Are you cautious of your house bills? 6 ways to implement cost-cutting measures at home

If you look carefully around you, you will discover many loopholes through which you lose money. Starting from your home, you are likely to save up to 50 per cent of your monthly expenses by just sealing these holes.

A friend recently sewed a hole in her financial purse. It was all about electricity.

Now she advises her friends to ditch the post-paid electricity arrangement for the pre-paid one.

This way, you control your usage. In the post-paid contract, the customer gets a raw deal. The metre readers, either because of laziness or intentionally, keep giving customers estimates only to slap them with a huge bill once they read the metre.

Unfortunately, the company does not explain to the consumer how the arrears are arrived at. For instance, my friend got frustrated with paying ‘estimates’ that she started reading the metre herself at the end of the month and getting the company to give her the correct billing.

After a while, she got tired of doing “someone else’s job as mine is to pay the bills”. Three months later, she got a bill of Sh19,000. Going to the company offices did not clear her confusion. She did not get a satisfactory answer but a staffer ‘advised’ her to pay Sh4,000 on average every month as it seemed like that was the consumption of the household.

Then she applied for a pre-paid metre and it was installed two months ago. “Now, I load between Sh1,800 and Sh2,000 per month. Mind you, our lifestyle has not changed,” she says.

Just by going for the pre-paid option, my friend now saves about Sh2,000 every month.

The good thing about pre-paid is that you use the electricity and if you do not top up, you stay in darkness, so everyone is careful about wastage; a scenario that was rare during the post-paid era in her house.

There are other ways you can stop the financial drain and save yourself the wastage.

1. Un-install the instant water heater. Although they are convenient, this is one area where most of your resources are drained. People spend longer in the shower thus sucking water and power. Use other sources of energy such as solar to boil water for bathing.

Using water in a basin will most likely just take that one basin while the hot shower can gobble up to four basins as the electricity consumption shoots. Besides, experts say that a cold shower is healthier than a hot one.

2. Iron clothes in bulk once a week. If you switch on your iron box and check how the units disappear on the metre, then you will appreciate that this is one of the ‘greedy’ energy sappers in the house. Ironing every morning, especially a dress or shirt at a time, wastes power and hence your money. Remember an iron box takes moments to heat up and takes even longer to cool off.

In fact, before you finish ironing, switch off the box and use the heat to iron two or so clothes more before it cools off. Also, you can neatly fold T-shirts, bed sheets and children’s clothing without ironing them. It saves electricity and time.

3. Use gas more than electricity. In fact, boiling water on gas is less costly than using a water kettle to heat the same. Lately, using charcoal, if you cost the quantities, is much more expensive than using electricity or gas.

4. Collect rain water. Okay, right now it is dry but the rains will definitely come. Do not watch that water just drain away. Collect it for use in watering grass, trees and vegetables. Using your metered water to do these chores increases your monthly expenditure unnecessarily.

5. Avoid washing clothes every day. It is best to wash the clothes once or twice a week. Besides saving on water, this also saves you the wastage associated with general washing such as detergents.

6. Encourage eating of leftovers. The food will just be warmed and it reduces the amount time and power used to prepare meals and the accompanying washing of utensils and pans.

Look for other ways in your household to save a little coin here and there. The money saved can make a big difference in your finances.