The Problem

I never paid much attention to my electricity bill until one month when I had to pay $190! I was blown away by how expensive my electricity was, especially since I don’t consider myself a waster of electricity. One thing to note is that I have a lot of electronics in my house, so this strategy is especially good for people like me with tons of electronics. After I received the $190 bill, I decided to do something about it. I went online and looked around for other people in similar situations who found ways to reduce their electricity bill. I decided to do an experiment, here is how it went.

The Solution

One thing I noticed about my electricity usage was that even when I turned off the lights in the rooms I wasn’t in and used more efficient light bulbs, and all the other tips most electric companies give, I couldn’t make a big impact on my electricity bill. I finally did some research on my own and found a very simple strategy to try to save some money at the end of the month. Most electronics and pretty much anything that plugs into a wall has something called “stand-by” mode. They are technically off but are still draining power from the wall. For example, my television turns off but still has a red light showing that it is plugged in. This means my electronics are still using power. One of the main power drainers are computers, specifically laptops. Leaving them turned off but plugged in drains power.

Unplugging Electronics

What I did was start unplugging all of my electronics each night before I went to sleep. It took an extra few minutes each night and each morning to unplug and plug them back in, but after the first month my electricity bill went down to $140. That’s an immediate savings of $50 that month. I unplugged things like: coffee maker, microwave, laptop, TV, monitors, and more.

I went a step further the next month and made sure I unplugged everything any time I left I left my house and every time I went to sleep. This included pretty much everything that can be unplugged except for example the fridge. The next month came along and my bill went down even more to $110. I was able to cut my electricity bill by $80 in a matter of weeks.

One thing to note is that I didn’t take into account any seasonal aspects of my bill. Part of the reduction in cost could be attributed to many other things, including weather. However, this was such a significant drop that it must have been mostly due to my new habits. Saving even $50/month over a year is an extra $600 in my pocket at the end of the year.