electricity conserving is one of the cut downs,we can use in cutting down our monthy payments.one of the things that we can use to prepare for the next period of economic recession

Switching your electricity from bulbs to CFL lamps is one of the best ways of saving electricity. You can cut down your bills by saving it too, saved energy today is equal to generating electricity.

Installing good sky lights has saved us a LOT of money.

We installed 14" solatubes in each room (except the sunroom and living room) and in our hallway. The kitchen has two 16" units. We installed units that have an integral vent in the bathrooms.

To bring light down to the basement area (family room, two bedrooms, summer kitchen), we installed bookshelves wrapping around a corner in two corners of the living room, then used the corner area squared out with framing and wallboard) to hide the solartube going down to the basement area.

We were able to snitch two corners in the walk in closet (It actually made a better closet that way) to bring down two more 14" units.

Now, our house has light all day long. Nobody turns the lights on during the day anymore at all. Our goal was to get our house down to just the refrigerator during the day.

Notice the words summer kitchen! We have a second kitchen downstairs that we use in the summer. Our house has the north side buried in a hill and the downstairs is always cool in summer. It's also a walkout to the back yard. We have a deep overhang over the windows between floors so that in winter, lots of light comes in and warms the concrete/tile floor. In summer, direct sunlight (sun is higher in the sky) never touches the inside of the house directly.

oh thanks NightBloomer for the post,its really useful,but sun doesn't enter all my rooms,so i can't depend on it for the day in all of my house,i will trying finding a way out. maybe the CFL lamps as John mentioned(thanks too ) would help.

I just wanted to be clear, the reason we put in the Solatubes was because our house was dark inside with the overhangs in summer. And the central hallways were REALLY dark.

They bring in an amazing amount of light and are quite easy to install. We researched a lot of options before picking them.

There are also solar shingling options now that are very easy to install and much more durable and efficient than you'd expect.

I have a really old house with very large windows. Boy did I hate the bill when I replaced them. They light up my house during the day very well. There are a few dark spots, but these are hallways and places where we don't spend much time. In the late afternoon and early evening, we burn candles instead of using lights. My wife likes them and I take the scraps and make more candles from it. You would be surprised how much candles help when just adding to the ambient light when the shadows are getting long.

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Well,cutting down the electricity bill is not only about lightening, it's also decreasing or optimizing the use of appliances like the dishwasher,TV...
like we have got 2 TVs, we stopped using them both at the same time,we used to wash dishes everyday,now we accumulate them in the dishwasher and wash them day after day...

We need to learn about optimizing the use of electrical objects by this way, we can conserve electricity. Also we should try to reduce the carbon foot print.

I am using solar panels to cut down my electricity bills. Most of the time it helps. After using it, i save 35% of what i used to pay.

If you want to have an impact on your current electric bill without installing anything new (like solar panels). The trick is to uninstall things. The average household has several "vampires" that sip electricity all day and night, even when not in use. Pretty much any electronic divice in your house that has a standby setting (TV, cablebox, computers, printers, cell phone chargers even when not pluged into the phone, ect.), just use energy all the time, even when not in use.

If you really want to save money, unplug all your electronics when you go to bed. To make this easier, plug things into power strips and just unplug the power strip. Remember, even when you switch a power strip to the off position, it still draws power. That power is wasted.

So if you want to really save some money on electricity, don't let the vampires feed all night long.

Good luck out there!
~Roadwarrior