How To Save $353 Per Year With 5 Simple Eco-Products
We cover a lot of energy efficient products and other gadgets that can help you reduce your energy consumption, but how much money can you actually save by living a greener life?
We decided to find out.
We’ve all received high energy bills and wondered where all that electricity went. Fortunately, a lot of it is actually wasted energy! Why is that fortunate? Because it’s easy to eliminate.
You don’t have to be ultra-conscious of your energy to reduce your consumption, in fact, you can save about $350 per year in only 5 easy steps!
Here’s ecogadget’s list of 5 easy steps that will reduce your energy consumption:
1. Use Tide Coldwater
Tide Coldwater is a laundry detergent designed to work just as well in cold water as normal detergent does in hot water. What does that mean? Your washing machine won’t have to waste energy heating up the water for a load. Coldwater costs just about the same as regular Tide, so there’s little cost in switching, just buy it the next time you run out. The savings can be quite dramatic, Tide coldwater reduces the energy your washing machine uses by about 75%.
Energy Star claims the average household does about 400 loads of laundry per year. On average, it will cost about $93 per year in energy costs.
With a 75% reduction in energy usage from Tide Coldwater however, the cost drops to $23.25, a savings of $69.75 per year!
Let’s start our savings and expenses tally:
Money Saved So Far: $69.75/year
Extra Money Spent of Improvements: $0.
2. Get a SavaPlug
The SavaPlug reduces the energy consumption of your refrigerator by eliminating the extra power used by your fridge. A typical fridge uses about $70 in electricity per year.
The SavaPlug is a bit of an initial investment at $50, but it will reduce the amount of energy your fridge uses by 20%. This will save you about $14 per year. Once you buy it, you plug it in and forget it. It will save you money over the life of your refrigerator without any additional cost.
Money Saved So Far: $83.75/year
Extra Money Spent: $50
3. Use DryerBalls
The clothes dryer is a huge suck of electricity. Assuming you use it for about 1 hour a day (It often takes me longer than this however!), once a day, a dryer will cost about $205 per year.
Dryerballs go right into your dryer and will reduce it’s energy consumption by making the dryer much more efficient. Tey are rated to reduce consumption by about 25%, bringing the cost to $153.75 per year, saving you $51.25. Still not dirt cheap, but for an initial cost of only $20, it’s worth it. Over their 5 year life expectancy, they will save you about $256.
Money Saved So Far: $135/year
Extra Money Spent: $70
4. Ensure Your Tires Are Properly Inflated
Ensuring your tires are properly inflated can improve your gas mileage by about 3%, that also means you can reduce the amount of money to spend on gas by about 3% as well!
The average US citizen spends about $1,598 per month on gas! Ensuring your tires are properly inflated can reduce this 3% to about $1,550, a savings of about $48 per year. This will help you save a bit of money until you can get yourself a more efficient vehicle (like the 300mpg super-efficient Aptera!).
A good programmable tire gauge like the Accutire costs about $12.
Money Saved So Far: $183/year
Extra Money Spend: $82
5. Replace Your Lightbulbs with CFLs
Yes, we’ve all heard about CFLs, we know we should get them and a lot of us have them. How much do they really save though? Well, let’s say you have 6 lightbulbs in your house (most people probably have more but let’s be conservative).
Assuming these 6 lightbulbs are on for 10 hours a day, they will cost $240 per year! Bet you didn’t think they were that much of a drain!So what if we replaced these all with 18 watt CFLs. Home Depot sells these for $16 for a pack of 6 bulbs. These 6 CFLs will only cost us $70 per year in energy though, a savings of $170!
Money Saved So Far: $353/year
Extra Money Spent: $98
See? Being green can be easy! You don’t even have to buy a new hybrid.Spend just under $100, and you can save yourself $353 per year, every year!
That SavaPlug was our biggest purchase, at $50, and it only saves about $14/year, so if you are on a budget, you could do even better and save $340/year and only spend $48! Pretty nice!
Sources used: omninerd, theprotagonist, michaelbluejay
Popularity: 79% [?]
Social:
While I appreciate your suggestions for saving power and reducing consumption, I must note that it is quite impossible for tide coldwater to be eco in the wholeistic sense. Almost all detergents are manufactured from petrochemical surfactants which run out of the washer and into our oceans and rivers. As you may have guessed when I wrote “petrochemical” these things do not just flow out to sea and biodegrade, they wreak all kinds of havoc with marine life and are essentially adding to the ongoing pollution of our ocean. Please consider the chemical/eco impact of products before recommending them. I use ecover which uses plant based surfactants and is %100 biodegradable within a short period of time. I only wash in cold water (and I hang dry on a wooden rack in my apartment. which saves a bunch of money and is better for the environment) and it works great.
- Eamon
I have to agree with you Eamon, you don’t need to use those nasty detergents to save money! Talk about a cheaper and more eco-friendly way to wash, just use vinegar and baking soda! You can buy in bulk and it will last forever, especially if you use the new front loaders, you put even less in! I have been using this for years and absolutely love it! When I want a little scent to my laundry I will add a drop or two of essential oil.