I’ve been thinking about the winter season that looms closer by the day and what the means for our household budget. Last year our heating bills were enormous during the coldest months and this year those bills would kill our budget, so I’ve been looking at ways to decrease our utility bills. I spent about an hour at Menard’s yesterday picking up CFL bulbs, window plastic and door weatherstripping. I am excited to see what happens over the course of the next couple months to our utility bills. Now, if only I could get Cingular AT&T to reduce our cell phone bill, I would be in hog heaven!

Even if our budget allowed for several hundred dollar heating bills for our small square footage, I think the 60 dollar expense for these products is well worth the savings. Statistics say that the cost for operating one CFL bulb is 75 -80% less than a standard incandescent bulb. They also last much, much longer. There are some concerns, however, in the disposal of these bulbs as they contain a small amount of mercury. Your local recycling center (ours is run by the county at the incinerator) should be able to dispose of the lights in a non toxic manner.

What are some things that you are doing to save money and/or help the environment?

Some link love:

Fast Company Article on CFL bulbs

Terry Storch on Greening Up his place

Bobby Gruenewald responding to Terry’s post

Tags: Budget, cfl bulbs, energy, Environment, money saving
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 11:18 am and is filed under Budget, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.