You know what happens when you lose internet for 2 weeks, your stuck inside due to the CONSTANT snow and you end up with an electricity usage monitor in your hands?? If you’re anything like me, you go a little crazy!! Stick a pair of sneakers on me and I’m not exactly the most competitive person, but hand me a scavenger hunt, a checklist or any other type of mental challenge and I am all over it!
So my kids and I grabbed the Kill-a-Watt Electricity Usage Monitor and we made a game of it! There are lots of features on this handy gadget, but don’t overwhelm yourself trying to figure them all out. For us, we were only worried about trying to save money on our monthly electricity bill, so all we focused on was the kWh button.
Here are the highly detailed instructions for using this little baby (wink, wink):
1) Plug the Kill-a-Watt monitor into an outlet
2) Plug your device into the Kill-a-Watt monitor
3) Wait an hour for hourly usage or 24 hours for daily usage (we just waited an hour because even that is pushing our attention span)
4) Write down the number and move on to your next device!
I created this form for my kids and I use so we could track exactly what devices in our house were using the most electricity. I saved it as a printable for you guys, so just click on the picture and you can print it right out!
I left some of the spaces blank so you can fill them in with the devices specific to your house. You know, since not everybody’s list would include a disco ball and karaoke machine!
I will say, that we had to print this list out a number of times because we just didn’t realize how many devices we had! So much energy being sucked out (and paid for!) all from devices that we left plugged in even if we would go days or weeks in between using them!
My kids LOVED running around the house, checking their list and coming back an hour later to fill it out! they were determined to finish this off and we were all amazed at some of the items that were sucking a surprising amount of electricity even when we weren’t using them! There’s the phantom power again!
So, based on our list, we made some changes and are all getting much better at unplugging items when they aren’t in use. We’re also being more aware of when we can use appliances at the same time. Just the other day, my son was putting a piece of cinnamon bread in the toaster oven while my daughter was putting the exact same thing in the toaster! Palm to the forehead, I tell ya! BUT… they caught themselves without me making a peep, and both ended up using the toaster oven on one cycle rather than both appliances! And I could hear them talking the whole time about “remember that chart, Emma! Don’t make our number go up!”!! Haha, my palm came down from my forehead to cover my giggles from the other room!
We’re all excited to see our electric bill in the next couple months to see what a difference it made!
Once you know what to look for, it’s easy to take the next steps!
While you’re here, check out my previous posts on the other ways we’ve been reducing our electric bill!
Saving Electricity in Decorating
We have our electric down to under $50. We got rid of the heated water bed, big old upright freezer, got a newer fridge, propane stove that I light myself, propane dryer, energy efficient light bulbs, and I don’t keep lights on. 🙂
COOL giveaway,
Susie
We save energy by using cold water setting on our washer and by line drying as much of our clothes as we can!
demureprincess7(at)gmail(dot)com
One of the TOP tips I’ve learned these last few years, when eveybody is focussing on ‘saving energy’ is => removing the dust from lamps, from radiators,… Dust is one of the reasons that light (and heat) is/are obstructed to be diffused.
I convinced DH to turn off more lights in the house. We don’t need mood lighting in case we go into a room, just a lamp in the current room or overhead if we’re doing a project. We’ve been teaching our toddler to turn off lights, too, which is now a fun game for him.
We have almost all of our devices plugged into power strips that we can turn off when we’re not using them. We’re not very good at actually remembering to switch off the power strips, but it’s a start!
We’ve been trying to get the kids to make sure things like the t.v., dvd player, computers, etc are turned off when they are done. Some days they cooperate, some days not so much. lol 🙂
I like to save energy by turning the thermostat down.
I try really hard to get everyone to turn off lights/TVs, electronics etc when not in use or when we leave the room.
When we are watching tv in the evenings, we turn on one small lamp, rather than the overhead light with 5 bulbs in it. I also make sure I turn off my computer at night. I know lots of people leave their computers on all the time. Our windows face west, so I bought some foam insulation board, and cut some pieces to cover the arches where the blinds don’t cover, to keep the hot summer sun from heating the apartment.
