How to Drive Down Electricity Costs

The most dreaded utility bill in my household is the electric bill, and the highest one usually comes in January after the holidays. What can you expect, really, after powering a house full of electronics and Christmas decorations for an entire month non-stop? It would be great if we could monitor our energy use all year, but until we all have smart meters installed to check our energy use online, we'll just have to search for alternatives.

One of these available alternatives is called The Energy Detective or TED, an energy monitor that allows you to see electricity usage in real time. The best part is that it tells you exactly how much you're spending on electricity in dollar amounts and kilowatts, so there are no surprises at the end of the month. According to the site, TED is extremely accurate and can be set up in less than 15 minutes by a qualified homeowner or electrician. It has many features, and you can even set up parameters to tell you when the cost-per-hour amount exceeds a specified amount within your budget. You can purchase one online for $140, but I'm sure this gizmo will save you a lot of money and pay for itself in less than a year. Saving energy during the holidays is one incentive for buying a gadget like TED, but people who work from home could seriously benefit from it all year long.

Another way to conserve energy is to look for Energy Star products when shopping for office equipment and home electronics. These products usually use about half the electricity of standard equipment. The U.S. Department of Energy offers a few other energy-saving tips such as buying a laptop because they use less energy than desktop computers, turning off monitors instead of using screen savers to reduce energy, and plugging a computer into a power strip that can be switched off easily.

One reason you should completely unplug certain electronics when they're not in use is because some of them consume power even when they're on stand-by mode. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75 percent of the electricity used to power home electronics in the average home is consumed while the products are turned off. These vampire electronics or phantom loads are racking up a bill even when you think they're not, so you need devices that can help you identify them in order to save money.

A more affordable device that can help you do this is called the Kill-A-Watt EZ. The Gadgeteer has an extensive hands-on review of the device here, along with some interesting tests she conducted. The Kill-A-Watt EZ estimates she'll spend $35 to $40 a year to power her iMac. That's good to know, because now she can unplug those devices she doesn't use on weekends and holidays to save the extra cash. Overall, she said this was an easy to use tool that can save money and can easily be found online for about $60 or less.

These are just a couple of devices you can use. To reduce your energy bill, you could always go solar, so I'll have more on that in my next post. In the meantime, let me know if you have other ideas that could help us drive down electricity costs.