Kill A Watt (now about $20 US at Amazon) can help save you some of your hard earned cash and also be educational.

While vacuuming this evening, I noted that a TV, VCR and old Xbox (classic) are plugged in 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but they only get used on average about 40 minutes 5-6 times a week by my wife (we have a small exercise room in our house).

Using my handy Kill A Watt, I noted that plugged in, yet not running, the group was consuming 10 watts! Individually, the break down was 5 watts for a tube style 27 inch TV, 4 watts for the VCR, and 1 watt for the Xbox. I moved the power strip up to a more accessible location and turned them all off. Now, she's planning on doing the same. Given our electrical rates, we'll save about $10-$15 a year by turning them completely off the majority of the time.

It's a simple device, easy to use. Highly recommended. I've used it on other things around the house with the same results -- easily paying for the cost of the device after a years time (even more quickly if you discover other devices that use electricity in their "power saving" state.).

(I've completely unplugged our second VCR -- last time we watched a video tape we were horrified by how bad they look compared to a DVD on a plasma TV!)