Many older electronic devices draw a non-trivial amount of electricity all the time they're plugged in, even when turned off.
As a result, upgrading from an old cathode-ray-tube TV to a new, considerably larger flat-panel set can lower your electric bill.
But not everybody wants to or can spend a lot of money upfront just to save a little bit of money every month thereafter.
Fortunately, you don't have to.
Some of the simpler energy-saving techniques available to you don't require spending anything at all.
You can start by unplugging the oldest gadgets in your house when you're not using them.
That TV upstairs that only gets used for viewing the occasional exercise video? Keep it unplugged - along with the vintage VCR or DVD player underneath it - when it's not in use.
Setting your computer to go into sleep or standby mode automatically is another zero-cost, near-zero-effort remedy. (Note to Windows XP users: I know, that's not the most reliable operating system when it comes to napping and then waking up afterwards.
But if nothing else, you can set your monitor to power down automatically.)Finally, take a minute or two to unplug your cable or DSL modem and wireless router before you head out of town for a long weekend.
I know there are folks out there who don't want a lecture about their ecological responsibility.
So I'll close with the point I've made before: This all comes down to a simple question of whether you'd like to hand over more or less of your income to your power company.
You don't need to be a good environmentalist to want to use less electricity (though that doesn't hurt); you just need to recognise the value of a dollar saved.
If you have an account on Google's free Gmail email service, you can get more use out of that account by creating extra Gmail addresses that all funnel mail to the same inbox - a helpful thing if, say, you'd like to give one address out to companies and another to friends.
How? When you give out your Gmail address, insert a full stop somewhere in it - say, changing a "firstnamelastname" address to "firstname.lastname."
Since Gmail ignores periods in user names, messages sent to that second address will still land in your inbox but can easily be tagged or deleted automatically by one of Gmail's filters.
You can also set Gmail to send messages from this new address (click on the Settings link in Gmail, then the Accounts heading).
- Rob Pegorard
