Project Envolve™ is a program sponsored primarily by PPL Electric Utilities with the mission of helping us all save more and use less electricity. I’ve been provided with complimentary products as an Ambassador for the program in exchange for sharing these ideas and my own use of them with you. The opinions in this post are 100% mine. You can read my full disclosure policy here.
I’m so excited to start bring you some regular tips on how to save money and save electricity as an Ambassador of Project Envolve™, a program sponsored primarily by PPL Electric Utilities. I am a PPL customer and even if you’re not you can definitely still follow this series of for great and timely tips on how save.
Mission One is all about decorating for the holidays with lights. We are just digging all of our decorations out of the basement and have plans to get our Christmas tree this weekend. A tree isn’t a tree without lights! It gets dark so early now and as soon as it does we plug in the tree and turn on the outside lights. That means that they’re on for several hours, maybe from as early as 5pm until we unplug them when we go to bed as late as midnight. Wow. They’re plugged in for about a third of the day.
Using LED lights greatly reduces the amount of electricity your decorative lights use. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that LED bulbs only cost $.27 for 12 hours a day for 40 days compared to $10 for incandescent bulbs.
I actually really like the look of LED lights even more than our old lights. This particular set has a bunch of different settings that are so cool. The kids are loving that feature!
To save even more on your lights, in addition to switching to LED bulbs use a timer. I’ll admit, we’re terrible at remembering to unplug the outside lights before we go to bed at night. So sometimes we wake up in the morning and they’ve been on all night long. Not good. A timer can be set to shut your lights off at a certain time after dusk. This one will shut them off 2, 4, 6, or 8 hours after dusk.
One more item that came in my Mission One package is this LED night light/flashlight. We really love this thing! My son doesn’t like the dark too much at night so we’ve been leaving his door cracked and the light out outside his room. Now we’ve plugged this night light in in the hallway near his door and enough light shines in to keep him happy. No need to turn on an overhead light! What I really like, though, is that when it’s daytime and bright in the house the light will shut off so you don’t have a night light all day long. And as an added bonus, if you lose power the night light can be taken out of the wall and used as a flashlight because it has rechargeable batteries in it.
Switching to LED lights and using a timer are two really effective ways to save money on electricity by using less of it. Of course the more you use ANY light, the more energy it uses. So making the effort to shut off any and all lights that you’re not using is a great and easy way to immediately start cutting back your energy usage. I know, I know. Getting the kids to do that is easier said than done. We’re trying in our house, too, so you’re not alone!
To have even more fun with keeping your holidays greener try these two really cool DIY projects:
- LED Decorative Lights: Jazz up your LED lights with some ping pong balls!
- Newspaper Gift Bag: Repurpose your newspaper into a fun little gift bag that you make yourself!
Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and energy-efficient holiday season! I’ll see you in a few weeks for Mission Two and more energy-saving tips.
Natalie says
Love your front porch! So cozy! Anything to save money on electricity is a win in my book!
Amy renea says
Very cute!!! Love the little tree…it totally makes the front porch shimmer 🙂