In this day and age everyone is talking about "going green" and saving the planet. The term "green" can mean a lot of things but for our purposes, we're going to be talking about reducing how much energy we use. Do you know how what your kill a watt electricity footprint is?

If each one of us does our part to use less electricity that means that we won't need as much fossil fuel to keep our power generating plants running.

You might ask yourself how you can start reducing your electricity consumption. The first thing you need to do is establish a baseline. You need to know how much electricity you use on average during the month and how much you use during each day. This information will be printed on your electric bill.

Next you need to know how you are using electricity. Is it all being used by your electric water heater? Maybe it's your electric baseboard heaters? Or perhaps it's your air conditioner? We all need to understand how to kill a watt when it comes to electricity consumption.

There is a handy device that I can personally recommend called the Kill A Watt. This device will accurately measure how much electricity each of your house hold devices are using.

To use it, you simply plug it into any standard wall outlet. You then plug your device into the outlet on the Kill A Watt meter. The unit has an LCD display that will show you all the data you could possibly want.

I recommend using this device to measure the electrical needs of all of the devices in your home. Keep a list of how much power they consume.

You won't be able to use this device with some of your appliances. Appliances like water heaters, electric cook stoves, and dishwashers won't generally have a cord that you can plug into the device. They will likely be permanently wired into your homes electrical supply.

These devices will often have stickers affixed to them that states their electricity consumption.

Knowing how much electricity by using the Kill A Watt meter each of your electrical devices use can help you determine where you need to make cutbacks.

If you are serious about cutting your electricity consumption, I suggest that you purchase a Kill A Watt today!

Here's a great video demonstrating the Kill A Watt meter.  It's really helpful.  I hope you enjoy it!