BellaOnline Forums Money Frugal Living A few radical electricity saving ideas

I also have found some interesting low-watt USB devices that I am exploring. I found a 2.5 watt USB table fan. It's small, but if you are sitting in front of the computer you can point it at your face and feel a nice little breeze.

I've also been looking into USB powered heating devices. With summer coming, I have some time though.

I don't keep my coffeepot plugged in when not in use, to save money on phantom energy. Right now my coffeepot is sitting there plugged in, just to keep my coffee warm. This is a pretty bad use of energy. I tend to slowly drink my decaf over a series of hours, and the coffeepot just sucks away 1200 watts as it goes.

It's a bad allocation of my limited money.

I even have some very nice vintage Stanley thermoses somewhere (found at thrift stores). I need to get my butt out of this chair, go find one, and pour my hot coffee into that. And then unplug the darn appliance!

It's just a matter of making small changes and new habits. I am going to look for a thermos right now.

Too bad it's going to wake the kitten.

I did manage to find the thermos I was hoping to. Excellent! I almost had to give up looking for it and then i randomly found it. It was moldy inside so i am letting it soak tonite in a strong bleach solution.

One non-essential heating unit down!

I was thinking that tomorrow when i make coffee, I am going to take a look at the electrical meter and see how fast it makes the wheel turn. When i was running a clothes wash, it was spinning merrily along. Most of the time it's a very slow movement.

I am learning to read my electric meter and have been writing about this in these forums.

This link mentions some of this in my how to keep cool without AC thread.

Here is a link for my posts about learning to read your electric bill

OK, i got a coffeepot that uses less watts, and am now looking at other appliances. If i can't get a more energy saving appliance in total, i can at least work on my user practices.

I am experimenting with -

- handwashing clothes (I already handwash dishes)
- using the fridge less often and with better awareness (i started a thread just on cheaper fridge practices)
- not using the AC until it reaches 100, and using a lot of fans strategically instead (this is the focus of a few of my threads here)
- using solar devices and solar chargers for everthing i can think of - solar lights inside and in the yard, solar USB chargers, a small solar panel for charging a portable marine battery for misc indoor and outdoor uses. (I also have some hand crank devices for emergencies, but don't plan to crank for my electric unless i have to)
- changing out lightbulbs. I have only compact florescent bulbs in everything at this point, but am exploring going even better with LED bulbs. At home depot the LED screw in bulbs are about 7 to 9 watts, which actually isn't worth buying yet. My CFL bulbs are only 13 watts. A 9 watt bulb isn't a huge difference, especially when said 9 watt bulb costs $10 or more. The 7 watt bulbs are a better watt savings but those cost $20 each.

While I wait for those prices to go down, I use less lights. Right now all my outdoor lights are the one dollar solar ones from walmart. I have one light on inside over my desk, using 13 watts. When I move over to read in bed, I will use that bulb, or even better, read from my kindle with a one watt led booklight.

I keep a solar powered three bulb LED mini-flashlight by the front door, so I can grab that to see by outside if I need focused light for something. It cost me $1.70 i think on Amazon and gives me free light whenever i want. It's better than squinting around using my cell phone as a night light anyway!