We know you love your gadgets and gizmos, and you know we love them. That’s why we’re both here. We love them mobile, and we love them plugged in. We love gaming on them, and we love reading on them; we love everything about them, and yet there is something we really need to change about the way we use them. I’m talking about conserving the energy we use when it comes to our gadgets, which is costing you more than you think. Below you’ll find some energy saving advice that we’ve listed, and some explanations as to why you’ll want to listen to us.
Why Should I Care?
Even if you don’t care about melting ice caps, homeless polar bears, and Al Gore turning in his sleep, there is one thing I’m sure you do care about: the money in your pocket. Leaving an environmental footprint makes your cash burn up faster than a Hollywood marriage, in both obvious and subtle ways. Did you know leaving devices on standby in your home can cost you close to $100 a year? If you can get your hands on one of those handheld voltage meters, you’d be surprised how much electricity your gaming systems are guzzling while you sleep. And that’s just one example; there are tons of other costly habits we are all guilty of doing.
What Can I Do?
For starters you can keep reading this blog post. There are countless little things you can change about how you handle devices that can add up to huge savings, both for your pocket and for Mother Earth. Here’s some sound energy saving advice, brought to you in part by aesthetically pleasing bullet points:
- Don’t charge your phone all night. It only takes a couple hours for most phones to fully charge and any extra time your phone is spent plugged in wastes energy and money and disturbs Al Gore’s peace of mind.
- Unplug chargers when you’re not using them. Even if they aren’t plugged into a device or blinking an “on” light, they’re sucking money right out of your wallet.
- Turn off your phone on airplanes and in theaters. Assuming you don’t like being the person everyone in the theater despises, you put your phone on silent when watching a movie. Your phone still receives messages and updates while it’s off, and keeping it on silent or vibrate burns up pointless energy.
- Turn your gaming consoles and televisions off when you’re not using them. Like we said before, standby burns energy, meaning a ton of money as well. You could have bought a new eReader or saved up enough money for a PS4 with the money you’ve lost because of standby mode.
- Minimize the backlight on your gadgets. If it’s bright enough to see the screen, then using your backlight is just wasting precious battery life.
- Use your tablet or phone to read the news. Things online tend to be cheaper than their physical counterparts, and using a bit of electricity is a lot better for the planet than wasting paper.
These are just a few of the many minor tweaks you could change about your daily lifestyle to save money, but if you want to take the time to track it, you’ll be surprised at how much you’re saving. And this goes even beyond your gadgets. If you have a handheld voltage meter lying around, go around your house and survey your most loved devices; you’ll be surprised at how much energy they’re wasting when you’re not looking.
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