A Frugal Step?

Last night, while lying on my futon, aimlessly reading webpages, and watching old episodes of Highlander on DVD (a very exciting Friday night, I know) the lightbulb in my lamp burned out. No problem, I get up and go over to my hall cupboard to get a replacement. Alas, someone has taken the last lightbulb out of the four pack and put THE EMPTY BOX back in. I am angry for about fifteen seconds before I realize that I live alone so I be the culprit. I resign myself to a night in darkness - I'll go to the store tomorrow.

Flash-forward to today, in Walgreens. I've considered buying CFLs instead of regular bulbs before, but the extra cost of buying a CFL versus a regular bulb seemed large compared to my electric bill every month. The four-packs of CFLs seemed reasonably priced at $2.75 a bulb, but I don't need four. I only have two regular lightbulbs in my apartment, one in my lamp in one in my coat closet. The rest of the lights in my apartment are fancy-schmancy round bulbs (luckily none of these has burned out during my year in the apartment, because I'm not even sure where to find replacements). Today, I'm pleasantly suprised to see that the single CFL 60 watt bulbs are Buy One, Get One Free. At $5.99 for two, it's time to take the plunge. I'm now the proud, and environmentally responsible, owner of two CFL bulbs. I'm anxious to see if this small change, exchanging a single regular bulb for a CFL, will make any appreciable difference in my electric bill.

My electric bill averages about $32 per month during months that I don't run my air conditioning. I've never been good about saving electricity before. I leave my computer on pretty much constantly, I leave lights on when I leave the apartment, I'm infamous for having every light in the place on while I'm home. I'll be trying to alter these wasteful habits over the next month, saving both the environment and a chunk of change.