This post may contain affiliate links, view our disclosure policy for details.
Living on a teacher’s salary can be quite grim sometimes to be honest, and many months we are pinching every single penny we can. Since my husband became a teacher we’ve learned to reuse, recycle, go generic, buy used, and anything else we can possibly do to save money. I know MANY if not most of you are in the same situation!
But sometimes, you have to invest in order to save money. After having my son and going through the process of understanding his Asperger’s and sensory disorder issues we have also spent the last few years “going green”, and maybe not for the sake of going green, but more as a healthier approach for our family. So when I was offered the opportunity to switch all of the light bulbs in my house from whatever we are using now to GE Energy Efficient light bulbs my husband and I were ALL over it!
We have always wanted to switch to energy efficient bulbs but to be honest the upfront cost can be a bit daunting on a tight budget! So I invite you to join me on our journey the next month to see if our new energy efficient bulbs will really make a difference or not in our utilities bill!
I saw this commercial below (have you seen it?) and I have to admit – it was incredibly clever! Obviously money is not going to drop out of your lights, but I wondered if you really can tell that much of a difference by switching all of the bulbs in your house to energy efficient. Have any of you switched over? Did you notice a difference?
Hehe – don’t you wish money just fell down like that? I was curious just how much I might really save when I found this savings calculator to estimate our savings. HOLY MOLY – look what it showed!
Over $1000 savings on the span of the light bulb! That’s pretty incredible if it’s true! SO let’s put it to the test together huh? We decided to sit down and count out how many light bulbs we would need to completely transform our house full of light bulbs into energy efficient ones…..including all of our outside lights! The grand total was 26!! Phew – that’s a whole lot of light bulbs!
Â
OH DEAR! As a women who has ALWAYS left buying light bulbs up to her husband I was completely LOST when I walked into the lighting aisle. There were so many different light bulbs my head was spinning. And I know a guy must have put the aisles together because there is no organization to them!! (sorry guys!)
I know that we wanted to buy the GE “Bright from the Start” CFL bulbs, but I stood in my Walmart’s lighting aisle for an hour only to figure out they didn’t even carry them! Â There were, however, TONS of energy efficient bulbs! SO I drove over to the next county and began scouting out their Walmart.
Who knew saving money could be such hard work? I was a little better prepared by the time I walked into the second Walmart – I at least recognized most of the lights! 🙂 This time I noticed that the GE Energy Smart packaging actually said how much savings you would get! WHOO!
I finally found the bulbs I wanted. They didn’t have enough in stock, however, so I had to buy two different wattages (60 & 75 watts) and make 2 trips to get enough for 26 bulbs! The cashier looked at me a little funny with my cart full of light bulbs! 🙂
As soon as I got home with my bags & bags full of light bulbs (I was so scared to break them!) my husband started right away replacing all of our old bulbs. To be honest I don’t even know what we used to have – but we knew that the newest bulbs were at least 3 years old. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, outdoor garage lights, front porch lights, back porch lights, living room, dining room, 2 hallways and our kitchen. 26 total bulbs replaced.
After one month of these new energy efficient bulbs I am going to call our utility company to see if there is a difference in our price.Â
Here are a few of the old bulbs we pulled out:
And here is my husband going through our house replacing with the new GE light bulbs!
I’d LOVE to hear your story if you’ve switched your house to energy efficient bulbs, AND if you haven’t switched and why! Stay tuned with us as we see just how much we can save by switching to energy efficient bulbs!Â
Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and GE. #CBias #SocialFabric #GELighting All opinions are my own.
Bummer you had to do so much running around but I can’t wait to see how much you have saved by making the switch!
Wow. 26!! That’s quite a day for you. We have replace almost all the bulbs and they DO last a very long time. And I prefer them as they don’t seem as harsh. I’ll be curious to see what your savings are.
Wow! We usually change about 4 a day, LOL! We have slowly been replacing with these and I love them!
Bummer you had to do so much running around but I can’t wait to see how much you have saved by making the switch!
Wow. 26!! That’s quite a day for you. We have replace almost all the bulbs and they DO last a very long time. And I prefer them as they don’t seem as harsh. I’ll be curious to see what your savings are.
Wow! We usually change about 4 a day, LOL! We have slowly been replacing with these and I love them!