You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll save on this one!

Every electrical appliance plugged into a wall outlet or into yourelectrical system in general, for the most part, has a constant power drain which costs you money every minute of every day as long as it is plugged in. The list of items this includes is huge, and some people may actually keep dozens of items unneccessarily plugged into wall outlets throughout their homes or businesses. Some examples are as follows:

• Stereos, radios, televisions, VCRs, DVD players, TV Tuners, DVR’s, etc.
• Battery chargers, cell phone chargers, other chargers.
• Most coffee makers, blenders, microwaves, etc.
• Video game systems including all of them – playstation, xbox, wii, and others.
• Certain types of fans, lights, etc. that have power transformers.
• Computers, monitors, printers, computer speakers, external hard drives, etc.

The reason these are always consuming power is because they use a type of electricity called DC, or direct current, and the power coming from the wall outlet is AC, or alternating current. Thus, built into each of these devices is a power transformer to convert AC into DC which is not perfect, in fact, the power conversion causes some electrical energy to be constantly lost as heat whether the device plugged into it is being used or not, and even more so while it is in use. In addition, anything with a clock or lit-up power status indicator on it or which is constantly listening for a signal from a remote control to power up is actively using power all the time.

Now there are obviously some you use all the time and therefore would not unplug such as refrigerators, freezers, live fish tank pumps and heaters, etc. However, even with those items you can save some additional money by reducing the amount of light you use with them, for example, you can physcially remove the light in the fridge if you don’t really need it to see inside there, and you can put the fish tank lights on an automatic timer which both improves the health of the tank and use of energy.

In my home, we use power strips into which we plug everything in, and when things are not in use, we turn off the power on the power strip, which is much more convenient than un-plugging and re-plugging each individual item but still has the same effect. For example, the TV, DVD player, Playstation 2, Powered Speakers, and Digital TV Tuner are all plugged into the same power strip. When we use one of them we turn the switch on the power strip, and when we’re not using any of them, we flip the switch on the power strip off.

I SAVE $ 75

PER MONTH!

Since I have started unplugging electric items when I am not using them, I have been pleased with the results. I have realized a savings in electricity costs of about $ 75 per month, which is a significant chunk of change to me, and well worth the effort. In addition, by consuming less electricity, I am helping a little to reduce my carbon footprint and keep things cleaner and greener for my children and their children.