It's no secret that everyone's budget is getting squeezed tighter than, say, a ShamWow these days. Yet when it comes to going green, you can easily live a Honda-hybrid lifestyle on a bus-fare budget. In fact, by spending a little time and money up front, you can greatly reduce your impact on the planet and lower your energy bills by hundreds of dollars a year. Really!
Check out these green gadgets and appliances that can turn your energy-gobbling home into a beacon of clean, green energy. And as an added bonus to being kinder to the Earth? These green machines also have a super-quick return on investment.
1. Programmable thermostat: For around 50 bucks, a digital, programmable thermostat does the earth-saving work for you. These easy-to-install gadgets come with pre-programmable settings and allow the temp in your home to be automatically adjusted for when you wake up, during the day, in the evening, and while you're sleeping. (
EnergyStar suggests lowering the temp by 8 degrees during resting hours. Just use warmer blankets, silly!)
Estimated annual savings: $200 2. Refrigerator: Have a
Brady Bunch-era fridge? Even those giant, food-freezing mechanisms from the Clinton years suck up 30 percent of your home's energy use. In fact, here's a brain-melter for you: In two years time, most pre-2002 refrigerators will have gobbled up more than a ton of coal
just to keep your food cold. However, newer,
EnergyStar-rated refrigerators use 20 percent less energy than required by federal standards and 40 percent less energy than most models sold in 2001.
In fact, according to EnergyStar, "replacing a refrigerator bought in 1990 with a new EnergyStar qualified model would save enough energy to light the average household for nearly four months." Just make sure you do the research before forking over the dough: The Department of Energy
recently pulled the EnergyStar rating from a handful of fridges.
Estimated annual savings: $2503. Power Strips: Yes, those power strips you use to fit all of those electronic devices into a single room can actually save energy and money if used right. Even while all of those gadgets aren't in use, they're actually consuming something called "phantom loads." What's more, depending on how many appliances you have, that power consumption can account for nearly 10 percent of the energy use in the average American home.
According to Ramy Salim at
Sunny Day Earth Solutions, a Minneapolis store specializing in green living products and workshops, phantom loads account for 5,000 watts of energy used per day in American households. That's about 50 cents a day sucked out the window, or in this case, the electrical outlet. By simply switching the power strip to "off" every time you leave the room, you can greatly reduce the amount of unnecessary energy your home eats every day.
Estimated annual savings: $180
4. LED lights: Salim also tells his customers looking to go green on a strapped income to invest in at least one LED light. They might cost more up front--each LED light bulb ranges from $50 to $125--but they will save major amounts of energy and dollars in the long run. Here's another brain-melter: It takes about
745 pounds of coal to run your average incandescent light bulb for one year. That's a huge amount of energy for one little shiny object. In dollar amounts, the energy use alone translates to about $35 a year per bulb. By contrast, LED lights use 1/10th of the energy of incandescent bulbs and last 48,500 more hours. By replacing most bulbs in your home, you'll suck up way less energy and money.
Estimated annual savings per bulb: $30 5. Permanent furnace filter: A good, 10-year filter keeps your furnace healthy and efficient. Ever gone more than a couple of months without replacing that poor, dust-covered filter? Then you know your furnace runs like a sick dog, going into fits of starts and stops before turning your home into a drafty icebox no matter how high you set that thermostat. That's because your poor old furnace is having to work at least twice as hard with an old, dusty lung to keep up with your demands.
Before installing a new, highly efficient furnace filter, simply vacuum away all of the crud--pet hair, dust, cobwebs--from the area and insert your new money-saving filter. It's wise to use a filter with a
Minimum Efficiency Report Value (MERV) rating of between 9 and 16, which the EPA considers as effective as a HEPA filter.
Think if it like an oil change: Keeping it clean will also reduce the chances you'll be stuck with a catastrophic repair down the road.
Estimated annual savings: $150