Money out of thin air: how to save on rent

How to save on water: meters, new equipment, habits

Water supply and disposal take up to 30% of utility bills, and in the absence of meters, the total water consumption is determined by the formula:

Standard * number of people registered in the living space * tariff

However, the standard includes not only the average human needs, but also possible water losses, for example, during washing and brushing teeth. According to it, only 1 person consumes 6.9 cubic meters of water per month. This is a huge figure, and it is unprofitable to pay at such a standard, especially when several people are “registered” in the apartment. Utility services have the right to inflate it to cover their own costs (but no more than 2 times). Thus, the final figure can be very impressive.

Installing meters will reduce the amount for water in bills by up to 50%: payment will be made only for the volume actually consumed.

Old plumbing and leaking pipes are the most insidious enemies of a thrifty owner. They quietly “waste” a huge amount of resources, so timely troubleshooting is one of the most important steps to saving.

Up to 100 liters of water per month can leak from a dripping faucet, and up to 6,000 liters from a leaking faucet. A leaking toilet wastes up to 94,000 liters a year.

Just develop a few habits and use inexpensive tech accessories that can also help you save money. Recommended:

1. Fully load your washing machine and dishwasher.
2. Give preference to a dishwasher - it consumes 2 times less water than is required for washing by hand, and also frees up a lot of time for the owners and protects their hands.
3. When brushing your teeth, you should turn off the tap or use a glass: in a minute and a half of brushing, the flow of water from the tap manages to fill a 10-liter bucket. For the same reason, you should not defrost food under running tap.
4. Purchase a two-button toilet flush device. A tank with a double flush button will save up to 25 cubic meters of water per year.
5. Install an economical shower head - liquid consumption will decrease by approximately 35%.

Any measures to save water are only effective if there are meters. Otherwise, they may be good for the environment, but not good for your wallet.

How to legally reduce rent

There are many options for reducing utility bills. Perhaps the main ones are savings in housing and utility services provided and their timely payment.

These methods are available to every citizen, although many are inclined to think that this is too much hassle and red tape for the sake of a couple of hundred rubles. However, from practice it is clear that the introduction of a comprehensive savings system into the family budget can reduce rent costs by almost 25%.

So, let’s share our secrets on how to reduce rent:

Rent subsidies are paid to low-income people and other categories of citizens. Find out how to remove the radio from your rent in our publication.

We reduce energy costs

Electricity is another costly expense for utilities, especially in apartments without gas supply: it can account for up to 25% of the amount in the receipt. To significantly save on electricity, it is enough to take a number of measures:

1. Install multi-tariff meters. Two- or three-tariff metering devices are more often used. The tariff depends on the time of day - electricity at night is 4 times cheaper than during the day. This way you can reduce your energy costs by up to 25%. However, before installation, you need to analyze your rhythm of life: it is unlikely that early risers will be able to save money in this way, since all their active activities occur during the daytime.
2. Replace conventional “Ilyich light bulbs” with energy-saving ones, or better yet LED ones - they consume 80% less energy, and one such lamp can save up to 500 rubles. in year. If LED bulbs are screwed into all the chandeliers in the house, the savings will be at least 2,000 rubles.
3. Turn off the lights before leaving or install motion sensors. They will help save 70-80% of the electricity that is spent on lighting, and will also be an excellent help for those who constantly forget to turn off the lights.
4. An inspection of household appliances and their subsequent replacement will reduce up to 40% of energy costs and up to 50% of water costs. Old equipment can consume tens of times more energy than new equipment. The main thing here is not to confuse energy efficiency with energy consumption. In the first case, the consumption may be large, but it will be used efficiently and most of the energy will be used.
5. The most power-hungry electrical appliances are those with heating elements, so you need to take special care of them. For example, scale in an electric kettle creates a high thermal resistance, it takes longer to heat up and, as a result, more electricity is consumed.

Yes, the measures listed are expensive, but over time they pay for themselves more than once. Installing a meter will pay for itself in 1 year, light bulbs - from 2 months to a year.

Equipment that “lives” in standby mode (TV, computer, microwave, etc.) costs about 3,000 rubles a year, so it’s better to simply turn off devices that are not in use.

Reduced payment

So how else can you save money and pay less for utility bills in addition to the above methods:

• Electricity bills. To do this, you will need to use devices that will consume less energy. When choosing household appliances in a store, pay close attention to the energy consumption class of the device. It is best to take those with A, A+, A++. There will undoubtedly be a price difference, but it will quickly pay for itself over years of use. The same should be done with lighting. Use only energy saving light bulbs. They will perfectly work out their own cost due to saved energy and long service life.

