Save Energy and Money!

About a year ago I was watching Oprah and they were talking about ways to live greener. We had already switched out most our light bulbs to the flourescent ones... at least in the lights we use the most.... which was one of the suggestions. They really do save money on your electric bill and fortunately the cost of them continues to go down.


Another suggestion she had was to unplug anything electrical that you are not using.... these items still use about 40% of their energy usage even when they are not turned on. So I started unplugging and our electric bill started dropping. We're on the levelized billing plan that averages your payments so the drop was not huge at first... but month by month I watched the usage go down and our average bill go down. This got me to thinking... every time I was in my kitchen I thought about how much my stove and other large appliances were using up just by sitting there.... it would be such a pain to pull them out and unplug them and then replug them when I need them... but it was eating me up...lol. So one day it occurred to me... my breaker box is in my laundry room which is just beside my kitchen... it's just a few steps to walk in there and turn these breakers off and on. So now that is what I do... when I'm not using my stove... my washing machine and dryer... my dishwasher.... and even on those wonderful days when we can open the windows and not use any air or heat.... I flip those breakers completely off!

Now I know everyone's breaker box is not that conveniently located... I certainly wouldn't want to go down to a basement... or out to a garage to do this... but fortunately mine is close to the kitchen. So if yours is convenient and you want to lower your electric bill you might want to consider doing this as well.

Of course now I go behind everyone else in the house unplugging things they left plugged in. When I was a lil girl I lived with my great-grandparents... and my Granny used to always unplug stuff.... even the tv at night before we went to bed... and I would think how nuts it was that she did this... But now I'm thinking that Granny... in her old fashioned ways was onto something... and I'm behaving more like my Granny in so many ways... she always went behind me turning off lights... and now here I go turning off lights and unplugging behind my kids. I have to say that my old fashioned Granny was smarter than I thought she was at the time... and I appreciate all that I learned from her. There are a lot of old ways that I wouldn't know or understand if I hadn't grown up living with her. So thank you Granny... for being my Mom!.... for teaching me the old fashioned ways..... I love you.... and I miss you.

A Lil Enchanted,
~LaShan~