Taming Your Wasted Energy and a Giveaway!!

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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

Saving Electricity while Cooking

Weather-proofing the house