As temperatures plunge this winter, here is a tip to save energy. Please note, I am from the south (Georgia), so I don't know how well this really works out in the north. Also note: this tip is for people who have a bedroom and no kids who stay in other rooms of the house.

• Lower your thermostat at night (or configure your programmable thermostat). ~60 F works well in Georgia (on nights when it gets down to the 20's). You'll have to experiment here.
  
• Buy an inexpensive space heater
• Close your bedroom door and seal it the best you can (door draft pillow thingy for the bottom of your door)
• Run the space heater for about an hour before you go to bed. Our heater uses 1500 watts @ ~10 cents/KWH (with taxes, etc. - to find yours: look at your power bill and divide your total KWH by bill amount $) or about 15 cents per hour according to my Kill A Watt Power Usage Monitor
• Turn the heater off and sleep comfortably without heating your whole house.
  

This assumes you're using electric heat... like I said, I'm from the south so I have no idea how well this works in the frozen north or with heating oil, etc. I would appreciate some comments from you northerners.

I recently acquired a product called the
Kill A Watt Power Usage Monitor. This product will plug into any outlet in your house and monitor whatever electronic device you have connected to it. It will allow you to determine if you have "vampire" electrical devices that draw power even when they are turned off. It will also estimate the KWH for a device to give you an idea of how much power a device pulls. I intend to use this throughout my house and report my findings along the way.

I've slowly been converting all our incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs in an effort to conserve energy and therefore lower our electricity bills. I had been turned off by these bulbs due to:

• Price
• Potential mercury hazard (will have to dispose properly when the time comes)
  

While at walmart a few weeks ago I noticed the bulbs (walmart brand) have come down considerably in price (although they're still considerably more expensive than incandescent). So I bought a box and converted a few fixtures and lamps in our house and have to say I'm pretty happy with the light they put out. Even at much lower wattage, the bulbs seem to produce much more light (although the light seems to affect how colors are perceived). I have since, bought more bulbs and basically converted the entire house now. Hopefully I will start to see a slight decrease in our electricity bill. I will post my findings in the next few weeks.