When you live in a cold climate, a fair portion of your budget goes to keeping you and your family warm and staving off the arctic temperatures.  Of course, no one wants to pay more than they need to.  The key to lowering your energy consumption in the winter is to take action early in the season.  Now is the perfect time.

An Ounce of Prevention. . .

One of the best ways to use less energy is to look for silent money drains.  Do you have a drafty old door?  If you can’t afford to install a new one, consider installing weather stripping at the bottom to keep out the cold.  If you don’t want to spend the money for that, you can put something by the door to block the cold such as an old towel, though weather stripping would work better.

Likewise, an easy, fairly frugal solution for drafty old windows is to install plastic window covers.  You’ll keep the cold out and save a bundle on energy bills.  If you don’t like the look of plastic on your windows, heavy thermal curtains can also do a good job of keeping out the cold.

Don’t forget to also insulate your pipes, especially around your water heater.

Caulk any areas where drafts might seep in such as where your floor and wall meet if the two have started to pull away from each other as they tend to do in old houses.

Comparison Shopping

Don’t forget to also take the time to comparison shop.  You likely have several energy providers you can choose from.  Don’t assume that the company you went with last year will automatically offer you the best rate.  Instead, take the time to comparison shop using an online tool such as the one at Totally Money and see which will offer you the best deal.

If possible, consider signing up for the company’s budget plan.  Then, you can pay the same fixed rate every month rather than being susceptible to high energy bills in the winter and low ones in the spring and fall.

Bundle Up

If you’re someone who likes to keep your home toasty so you can wear t-shirts and shorts all winter, please reconsider.  Instead, drop your heating temperature by a few degrees and wear long pants and a shirt and sweater or sweatshirt.  Some people even invest in thermal long underwear to wear under their pants at home so they can keep the temperature even a bit lower.

Even better, MSN suggests installing an automatic thermostat so you can drop the temperature significantly when you’re at work and bump it up an hour or so before you come home so your home won’t be uncomfortably cold.

Saving on your energy bill not only helps you keep more money in your wallet, but just as important, it helps you use less of Earth’s natural resources.  Curbing your energy consumption is a win-win on many levels.

What are your favourite tips for saving on energy usage?

Are you a fan of sustainability and being eco-friendly? Then you’ll love this idea. Most of us have rain gutters on our houses. It keeps the water from running down onto our heads when we walk out the door, and it helps transport all that water away from our house, rather than constantly dripping right next to our foundation.

So where is your rain gutter sending your rain water? For many of us, the spout is about 12 inches away from our house, and is just simply pointed away from dwelling place. It works well, but guess what? By doing this, we’re wasting a very precious resource.

The Resource of Water

Many of us forget just how precious water is. What if you didn’t have a shower? What if you didn’t have a faucet that just squirted water out at your bidding? I’m sure you’ve seen videos of those poor countries that have to walk for miles just to get to a fresh water source. They then fill up one or two buckets for their families and haul it all the way back home. This water is not flowing through a faucet or coming out of a shower head. Nope, it’s definitely much more labor intensive.

The way we use water today is quite wasteful. We take long showers, leave the water running the whole time we brush our teeth, and we might even water our lawns for hours at a time. Rather than being so wasteful, why don’t we do the best we can to preserve our fabulous resource of water?

The Rain Barrel

A rain barrel is an incredibly simple too, but it’s unbelievably effective. Instead of just pointing your water spout away from your property and letting the water flood into your yard, why not shorten up that trough a little bit and run the water into a rain barrel? This barrel is most commonly a 55 gallon drum will a screen on top that will filter our any sticks or leaves that might come through your rain gutters. Obviously, this simple filtering system doesn’t make the water safe for drinking, but it makes it perfectly safe for watering your garden or your plants around the house.

When I first heard of the rain barrel, I wondered how you got the water out. Most of these barrels come with a short hose that’s attached to the bottom of the barrel and the water is emitted by the simple power of gravity (as I said, this barrel is very simple). So, there is some pressure there, but only what gravity will provide. Think of it as a big Gatorade jug. There will be some pressure, but it’s definitely not a pressure washer.

With this barrel, you’ll not only be reducing your water usage, but in doing that, you’ll also be reducing your monthly bills! All it takes is a simple barrel at the end of your gutter system and you’ll be doing good things for the environment and saving a little money in the process!

The casino industry has been really looking into the way they influence the planet. One of the many ways in which online casino sites have looked to mount a challenge against traditional land-based casinos is by presenting a way of playing casino games, which is environmentally friendly. However land-based casinos are responding by becoming equally green, and as a result they are increasing public interest in ‘green’ issues by seeking to make their services more sensitive to the environment than they perhaps have been in the past. So how exactly are they seeking to accomplish this?

Looking at major casinos such as the Hilton in Las Vegas, they have set up a ‘Project Green Team’ who are in charge of handling all aspects of this transition to a greener casino. The casino industry that is worth around $30 billion is made up of many areas, all of which can tackle its environmental impact. One notable area is the electricity consumption. Running a casino requires the use of a lot of electricity to maintain slot machine games, music heating and lighting. Many top casinos are seeking to reduce this consumption by using lighting that is more environmentally friendly such as LED lighting – which provides greater energy efficiency simply by lasting longer.

With many casinos also doubling up as hotels there is the environmental effect of the excess heat generated by the large boilers. Lots of casinos are utilising this excess to provide power for generators, ensuring that there is little wastage. Another area where a number of casinos – including the Vegas Hilton – are looking to become more environmentally friendly is by cutting back on excess printing in departments such as IT and payroll. They are doing this by installing copiers to enable documents to be scanned and printed on both sides, while also encouraging the use of emailing and faxing. Already this has led to significant reductions, with the Hilton alone seeing a 34% reduction in paper wastage over a period of six months. What these initiatives suggest is that the casino industry is keen to maintain its success and recognises the need to address the environmental concerns of customers.