The clocks are going back soon, and so many are talking about saving...saving time, saving seeds, saving money, saving effort and energy...so I'd like to say a few things about how we're saving around here...
Out with the old...In with the new
We're not about being wasteful and getting rid of appliances for the sake of getting rid of them here. Our furnace was so old that it was becoming a carbon monoxide risk. When we first had our home inspected, the inspector said that we had 1-2 years max left on the furnace's safety...flash forward 5 years and we were still using it (with fingers crossed and a carbon monoxide monitor.) When my dear husband's uncle said he knew someone who could put a new furnace in during the off season, we were all in.
We bought a scratch and dent (saved big time money) high efficiency furnace and paid someone to install it for about 1/3 the price of having a box store or a local heating and plumbing operation put one in.
In this change our heating bill has gone down $15 per month already, and we're waiting for the savings when it becomes colder and we have it on regularly.
During the same week, our old washing machine died. Since I do not have a local stream with a nice rough stone to pound my laundry on (nor the time, effort, or desire to if it was available) I went out to buy a new one. First the kiddos and I spent a few hours on-line researching the models, sales, and prices. Then we went out. The scratch and dent store actually cost more than buying one (without scratches or dents) from a store. We also went with a high efficiency front loading model which should save us money. It uses less water, less soap (that I can make) and since it spins the laundry really well, the laundry spends less time in the dryer (when I can't hang out laundry) so I use less electricity (and more savings!)
When the people who delivered the washer took the old one away, they commented on how they haven't hauled away a washer as old as mine in a long time. Their guesstimate on age was 30yrs!
I am still jealous of Country Sister's Lady Kenmore's longevity.
Very nice - Congrats on the new washer!
ReplyDeleteWe sunk money into a new high efficiency furnace and heat pump system in 2009. We live in the country and use propane. We also had a tankless water heater put in place of the 60 gallon hot water propane heater.
ReplyDeleteOur propane bill went down $1500 last year. That took into consideration the electric bill went up slightly. The total savings was $1500.
When we built our home 15 years ago, we picked propane because it was 89 cents a gallon. It has gone up to $3.50 at times! We wasted so much money all those years on propane.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! If your children are preschool to eight, you might like the free music with illustrations DVD download of two of the books I've written. Just subscribe by email,let me know you did and I'll send the links. There's free coloring pages too for download.
We are fortunate to have natural gas pumped to our house the same as water or electric around here. It is quite inexpensive...I know people who get free natural gas from mineral rights on their land...lucky ducks!
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