General money and energy saving tips

It was a very tiring day and I am just waiting to hit the bed. We went to the Austin Hindu Temple in the evening. The weather is awesome with a nice breeze in Austin. The vegetable patch plants are slowly sprouting out. I am really enjoying the spring weather.
 Some tips to save money in and around the house are:

*Make sure you are not penny wise and pound foolish. Sometimes that happens too.
* If you are homeowner  and you have lived in your house from Jan of a year ,then there is something called “HOMESTEAD exception”, that you can apply for that year.I got introduced to this by one of my colleague. Looks like you will get some tax exemption when you file this. I am not exactly sure how this works This is the form for Texas
 http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxforms/50-114.pdf. For other states Google about this. If any of you have submitted this form before please help us understand this. You can leave a comment in this post and looks like we have to fill this form by April 30th.
*During summer try to have fans in each room and during winter, buy personalized heaters for each room so you can avoid cooling/heating your whole house during day/night time. We  do this and heat up only the areas which we use around the house
*I have  heard that gas drier is better than electric drier as gas is cheaper. Though gas driers are expensive  they are always worth the money. After my friend suggested this I read about it, looks like it good to buy woolen dryer balls this is natural and saves money too.
*I always save the water in  which I wash the vegetables or rice or anything related to cooking that does not contain soap and use it to water my plants in summer and spring
*During summer if possible try to dry some clothes outside so you dont have to use drier
*For ladies, I recently learnt this from my friend. Usually when you wash/dry your inner in the washer/drier they kind of entangle with all other clothes. So to avoid this I was looking for some other method, when  I asked around some people said they dont use the washer and drier at all. That was difficult for me. Finally my friend told me this, just take a pillow cover and put your inner in that and tie a knot and put it in washer and drier, they come out intact and last longer.
*Use “MINT” or other software to track your spending, have a budget for each activity so you know where your money is going.
Check  Other posts on money saving tips to see  all other money saving tips that I have posted before. Add some more tips that you follow,so I can learn from you. Have a wonderful week ahead.