Saving Bacon around the house

I know most of my posts have dealt with food and how to save on your food budget. Food is one of the areas in a budget I think you can cut down the most. Next time your at the supermarket sneak a peek at other people's carts and see what's in them. I find a lot of processed and convenient foods.

But back to some non food ways to save yourself some money around the house. These are just a few tips. Take a walk around your house. How many do you already do?

• Turn off the lights. Well we've heard that one since we were little but if you have little kids running around like I do, I'm sure you have lights that are left on.
  

• Switch your light bulbs. A few years ago Mr. Bacon and I decided to take the plunge and change all our light bulbs to the energy saving bulbs. We were amazed at how much it actually saved us once we switched (average about $20 each electric bill!). The good news about these bulbs is they are not as spendy as they used to be. Even changing out one or two will help.

• Unplug it! Do you leave that mixer plugged in? How about the coffee pot. If it's not in use, unplug it. It seems like an odd thing to do, but even if your electronics are not being used, if they are plugged in they are using energy.

• Challenge yourself to use less. Of what you ask? Anything.. shampoo, laundry soap, dish soap, hair gel, shorter shower to use less water, ect. Many times you'll find that you don't notice the difference if you use just a little less.

• Refill your foam soap pump. This is one of my favorite things to do. Especially with 3 little ones around. Who doesn't like to make bubbles right?! I refill the foam soap containers in our house when they are empty. Fill them 1/4 way with soap, fill the container up the rest of the way with warm water and VIOLA! Foam soap.

• Temp up, Temp down. Yes it's hot outside, OH how I know it's hot outside. With Bacon bit cooking away inside me I definitely feel the oven heat. However Mr Bacon and I have still agree that we don't need to keep running the A/C on frigid. A few years ago we had our A/C set around 72*. Now we keep it around 74*. Doesn't sound like a big difference right? Well a handy phamplet from our electric company awhile back showed us that every one degree we change (up in summer, down in winter) saves us almost .03 a hour! Ok so lets do the math... .03 x 24 hrs = .72 a day * 30 days = $21.60 a month in savings. Looks a lot better now right! Just think now if you change it by 2 degrees.....

• Keep the curtains closed on hot sunny days. Again this will help with the the high A/C costs. I've found that investing in some 'black out shades' (I use this term very loosely because instead of spending a lot of money on expensive curtains, I bought black flat sheets from the store and hung them behind my curtains on the windows. An added bonus to this, it keeps the sun out of the kids rooms so they sleep in a bit longer in the morning!) help keep even more of the heat out of the house in the summer time.

• When cooking and baking, I try to make a few things at the same time. If I know I'm making dinner in the oven, I'll also make some cookies or other dessert in there right before or after. This saves money because you're not turning on and off the oven for just one thing. Also an oven tip in winter, after your done with the oven, leave the door open (Make sure the kids are not around, I usually do this while we sit down to eat dinner together) Take advantage of that extra heat to warm up the room.
  

So what do you think, would these help you out? Do you already do these?