Now I have read some of the information people have here and it is good advice. However, you need to make sure you turn off all your phantom power suckers at night. For example, a microwave clock is nice, but how often do you look at it instead of a regular clock? I unplug mine unless I plan on using it right away. I do this with all my electronic gadgets and ended up saving close to a hundred bucks a month on a regular basis.
Thanks for the idea. My microwave is on 24/7 and I barely use it as a clock anyways. I might unplug it and only plug it in to use it.
That is a lot more savings that you are getting than I would have expected. I have heard about unplugging things that are not in use but didn't know it would save that much money. I'll have to see what else we can unplug in addition to the microwave clock!
How many gadgets were you leaving plugged in before that you now unplug? Were there things like a coffeepot that keeps the water warm included, or just the less obvious energy hogs? That is quite a savings!
Thanks for this. What you say rings true as I have heard others say something very similar...and when I implemented, I saw a very real change in the electricity bill. We now keep everything unplugged...and only plug in, when we need to use it. It is just better, safer and healthier that way too. Cool one.
I have never thought about this! I have so many plugged in alarm clocks at my house ( one for each person ) that I would probably save a ton by getting rid of the ones I don't even use. The only sad thing is, my microwave is one of those ones that are built into the wall, and I can never find the plug. Actually, I don't even know if it has one! Other items such as computers are also very energy consuming. Many households never shut down their desktop computer. This not only wastes energy and pollutes the earth, it also causes your computer to die faster. Simply shutting down your computer at night can save you $20 dollars or so a month, and believe me, it adds up!
We have started to unplug everything, but the savings is significant and we can see it each month. The starting point was the microwave and this dropped the bill by about 15 bucks on its own! The best way to find out what to unplug is to turn off your lights at night and see what kind of light you have. Then you can determine if the item is something you can turn off or not.
I think I will try this just with the microwave, like you said you did, Isabellas2007. Thanks for the idea. We'll see what happens!
I replaced turning on the air conditioner with a swamp cooler. I save so much more money on electricity now.
Instead of running the air conditioning, open a window or turn on a ceiling fan. Fans run a lot less electricity and they will keep the house cool. I will unplug my microwave also because it doesn't make sense to just drain power for no reason.
I have never thought about this, but it's a great idea. One of the things I have done that's helped a little is getting a power saving laptop charger. It doesn't take up energy unless it needs to charge. When it's done charging, it shuts off.
I leave things plugged in all the time. This is probably why I cannot seem to lower my electric bill. I cannot believe how high it is each month. I am going to start unplugging unused items to see what kind of difference it makes.
Ah, now that I think about it, I really should've unplugged my microwave a long time ago. Hopefully I'll be ale to save more electricity when it's not using power to keep its unused clock on.
I should really do this and get my entire family on board! We leave things like the microwave and landline phone on all the time even when we don't touch it all at night (and mornings/early afternoons when no one's home). Just think how much energy is wasted!
I agree. You should unplug all gadgets and devices when not in use just like the television, computer, radio except the refrigerator of course. And turn off the lights when they are no t in use. All of this processes consume power so fast that leaves you with a bill worth so much.
I'm definitely going to try leaving my microwave unplugged, thanks for this idea. I have been saving a lot already by leaving my TV off during the day. I work at home, so I usually leave my TV on all day long, and then watch it at night as well. Sometimes I fall asleep with it on, so I wind up having the TV on 24 hours. By leaving it off during the day, when I'm working, it helps me concentrate a bit more, and it's been saving a good amount. It's hard for me to say how much, because my bill fluctuates quite a bit, month by month. So, let's see how much unplugging the microwave helps!
Recently I turned off our hot tub (it's the middle of summer), our desktop computer (we use our laptop mostly), and a fan I had running in a spare room. Not much else can be turned off. To be honest, I haven't really noticed any huge difference. I guess the slight drop can be attributed to the spa now being set at 55 instead of 100. I wish I could do more. I do run my dishwasher and washer and dryer after six and set my AC at 78 degrees.
Wow! I have to try this. Our last month's bill was 169.76! Ouch! I don't know why it got so out of hand. Does it bug you that you have to constantly be plugging it in? I think it would bug me since I use the microwave daily. I 've tried setting the thermostat at a higher temperature whenever we step out, of course we turn off all lights when we are not using them. We only have one television so that can't be a major problem so I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Any more advice on the subject?
