I go through my life taking so many of my everyday habits for granted, not realising that they might actually be interesting and helpful to write about.

Case in point, my electricity bill dropped into my inbox the other day.

Immediately the synapses in my brain started firing away at all of my little habits that save a truckload of electricity. These are mostly completely automatic now. Old man shuffler indoctrinated me into these ways before I ever new what electricity was or how much it costs. I am reminded often, now at 29 years old, how much I took his money habits and discipline for granted.

I am absolutely flabbergasted when I hear others complaining about quarterly bills of $800, $900 or even over $1,000! That is a frighteningly wasteful way to live life.

What the hell are these people doing to use this much electricity?

I seriously can not imagine a scenario in which I would use this much electricity without feeling completely absurd the entire time.

Perhaps if I turned on every air conditioner in my apartment all the time, did 3 loads of washing a day, never hung up my clothes, left my electronics running all day and still used incandescent globes, I may reach this absurd level of electricity usage.

They could save a truck load of cash just by reducing electricity usage to an average amount like I’ve listed below.

My average electricity payment is a pittance compared to the crazy amounts listed above, at just $180 for the last quarter for a 2 person apartment. This sort of usage makes me pleased with my shuffler ways.

When you realise that almost $75 of this is an access fee, the ratio of my actual electricity usage to those in the examples above becomes even more impressive.

It could be even less, but I share my accommodation. I’m lucky my flatmate isn’t an excessive electricity user, so we pay the respectable $180 combined. This is perhaps slightly more than I otherwise would pay, however this is a part of saving a ludicrous amount on rent by sharing accommodation. Paying as low as $145 per quarter when I shared an apartment with my brother, who was another advanced shuffler, was not uncommon.

In striving for ever greater efficiency, we can have a real impact on our hip pocket, our lives and the world around us.

When thinking about electricity, it helps to think about how much each Watt costs you. An appliance that consumes 1 Watt, that is left on constantly will cost you 18c each month. If you turned that appliance off and invested that recurring saving instead, that would grow to a grand total of $31 after 10 years. The same is true of a 1,000 watt appliance that is turned on for 1 min 26s per day.

Standby power consumption (power that is consumed when your appliances are plugged in but turned ‘off’) averages 81.8 watts per hour in Australia. That costs a whopping $2,532 every 10 years, for electricity we are not gaining any benefit from! A clothes dryer can use anywhere from 2.79kWh to 9.23 kWh for every cycle. Run twice a week, this will cost you between $1,040 – $3,440 to run every 10 years. Multiply this out to all your appliances and you can see where this is going to lead you in 10 years.

So if you are paying an absurd amount for electricity, then let’s get to how to remedy this situation. I’ll break it into a few levels depending on how hardcore you want to be.

Junior electricity shuffling

This one is the easy peasy way to save on electricity. It will require no real decrease in the amount of electricity you use, but it will have an impact on the amount of electricity that you waste for no real gain.

Change all incandescent globes for LED globes, or at the very least compact fluorescents.

Change halogen down light globes to LED downlight globes.

Turn lights off when you leave the room for any more than a few minutes.

Don’t leave air conditioners, heaters or fans running when you are not in the room.

If you are using an air conditioner or heater, close the room door and all windows to keep the cool air or heat in.

Use cold water to wash your clothes.

Intermediate electricity shuffling

That’s too easy I hear you say? You think you’re ready to graduate from the training wheels to really save some cash? This will actually require you to make decisions and plan out your life a bit better.

Never run a load of washing that isn’t full, ever.

If you have any more than one fridge, get rid of the extras. Also If you are using a very old fridge, upgrade it. Scour gumtree for a fridge from the last few years. New fridges are dramatically more efficient than old ones.

Use a fan instead of the air conditioner as your default cooling method in summer.

Wear more clothes before reaching for the heater in Winter.

Use lamps (fitted with LED or at least fluoro globes) instead of the ceiling lights.

Don’t leave anything running when you leave the room for more than a few minutes.

Advanced electricity shuffling

Do you look upon the upper advice with disdain and laugh to yourself thinking, ‘is that all you got Pat?’

If you think you are really ready for some super hardcore electricity saving techniques, here they are.

Turn off all electronics at the outlet when not in use, to prevent standby power usage.

If you are in the unfortunate position of having a traditional (i.e. tank) electric hot water system it is probably killing your electricity bill without you even realising.* If you have the option, upgrade to a gas instantaneous system.

Save dryers for emergency usage only.

Towels and most clothes are not single use items before requiring cleaning. Use towels several times and hang to dry.

Extreme electricity shuffling

Do you enjoy hardship? Feeling accomplished when you complete herculean tasks? Will you feel brilliant by extremely lowering your impact on the environment? These are not for the faint of heart, read on at your own risk.

In an Australian Summer, there is no need to have anything but a completely cold shower. I even do this on warmer winter days. Cold showers make you feel amazing and I have a friend that swears by them all year round.

You can live without an air conditioner or heater. Your body has this amazing ability to regulate its own temperature if you would just give it the chance to. Layering clothing, having cold showers and using a simple fan are extremely effective at assisting you to regulate your temperature.

Don’t overfill your kettle. If you boil 2 litres of water, every time you need a cup of coffee it’ll add up overtime.

Never use a dryer, ever. I hang up all my washing all the time. Even when it rains, washing will dry in a covered area.

The thing is, none of this seems like a hassle or all that hardcore to me. This is stuff that I have been doing for longer than I can remember. Indeed most of human civilisation got by just fine without air conditioners and dryers.

None of what I described makes me feel like I am missing out or depriving myself of anything. That is the magic and the curse of hedonic adaptation.

If you are adept at seeing patterns, you will have also noticed that the majority of what I have listed above involve changing your habits around heating or cooling. It turns out that changing temperature is an extremely energy intensive task. You can use this as a rule of thumb to become more intuitive about energy usage.

Adopting energy saving habits is not only great to save you money, but will also help the environment. The more of us that use electricity responsibly and dare I say even thoughtfully, the better a world we will leave for our grandchildren.

So if you want to see your electronic’s neat party trick, just reach for the off button.

Shuffling my energy usage .

Pat the Shuffler

The original version of this article included the sentences below

“Find the hot water switch at the circuit breaker box and switch it off. You can switch it back on about 30 mins before you need to shower etc and turn it off again when you are done.”

I have done this for decades and neither me nor anyone in my family has been in the unfortunate position of contracting Legionnaires disease. However it has been pointed out to me correctly that there is a chance that this behaviour may cause the temperature to drop into the warm temperature range in which legionella bacteria thrive and cause severe sickness. This link from the QLD government gives more information. This strategy may still be useful however you must ensure that the water is heated to 60 degrees to kill off all bacteria before using.

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