Power bill jump
I knew my power bills were going to go up when James moved in. On my own, I used maybe eight or twelve dollars worth of electricity every three months. I didn't have a fridge, TV or any large electrical appliances, I use a laptop rather than a desktop computer (drawing 20-40W instead of 200-300W) and with only one energy-conscious person in a dwelling you don't make a lot of overall impact. Spending an evening dancing to a little CD player in your loungeroom just doesn't chew up the power. James however is a man who loves toys. We drove across the Nullarbor with a car full of computer and electronic hardware, plus a suitcase each. The prize possession he had shipped over was his large-screen TV. And within a couple of weeks of moving in, we'd bought a fridge. So I knew that the overall background levels of electricity use would go up - the fridge would always be on in its intermittent way, there'd often be double the lighting in use (though that's a trivial change as most of my bulbs are low-energy), there'd be standby for his TV and consoles etc. He also likes to leave his computer on all the time and just switch the monitor off, so that's a fair addition to the background load as well.

I wasn't expecting a $70 jump.

The bill I've just paid was $125, up from the usual $50-$55. The previous bill had gone up a little, up to $90. Which was a little ouchy to my low-consumer-attitude, but acceptable given that there's now two of us and I don't expect James to live in the minimalist way that I prefer. But the further jump is... well. I think we need to do some thinking about this.

I'll borrow a Powermate, I think, and test a few things. My electric piano, which I bought in March and admittedly remains on standby - I don't know how much that uses. I believe it's under 50W when I'm playing it though. James' TV setup. It's all on one powerboard so it can easily be turned off when not in use - but we're not turning it off, so that'd be interesting to see what it chews. The new fridge. It wasn't the most low energy fridge we could get, though that was one factor (I am really looking forward to the day when chest or drawer fridges become commercially available on the domestic market). It'd be interesting to see what it draws compared to the official rating, and what kind of background it's really creating. And most of all, I really want to test James' computer. It'll answer a question I've had for a while, which is: if I come in and check the Net for five minutes, which uses more energy - booting up and using my laptop, or switching on his monitor? I'm not going to ask him to turn his computer off - it's a connected life we lead, and his puter's often downloading processing important software even when he's not here, so it's not like the computer's on but not in use. But maybe between all these things we can find a way to cut the electricity bill back by $30 or so.