When possible, try to dry your clothes outside. Your clothes dryer uses a lot more electricity than you think it does and is likely one of the most expensive major appliances in your home. It can add as much as $1 to your electric bill for each hour that you have it turned on, so you may want to consider hanging up your clothes to dry from now on instead of using the dryer.

Speaking of washing clothes, if you want to save more on electricity, wash large loads of clothes instead of small ones so the washer only has to run once as opposed to 2 or 3 times. It takes the same amount of electricity to run the washer

Try lowering the temperature on your hot water heater. Lowering it even 20 degrees can save you somewhere around $50 per year. Save even more money by washing your clothes in cold water instead of hot.

Properly insulating your home is also key to saving money on your electric and gas bill every month. Inspect your home's attic, basement, and windows to try and find drafts. You can also take a ruler into your attic and measure the depth of the insulation to determine whether you have enough of it or not. There are tax credits available in some areas for making your home more energy efficient, so check out your local area and try to find out what they are.

We all love our little electric gadgets, but getting rid of them can save you more money than you may think. Keep the coffee pot, hair dryer, food processor, and other necessities, but if you can find a tool to do something manually, use the tool instead. Use a hand held reamer to extract juice from produce instead of an electric juicer. Electric can openers are also nice, but since they use electricity and you can do this with a manual can opener, ditch them.

If you want to ditch your landline phone for a cell phone, try to stay away from the bells and whistles that come with most cell phone plans these days. Ringtones and ringback tones cost you money and so do games and other downloadable applications. If you can do without text messaging, then forego the extra money it costs every month to do it. Picture messages can cost up to $1 or more each, so try to avoid these, too.