One of the ways we reduce expenses in our house is by using good conservation efforts. While there are many ways to conserve energy, I only want to focus on light fixtures right now, otherwise this could be really long. I am embarrassed to say that after counting the number of light bulbs required in every light fixture in and outside of our house, I came up with over forty light bulbs. Right now all of our light bulbs are standard incandescent, but at least half of them, and maybe more, can be replaced with Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLB).

I will say a little more about CFL bulbs, which my daughters refer to as “the curly light bulbs.” They use about 75 percent less energy and last up to 10 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb. They use about 75 percent less heat, thereby reducing your cooling costs. I am not expecting a significant drop in my utility bill or in my cooling costs for the summer months, but making these small changes along with other conservation efforts in our house will over time reduce our energy use and lower our utility bills.

While there may be some up-front cost involved with replacing your bulbs, there is an approximate savings of about $30 over the lifetime of each bulb. That number seems really insignificant, but if I replace at least half of my light bulbs with CFL’s, that is a savings of about $600. Another way that I help conserve energy use in our house is by implementing a strict policy of no lights on in the house until after 5:00 pm. There are of course allowances for having a light on before 5:00 pm, but in general I try to keep to the policy since I am a stay-at-home mom and if I were working the lights wouldn’t be on anyway. As the summer months begin, I will report how much money we have saved by installing solar screens on our windows.