 The residential sector is a major contributor to global energy balance, but its energy demand has been largely uncontrollable and inelastic with respect to power grid conditions. To address this issue, demand management mechanisms such as demand side management, DSM, can be used to optimally manage energy resources of customers and their energy demand profiles. This paper surveys optimization methods for DSM of residential consumers and classifies them into three axes, individual users versus cooperative consumers, deterministic DSM versus stochastic DSM, and day ahead DSM versus real-time DSM. The study provides a big picture of the key features of different approaches and techniques and discusses future research directions. This article was authored by Antimo Barbato and Antonio Capone.