Going green, Energy usage and Saving Money:

Our homes are hardwired for energy use, and we humans are happy to take advantage of the energy opportunities that come with plugging something into a wall socket. It is so easy to use energy that we just use it all the time. We use energy in the daytime, in the night time, when we are awake and especially when we are asleep. That's right... when we are asleep.

Most, if not all, of us have vampire appliances in our homes. Those appliances use energy on a continual basis. Refrigerators and freezers are both examples of appliances that use energy 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365.25 days per year. To make matters worse, there are "things" in your home that use energy 24 hours a day that should only use energy when you use them. They sit there like investments for the power company compounding interest daily and depleting the money you earn per hour. Leaving a computer on costs a bucket of money, upwards of about $200.00 per year. This is of course dependent upon the cost of energy where you live and how much energy your computer uses. Jeff Atwood has a great article that explains how this works and some things that you can do to fix the money hemorrhage.

A computer, as in the example above, is just one of the many vampire appliances that we covet. Anything that has a light on it draws energy. That annoying clock on your coffee maker is a positive investment for the power company. It just sits there unassuming, sucking the power through your meeter. Within our homes are a great number of appliances, toys, and necessities that just sit there making money for the power company.

If you are interested in the cost of things around your house, use this energy calculator. You will need to know the cost of energy in your area which should be stated on your energy bill.

Going green is a consideration that includes everything we buy. An easy step to increasing the color green in our lifestyle is to buy local products. Local products do not have to be shipped, and that means that you do not have to pay for the cost of transporting items to the local store. Buy local... it saves you money. Another easy step that people can make to increase the amount of green in their lives is to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Recycling is good for everyone because it puts natural resources back into the production line which means that we take less from the Earth. Recycling is not just about cans it is also about food items... except that in this case recycling food items is called composting. Composting is an essential part of maintaining healthy soil. Our neighborhood makes use of a community compost bin. The bin is centrally located, used by many neighbors, and the compost is shared equally about the neighborhood. The result is that, as a community, we put less garbage into the local landfill, and we use the composted soil to amend the soil around our neighborhood. This adds to the scenic value of living here, helps to reduce air pollution, and it provides habitat for local organisms, such as butterflies.

Going green is not a dirty word, in fact, it is a word that helps describe cleaning up the environment around us. It helps us to save money each month, and it contributes to a healthier local environment. Going green can be an individual action or a community action. Just turning off the lights when not in a room is a powerful first step!

5 Tips that save energy and save money:

1) Identify Vampire Appliances and cut them off: It costs about 4 cents to make a pot of coffee, and 4 cents per hour to keep the coffee warm. If the coffee pot has a clock, than unplug it because it is sucking money right out of your wallet. Anything that has a light, or a clock should be unplugged when not in use. A good TIP is to use power strips and then turn off the power strip. Power-stips work well for computers, printers, and other electronic devices. They are an effective way to cut power to vampire appliances.

2) Use frozen water to fill up space in both your freezer and your fridge. When these appliances are full, they use less energy. Empty milk cartons make great containers to freeze water in. The added cold produced by the frozen water will help both your freezer and your fridge use less energy.

3) Choose appropriate Clothing: Rather than turn on the furnace or the A/C, alter the types of clothing that you wear. Lighter clothes in summer, sweaters and jackets in winter. Dressing for the local weather will help you reduce your energy consumption. Use the furnace or the A/C when you need to and not just because you can.

4) Turn out the Lights when you are not USING them: Leaving a room with all of the lights on, not only wastes electricity, it costs you a small fortune. A really simple and easy way to decrease energy usage is to turn off the lights each time you leave the room. It is an easy habit to form, and as you go through the process of remembering to turn off the lights, you will be amazed at how many lights you leave on.

5) Avoid using space heaters. Space heaters can suck 1500 watts of electricity when they are set to HOT. It would take 10-12 computers running at capacity, to use 1500 Watts of electricity. TIP: Offset cold mornings with area rugs, warm robes, and slippers. As a species, we survived living in the tundra in nothing more than a cave... We can survive a 40 degree morning.