My husband and I are VERY into Christmas and making it as special as we can for our kids and yes, we do tend to go a bit overboard. We put up two Christmas trees inside the house, as well as, lights outside and we decorate our mantle and our sideboard table with light up holiday houses.
Have you ever seen the movie Christmas Vacation? You know the scene where Clark lights up the house with all of his blazing white lights and the next shot is of the electric meter going crazy? In years past I have felt like that could very well be my house with all of the lights and displays that we put up.
All of this can add up to an expensive electricity bill come January, but over the years we have learned a few tricks to help keep our costs down.
Use Sparkly items on your tree. Reflective ornaments and tinsel will make your holiday décor even brighter when combined with LED strands because they reflect the light causing it to appear brighter.
Use a timer–I can’t tell you how many times my husband and I have forgotten to turn off the outside lights or the tree lights before we go to bed. Now, we just use a timer outside and they turn off on their own. Why waste money by lighting up the house when there is no one up to see it?
We have gradually switched over all of our holiday lights (and regular lights for that matter) to LED lights. Yes, they cost more initially, but the savings they offer make up for the initial cost. Did you know that LED bulbs use 90 percent less energy than regular incandescent light strings, last about 10 times longer, are cooler and are more durable all while still being super-bright? Also, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, LED holiday lights only cost 27 cents to run for 12 hours a day for 40 days, compared with $10 for incandescent bulbs.
These three simple steps help up keep the cost of our holiday lighting down so that we aren’t feeling the January blues over our electric bill.
Want to learn even more energy efficiency tips? Check out the Project Envolve website and the PPL Electric Utilities Pinterest Board for great money saving tips.
How do you plan on saving money this holiday season?
*This is a sponsored post for Project Envolve on behalf of PPL Electric. As always all opinions are 100% my own*
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