With a family of 6 our electrical bills are generally fairly high and I know for a fact there is items plugged in all-the-time that probably don't need to be. Solar panels are an option we'd love to have on our home but at the moment it's still very expensive technology in our area. I'm going to buy the little Belkin monitor you suggested.

I've been thinking about energy usage a lot recently and have just realised that around half our lights are old style halogen spots, so I just bought a load of LED spots to replace them.

I've always really wanted to know about chargers left in the plug socket (with socket still on obviously) and whether they still draw energy even without a phone or laptop plugged in… If you were thinking of doing a follow up article maybe you could test that as well? Cheers!