I’ve been taking a look at how to save some money lately. In these shaky times, I think it is important to save every penny we can! We recently received the electric bill, and that was motivation for me to start looking at ways to reduce our electricity usage, even now without the added extra expense of running a central air conditioner.
First thing I’m going to do is get a thermal insulated blanket for the water heater. Our family takes a lot of showers, and we run the dishwasher every day (yes, it is full when we run it, and we have it set on air drying!) and we do a LOT of laundry, so I think insulating the water heater better will help reduce our electricity usage. I’ve read that doing this will save 4-9% in water heating costs!
Environment, General Living, Home Improvement
On my campaign to make our house more energy-efficient (for the environment AND our shrinking electric budget) I have decided that it is also a good idea to get pipe insulation for our hot water pipes. I’m going to have my hubby go to Home Depot and buy some pipe insulation and install it in the basement.
I’ve seen some little insulated boxes that fit over top of the outside water spigots to help protect them from freezing. I think that is a good idea, too. It would be awful to have one freeze and burst – especially during the day while we are not home to deal with an emergency like that.
I do try to conserve water and have always turned out the lights when I leave a room and other prudent habits. But I’m always on the lookout for more ideas on how to save money and also help the environment.
Environment, General Living, Home Improvement
My house has a big problem with the fireplace – it is leaking. We can’t use it to burn wood, which I miss greatly. The chimney is deteriorating from water damage and wood rot, so it needs some serious repair work. So I’m calling for estimates and having trouble finding anyone who wants to work on it.
I love the fireplace in this picture. It’s like the fireplace in the Cracker Barrel near my house. I wish I had a working fireplace like that one in my house. It would be awesome – you would have to pry me out of the rocking chair next to it during the winter months.
General Living, Home Improvement
Energy efficient windows are a great way to help reduce our heating and cooling bills of course, but we all know that they can cost a pretty penny to purchase and have these particular energy saving solutions installed so in this case it takes money to save money, the old Catch 22 concept, sigh. I am really interested in having a home energy audit done here, last year the heating bill about broke us and I’m sure that this year it will be even worse unless we get some of these drafty house solutions going real quick like. It is getting colder and colder at night, last night we actually hit freezing, not happy with that at all.
I love my old house but it most definitely has real issues that have become a real pain in the pocket book. We roast in the summer and freeze during the winter, even though we have a fireplace that we use most of the cold winter months to help as much as a fire place is able to. But even the cost of fire wood has gone up ridiculously high these past few years. I’d really like to find one of the contraptions that you put in front of the fireplace that pushes the hot air from the fire into the house, I’ll have to seriously start looking into that option as well.
Around Here, Environment, Home Improvement, Money, Shopping, Today's Technology
I personally don’t know anyone who has the money to invest in buying any homes or properties right now, but I do know that there are tons of people out there that are taking advantage, big time, on other people’s hard times and loses by looking around and purchasing Real Estate Owned Foreclosures. You can buy these foreclosures for dirt cheap and invest a bit of time and money fixing them up and then turning around and selling them to other people that seem to be able to buy big ticket items for some pretty good profits.
Apparently you can find Free REO foreclosures and their listings right online and see what there is out that you might be interested in checking out, buying and turning them around. Free Foreclosures and all of their issues, good and/or bad, another way for folks with money to keep their money, and turn around and make more profits, sigh…..
Computers & Internet, Home Improvement, Money, Opinion, Shopping, Today's Technology
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