Frugality is not just about saving money in the short term, it is about making choices that conserve and save for the long term. One of the ways frugality can be put into action with a short term expense that reaps long term benefits is upgrading old appliances to Energy Star or energy-efficient models that save money over time.

This came into play for us recently. We bought a house a little more than a year ago that had a 20 year old furnace. A few weeks ago, the furnace began to behave erratically, and we looked into replacing it. What we found was that for a slightly larger investment now in a Energy Star appliance, we could improve performance over our current furnace by more than 40%. For us, that means a $600-$800 savings in natural gas bills per year. We could have repaired the current furnace for a short term fix, but considering all the variables, that would have been the cheap choice, not the frugal one.

What appliances in your home could stand to be upgraded to save you money and conserve energy? You might be surprised the difference an Energy Star rated appliance can make.

This frugal tip supplied by paidtwice of I’ve Paid For This Twice Already…

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 6:49 am and is filed under Frugal Tip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.