We only have the light on in the room we are in. This is usually fine except when my cousin’s husband was due to pick up my daughter and we forgot. He walked in the house and thought no one was home because it was so dark in the house.
We use a power strip when we can.
We plug most of our electricals into power strips that we can turn off when we go to bed.
We unplug what isn’t being used, turn our computers off at night, use propane grill over electric stove because it cooks faster and is cheaper. We clean our filters to keep air and heat flowing freely and we keep the freezer full, even if we have to put in water jugs to fill it. We also make sure that we do not let the direct sunlight warm the house in the summer time by closing the curtains in the rooms that need to be kept cool. Thanks for a good post and glad the kids enjoyed such a fun project, I would love to find out how to lower our electric further with the Kill-a-watt Electricity Usage Monitor.
What A Cool Gadget I Think I Should Get This I’ve Been Trying To Get My Electric Down It Went From 350 To Around Too Bad But It Would be Nice To See What Items Really Do Take Up The Most Electricity!!
I try to keep lights off when we don’t need them. I know there is a lot more I could be doing, though.
I really need to work on unplugging things that aren’t being used!
We have saved money by getting special insulating windows from TVA. I am always looking for more ways to save on my power bill though.
I try to conserve energy to the best of my ability. I do probably use a lot if vampire energy though!
We absolutely need something like this to help us not waste so much energy!
I need this. I am trying to get my bill down each month.
I walk around the house turning off the lights that everyone else leaves on!
We do a lot to keep electric costs down here. There’s always more we could do
I really need to pay more attention to what is plugged in that is not being used.
I’m cringing about how much energy — and money — I must be wasting. I would love to try this gadget and see how we could reduce our monthly bills.
I feel like I am always after my kids to unplug their DS & Kindle chargers. They plug them in to charge and then leave the chargers in the wall plugged in!
I would love to have one of these to check our energy usage!
I have heard a lot about these and think I will need to give it a try.
I am all about saving money and electricity, what a great gadget!
Wow, I need to get one of these so I can figure out how many energy vampires are in my house!
I have been reading about Kill a Watt – we are going to check it out next shopping trip. Sounds like something we would could use to save some $$$.
Certain things I probably couldn’t unplug like the TV and DVR, but I definitely have things that I need to unplug between uses. Thanks for the reminder with this.
I unplug everything that we don’t use daily. I would dying to know how much the other stuff is sucking out of my electric. Would love to win!
definitely trying to turn all lights off and unplugging items we only use once in a while.
This is such a great product! I definitely need to learn to unplug more often because I normally don’t! I know that this is probably help my electricity bill add up! I think I’ll definitely have to get one of these!
Really smart how you used this as an opportunity to create a game with your kids and also educate them at the same time! I know I learned a thing or two myself!
Love the tips–we always set our computers to sleep after 5 minutes of not being used!
I run an in home childcare. the children are never happy with the natural light in the bathroom. I just unscrewed all but 1 light bulb and all are happy. Bulbs are still secured but not enough to be on.
This was a great post. We have 3 freezers and have been making serious considerations on buying one larger brand new one for energy conservation. We also keep lights on to a minimum and put computers not in use in sleep mode. I really want to see what is costing us so much and do an analysis that I can share.
We use energy efficient light bulbs and power strips.We run our washer, dryer, and dishwasher at non-peak hours.
Turning out lights and unplugging electronics. Line dry clothes when I can. Turn my computer off at night. Thanks for the tips!
I have unplugged everything I can remember to do as a few years back, my television and computer got the life zapped out of them (even with a so-called surge protector) and I had to replace them. I now get in the habit of unplugging my life when I am done using something. As far as other ways to save electricity, I never do a half load of dishes in the dishwasher or a half load of laundry. I wait until I have a full load of anything, then run it. I do not use the dryer on dishwasher and let the dishes air dry by opening the door when done washing. I also hang my shirts and other clothing items after 10 minutes in the dryer to save running the drying for any length of time. In addition, I put a dry towel in the dryer with my wet clothes( take out after 15-20 minutes) for faster drying time.
we use programmable thermostats to turn down the heat while we sleep or are away from home
We like to keep things on a single power strip to easily turn them off.
To save on electricity, I unplug unused appliances.