so theirs stays warm. Next, the fan in the corner.

A fan before the air conditioner

Number five: a fan before the air conditioner, about 26% of utility costs on one energy page. That figure is the page's own scenario, with its own power price and one fan. So this one is for homes that cool with an air conditioner. Fans use much less energy than air conditioners.

Another energy page puts a fan at about two cents an hour. A fan can make a room feel about three degrees Celsius cooler. In summer, a ceiling fan turns counterclockwise to cool the room. That page puts an hour of air conditioning, then the fan, at about 23%.

On that page, a timer that turns it off half an hour early is about 2%. Say Ana runs a fan eight hours a day for a month. By our count, at two cents an hour, that's $4 and eighty cents for the month. The room stays cool for a while after it switches off.

An electric fan can also spread cooled air more evenly with the air conditioner on. If you do use the air conditioner, that page sets it at twenty-five degrees Celsius. Clean filters help it run well, and that page checks them once a month. Cooking outside or in the evening keeps oven heat out of the house.

Windows opened at night let the cool evening breeze in. In very hot weather, staying cool and safe comes first. Next, a clothesline instead of the dryer.

A clothesline instead of the dryer

Number four: a clothesline instead of the dryer, over a hundred and twenty dollars a year on one energy page. That's against an inefficient dryer, as the page puts it. Another page gives a lower example, about fifty a year. One page puts a dryer at around 1,800 to 5,000 watts while it runs.

You hang the wash outside in the sun when you can. A clotheshorse or a rack works too, in a well-aired room. Clothes also last longer without the tumble. And air drying avoids shrinking clothes with heat.

If you do use the dryer, a fast spin first takes out more water. Medium or low heat is enough, since high heat costs more than the time it saves. The lint filter gets cleaned every time. A dryer that isn't overloaded dries better, because the air can move.

Small loads wait for a full one. Light and heavy items dry better separately. If the dryer has an auto-dry setting, it stops once the clothes are dry. Back-to-back loads use the dryer's warmth before it cools.

And the dryer's air goes outside, not into the room. By our count, over a hundred and twenty a year is over $10 a month. And that lower fifty a year is about four a month. Your figure depends on your dryer and your power price.

Next, a test with a few drops of food coloring.

A toilet leak check

Number three: a toilet leak check, since a trickle can waste around 9,000 liters a year on one water page. The check uses a few drops of food coloring. You put them in the tank behind the toilet and don't flush. Then you wait ten minutes or longer.

If color shows up in the bowl, there's a leak. A worn rubber flapper in the tank is often the cause. Flappers wear out, so one page swaps them at least every five years. Afterward you flush, so the dye doesn't stain the tank.

One water page suggests the check at least once a year. For hidden leaks, you read the water meter at bedtime and again in the morning. No water gets used overnight, so a change in the reading means a leak. By our count, 9,000 liters a year is about twenty-five liters a day.

Damp walls or an extra-green patch of lawn can point to a hidden leak too. Comparing this month's water bill with the same month last year helps spot one. Leaks can show up in showers, sinks, outdoor taps and more. Under the sinks, puddles or damp spots at the pipe joints give leaks away.

A dripping tap can usually be fixed with a new washer. An energy page puts a new washer at a few dollars. A fixed drip also stops wasting hot water. Bigger leaks need a licensed plumber, and who fixes what depends on where you live.

Next, the shower.

Shorter showers

Number two: shorter showers, around sixty-six cents a shower on one energy page. That's for cutting a fifteen-minute shower down to five. The same page puts it at around $5 per person per week. Your own shower may be shorter, so your own figure changes.

One water page asks for showers of four minutes or less. Turning the tap off while you soap and shampoo saves water and energy. A song or a phone timer keeps the time for you. Water heating is around a third of household energy bills on that first page.

Another page puts it at about 29% of a home's energy. Showers usually use about half the water and energy of a bath on that first page. Another water page notes a careful bath can use less than a long shower. You can check your shower's flow with a jug and a clock.

You time how long one liter takes, and sixty divided by those seconds is the flow per minute. If a ten-liter bucket fills in under a minute, the shower is wasting water. By our count, $5 a week for one person is 260 a year. That's about $22 a month.

Hot water settings stay as they are, since they also keep the water safe. And number one is a light bulb. Number one: LED bulbs, between a hundred and three hundred

LED bulbs

dollars per bulb over its life on one energy page. That depends on the wattage of the old bulb you replace. It's the only fix here with something to buy. The same page puts LED bulbs at three to $10 each.

Pages put their energy use at seventy-five to 90% below old bulbs. They last longer too, 30,000 hours against 2,000 on the first page. You start with the rooms you use most, like the kitchen and living room. First you check the old bulb's fitting, so the new one matches.

The box shows brightness in lumens, often next to the old bulb's watts. Warm white is usually more comfortable in a home. Supermarkets and hardware stores carry them, and swapping one is easy. Turning lights off when you leave a room saves more.

They handle being switched on and off a lot, so they suit rooms you only pop into. By our count, 30,000 hours is fifteen times 2,000. And even the page's lowest figure per bulb, a hundred, is ten times its highest bulb price. LEDs need air, so they stay out of fixtures that fully enclose the bulb.

For recessed downlights, that page swaps the whole fitting, which is a bigger job. Lighting is about 4% of a home's energy on another page, so this gain is steady over the years. Ready to add a little income too? Click the video on screen now for seven real sites that pay you to train AI.