How To Save Money And Energy At Home While Traveling

You may have saved lots of money on the activities you’ll be doing during a vacation. Maybe you booked an affordable plane ticket through your miles, used your club membership to some resort chain and dug up promo codes for spa treatments, restaurants and activities. BUT, you could be wasting tons of money in your house! Here’s how.

Temperature control

Does your home really need to be temperature controlled when nobody is in it? No. But heating and AC cost a bundle! Before departing for the trip, turn down your thermostat. Also switch your water heater onto the “vacation” setting. Did you even know that existed? Turn off any air conditioning units. If there are pets that will be staying at home, just set the AC on low.

Don’t waste any food

There are multiple things you can do with any produce that will rot when you’re away. The most admirable thing would be to keep some in your car for a couple of days before your vacation and hand it out to those in need on the street. You can also turn it into compost or give it to friends or neighbors.

Wardrobe cleaning

You’re probably going to spend a lot of money on new clothing along with other things that require material of which the manufacturing causes pollution. Not to mention, your closet is already full. Shuffle through your clothes and donate the items you no longer want!

Search for leaks

A simple way to do this is ceasing all water use entirely for a full two hours, sometime about 2 weeks prior to leaving on your trip. Look at the water meter before the 2 hours, and again by the end. If you notice a modification in the meter, you probably have a leak.

Unplug everything

Think of all of the items that you plug in to use. It’s almost hard to count them from the coffeemaker to the blender to the rice cooker to the TV. But don’t just stop at your house! My friend is a voice coach in LA and has a private studio where she conducts her singing lessons. She unplugged all the electronics at her home however had a power bill when she got back. She realized she hadn’t unplugged any of her lamps, or her computer or keyboard at her studio. She had to teach many more students how to sing that month to replace that wasted money.