Cool Toy: Kill-A-Watt

I’m cheap when it comes to utility bills. I use a clothesline on (admittedly rare) rain-free days and our heat is mostly provided by a super-efficient woodstove. Always looking for ways to reduce my carbon footprint, I like the idea of this little gadget that helps shrink energy costs and identify the real energy suckers.

The Gadgeteer Hands On Review explains the Kill-A-Watt in extreme detail if you want the nitty-gritty, but basically you just plug the cell phone-sized device into a three-prong wall outlet, and plug in the appliance you want to monitor to find out how efficient (or wasteful) it really is. The LCD display lets you monitor the kilowatt hour consumption of an appliance and learn how much it costs to run. It does lots of other stuff too, for about $40.