Saving Money on Your Electric Bill with Compact Fluorescent Lighting (CFL)

Most people probably don't realize the money that is wasted on their electric bill...as well as natural gas or propane. Some estimates state that some single-family homes could cut their total energy usage by as much as 40%!!

Of course, if you installed a solar water heater, all EnergyStar applicances, changed to CFL lighting, got rid of phantom power devices, and just made smart choices, like turning off electrical devices when they're not being used, it wouldn't be that hard to do.

Although it doesn't exactly pertain to your home, did you know that if every EXIT sign in the United States was replaced with an EXIT sign that used LED light instead of incandescent, that we could take 5, yes 5!! coal-fired power plants offline ?

I have researched many of those types of statistics and will be adding some of them here. That's your tidbit for today.

In the meantime, for just one of the quick green living tips that I'll be posting here, this one is no secret by any means, but I'll bet a lot of people still aren't doing it!!

Go get some compact fluorescent light bulbs. They've been around now for several years so I realize that everyone does know about them, but I know it took me forever to actually get all of my light bulbs swapped out. What's bad is, even after I had bought nearly enough to do every fixture in my house, IT STILL TOOK ME A LONG TIME TO DO IT!! I know, that's just pure laziness, but I am good to go now.

Something I'm sure most people also know is that CFL bulbs use about 75% less power than their power-hog incandesent counterparts. The compact fluorescent bulbs will pay for themselves in about 6 months, will save about $30 over their lifetime, and they last about 10 times longer than an incandesent bulb. Wow, what a deal!!

So, just sort of roughly figure out about how many fixtures that you have in your home, then start the calculations.

Oh...you know what ? You don't ? Well, I'll tell you then - LED lighting uses even less than the CFL bulbs. The compact fluorescent bulbs will do you just fine for now though.

:D

Untill Next Time My Energy Misers

P.S. If you want to really start saving a bundle, look into building your own solar panels and/or a wind turbine. It's actually easy to do. I just bought the Earth4Energy product. It's a great product for residential alternative energy.