It’s called phantom power and any appliance with a stand-by function will be drawing a bit of electricity from the socket when they’re plugged in and in the off position. To save some extra cash, just unplug it when you’re not using it!

To figure out if your appliance has a stand-by function, consider that anything that doesn’t have a hard switch will have a stand-by mode. So, your lamps with those twisty on switches do not draw power in stand-by because the circuit is broken by the twisting of the switch. Your home theater receiver, with a little button, will draw stand-by power. Obviously anything with a light is in stand-by.

If you don’t plan on using something for a while, unplug it. If you go on vacation, unplug it. A few cents here, a few cents there… next thing you know you’ll have saved entire dollars!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am and is filed under Frugal Tip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.