How to fix that high electric bill

Jennifer Jolly | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Why your electric bill is so high -- and how to fix it Columnist Jennifer Jolly offers tips on cutting down your electric bill.

If you bother to look at your phone bill at the end of the month, you'll see exactly what costs what. You see all the charges, even the calls and texts if you feel like actually breaking it all down. But your power bill is a huge mystery. It's just a number — a measure of the power you used and a price — and that's it. So just why is it so darn high, and what on earth can you do about it? It's true that energy prices are up 3% from last year and rising, but that's not even the half of it. Here's everything you need to know to curb your power bills right now.

Take stock, seriously!

I'm going to assume you know that leaving gadgets on over long periods of time draws more power, but you might not realize just how many things in your home are actually plugged in. It's easy to lose track of the big picture when you're just sitting in your living room, but I challenge you to actually tally up the number of gadgets you have plugged in on a daily basis.

Three in the kitchen, a half dozen on the entertainment center, several more in the bedroom, and who knows what else — if it's plugged in, it's almost certainly drawing some amount of power whether you're using it or not. You're probably going to be shocked when you realize that you're powering two dozen or more energy-sucking electronics when you're not even home, and all of it is going to waste.

Standby sucks, really!

A few decades ago you had an on/off button on virtually everything that used electricity. Back then, "off" meant off, but it's a lot more complicated these days. In order to keep your devices in a constantly ready-to-use state we have "standby" modes. According to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, up to 10% of your home's power use comes from devices in standby mode, and it's draining your hard earned cash.

These power vampires might be making some of your daily tasks a few seconds faster, but it's costing you major cash along the way. How much? You can find that out yourself with a handy little gadget called the Kill A Watt ($19). All you do is plug it into your wall socket, then plug one of your many electronic devices into it. It measures exactly how much power your device is draining — even in standby mode — and displays the results as the dollar amount that it would cost to pay for it over a day, week, month, or year.

Identify things you don't use

How often do you use your inkjet printer? Once a week? Once a month? Virtually never? And yet you keep it plugged in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and that little light on its top lets you know it's sipping your pricey power every second of the day. Remember, if it's plugged in, it's using at least a small amount of electricity, and it's costing you.

Things to unplug:

Kitchen appliances - That coffee grinder you leave on for the 23 hours of the day you're not using it needs to be yanked.

Computer accessories - Printers that are rarely used, scanners, and especially speaker systems (even worse if they have powered subwoofers) are adding $$ to your bill.

Entertainment systems - There's virtually no reason to keep a game console or Blu-ray player plugged in all the time unless you really can't spare a few moments whenever it needs a software update. Axe these and count the savings.

Phone chargers - Can I blow your mind? Your phone charger is sucking power every second of the day, whether you have something plugged into it or not

Anything in the guest room - If you're never in the room, why is there a clock radio, TV, cable box, and fan plugged in? Unplug, unplug, and unplug!

Your computer is the worst

Aside from the rarely-used PC accessories that are boosting your power consumption, your computer itself can be the biggest power vampire in your entire home. According to the International Energy Agency, as much as $80 billion in electricity is being wasted by your internet-connected devices.

The funny thing is, it's not just the power to keep your gadgets up and running that is the problem — it's the power to keep them connected to the internet that really kills you in the end. Up to 80% of the power being used goes directly to maintaining your connection to the internet.

If you absolutely refuse to shut your computer down when you're not using it, the least you can do is to disable your internet connection while you're away. Simply tapping on your network icon on your desktop menu bar (located at the top of your screen for Macs and the bottom for Windows PCs) and click your Wi-Fi connection off. It's a few clicks that could save you some serious cash for the course of the year, so why not give it a try?

Take it down a notch

My husband loves to keep the heat turned down to around 60-degrees in the winter. It's evil really, and I regularly let him know how unhappy I am wearing mittens and wool socks to bed. But to his credit (don't tell him I admitted it…) barely using any heat has saved us around $700 a year. According to the Alliance to Save Energy, for every one degree you lower the thermostat, you save about three percent on heating costs. Programmable thermostats are awesome for this, turning the heat down at night, while you're at work, and even off when you're away (if the pipes won't freeze and plants won't die).

Your water heater can be another big energy hog. By EnergyStar estimates, just dropping the temperature setting from 140 degrees to a still-steamy 120 degrees could save you more than $100 a year.

Both the Alliance to Save Energy and EnergyStar are chock full of other useful tips to lower your electric bill. What are some of the little things you've done to save big? Be sure to share your best tips and tricks in the comments section.