Making your home environmentally friendly doesn’t have to mean installing expensive solar panels or undergoing major renovations. Eco-living expert Simran Sethi – appearing on the Opera Winfrey Show this week– says simply swapping out some daily household items can help you save hundreds each year!

“Money is essential right now,” Simran says. “We can make small changes in our lives that make good common sense. This isn’t about green as some fancy trend– this is about green as a really common sense way to live.”

Simran listed 13 money-saving ways to go green on the show, and installing a programmable thermostat was number four. She says you’ll start seeing lower energy bills immediately. “For every degree that you reduce your temperature, you’re going to save about 1 percent of energy on your energy bill,” she says. “I suggest keeping your thermostat around 68 degrees in the winter and around 78 degrees in the summer.”

Check out the programmable thermostats available at Home Controls (click here). We offer product lines from HAI, RCS, Aprilaire and RemoteLock.