Keeping your home in good condition can cost a lot of money. From regular repairs to the occasional update, everything costs money. It’s no wonder most people try to find ways to cut back on their bills and expenses around the home. While adopting better habits can help you save money (from turning the water pressure down in your shower to leaving the blinds closed on hot, sunny days), one of the best ways to save money is to spend money. By upgrading your old appliances and devices you can save hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year. Here are some of the most important things to upgrade if you want to save money.
Some Of The Appliances To Upgrade
TV: If you are like most people, you watch quite a bit of television. You probably even keep it on when you aren’t in the room. Running your TV for hours and hours each day can drain your wallet. Older televisions use a tremendous amount of energy. If you have a CRT television, or even an old plasma or projection TV, you are using more electricity to power it than you need to.
By upgrading to a modern plasma, LED, or LCD television you can reduce the amount of energy you use while watching television by 95%. While your exact savings will vary according to how often you watch TV, it’s safe to say you can save enough money over a year or two that you can effectively pay for the new TV, and anything after that is pure savings.
HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning): If anything in your home gets a workout, it’s your heater or AC (likely both). Keeping warm in the winter and cool in the summer is important if you want to stay comfortable all year long. While you can certainly do your best to cut down on how much you run both units, and call for professional HVAC services if you need yours repaired, replacement might be your best bet.
If your heater or AC is more than 10 years old, it’s time to upgrade. Just like televisions, new units have been designed with energy efficiency in mind. Between rebates and energy savings, you can save anywhere from $100 to $800 a year. If you upgrade both units you can effectively double that figure as well.
Fridge: Your fridge is always on. Day and night it keeps your valuable food cool so that you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. But it requires a lot of energy to do so. Your fridge is one of the biggest energy hogs in your home. In fact, old fridges waste so much money that many local power companies will offer you a rebate to get rid of it and will haul it away for you, free of charge.
What You Need
It’s true that it will cost a bit of money to upgrade anything in your home. New televisions and heaters aren’t cheap. But, over the lifetime of any appliance you upgrade, you will save thousands of dollars compared to what you would spend if you kept your current appliance. If you are interested in seeing exactly how much you can save, contact your local HVAC services company, or any other company that provides the appliance you are looking for.
