All week we’ve been talking about ways to reduce your energy bill. On Monday we talked about CFL bulbs. Tuesday the topic was home weatherization. And Wednesday the subject was adjusting your thermostat. I wanted to wrap up this week’s series by giving you a quick top ten list to help you reduce your energy bill this summer.

1. Turn off your computer and the monitor when you’re not using it. Putting your computer into sleep mode is convenient, but it’s not energy efficient. Turn it off completely and stop wasting electricity.

2. Air dry your dishes instead of using the heat dry setting of your dishwasher. Most newer dishwasher models have a button you can push to do this automatically. You’d save even more electricity and water if you just washed the dishes by hand. But we’re busy people. So at least cut back a little bit and you’re in business.

3. Lower the thermostat on your hot water heater and take shorter showers. Turn the temperature down to 120 F or lower and you will see that energy bill go down. Shorter showers mean less hot water gets used, which means the hot water heater has to do less work. It will also cut down your water bill.

4. Run the dishwasher and washing machine at night. If your power company provides a time-of-day option, appliances are cheaper to run at night than they are during peak hours in the middle of the day. I like to do all of my laundry on Mondays, but I’m making the switch to washing one load a day and doing it at night.

5. Hang dry your clothes. If you live in an apartment and can’t hang out a clothes line, you can do this on your shower rod. I did this all through college. My clothes lasted longer and I wasn’t always scrambling for quarters on laundry day.

6. Turn off the lights when you leave the room. This on kind of goes without saying, but it can be a hard habit to develop. We play a fun game at our house. Shannon leaves a room and then I go to shut off the lights because he always forgets. It’s amazing how many times you think you’ll be going right back to the room, so you don’t switch off the light, but then you get distracted and forget all about it.

7. Only run a full dishwasher or washing machine. That’s a no-brainer, right?

8. Unplug electronics when you’re not using them. I unplug the coffee maker and the toaster each morning. And we have the TV/DVD/Playstation/Wii all hooked up to a power strip so that we only have to pull one plug.

9. Unplug your cell phone charger. It’s insane how much electricity a cell phone charger sucks up, even when it’s not in use. And yet so many of us just leave the charger plugged in for the sake of convenience.

10. Plan your meals wisely. (You knew I had to bring the topic back to food, right?) Don’t heat up the oven (and your whole house) just to make one dish. If you’re going to make a casserole, why not put in a loaf of bread or a batch of cookies at the same time? You could use the Foreman instead of roasting your chicken in the oven. Or better yet, put it on the grill outside.

When I was younger I hated my stepdad for hounding us about turning off the lights and taking shorter showers. I used to think he was just being cheap. Now that I pay my own bills, I realize that he was being frugal. These are all simple things that you can do, and it’s amazing how much money you can actually save by implementing small changes in your household.

If you’ve got more tips for reducing your utility bills, I’d love to hear them. Have a great holiday weekend, everybody!

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