Summer energy saving tips for the kitchen

Since summer tends to be the time when my energy bills are the highest, I thought I'd start sharing some of my best summer energy saving tips, and the easiest place for me to start is in the kitchen. The kitchen has the potential to both use a lot of energy itself, and to heat your house significantly, causing you spend even more on energy to cool it back down. By employing these energy saving tips this summer, you'll keep cool, eat well, and keep some of your money in the bank.

1. Don't cook. The most efficient way to keep your kitchen cool and green is by eating raw or cold foods. Try to eat more salads and cold sandwiches, more fruit instead of baked goods, and cold beverages in place of hot ones. This serves double duty: you don't spend energy on the cooking process, and you keep both your house and your body cooler. Bonus: higher water content foods like fruits and vegetables will be more appealing and refreshing to your dehydrated body. Who wants to eat heavy foods when it's 100 degrees out anyway?

2. Cook outside. If you are going to cook, try to move it outside and away from your house. You'll spend some money firing up the grill, but it will keep your house cool. Besides, nothing tasts more like summer than dinner off the grill. Bonus: I can't remember where I read it, but last summer another blogger suggested putting your crock pot on your porch. While they don't give off that much heat, this can't hurt. Plus, if you are eating outside, it will be more convenient to have your side items outside with your grill.

3. Use smaller appliances. Don't turn on your oven if you have a toaster oven that will do the trick. Use a microwave whenever possible. The smaller the appliance, the less energy it uses and the more heat it gives off.

4. Mind your refrigerator. Your fridge has to work harder and use more energy in the summer anyway, so be extra careful to keep the door closed. Before cooking, plan everything you need so you only have to open the fridge door once (in one monstrous trip, like Rachel Ray does where she always likes like she's thisclose to dropping something). When putting things away, stage them next to the refrigerator for the same reason. Put the things you use most often in convenient locations so you can get to them quickly. And I shouldn't even have to mention standing in front of the refrigerator deciding what to eat.

5. Keep your dishwasher closed. In the winter, I like to open my dishwasher to vent (I always have it set to air dry). In the summer though, I leave it closed during the dry cycle. The steam that goes into the air during the dry cycle will both heat up your home and add a lot of moisture to the air, which makes it feel hotter. Instead, dry the dishes with a towel if they are still wet.

6. Be careful of vent fans. If you are running the air conditioning, turning the vent fan on will vent all your cooled air out into the world, so use it sparingly. Of course, if you are a champ and keep your AC turned off, the vent fan will vent the hot air from your kitchen and may actually help.

For more frugal tips, chek out Frugal Friday

Break even 2008 week 3 check in

Just a Break even quick check in this week:

I was $20 overbudget on restaurants again this week, partly from the last day of the adventure and of having company, partly because I have a problem.

I was $12 overbudget on groceries. For all that I preach grocery savings strategies, I can't seem to make it in and out of a grocery store for underbudget lately. My pantry and freezer are nearly overflowing and yet I just can't seem to help myself. Argh!

I had some rare ebay earnings too. We bought an extra copy of Wii Fit, knowing there would be a shortage, and sold it on ebay. After shipping and fees, we made about $25 profit. ::Shrug:: I'm kind of an amateur.

And I worked. A lot. By a lot, I mean 4 hours most days. It doesn't sound like a whole lot when I say that, lol, but hey this is my summer vacation.

Break even # $245
Overbudget groceries $12
Overbudget restaurants $20
Ebay earnings -$25
Part time work earnings -$490

Net expenses -$238

Since I was $62 behind last week, that puts me $176 ahead for the summer so far. Woo hoo!

This is the last week of the month though, which means that on next weeks' check in I have to settle up for my projected versus actual spending on gasoline. Trust me, I'm not looking forward to that.

My spending weakness

I am always fond of the confessional style of personal finance blogposts, so I thought I would spill the beans on my own weakness. My biggest spending weakness, my gazingus pin as the authors of Your Money or Your Life would call it, is eating out.

I like restaurants. A lot. We eat out at least once a week, sometimes two or three times. We don't go to super-expensive restaurants, we go to small local places, but we can still easily spend $10 each on dinner, plus tax, plus tip.

