I used to leave my phone charger plugged in permenatly. When I first read about phantom loads a few months ago, I unplugged said charger and now only plug it in when it is in fact charging.

It's such a simple thing to do, that goes easily forgotten. But, most of us would do anything to save on the electric bill, so this is definitely one to remember.

The statement that, “According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 75 percent of the electric power consumed in the average home comes from appliances -- such as VCRs, televisions, stereos, computers, and kitchen appliances --  that are turned off, but remain plugged into the wall,” is very misleading. It is a misleading statement because It implies that unplugging everything that uses electricity, even when turned off, will noticeably reduce a household electric bill.  In fact, it most likely represents less than $3 a month in a house with 4 persons.   Promulgating this sort of erroneous information is irresponsible.  It encourages people to engage is activities which are wasting their time.  Additionally, it may even shorten the life of some appliances by shutting off protection against a cold start electrical surge each time it’s turned on. If you are really looking for ways to reduce your electricity usage you should consider upgrading older appliances, (especially water heaters or refrigerators) to energy star appliances, increasing insulation, caulking windows and turning the temperature up by 2 degrees on your air conditioner and down 2 degrees on your furnace or using a programmable thermostat.  Wait to wash, dry and iron all the week clothes at once, and not every two days. You may be saving a good lump of dollar bills by doing that. My research indicates that the US Department of Energy makes no such statement. I contacted them and CL&P asking for verification.  But, I suspect that some well intentioned person read somewhere that “75 percent of the electric power consumed in the average home comes from appliances” and erroneously concluded the rest.   Anything with a clock in it or an appliance in standby mode uses a very small amount of electricity. The amount used is so small you wouldn't notice the difference on your electric bill anyway.  The energy your TV consumes just for waiting you to press the power button at the remote, is almost nothing compared with an extra minute in the shower. If you are using fluorescent light bulbs the energy savings for using those bulbs is actually calculated based on the idea that once a light is turned on it will be on for more than 3 hours. So if you turn a fluorescent light bulb on you should plan on leaving it on for at least 20 minutes to get some savings from the bulb. The following is directly quoted from the Federal Government information site, Pueblo Colorado:  “Many idle appliances—TVs, VCRs, cable boxes, DVD and CD players, cassette decks, cordless phones, burglar alarms, microwaves—continue to consume energy when switched off. This energy keeps display clocks lit and memory chips and remote controls working. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory calculates that these energy “leaks” account for 5 percent of total domestic electricity consumption, cost more than $4 billion annually, and spew 12 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere. “Our consumer-oriented society, the growth of new technologies, and the fact that more people are working from home have dramatically increased the number of products that require power in the average home. The average home has roughly 2 TVs, a VCR, a DVD player and 3 telephones. Replacing these items with ENERGY STAR® models—which use as much as 50 percent less energy—would save more than 25 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent to taking 3 million cars off the road for one year, according to EPA.”

This is new to me, I like to be as energy efficient as possible but I didn’t realise I’m still using power even if an appliance part  http://www.bickettgallery.com/whirlpool-parts.html  or electronic device is turned off. I wish the government would do more to show people how they can save energy and money by doing things like this.