Do not ignore the “sleep modes” and “standby modes” that many devices have recently been equipped with. At such moments, the energy supply does not end, but remains as it was. You should unplug all unnecessary electrical outlets when you are away for a few days.

• Heating bill. In this matter, the main thing is good insulation of the living space. The door leading to the balcony should not produce drafts, and if your financial situation allows, it is best to install plastic windows. If this is not possible, the frames are insulated for the winter in the old-fashioned way. A door or window that has not been insulated is a kind of hole into which funds from the family budget slowly leak;
• Water service bills. Initially, it is best to install meters, and after installing them, get used to constant savings. It is worth loading the washing machine with maximum loads of clothes, as this saves not only water, but also electricity. The tap should be turned off when soaping dishes. There is no need to keep the water running while brushing your teeth. Water bills are among the most gluttonous;
• If you speak little on your home phone, you can refuse the unlimited tariff. It's even better to use Skype, since you don't have to pay for all calls;
• You can also ask for a recalculation of the rent if at least one family member has not been home for more than 5 days. You will need to write a corresponding application and bring documents confirming this fact. This document could well serve as a travel document, a certificate from a hospital, a train or plane ticket, bills for staying at a hotel, or a regular certificate of temporary registration;
• Extract. It happens that there are people registered in the apartment who have not lived in the apartment for a long time. They may be relatives who are no longer alive or who have simply moved. You should just go and check them out of the apartment, which will give you the opportunity to save additional money.

You should know that the discharge of such residents can only be done through the court if there is no consent. A very real case is when the apartment has already been privatized, but the person who left does not have a lifelong right to live there, that is, he himself refused the privatization process.

How to reduce heating costs

Heating consumes about ⅓ of utility costs per month. During the cold season, this expense item significantly increases the total amount of payment for housing and communal services. To reduce heat costs, you can do the following:

1. Install heat meters. There are 2 types of metering devices: apartment and communal. The first ones are cheaper and easier to install, but they do not always allow you to save money: you will have to pay for the delivery of heat to the apartment, and also, if meters are not installed in all apartments, the readings of the device are not taken into account, and everyone pays equally. If the apartment has poor thermal insulation, internal meters will also not help - costs may even increase. If the house is well heated and heat loss is small, you can cooperate with your neighbors and install a common house meter - it can save about 30% of energy consumption. Such a metering device fully pays for itself in about 3 years.
2. Insulate the apartment. Heat losses significantly increase costs even without meters - you have to spend money on additional heaters and electricity for them.
3. Insulate facades and balconies. This will reduce both apartment and general heat energy losses. A glazed balcony will serve as a buffer zone between the street and the room, which will significantly reduce heat outflow, and insulating the facade can reduce heat loss by up to 30%.

When reducing heating costs, the most important step will be to insulate the premises.

Up to 30% of the heat can escape through window cracks, while a poorly insulated apartment loses up to 80% through windows and doors.

What to do next

In the case where the benefits in your case relate to the first two points, you should go to the commission located at the district administration and give them the three necessary papers:

• A statement indicating the subsidy that the main tenant is counting on. Personal account numbers and names along with addresses of those organizations that provide public utility services are also entered;
• Declaration of income. You should know that if during the last year you have made a purchase for a large amount or you earn money by renting out an apartment, then you will not receive a subsidy;
• A certificate of your own income from your place of work.

When you want to receive a benefit that will allow you to save on utility bills, as a family with a large number of children, in order to save, you should also bring the birth certificate of each individual child, which will reduce the cost of services.

For special categories, the list of documents for receiving benefits that will help you save without extra costs will be much longer. You can find out what it includes from your district administration.

Is it possible to save on gas?

Gas consumption is not the most expense item in bills for housing and communal services; it is a fairly economical type of fuel, but it can also be spent many times more efficiently, and you pay less for consumption. There are several ways to reduce gas consumption:

1. The most reliable method is to install a meter. Without metering devices, payment is made according to standards that are inflated: according to them, each tenant spends 10 cubic meters of gas without a gas water heater, and with one - 26.2 cubic meters per month.
2. If you have a geyser, you can use economical shower heads and taps.
3. Replace the gas water heater with a wick with an automatic model. The first has overconsumption of gas per month of up to 20 cubic meters, that is, money literally burns with a blue flame.
4. In a private house, it is necessary to insulate walls and windows and install a boiler with an automatic thermostat. You can also think about purchasing a condensing gas boiler - compared to a conventional one, it saves up to 35% of fuel.
5. During cooking, it is necessary to place the dishes on a burner of a suitable size so as not to unnecessarily heat the air.

