Have you ever opened a bill and felt as though you’d been punched in the gut? That’s what happened to me after my first month of working from home. Bills that had become predictable in the previous months all the sudden skyrocketed. The reason was simple enough. Instead of using my former company’s heat and electricity, I was using my own. Was this the new normal?
There was simply no way I was accepting that. My bank account was too important to me. It wasn’t that I was poor. Freelancers get a rep for scraping by, but it has more to do with sporadic paychecks than a general lack of funds. In order to keep my account flush, I decided to take action. In the last five years, here are a few solutions I implemented to keep these costs under control.
Power Down
It might seem like common sense to turn off lights when you’re not using them, but limiting electricity use extends to all gadgets and gizmos. There are plenty of little hacks that lead to overall energy solutions. Here are a few easy-to-implement ideas.
- Put your computer to sleep. Previously, I’d always just let me computer go to sleep on its own. It took only a few minutes, so I wasn’t wasting that much power. Yet all those processes still run in the background for a bit, which consumes power. So make sure you put your desktop to sleep, or close your laptop.
- Turn off the second monitor. Many freelancers I know use two monitors for work. That’s great, but leaving that second monitor on can consume loads of power. After working hours, when I’m using my computer for leisure, I live with one screen.
- Watch on a tablet. When I’m watching a Netflix movie, I opt to watch on my tablet. Watching on that, and then recharging it, takes far less power than it takes to run a TV and whatever device (PS3, Apple TV, Roku) is streaming Netflix. This applies to plenty of entertainment options. If I can do it on my tablet, it will save me electricity costs.
- Cycle the AC and fan. There is no greater electricity drain than air conditioning. Yet it’s necessary for a comfortable working environment. I’ve taken to running the AC for a bit, and then switching it to the fan for a while. When I feel that first bead of sweat, it’s back to the AC.
- Unplug unused gadgets. Apparently, appliances draw power from the wall even when they’re turned off. This is referred to as phantom power. It’s a minuscule amount, but it adds up. If I’m not using a gadget, and the plug is easily accessible, I keep it unplugged. It probably saves me a few dollars per month
In addition to this, I’ve also replaced my incandescent bulbs with CFLs. Chances are you’ve heard this before, and it’s totally true that they save money. They might be more expensive, but you’ll see a difference in your energy bill. Plus, they last a ton longer — the CFLs in the overhead light in my office have been going strong for 18 months now.
Turn Down the Heat
I started working from home during a winter month, and my heating bill provided perhaps the biggest shock. Before I worked from home, I’d use the automated thermostat to my advantage. The temperature would drop around the time I left the house for work every morning, and it would heat up about a half hour before I returned. But while working from home, I had the heat on constantly. It’s kind of a necessity during the winter in the Northeast.
The solution: turn it down a bit. Instead of having it at 60ish through the day and 68 while I was home, I simply dropped it to 65 at all times. It meant wearing a sweatshirt while working, and sleeping under the blankets. But sleeping under the blankets can be warmly comforting, and I don’t mind working in a sweatshirt — especially when I know that merely wearing a sweatshirt is saving me money.
Add a Landline
Strangely enough, I was able to lower my monthly cable and internet bill by adding services to my account. Most cable companies offer various packages, each with its own level of service. At the start I had just TV and internet, since I had no need for a landline. But after talking to my cable company about ways to reduce my bill, I found that adding a landline and upgrading to the promotional Triple Play package would actually lower my bill. Go figure.
Of course, the promotion expires after a year. But most times you can get them to extend it for yet another year. If you’re still using the same company after two years you can just cut the landline and go back to the normal pricing tier. Hopefully after two years you’re making more money, anyway, and can more easily cover the costs.
Clip Coupons
For some reason I used to find it embarrassing to use coupons. There’s just some stigma attached to it, I guess. But when you’re looking for ways to reduce your costs, you should examine all possible options. Using coupons everywhere, from grocery stores to restaurants to other services I use regularly, has saved me tons.
This goes not just for regular clip-and-present coupons, but also internet ones. You’ll find tons of coupon sites online that allow you to print out coupons. There are even smartphone apps that let you select coupons and then have them scanned and used normally. Think of that: using your smartphone to save money. We normally think of our smartphones as only costing us money.
These are but a few suggestions. There are tons of things you can do to cut bills and gain control of your finances. It’s important for anyone, but especially for an at-home freelancer. Our bills tend to rise when we start working from home, so counteracting those increases becomes all the more crucial.
Do you have any unique ways you stave off the rising bills of an at-home freelancer?
Joe Pawlikowski writes and edits tech blogs on topics such as prepaid cell phones and Android phones. He writes about telecommuting life at A New Level.
Not sure how much of an impact your computers & monitors have. They are such low energy usage items. Your stove, heating, lights etc. are the real suckers. Anything that generates heat & lots of movement (dryer especially) will be the real killer.
Let’s assume that 30W per hour is the average (there will be time when you trickle charge on a full load, and fully charge on a dead battery, and then there are times when it’s not plugged in at all). And let’s assume 8 hours a day of being plugged-in.
30 X 8 = 240W per day, 30 days will add to 7,200. So 7kilowatts with BC hydro is.. 6.8 cents * 7KW. Not even $1.
Your oven/stove however is 7000 watts, meaning each time you use your stove for an hour, on average, you’re spending as much energy you would spend all month on your laptop.
60W bulb in your office on for 8 hours a day vs 12 hours a day will be a difference of 14400 watts vs 21600, roughly 7,000 watts gap. We have many of these bulbs throughout, so turning them off, or lowering them to the 13W bulbs will have a bigger impact in the long run.
So forget the gadgetry – they are such low consumption devices. Leaving chargers in the wall is no good, but I’m just saying true savings will come from using the big ticket items wisely.
I’m guilty of turning the stove on too early, and have to cool it down again as I prep food. That’s costing me a lot more than my laptops and monitors.
Jeff, using a US Federal Study from 2010 you can save $10 a month by turning off a printer, $5 a month for a monitor. You can also save $2 a month for a laptop or desktop by turning them off instead of putting them to sleep.
All items save money, but $17 x 12 = $204 per year. That savings, while not monumental, is a lot. If we all saved that $204 in energy think of the savings to the planet as a whole.
Each grain of sand counts, Not just the boulder.
But you gotta focus on the things that’ll have the bigger impact first, right? If you turn off your monitor, but you continue to leave your dryer tumbling for hours on end, what difference are you really making?
No, you need to focus on everything. The big things are obvious and common sense says that they should already be on your list. If they are not, then you need to step back and look at how you are prioritizing you budget.
Looking at the small things will make the big difference over the long haul if you do the basics correct. Doing things correctly with the basics lets you focus on the small things that let you make the difference.
An analogy is a the superstar athlete. They will tell you that it is doing the basics up front that makes them able to do the other little things that really set them apart from the rest of the average or above average athletes.
I’ll disagree with some of your premises, but based on the premise that I actually don’t give a damn as much. Based on my income, up to a $50/mth difference is almost negligible. I’d rather pay more $$$ than to have to wait for my laser printer to boot up and calibrate every time I turn it on. This purely is based on income scale though, and as cocky as it may sound, $20/mth savings by turning a printer off is not even a matter of consideration, let alone thought..
Oh wait you said $10/mth. Proves my point even further.
Actually the macbooks, at active state, are not even 20W so it’s even lower than my initial estimate:
http://images.apple.com/environment/reports/docs/MacBookPro_15-inch_Product_Environmental_Report_Oct2011.pdf
how does that commpare to an imac?
It doesn’t matter how it compares, it’s still irrelevant as an amount.
Good post, always good to save where you can!