Switching Your Family to Energy Efficiency
Conserving energy to help the environment and your utility bills is a group effort. Without the entire family involved, it’s going to be tough to keep everything going successfully and ultimately, it probably won’t work very well in the end. If everyone participates however you’re going to see much better results.
If you want something that’s a little more set in stone to start off with (rather than things that are controlled by actions), look at http://www.texaselectricityproviders.com/2011/06/electric-car-options-in-texas/ and read up on electric car trend.
Things such as electric cars, energy efficient appliances, and lower electricity rates are going to be a surefire way to keep your energy consumption at a minimum and in the case of the latter options, keeping your costs down as well. They don’t require much effort at all, which is why they’re an easy way to start your new eco-friendly lifestyle.
The problem is that old habits are very difficult to break and trying to make sure that everyone in the household is contributing is going to be a little overwhelming. Start off small and go from there, teaching your family some energy saving habits that don’t take much to implement and stick with them until they finally stick. Don’t move on to the next stage until everyone is positive they’ve passed the first grade.
Lead by example in this endeavor. Don’t tell everyone to ensure all the lights are off before they go out for the night or head to bed and yet do the exact thing you warned them against. Make sure you keep in line with what you’re teaching and own up to any mistakes you might make. Practice what you preach. If you forget to turn the bathroom light off after you’ve finished your hair, just admit that you did. It will make your family much more apt to listen to you and follow in your footsteps.
Stay committed to what you’re doing. Don’t push energy conservation one day and immediately forget all about it the next, no matter what’s going on or how weary you are of fighting with them about it. Don’t ease up because the moment you do, you’ll have backslid and you’ll need to practically start from scratch again. The only way to ensure that positive behaviors and habits are being put into place is to consistently encourage them, which means checking up on your family every day to make sure they’re following through.
It might be a tough couple of weeks (or months) as you guys try to switch everything over to a more energy efficient and eco-friendly household, but be on the look out for when things finally change around. As with everything else in the world, you’ll want to reward their efforts and successes with a little bit of celebration, whatever that means to your family.
Don’t make it all negative; reward them when they’ve finally gotten the hang of it. Plus, by showing them some positivity at the end of each stage, they’ll be much more willing to go onto the next one without a lot of complaint. It gets easier each time.
Switching your family and household over to energy efficient behaviors might be a little difficult at first, but once you stick with it and get the habits in place, it will get much easier. Just make sure that you’re following some basic guidelines and you’ll see that it really does pay off.
I did, changed appliances, light fixtures with the efficient bulbs but I’m still not seeing the pay off. Maybe I have a draft.
I need to work on making my place more Energy Efficiency, thanks for the info!
We have change all our lights to LED lights which has given us a huge savings on our bill.
We are changing over all our lights to LED and are cutting a lot of other things as well. Like our washer and dry is also HE. More to go though. Thanks for the positive information!
Thank you for the great post. I like your line, “Don’t make it negative.” We have been trying to really go green lately. Austin, TX has a bag ban meaning everyone has to use their own cloth bags when shopping which is nice. Our apartment complex surprisingly doesn’t have recycling and we don’t have a car so we take the bus everywhere. Taking the bus isn’t exactly the nicest experience though so we’re saving up for a car. We hope to get an energy efficient car. We still need to work on turning off the lights – that will save money too!
I wish we could save more energy – our bill is really high
We are so energy efficient. If I reduce my carbon footprint any more I will have not existed. We have change all our lights to LED lights which has given us a huge savings! Great tips though on keeping it positive!
I try and save energy where ever I can.
saving energy is important!
i agree with energy in this article
I think it’s very important to save energy. We use energy efficient lights and appliances at home
I agree that energy saving needs to made a consistent part of one’s lifestyle.
Great post, our family has been making changes to try and help ourselves save money and the earth. It’s not the changes its the getting used to it lol, but as you said it gets much easier as you keep on doing it. :)
i really need to work on unplugging electronics when not in use. That is one thing we are really bad about. We do work on turning off lights and making sure my son remembers to turn off lights and we have all HE appliances
My biggest challenge to energy efficiency in the face of my own conscientiousness is my kids …they are not as aware as I would like them to be of how much difference the little things can make.
We trying to be as energy efficient as we can. When it comes to electronics we don’t use on a regular basis, we keep those unplugged. We’re really good about turning off lights, etc.
Definitely has to be a whole family effort. Your husband can sabotage your best efforts! ;)
I want a hybrid! We already do the basics—recycle, CFE lights, turn things off when not using them etc.
We already shut lights off when we leave the room and use energy efficient light bulbs.
I am not sure how we would like a hybrid, I think they have gotten better since they first came out. I do like the idea of it being better for enviroment and such!
Ugh, I want a hybrid. I can not get my family on board with saving energy – it’s almost impossible. Somehow I need to change this. Thanks for the great post.
I am hoping by the time we make our next car purchase that they have an affordable electric (or hybrid) minivan :)
Lots of great info, thanks! I am amazed at how much my kids actually teach ME about energy efficiency! :)
I love the idea of electric cars, but I don’t think they would be a very good idea in my rural area. I hate buying gas, though.