Thursday, December 27, 2007

Doing My Part To Be a Bit Greener

Not only will I be more "green", but I'm hoping I will reduce my energy consumption. My electric bill came the other day and I was more than a little surprised to see my energy consumption rose (almost doubled) November 2007 vs. November 2006. Thus my electric bill was higher than I anticipated. My local utility company has had two rate hikes this year and I am planning for larger bills than last year, but I was surprised to see that I supposedly used more electric this year than last for that time frame. I have this memory of being home more in November 2006 and using the electric heat, more lights, etc. I guess not!

Since it was part of my plan, I changed as many light bulbs as I could to CFL bulbs, I have the ceiling fixture in my bedroom to go. I don't have that many items that are plugged in and are sucking energy, but I did unplug my hardly ever used VCR and the USB hub for my home computer.

I did notice that I've been in the bad habit of leaving a lot of lights on when I'm home that I don't need. For example, I had four lights on last night, I only needed one. Why I had all four on is beyond me, my house is not that big and with only me in it, it's not like someone else will be stuck in a dark room. Off the lights went and I just have to remind myself I don't need all those lights on!

1 comment:

SavingDiva said...

I got into the habit of turning off lights when I left a room or left my apartment, and my bill fell to under $20....I also put CFLs in to get it down a few more dollars a month.