Saving money realisticly

Hi everybody! I've been thinking overtime lately and ran into something that could potentially save big bucks in the end. Not collecting coupons. Not by buying energy saving appliances, etc. It was outrageous. It was building solar panels yourself to save on energy bills and maybe selling back electricity to the power company.
I won't be building solar panels anytime soon but I do know the companies that have meters attached to our homes do notice when they aren't getting their "fair share" of our monthly income. I know this because my neighbor installed a heat capturing insert in her fireplace a few years ago. She is a singe women that was raising her young son all by herself. She needed as much money as she could get! So she gathered all the friends and family she could and shopped for free wood on craigslist etc. Using a pneumatic wood splitter and a chain saw she stored up enough wood to carry her for at least 3 months.
When the cold weather came the gas company sent her a letter saying her meter was getting old and would be replaced soon. The following month the gas company said they would like to enter her home to evaluate her energy consumption! She was in essence "not paying enough to them", but they wouldn't admit to that! She said no.
So it is evident that there are ways to save a ton of money on your utility bills. However, using the method my neighbor did has it's drawbacks as well. She must continue using a fan to disburse the heat and there is more work involved around the fireplace. Ash. More ash than most would care for collects in her living room. I hate vacuuming. I would prefer not to haul wood, clean up after it or deal with the orchestration around it, but it does work.
All of us here are looking for the same things; making money any way we can and saving any way we can. Most of us are down right cheep! And some of us are willing to do almost anything to keep our hard earned dollars in our pocket. So here's one of the most level headed ideas I've heard so far. So I'm including it here.