march electricity challenge

In my February grocery budget post, I mentioned doing a March grocery challenge. I am also doing an electricity challenge.

In our area of Virginia, our electricity is supplied by Appalachian Power. In our home, all our appliances, heat pump, hot water, lighting, and air conditioning are powered by electricity. Only the stove is powered by natural gas. Appalachian Power’s rates have increased by 35% since 2021. This past January, we used 4,960 kW for a total bill of $838.28. Yes, you read that correctly.

When we had big bills last summer for air conditioning, I challenged myself to reduce my electric usage as much as possible. As the one responsible for most of the usage daily, I tried to change my habits as much as possible, and did pretty well. I also put us on the budget plan for our payments, but it looks like we’ll have to pay a balance in July when the plan finishes.

After seeing the January bill, I decided to challenge myself again. Also, we’re moving into the “shoulder’ months when we don’t need to heat or cool the house.

My savings strategies

• Reduce heating and cooling. Heating and cooling are the biggest uses of electricity in the home, and they use about 43% of the power. Taking advantage of the warmer temperatures right now, I lowered our set point for heat to 62 degrees. At night it’s set at 55 degrees. I’m willing to go down another degree during the day, especially if no one notices. Ahem.
• Only use the dryer for very quick loads. I’m only using it to remove dog hair from sofa covers, and occasionally for sheets. I bought an extra set of sheets for our bed in order to air dry the sheets after washing. I’m going to use my Kohl’s cash to buy 2 extra towels for the same reason. I have 3 portable indoor clotheslines set up in the basement. Thanks to years of collecting hangers, I have lots of hangers to facilitate hanging clothes. Pants, in particular, dry faster on a hanger than draped over the clothesline.
• Wash everything in tap cold water. Water heaters are another big consumer of electricity. The tap cold setting on my LG washing machine uses water directly from the tap. If I chose the cold setting, it would use a combination of cold and hot water, meaning I would use electricity to heat the water.
• Maximize usage of our refrigerators and freezers. Full refrigerators and freezers operate more efficiently. Last summer, I was able to shut down one of the freezers, but I won’t be able to do that this time due to our grocery stocking.
• Use the countertop oven. I don’t remember the difference, but according to my husband, our countertop oven uses significantly less electricity than the wall oven. For our purposes, pretty much everything we make in the oven can be done in the countertop one.
• Walk outside instead of on the treadmill. I love my treadmill. It was given to me many years ago by a friend when she moved to another state. I’ve gotten my love out of this treadmill, however, it uses electricity. On days when I’m not working at Kohl’s, I’ll get myself outside with my dog to get my steps in.
• Unplug and/or turn stuff off. How many things do we leave plugged in? Standby power uses about 5 to 10% of home electricity. I think that number is low if we consider how many items use power in our homes, even standby power. Just off the top of my head, I have a cordless vacuum, a phone charging bank, lamps, laptops, an electric toothbrush, several TVs, a sound system, a dishwasher, a Keurig machine, and the list goes on. I don’t need all of these plugged in every minute of the day. I’m going to experiment with turning things off at the beginning of my day and turning them back on at the end.
• Finally, I’m going to check my electric meter every day and track the usage. I’m doing this to remind myself to monitor my electricity usage. In February, we used 3,080 kW. That’s my number to beat.