“Electrical Bill Dropped By Half”: People Share 35 Home Upgrades That Were Worth Every Penny

House plants. The amount of color and life simple and easy-to-care-for plants add when the days are dark is amazing.

Flowering trees. If you have a yard, plant some trees that add scent and color and encourage wildlife to visit. We get so many birds and our yard smells like heaven in June with our pink crab apple blossoms and lilac trees.

Black out drapes are amazing!

Reflective film for the windows. Especially the light facing windows. 10 degree drop in the house. Electrical bill dropped by half. Few hundred bucks and an afternoon of tedious but not hard work. 

Premium mattress. Paying for a quality mattress that actually matches you and how you sleep will literally change your life. I wasn’t a believer and thought it was all a gimmick until I took the plunge.

Replacing the aerators in my bathroom faucets. We thought was had bad water pressure, but that didn’t make sense since other fixtures were fine. Turns out the aerator was just badly clogged with sediment. It was a night and day difference.

Best one by far in my opinion living in a noisier city area would be double or triple pane windows. Not cheap but essential when you want to shut out the noise of the world for a while.

When I bought my house (built in the mid-1950’s) the only thing that nagged at me were the old, rusty looking floor registers that lead to the duct work. I replaced them with new art deco style registers. They weren’t expensive and made such a difference. Took minutes to replace the old ones.

Soft close toilet lid.

Under cabinet lighting. Less than $100 and it makes such a difference.

> Roomba Avg cost ~$150-650

I just spent $1200 on an auto map, mop, vaccum, auto-refill, auto empty robot vaccuum cleaner and this SOB is worth twice what I paid for it, it runs 3x a week and I f'ing love it.

A washer and dryer.

I lived in a small place that didn't have a washer and dryer. Added a small apartment sized WD. Not having to go to the laundromat was a life changer.

So many great ideas here! I'll say additional insulation as we recently bought a house that I felt attic did not have enough and... what a difference! Temperature stays consistent, I can't hear planes overhead and road noise better. I feel like not only am I saving money immediately, but my qualify of life improved too.

I made automatic curtains for my bedroom, and it was a shocking quality of life difference for me. Rather than wake up with an alarm, I just set my curtains to open in the morning, and I wake up softly a few minutes later. Add to that the not-depressed feeling that open windows add (but I’m somehow too lazy to consistently do manually) and it’s a solid addition to my life.

I made my as a diy project, so it was shockingly cheap (like maybe 30$). You can get commercial ones but I believe they are much more expensive

Probably not the cheapest upgrade at $30-50 each, but I changed all of our doorknobs to lever-style handles. Huge quality of life improvement, especially if you're carrying something with both hands. Plus, our dog can let herself in from the back yard (unless we deadbolt it to purposely keep her out for a bit). She still hasn't figured out how to pull open the door from the inside though.

Silicone and felt pads for every cabinet and bedroom door. That quiet little voice as they close is so nice. Makes even the cr*ppiest cabinets feel better.

Ceiling fans in all rooms. I’m in FL, it cuts down the AC use significantly. Cost varies by fan chosen, able to DIY since the house came wired for them (but only boob lights installed).

Not in the “cheap” category, but soooo worth it:

Covered porches / porticos. No, really. No fumbling for keys while you are being rained on. Leaving? Deploy your umbrella outside but before you are in the rain.

No snow piled up against your door.

So worth it. I could never go back.

Kitchen trash can in a drawer equipped with push to open. Just tap it and it opens itself. No more opening the trash with grimy hands.

Best thing ever is my undersink Reverse Osmosis water tap with re-mineralization. I stopped using bottled water altogether and it only took 30 mins to install ourselves. We used the existing 3rd hole for soap as the new dedicated tap.

Keypad lock for the front door, roughly $200, an hour to install.

Allows the kids to come home and unlock the door without having to worry about them being responsible with keys. Also allows us to lock/unlock the door remotely and to get into the house without fumbling with keys. The big improvement here was once we had a car with keyless entry and start. We no longer have to handle keys at all.