Autistic care does not come cheap and it’s a constant expense. It never gets any easier and even if the prices of medication go down, there is something around the corner that could elevate your financial needs for your loved one’s care. This is why we thought it would be a great idea to show you how you can lower your bills every month, to help pay for any care you might need to afford. These tips will be for your everyday concern but they can also help you in the long run. We went through the internet with a fine-toothed comb and found some quite ingenious ways to save on heating bills and learn how to cook more efficiently. Also, we found that some basic redesign of your home can also help to keep you warmer and more comfortable. Here is a list of things you can do.
A very surprising candle oven
One of the things that really pulls on the purse strings is heating. It takes a lot of energy to heat up a home and this is something that needs to be done for at least half the year for a few hours every day. So the costs can rack up. We found some incredible home warming techniques but one of the best was actually from a military survival website.
Here they showed how a very small tea candle or just a simple candle, can be used to make your rooms incredibly warm. All you need are some clay flower pots, some bricks or maybe an ovenproof dish, and a clay dish to house the candle.
What you do is simple.
- Place the dish in front of you and place some bricks around it. You can place the dish on top of an ovenproof dish if you want.
- Then you will place a large flower pot with a hole at the very bottom of the pot, on top of the candle, being held up by the bricks.
- Then you need to light the candle and cover the top of the flower pot.
- Allow the air to channel underneath the pot to then send the heat from the candle up and around the pot.
- Then clear the hole and allow heat to shoot upward.
- You will be surprised at how much this can heat your rooms up. If you have a big candle this can sometimes replace central heating, if you are wearing a jumper or something a bit thick.
How does it work and where did it come from?
It works just like an oven. The air from the candle is channeled into a specific area, meaning the clay pot gets warmer and warmer. The heat has nowhere to go except to be recycled. It has been used by special forces who are in safehouses and have no other means to stay warm. It’s simple, doesn’t arouse suspicion and it works very well. It’s been used by nomadic people who live in cold parts of the world as well.
Solar power still works
Solar energy just works. It’s a technology that has proven to be effective. Even though many solar panels have only been able to be about 5-10% efficient for the past few decades, newer technology means they are actually about 15-20% efficient now. So, if you live in any part of the world, you could be capturing 15% of the sun’s energy per day. This can now mean that if you have great solar panels you can power your home for about 2-4 weeks every single year. That is a giant saving when you think about the cost of heating your home, water for showers and bathing, heating up your food, lighting, appliances, technology and maybe even charging up your car.
Solar panels have to be correctly made and installed however. This is where the majority of the cost comes in. The installation has to be carefully done because you are hooking up self-power for your home, through the roof. So the wiring has to be done properly, missing your loft insulation, not damaging tiles and making leaks. It also has to be the right kind of solar panel, so it doesn’t get affected by the poorer weather such as rain, wind and hail.
But solar is a very good choice for lowering your bills. You don’t have to do anything and you get free energy. Usually, solar panels begin to pay themselves off in about 5 years after installation. The new Tesla solar tiles are superb because they can actually cover the whole of your roof and thus get energy whatever the angle of the sun is; unlike most panels.
Retaining as much heat as you can
Okay so now you have cheap heat and free energy, are all the problems solved? No, the truth is, you can only make so many candle ovens and rely on the sun for energy for about half the year as the fall and colder months produce grey clouds and bad weather.
You need to be able to retain as much heat in your home as possible. So firstly, try to see where you can install some common sense decor items. For example, the leather sofa is doing nothing to retain heat. Leather is coarse and tough, not meant to absorb heat at all. So replace it with a sofa that is made out of natural materials such as cotton, wool and linen. These materials have tiny fibers that trap heat molecules and slowly release them.
Think about installing some heavy curtains, so that heat is repelled from escaping the room and the cold is not so easily transferred from the windows to the inside of the home. As a matter of fact, you should consider triple glazing glass instead of double. Triple glazing has two vacuums instead of one and can lower your heating bill by as much as 15%. Triple glazing is more expensive but it begins to pay itself off in about 3-4 years anyway.
The simple things
Finally, we move on to the simple things. You should try to cook in batches so you can either freeze your meals or heat them up during the week. It’s easy enough to say so but you have to act on it. Make sure you are cooking a meal that can last at least 2-3 days. There is no point in turning on the oven or stove just for one meal when you are trying to save as much money as you can.
So pick meals which you can cook in batches. A casserole, roast chicken or perhaps pasta. You can cook large meals of these foods and they will be good for 2-3 days. Just wrap them in clingfilm and you should be able to take them out for dinner and enjoy an almost fresh meal.
If you can, put on a jumper before you turn the heating one. Just see how you feel for half an hour and if you are still cold then you should consider putting the central heating on. You should also consider LED lights that don’t need as much power, appliances that are eco-friendlier and try to use less power if you don’t need to.
Lowering the bills to help pay for the urgent and meaningful care of your autistic son or daughter. Hopefully you have found the candle oven an ingenious solution and the solar panels an easy choice to make for your energy-saving needs.
Mom on the go in Holy Toledo 