In 2018, the average monthly consumption, per person, of electricity was over 900 kWh, long before the world opened up to the concept of working from home. Even then, several individuals like me, Mark Roemer, have taken the time to re-evaluate their use of resources and make meaningful adjustments to cut their footprints and save on their energy bills.

Now, since we’re still at home, many of us face far higher rates of consumption.

This doubles their power bill somewhat and expands their internet use to the max. In 2018, in the US, the average energy bill was $117.65. Today, what are you paying?

A significant drain on your services can be created by working from home, but there are ways to cut back. To help you save on your energy bills, it is essential to remember the following things.

Control vampire appliances

Although the name makes them sound devious, even when they’re not in operation, vampire gadgets are regular devices that continue to suck electricity. Only having them plugged in ensures that they suck precious energy away and cost you extra. In this group, some of the biggest culprits are:

Cell phone and laptop chargers

Electric toothbrushes

Video game chargers and console plugs

Coffee makers

Computer printers

Stereos

TVs

When they’re not in use, you can unplug most of these things. Holding chargers next to outlets is convenient but not always plugged in at the ready. Even if it’s your toothbrush, when you remove your electronics from their charger, literally unplug the charger as well.

For your coffee maker and any other gadget that runs a clock or enables you to program it, the same goes. Those are the pieces that always take your electricity away. Unplug them when you are finished with them.

Try plugging it into a power strip with a longer cord for things where it’s harder to hit the socket, like the TV. This makes the on / off switch on the power cord easy for you to hit. Turning the strip off when you’re finished binge-watching your favorite show means leasing the movie straight to streaming with a little extra cash.

Drain the power

Mainly when working from home, it isn’t unreasonable to fear your laptop or other devices will run out of power when you least expect it. When completing an important job, we get distracted, and we don’t always keep an eye on our power levels. The safety net, for others, is to have still their electronics plugged in. Power remains at 100 percent this way. If you are only home for part of the day, this strategy might be OK. Yet working from home full time is a massive drain of energy.

To give it an energy boost, consider just charging your computer in brief spurts throughout the day. If you walk away for lunch or take a bathroom break, it is an excellent recharge time. Concentrate on getting it back when you’re finished working, up to 100 at night.

Doing this not only lets you save on your energy bill, but it’s suitable for the battery of your unit, too. Completely charging your battery stresses it out, according to TIME, and can wear it down faster. When we work from home, we’re already pushing our computers to the max. Let’s try to keep your battery running for as long as we can.

Put it to sleep

Even when you walk away from it, does your screen stay on? To ensure you don’t miss a single notification during working hours, have you switched off sleep mode? If so, electricity heats you up. You can save up to $ 50 a year on your energy bill using power saving features or putting your computer to sleep. It’s gigantic.

Using office equipment with an ENERGY STAR ranking, you can also save more. These computers, displays, and printers all naturally use less energy to perform the same tasks as energy-sucking machines. When not in use, they’ll also automatically shut down.

After sleeping for two hours, remember to turn off your devices. For the day, you’re done with them (hooray).

Manage your lighting

Lighting is key, whether your home office is at the kitchen table, inside a closet, or in a dedicated office room. It’s costly as well. Switch the bulbs in your office to LEDs if you haven’t already. They don’t help you save money on your energy bill, but it takes about 25,000 hours for the typical LED bulb. Only 1,200 hours renders it an incandescent bulb.

Look for sources of natural light after you have taken care of the bulbs. If you’re working with windows in an environment, open the blinds. If you can, rely on natural light to give your bulbs a break for at least part of the day.

Always make sure that when you leave a room, you turn off all the lights.

Control the temperature

Some office buildings are infamous for unregulated temperatures. It freezes one office. In summer, you wear a jumper and use a space heater. Another one is so hot that you dress in layers all winter to have short sleeves when at work. It won’t be so troublesome for your apartment. The problem is that you’re home all the time, so your thermostat is running continuously.

It’s possible to change your thermostat to temps when you’re not home, making it less likely to run as much. When working, it is necessary to have a comfortable temperature, which means you use more energy to control your apartment’s temperature. You do not need to hold the temperature when you’re not around. Only changing a single degree will save you money. Nor is this small shift evident, but consider it a way to save a few bucks.

Often, you should bite the bullet and change the thermostat by a few extra degrees. You’ll note this, but you work from home, where you don’t have a dress code. You can curl up in a heavy blanket if you get cold and still type. You can sit at your desk in clothes appropriate for the pool if you get humid. For those phone calls, hold something business-appropriate close by to put on, but rejoice in a lower electric bill.

Cut back on data usage

Although a large amount of electricity is not theoretically used by your router, having it on all the time, always running for you, drains another critical utility when working from home, info. You need this to get your work done as much as you need electricity, but there are limits.

Not only does maximizing your data cap per month mean that your computers work overtime to maximize your energy bill, but you are at risk of paying for internet overages. Being resourceful in your use of the internet will work hand-in-hand to reduce your energy bill. Just note that though you put your machine to sleep, your data could still be drained.

To prevent this, make sure to:

Switch off location services when you’re at home on your computer.

You are using some of the data from your phone instead of your Wi-Fi. This also saves electricity!

Install videos and music instead of downloading them.

Turn your TV’s streaming system off before you turn the TV off. Each of them keeps streaming when there’s no TV on.

Use an internet browser like Google Chrome that automatically compresses info.

That also helps to save data if you don’t mind lowering the quality of the video you stream. However, you most probably want to use it if you have a 4 K TV. Either way, you’re saving data and some power while your machines work less to give you what you want.

Save on your energy bill

It’s time to stop asking yourself how and start taking steps to save money on electricity. There are several simple ways to make significant adjustments to your energy bill, and some internet data can even be saved in the process.

Take it from me, Mark Roemer, the trick is to transform these small acts into normal behaviors. In the beginning, place reminders around your office, and it will feel like a routine to unplug energy-hungry devices in no time.