Save Me, CFLS!
Posted on January 21, 2008 by Melissa
Filed Under Frugality, Household
One of the first things we wanted to do after moving into the new house was switch out most of the regular incandescent light bulbs to CFLs. Of course, other stuff got in the way and that goal became low priority. That was until we got our first electric bill.
The bill was $40 for 4 days worth of service! I was shocked! I was so taken aback that I had Eric call the Electric company to see if our meter was working correctly. Unfortunately, it was.
I panicked, thinking our bills would translate to $600 in the summertime. But then Eric pointed out that we had almost every single light in the home going 24 hours a day. The home was blazing! We hadn’t moved in yet or been able to get an alarm system set up so we were leaving on all the lights to make us feel more secure. We were still shaken up by the robbery that had happened just days before. We started shutting off the lights and added CFLs to our Christmas wish list.
It’s funny though - no one really wanted to get us practical things like CFLs or boxes of tile for Christmas. I guess that’s about as fun to buy as underwear and socks. Throughout the rest of December we didn’t change to CFLs but we were more conscious by turning off all lights we weren’t using. We drifted into complacency, thinking the problem was just keeping on too many lights.
Then Saturday we got the bill for the first full month. Again, shock and horror. Woah - $200! That was higher than our summertime bills in the old house and we haven’t even been using the A/C yet! This was not looking good for my budget. We simply MUST find a way to lower that bill.
Immediately, we went through the home and counted up all the bulbs we would need. Brace yourselves. If we were to replace every incandescent light bulb in this home with a CFL we would need:
- 54 swirly style
- 14 chandelier style
- 15 recessed can style
That’s an insane amount of light bulbs for one home. We knew that there is no need to replace all of the bulbs, just the ones where the CFLs would be most useful. We eliminated the areas with intermittent usage - like closets, the half bath, and the hallways. We also decided against changing out the 5 chandelier style bulbs in the dining room. The CFLs look clunky in it and we rarely use it anyway.
We determined that the critical bulbs needed were 24 swirlys, 9 recessed cans, and 6 chandeliers. We would focus on getting those first then we would work the other bulbs into the budget over time. As of right now we have changed out about 20 bulbs. It’s progress and that’s good.
My goal is to get the critical bulbs changed by February so the following month’s bill will be based on the CFL’s with the same cool weather. That will be a good way for me to see how much the CFLs really help.
This just has to make a difference in that bill. If not, we may have to revert to using candles!
Image Source: Dano
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I also got a $200 electric and gas bill last month. CFLs will definitely help. I blogged about how I plan on reducing our bill here:
http://frugalchick.net/2008/01/14/our-200-gas-and-electric-bill/
Switching to CFLs should definitely help - I have a friend who switched to CFLs for her store - replaced about 30 bulbs and the bill was cut enormously (I think it was somewhere between $60-$70).
And I highly recommend dimmers and timers - they’ve cut my utility bills, too.
Good luck - that’s a lot of bulbs!
Go to Target - they have 5-packs of the bulbs for something like $17. That was the best deal around us. Yes - that bill can sneak up and really knock you for a loop. Good luck with the new house!
We changed ours out as well a few years ago and they really do help!!
If you want to have a little safety without having all of the lights on, you should try timers. They’re about $5 at the hardware store. If you hook them up to a few lamps with CFLs, it would be a lot cheaper than just leaving the lights on (CFLS or not).
CFL’s are costing us more lately, because they save on electricity, but they absolutely have not lasted as long as advertised. They have been burning out constantly, and are much more expensive to replace, and since we bought them in bulk we can’t return the individual bulbs that didn’t work. I think we finally got a batch that has lasted more than a week.
Interesting. I am curious how much your bill is going to drop. Could motivate me to switch out our bulbs. I like the idea of a lamp on a timer for security reasons and thus turn off some of the other lights.
go to your do it best building and supply store-the cfl bulbs are much cheaper at the moment (they are on the end caps as a special). we switched out to these and have not had a problem yet with them. they saved us enough moolah per month that we were able to up the thermostat some. if your bulbs don’t hold up be sure to save package and reciept as they have a warrantee! normal light bulbs will fit in the package so we stored all those old but working bulbs for the just in case type of situation.
Do you have a dehumidifier running? they are huge energy guzzlers.
make sure all your appliances are energy star and efficient. at least when they need replacing.
A new house can def. make you shake in your boots when that first electric bill comes. CFL’s will help for sure. The thermostat is also very important. If you’re coming from an apartment or smaller house, then just remember that for each degree your thermostat changes, you have to heat / cool a much larger area. That adds up in a hurry, and makes for scary bills.
I was just thinking about this post when the bulb blew in my laundry this morning, I’ll be replacing it with a CFL that’s for sure!
I can’t believe how many lights you have in your home, I’ve only got 10 in my apartment, including lamps!
@Jennifer - Most CFL have a guarantee - I had a bulb (one in a multipack) not work from Home Depot and I just had to bring it back to the store, no receipt needed, and I got a new bulb.
@Debtdieter - it is crazy how many more fixtures are in houses vs apartments… I think my apt has 4. My house has 20. Yikes.
Melissa - we just bought three dimmable CFLs… $11.74 each, yikes, and we need two more. Keep telling myself the savings is worth it… lol. When we moved into our house we would buy one bulb a week (or one multipack a month) and worked them into our budget that way. In a few months, all the bulbs were replaced and we felt the financial bite less. Maybe you can do something like that - one multipack a week or something. And make sure to look around on the web for coupons!