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:

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It sometimes amazes me just how easy it is to save a whole bunch of electricity. You don’t have to go completely off-grid to save money on electricity, in fact, many effective tips are as simple as turning something down, or unplugging something else.

Nigel’s Eco Store, one of our favorite online green retailers, has a great list of tips to reduce your energy consumption. I highly recommend reading it!

I figured I’d post some of my favorites here:

• Take shorter showers: a 5 minute shower will use only a third of the water of a bath, and having a 5 minute shower every day will save 400 litres of water a week. Nevermind giving you some extra time in the morning!
• Wash your clothes in colder water. If you can, use a laundry detergent designed for cold water. 90% of the energy used by a washing machine is used in heating the water. If you can’t find cold-water detergent, try turning down the heat a bit. A wash at 60C uses 30% more energy than a wash at 40C.
• This one amazed me: turning your thermostat down 1.5C can save up to 10% on heating bills.
• Get a Savaplug to reduce your refrigerator’s electricity usage by up to 20%.
• Use DryerBalls to save money on your dryer’s costs.

These are just a few of the great tips from the original article at Nigel’s Eco Store. Check it out!

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Laundry is often overlooked when taking energy usage into account, but it’s a huge waster of electricity. Laundry machines use lots of electricity to heat up water to wash your clothes, and the dryer uses a massive amount of electricity to heat up air to evaporate the water.

Turning down the heat for your Laundry machine, or using a cold-water detergent can help a lot in reducing usage, but what about the dryer?

The answer? DryerBalls. Nigel’s Eco Store sells these little wonders. DryerBalls are a form of fabric conditioner, but they also heat up. Providing another source of heat within your dryer, these DryerBalls can reduce the time it takes to dry your clothes by as much as 25%! That’s a 25% reduction in energy usage for your dryer, and a whole bunch of saved money.

DryerBalls are chemical free, and fully guaranteed for 2 years, even though they are expected to last for as many as 5 years.

Each pack contains 2 DryerBalls and sells for about $20 (£9.99) from Nigel’s Eco Store.

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