You can save money and prevent yourself from having to deal with rising energy bills at the same time you slash your carbon footprint.  Want to know how?  Energy monitoring devices make it much easier to find out what you’re using and when, so you can figure out where to make changes.  The Energy Detective is one popular model, costing about a hundred and forty dollars, and can really make a difference in your energy bills.

This small display tells you your home electrical usage in real time, and projects your monthly bill without the need for costly batteries.  Having real time feedback will encourage you to modify your consumption.  Many people do it without even thinking about it!  The company that makes the Energy Detective says you’ll save around fifteen to twenty percent on each bill, or hundreds of dollars each year.

The basic principle really is very simple.  Anything you can measure, you can manage.  Just making small adjustments through the day will allow you to see the savings add up.  You can look at your monitor and decide to turn off a light or unplug your appliances.  If you want, the Energy Detective can be interfaced with your computer, allowing for advanced analysis and logging of the energy data for your home.  Decide if you really need to run that space heater and see the results.

Our world is becoming steadily more uncertain.  There are global warming, hurricanes, wild fires, and an increase in other disasters, plus the economy and population growth.  Uncertainty doesn’t mean we can’t control some things in our lives, though.  Energy efficiency allows us to do something about our personal impact on the world, and conserving is the least expensive and easier way to cut emissions.

You’ll keep more money in your wallet and ease the burden on your local energy grid by using less power, and using an energy monitor is one of the easiest ways to do it.  The initial expense is significantly outweighed by the savings you’ll experience using it.

The good news is that we’re getting better at conserving.  We’re learning to improve our driving efficiency, insulate our homes properly, and use more efficient appliances.  There is hope, and each of us can make an impact - while personal use isn’t the only factor in consumption, it’s one of the biggest.  However, we still have a long way to go.  We use around twelve thousand kwh of electricity per year per person.  That could be reduced by careful attention.  Try an energy monitor and see what changes you could make in your life.

Photo by: Tomasz Trojanowski -
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