In apartments, gas consumption is reduced mainly to cooking and heating water, so the most effective method of saving would be to install a meter.

A gas stove, depending on the model, frequency of its use and family size, consumes from 5 to 40 cubic meters of gas per month.

How to save on housing and communal services: step-by-step instructions

1. Preferential categories. It is quite possible to receive benefits from the state if the family includes people who are entitled to them. Consider carefully whether the following categories live in your apartment:
   disabled people;
2. parents of disabled children;
3. elderly people over 80 years of age;
4. children under 1.5 years old;
5. orphans who have not reached the age of majority.

If you find any, you can get a discount on utility bills from 30 to 50%. Also, large families with 3 or more children living before or after the age of 16 can pay less, but provided that they are students of general education institutions. If you managed to find several categories of beneficiaries in your family, you can choose which of them will be most profitable for you to pay your bills.

6. We receive a subsidy. People whose income is below average should think about how to save on housing and communal services by applying for compensation from the state. To do this, you need to calculate how much income per family member is received per month. If the figure is 2,000 rubles or less, the total payment for utilities should not exceed 3% of the total family income. If 1 resident of an apartment has 2000-2500 rubles per month, you can pay 6% of your earnings, but in order to spend 10% of your total income, you need to have 2500 rubles or more per person. If you have recalculated the total wages of all family members and it turns out that it is not enough to pay utility bills, you can apply for a subsidy. This can be done under the following conditions:
   you are a homeowner or member of a cooperative;
7. you are a tenant who lives in council or public housing;
8. you are a tenant who rents an apartment from private individuals.
9. We pay attention to the quality of the services provided . Very often we pay for heat, which in fact is not available during the cold months of the year, for hot water, which is turned off several times a week. If you find such violations, you can contact the emergency dispatch organization with a request, and make sure that the request is necessarily documented. Facts such as turning off water for more than 8 hours a month can be considered violations, and one shutdown session should not exceed 3 hours; only in case of serious accidents is it allowed to leave the population disconnected from the centralized water supply for up to 24 hours. Heating the water is also important - very often on the upper floors it is simply impossible to wait for hot water from the tap, since there is not enough pressure. This is also a strong argument for recalculating tariffs; hot water is considered really hot if its temperature is not lower than 50⁰C.
10. We sign everyone out of the apartment who is not needed . To find out how to save on rent, you need to think about how many people actually live in your living space and how many people are registered there. Surely there will be those who are simply listed in the documents and at the same time take money from your family budget. Try to get rid of all the “ghost residents” and the amount in your receipts will be significantly less. In order to discharge a person from an apartment, you can contact him personally or through the court. Such issues can be resolved most favorably by owners of privatized apartments, provided that the persons being discharged do not have the right of lifelong residence, i.e. abandoned privatization at one time.
11. We do not pay for the time we do not live in the apartment . According to the law, a person who does not live in an apartment for more than 5 days can draw up a special application and take it to the housing office for recalculation of tariffs. However, for this statement to be valid, you must provide documentary evidence of your absence along with it: these could be personalized boarding passes, vouchers to sanatoriums or resorts, calls to a session, etc. If your family has several people who are rarely at home, you can avoid paying for them using this trick.

Other options for reducing costs for consumed housing and communal services resources

You can reduce payment costs not only by installing meters, replacing equipment and following savings rules, but also in other ways:

1. Refusal of unused services - radio points, collective antenna, etc. This will save up to 2000 rubles per year.
2. Disabling your landline phone will save you up to 500 rubles a month.
3. Pay for services without commission. At bank cash desks or post offices, you not only have to stand in queues, but also pay commissions for services, so it is easier and cheaper to pay off receipts through Internet banking. You can also pay for utilities without commission on the government services website.
4. It is worth familiarizing yourself with the rules for receiving benefits and subsidies, but to use them there should be no debts for housing and communal services.

You should definitely check your bills for any extra charges. From January 1, 2020, management companies are required not only to recalculate in case of errors, but also to compensate residents for damage (in the form of a fine) in the amount of 50% of the accrued excess.

The golden rule of saving is to avoid unnecessary things. Especially in cases where the service is paid for, but is not actually used.

Energy saving and LED lamps

Today, many have long switched to energy-saving fluorescent (halogen) or LED light bulbs. This is not surprising, because they are much more economical than classic devices. A standard incandescent lamp costs an average of forty rubles and consumes electricity of 500 rubles per year.

Although an LED lamp costs about three hundred rubles, it consumes five times less. The payment for electricity provided by one light bulb will be about 50 rubles per year. Energy-saving fluorescent lamps cost 150 rubles apiece and will allow you to pay for electricity only 100 rubles a year for the use of one piece. By the way, such light bulbs last ten times longer than standard ones and consume five to ten times less energy.

