There use to be a time of bliss in my life when I would buy an appliance based solely on looks, features and plain impulse. Now, I keep another factor in mind: Kw/h consumption. Twenty years ago when times were more stable and electricity was cheap, who needed to worry about electricity? Today, however, with threats of rising prices and uncertainty, it is increasingly becoming a good thing to keep check of how much electricity is flowing into the flashy appliances we buy.  

  So you want to find out how much everything in your house is costing you in dollars and cents? Alright, here’s what you will need: 

  FIRST off , you will need to go where no man or woman has gone before and reach behind that dusty TV, refrigerator or computer and have a look at the little sticker that gives you the energy consumption in watts. Anything with a plug-in cord should have one. 

  SECOND thing you will need to do is call your power company and ask them how much their rate is per kilowatt hour. Just as an example, in my area the rate is 5 cents per killowatt hour. Once you have all that, what you will need is the following formula. Don’t worry it won’t bite! 
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Wattage × Hours Used Per Day × Number of days in year used ÷ 1000 = Kilowatt-hour (kWh) Consumption/ Per year

The last step is to multiply that figure by your power company’s KW/h rate.
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Let’s do an example: 

  So you checked behind your 42 inch television and you found it has a ratings of 200 watts. Now for sake of example, let’s say we watch TV for 4 hours at a time, and unlike many people, only choose to turn it on for 120 days out of the year. In this example, I assumed that 8.5 cents would be the kw/h rate. 

Time to plug it all in. (no pun intended )

(200 Watts × 4 hours/day × 120 days/year) ÷ 1000

We divide by 1000 to get the Kilowatt per hour figure,

And so,

= 96 kWh × 0.085 cents/kWh
= $8.16/year

And almost like magic we know how much watching the tv costs us per year!

  Trust me, once you start calculating the energy consumption for each appliance in your home, it becomes addictive. It won’t be long before you too will be curious to know how much every thing plugged in is costing you.