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Are you a Stay At Home Mom? Do you handle all the bills in your household? Do you often find yourself stressed because of them?
Well I WAS too! I am a young Stay At Home mother of one and I often found myself not only stressed but guilty in a sense because my husband was out doing all the hard work just to basically spend our whole paycheck on those high bills! I would be thinking of anything and everything I could to save money for our family to not be living paycheck to paycheck.
Below I will be listing some "common sense" things to do around your house (that most of us including myself tend to slack on!) and watch as your bills significantly drop if you remain consistent with these SIMPLE changes.
Okay, so for starters I figured I would mention the energy service I go through. ( I am not making any commissions by promoting them or anything, just sharing the greatness.)
ENERGY OGRE- We have saved up to 40% on our energy bills by going through this company! Basically what you do is you enroll in their program for $10 bucks a month and then wait for them to call you shortly after. They will explain that by you just paying the $10 dollars monthly they will in return do ALL the work for you when it comes to finding the CHEAPEST energy company in your area at the time. They will then go over a couple plans they have found for you - - some plans are 6 months and others are a year, right now we are on a year plan and the highest our energy bill has been for this HOT HOT HOT Summer in Texas is $93 bucks which says a lot because we tend to slack on energy consumption from time to time. You will get emailed and called about how they set up your energy plan for you along with passwords for online logins, etc. (which you can change later). When your plan is up at the 6-12 month time you don't have to worry about a thing because Energy Ogre is already researching your next plan a couple months in advance, will notify you on when it changes to the next cheapest plan, and how long that contract will be. "I LOVE IT!" is an understatement! I fully recommend y'all check it out or call to get more information! I will link the website, but remember I AM NOT getting any commissions from doing so!
https://www.energyogre.com/
2.) CUT TV TIME DOWN - Spend that time you cut out doing stuff with your kids or something for yourself when they are napping etc. During the day I try not to have the TV constantly running because I found that when it was on I was busy watching my 14 month old play or roam around the house anyways. It was just a background noise which is unnecessary. I spend most of my day in my daughters room watching her play with all her toys, I read her books to her, we go outside in the backyard to get some sun and she watches the dogs run around, we run errands or browse around our favorite store (TARGET!!!).. when she takes naps I will wind down and watch a show or two, and when she wakes up I may put on a few cartoons for her to listen too and watch but then we go right back to our activities.
3.) OPEN WINDOWS AND SCREEN DOORS DURING THE DAY- Let the natural light in!!!! There is no need for lights to be on in your house during the day unless you have no windows in a specific area or something. In my house the windows to every room stay open until night time and then the lights can come on. We do tend to slack in the kitchen and have that light running for hours but we are making it a point to turn that one off after getting what we need or turning the little light above our dining table on instead. Be sure to check your kids bedrooms and bathrooms during the day and make sure they are also being religious about turning lights off and opening their windows as well. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE GUYS, yet we all don't do it as often as we should and it costs us BIG TIME.
4.) TURN YOUR A/C UP! - Try turning your air UP to 73/74 during the day when it's just you there with the baby/kids during the day and make sure all your ceiling fans are on high doing all the bulk work, and even buy extra plugin fans if needed! Our ceiling fans are quite powerful in my house so that's all I need during the day and I still find myself cold inside during the summer time. You won't melt like the Wicked Witch I promise! At night time we tend to like it a little cooler to sleep well so we turn our A/C to 71/72 again having our fans doing the bulk work.
5.) PLAN YOUR MEALS WEEKLY - I do this on Sundays! Only get the groceries you NEED.. the extras and non essentials can wait if your budget allows it. BUY IN BULK!!!! Make multiple meals from one. Pinterest has a lot of great ideas in that area that have been life savers for my household of 4!!
*Now to get to the WATER CONSUMPTION!! My water bill has been hitting us hard lately but with a few changes I actually didn't cry this month when I opened my bill!
6.) DESIGNATE DAYS FOR LAUNDRY - As a mom I know how hard it is to keep the laundry at bay sometimes.. I would find myself doing a load a day or more in my spare time just to keep up. BUT, lately I have been doing laundry on Wednesdays and Sunday ( KEEP UP WITH IT! ) to start the new week for my husband at work. Wednesdays tend to be mine and my daughters clothes days and I only have 2-3 loads at the most. Sundays is everything Husband - work clothes, shorts, socks WHATEVER HIS BIG HEART DESIRES FOR THE NEW WEEK basically LOL! This again, if its kept up with is only 2-3 loads. We try to keep it at 2 most the time which in turn only is 4 loads a week!! Doing laundry every single day is NONSENSE MOMMIES!!! STOP IT!
Also, wash on COLD!! NOT hot unless they are towels or blankets etc., I tend to like those being hot washed for freshness.
7.) Being a mom calls for relaxation when it is allowed!!! But.... If you are a bath person (like my sister), cut down the relaxing baths to once or twice a week if you just NEED another. Take quick showers for the most part! Hair, shave, bathe and be done. Running bath water nightly and filling that tub is a HUGE part of your water usage and shows in your expenses TRUST ME I KNOW (Thanks sister). Same goes for if your kiddos are older, showers mostly and baths partly...
Also, make sure that when you and your kiddos brush those pearly whites the water is not running the whole time! Its unnecessary. If you're brushing like you're supposed to and mouth washing afterwards that is quite a bit of water running in that time frame...
Like I said, most of these are "common sense" but we all tend to slack in these areas. I hope this gave you some good ideas to save money without really having to do any extremes! Just try it out and stay consistent for a month or two to see if it even makes a dent for you!
As always... COMMENT BELOW with things YOU do or may want to try doing to cut your bills around your house :)