I've got an idea to save money: How about stop subsidizing the wind and solar farms that raise our costs? Electricity from those sources is 4 to 7 times as much. Is it really worth a $200+ monthly electric bill to subsidize "green energy" that is economically unstable and solves a mythical problem that only exists in Al Gore's mind? Yep... don't buy food in bulk and save lots of money. Why buy groceries today for $200 when you can buy them next week for $210 and for $220 then $230 in just a few months. Not to mention all the trips to the store and not having food when you want it. The greenie just want to control how you live. Wake uo and smell the coffee... and savor the smell, because in a few years, those nanny-staters will be telling you it's bad and you can only have 2 ounces a day. Go ahead and laugh, but they did it with salt, transfats, and now sodas....

Behavior is the biggest change in saving energy at home. In my experience, once you learn what each item costs to operate, you start thinking about turning it off when you aren't using it. As one person found out, it can be more expensive to operate a freezer than the cost savings in buying bulk.

rickbmn, we aren't all "greenies". Some of us are just cheap, and don't like wasting money on energy bills. We also realize that wind farms and solar panels are coming down in cost. They produce power without using natural resources, don't need shipping of fuel, refining or polluting. And they create jobs locally, not just in North Dakota. Are they pricey now? Yes, but that was also the case for oil refineries 100 years ago, or nuclear generators 50 years ago.

The nanny-staters are not out to get you. Nobody is forcing you to save energy. They are just providing tools for you to make your own decisions about how you want to spend your money. It's up to you to decide whether you want to do that or not.

I notice it's mostly the cooperatives and municipal power companies that provide this kind of energy information and feedback. As an Xcel customer, I can get more information from my paper bills than I can from their website. The PUC should require this kind of technology be available to us who are forced to use Xcel. Or, better yet, we should have a municipal or cooperative in the Twin Cities. It was only the munis in California that did not gouge their customers during the Enron price-fixing debacle.

I've replaced all our light bulbs with CFLs and LEDs, and connected our computers and video setup to smart power strips that shut off unneeded "vampire" usage when the equipment looks like it's shut off. I've got a couple of lights on timers and motion sensors; mostly the ones the kids always forget to turn off. The savings is about a third of our bill. In 3 years, the equipment purchases have paid themselves off; for the rest of the life of the stuff I bought, it's all pure savings. We used to call the act of spending today's money to save tomorrow's money "Investment," not Hippy Socialist Government Mind Control.

In America we waste nearly as much energy as we use. Any tools we can use to help us with this can only be good. I can't understand why anyone who calls himself "Conservative" is in favor of waste. The word itself has the word "Conserve" right in it. More and more, I understand why my mother told me, while we were very poor, that the experience would work to our favor when we grew up.

I bet our friend "rickbmn" has not altered his lifestyle one bit no matter what other people have said is healthier or more efficient.

What wasn't mentioned in the article was the need for smart meters to remotely turn service on or off, monitor use patterns that determine lifestyles that may be antisocial, etc. As Xcel's rate case proves, energy savings by customers will be rewarded by rate increases. I have two old fashioned meters. One for regular use and one for off-peak interruptible use. They give me all the information I need. If I want more, I can buy an inexpensive meter to determine consumption by any device or appliance. So far, my coop utility is not on the list.

rickbmn--NOBODY has told you you cannot have salt, soda, transfat or even cigarets. Help yourself. Just don't make me pay for your health care. Similarly, nobody is telling you to cut your electric bill. If you want to pay more for electricity that's you're business. As for subsidies, renewable forms of energy deserve the same support that fossil fuels get.