Now, I know compared to a lot of other people my age, I don't really eat out that much. A lot of my friends, many of whom are single and a surprisng number of who are in grad school, eat out most nights. They dont', however, consider themselves frugal, and they aren't (necessarily) trying to pay off significant amounts of student debt.

Sometimes it seems silly to me to save 50 cents a week on electricity by shutting off a power supply or unplugging my phone charger, and then to go out and spend $25 for dinner for 2 in a restaurant, when I could make dinner at home for $5. At the same time, I really do like restaurants, and I really don't necessarily like having my phone charger plugged in. Part of frugality means that you save money in areas that aren't important to you so that you can spend it on things that are important to you.

But, while eating out once a week, in a sit down restaurant, is a treat and really does make me happy, two or three times a week doesn't really make me any more happy than once. A lot of the time I eat out because it's easier, because I'm feeling uncreative, because I'm sick of the food I have in the house. I get that the solution to that is to include more different meals, to experiment, to play, to have fun in the kitchen, but none of that is as easy as it sounds. I read through cookbooks and cooking blogs and touch everything in the grocery store, and I still feel uninspired.

So, if you kicked the eating out habit, how did you do it? Or if you have another spending weakness that you beat, how did you do it?

How to Grocery coupon Week 4

This is the third in my series on how to use grocery coupons. Be sure to also check out week 1 and week 2.

By now, you should be building up a stockpile and a decent pantry. You should see your need list shrinking, which frees up more money for your sales list and stockpile list. You should also have a somewhat decent coupon file by now. Keep your total grocery budget at the same level, but change the proportion of needs: sales. You should be spending more money on stockpiling every week. Also, as your price book fills up, you should start to recognize which sales are good sales and which are not. Something may deserve to be on a “sale” list but not a “stockpile” list.

Remember, you won’t see the big savings until you have your pantry completely stocked, thus allowing you to buy only those items which are on your sale list and for which you have a coupon, often reducing the price to almost zero.


Consider adding these tricks to your arsenal:

Trade coupons or buy from a coupon clipping service. This is a must if you want to get those 90% savings you read about. Your goal is to get multiples of coupons for items on your stockpile list (and I don’t mean 2 or 3, I mean 10 or 12), so that when canned corn or cereal or granola bars go on sale, you can use all your coupons at once and get these items for pennies.

Shop at a warehouse store. I put this back here in week 4 for one major reason: you have a pricebook now. This will allow you to see what is actually a good deal and what is not. As you develop a good coupon file, you may find this tip to be less and less useful. Warehouse stores often don’t accept coupons, and if they do probably don’t double them. You’ll often find better prices at the grocery store. Make sure that if you are doing your stockpiling at a warehouse store you are still staying within your grocery budget.

Sign up for companies’ mailing lists. Write to or call companies to tell them you like their products. You would be amazed at the coupons that companies mail to loyal customers. They are generally much better than the coupons in your newspaper.

Sneaky frugalities

This Frugal Friday, I want to talk about what I call sneaky frugalitites. There are plenty of big, obvious things I do to be more frugal in my life, but I never want to forget the sneaky little things that I do. These are the things that stretch everything just a little farther, or make it last just a little longer, without anyone even noticing or feeling the difference. For example:

I empty free sample packets into my shampoo and body wash bottles. I used to try to use the packets, but it was a terrible pain, and plus this helps me decide how much to use, instead of being bound by the "single use" packet.

I sometimes add a cup of reconstituted milk or frozen concentrate orange juice to a half bottle of their fresh counterparts. It's not enough that I notice any difference in taste at all, but it stretches me to my next grocery day and saves me a run to the store.

I add a little bit of water to liquid hand soap and dish soap. Again, not enough that there's a noticeable change in consistency, but enough that it makes it last longer. I know I could just use less, but I don't need to ask everyone who washes their hands to use less.

I whip my butter in my stand mixer. This one is a bit more trouble than the rest, but it actually gives the butter a nicer texture, making it easier to spread, while at the same time mixing in air to increase the volume. This way less butter seems like more, saving us calories and money.

If I serve a stirfry, or other dish containing both meat and vegetables, two nights, the second night I'll just add more vegetables to stretch it a little further.

What sneaky frugalities do you have?