Experts advise always turning off the lights when leaving a room to save electricity. However, we cannot always remember this. In this case, installing motion sensors in the apartment will help. They will help save almost a third of electricity. And you won't have to constantly remember to turn off the lights. There is no need to monitor household members to see if they have done this. But if there are animals in the house, you should reduce the sensor sensitivity settings.

For spacious rooms, choose ceiling-mounted models with a viewing angle of up to 360 degrees. For the bathroom and corridor, compact rooms - wall-mounted options with a 180-degree view.

How to avoid paying utility bills for people not living in the apartment

In cases where meters are not installed, utility bills directly depend on the number of registered residents. If one of the registered persons has been absent for a long time or permanently resides in another place, then you can write an application for recalculation, providing the following documents:

• a certificate confirming long-term absence (medical, from the employer in case of a business trip, tickets, etc.);
• registration at the place of stay;
• other documents confirming residence at a different address.

It is also necessary to obtain a certificate stating that the person pays for housing and communal services at the place of stay. Recalculation will be carried out only for those services that are calculated according to consumption standards.

If residents go on vacation

In case of temporary absence of residents, you should also notify the management company and write an application for recalculation, attaching supporting documents (tickets, certificates, etc.). In the absence of documents confirming the temporary or permanent absence of a registered resident from the apartment, the management company will continue to charge utilities based on the number of registered people. In this case, only installing meters can help - payment will be made for the resources actually consumed, regardless of the number of residents. If meters are installed, then before leaving you should turn off the water and completely turn off the electricity - this will eliminate erroneous charges and help reduce the likelihood of accidents.

Are there any benefits for paying utility bills?

There are two types of state support for citizens:

1. Subsidies. Their receipt directly depends on the applicant’s income, or more precisely, the ratio of income and expenses for housing and communal services. The subsidy is provided to persons whose rent costs amount to 22% or more of their total income (in some regions the figure is lower, for example, in Moscow - 10%). To receive a subsidy, you must be a citizen of the Russian Federation, have no debts on housing and communal services, and the area of ​​​​the premises should not exceed the standard per person established in the region - you will have to pay in full for the “surplus”. The calculation takes into account the total family income, which includes salaries, benefits, pensions, scholarships, sales profits, etc. You can apply for a subsidy at the social security authorities, MFC or on the State Services portal.
2. Privileges. This type of government support is available only to certain categories of citizens and is provided in the form of a discount on housing and communal services. By default, it is issued at the place of registration in the passport and applies to no more than one apartment, but if you have a certificate of payment for services at another address, the benefit can be issued at the place of actual residence. The applicant, as in the case of subsidies, must not be in debt. Moreover, if the area of ​​the apartment exceeds the standard, payment for the “extra” meters is charged at an increased rate.

Government support will help reduce utility costs, but to receive them you must be a conscientious payer and comply with all conditions, otherwise you may be refused.

In addition to basic savings rules, such as turning off lights and unplugging electrical appliances, you can reduce expenses using a number of other measures. Installing meters will save you from overpayments at general tariffs, new equipment will quickly pay for itself, and timely repair of faults will free you from unnecessary expenditure of resources.

If the amount in the payment is clearly too high, then you should definitely go and find out - attentive citizens have the right to receive compensation from the management company. If spending on housing and communal services has become unaffordable and takes away a significant part of income, then it is worth turning to the state for support.

Why pay for something that doesn't exist?

Why pay for services you don't receive? If, for example, the water in your home is not hot, but lukewarm.

In this case, you should call a housing cooperative services employee and make a claim. The second copy is certified by the housing cooperative, and if the recalculation is refused, a claim must be filed in court. After this, you should pay less for hot water supply.

Lawyers say that it is best to apply such a plan at any time when the housing cooperative refuses to fulfill its obligations. Then you will have a reputation as a person who is not silent and all services will be performed at the appropriate level.

The third option applies only to those families who have benefits or who can take advantage of a subsidy for utility bills.

This category includes:

1. Families whose communal services take more than 15% of their income, and for families with disabled citizens - 10%;
2. Families with disabled people of the first and second groups, as well as children under 18 years of age. In this case, monthly income should not exceed 50% of the subsistence minimum for one person;
3. Families with a large number of children, who are legally entitled to a discount (which allows you to save on utilities in an amount of no less than 50%);
4. Included are all kinds of veterans, children of war, participants in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident, rural teachers and doctors, as well as people who have lost their breadwinner.