One Month Later...How A Bunch of LED Bulbs Are Saving Us Over $2000 Per Year

Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!

One month ago, we replaced every lightbulb in our house with an LED bulb, other than a few difficult-to-replace fixtures. Our total cost? About $150 for dozens of bulbs of varying shapes and sizes.[1]

The savings, both in reduced electric consumption and a lower electric bill, have been simply astronomical and far beyond our expectations. As you can see from this screenshot from our last bill, our average electric consumption declined more than 30% in two months, from an embarrassing 139 kWh/day in July to a still excessive but much improved 97 kWh/day in September.[2]

In reviewing our bill, we realized our charge per kWh was $0.20 per kWh (adding both distribution and the supply charge from our extremely expensive power company), and so our savings comes out to over $200 per month. Meaning that our new LEDs paid for themselves in about three weeks, and that the annual savings should exceed $2,000.[3] The simple rate of return on this investment is far beyond anything we’ve ever earned on any other investment in our lives.

It’s hard to overstate how compelling small investments like these can be. In a world in which most US government bonds (and savings accounts) pay less than 1%, and stock market returns are unpredictable, a project like this can yield far greater returns all while lowering your personal carbon footprint.

Which is why the current statistic that only 36% of US residential general purpose (regular) bulbs and 15% of residential decorative bulbs are LEDs represents a particularly compelling opportunity. If you like saving money, making the electric grid more resilient by lowering peak demand (one of the many problems facing California right now), or reducing carbon emissions, now’s the time to take a serious look at switching your incandescents and CFLs over to LEDs.

And now…Andrew’s pick of the week:

What does “no later than 5pm” really mean? Does it include 5:00:59pm, or does it end at the stroke of 5?

I had a great time listening to this 16 minute This American Life segment about Kanye’s ill-fated attempt to get on the ballot in Wisconsin, which ultimately turns on this seemingly (and actually) obvious question. Enjoy!

I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it with a friend! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.

[1] I found this light bulb guide helpful, as it was pretty tricky in some cases to figure out the exact bulb type we were looking for in some of the strange fixtures.

[2] We live in a fairly old house with an inefficient air conditioner, older appliances, and a lot of light fixtures.

[3] The nationwide average cost of electricity is about $0.13/kWh, so the payback period for an LED bulb might be more like 4-6 weeks for many people. Still an incredible rate of return for a bulb that can potentially last a decade or more.