5 ways you can save energy and money in your home

You probably already know that replacing those old, leaky windows in your charming fixer-upper would save bundles on your heating and cooling bills.

But new windows don't come cheap — hardly anything does these days, right?

You don't have to break the bank to save big on your energy bill, though, energy experts say.

Just ask Jennifer Mays of Kansas City, Mo. She earned valuable energy credits on her electrical and gas bills by doing a few simple tasks, such as adding more insulation to her midtown home's attic and spraying expandable foam insulation in the gaps where her home meets its foundation.

Mays' home underwent an energy audit — where a certified expert lists simple ways to eliminate inefficiencies. After completing the suggested fixes, Mays submitted her receipts to her utilities, Kansas City Power & Light and Missouri Gas Energy, and reaped $1,200 in credits.

"We're still living on credits," Mays says. "We haven't had an electric or gas bill since the end of the year."

Here are few more inexpensive ways to use less electricity in your home. Some don't cost any more than time.

Install a programmable thermostat. This is an easy way to shave dollars off your bill, says Kim Winslow, manager of energy efficiency at Kansas City Power & Light.

Programmable thermostats keep you from changing your cooling and heating settings on a whim, she says. You program temperatures for when you're home and away, awake and asleep. In the warm months, general guidelines call for a setting of 78 degrees or higher.

"For every degree you raise it in the summer, you can cut your energy consumption by 3 to 5 percent," Winslow says.

Replace incandescent light bulbs with more efficient fluorescent or LED bulbs. In about two years, you won't be able to buy traditional incandescent bulbs anyway, says Chris Albright, a certified energy auditor with Smith & Boucher, an Olathe, Kan., engineering firm. The government is phasing them out in favor of other lighting alternatives.

Compact fluorescent bulbs burn about 30,000 to 35,000 hours before they give out and use between 20 percent to 30 percent of the energy used by incandescent bulbs. They cost more initially but make up for their expense in energy savings.

However, Albright says, if you really want to stretch your dollars, invest a little more in an LED lamp. They can burn up to 60,000 hours.