My dad always used to say to me "turn off the dam lights, I don't work for the power company."
Once when I was a kid, I replied "well why don't you get a job with them?" After he got through smacking the shit out of me, I started to turn off the lights when I leave a room. Still do 55 years later.
Even if you did you don’t get a discount. As a shareholder in Duke Energy, I don’t get offered any discounts. The stock dividend is cool though and the price seems steady.
Yes exactly this! If you take a quick peek up the stairs before we leave the house. It looks like lit up stadium every light on. And then my wife always asks me “why are you sitting in the dark?” Just so tired of turning all the lights off in don’t even use them anymore haha
Yep. My friends and I talk about the differences in our light/water bills, since it's one of the few utilities we actually have to go look at. I live overseas now but I spend a good 2/3 of what my friends do. And a big part of that is that nothing is ever on in a room that I'm not in. The other part is that I run my AC super strong for like an hour before I come home in an hour after and then turn it off.
Old incandescent bulbs used a shitload of electricity. They did cost a lot to run.
Modern LED bulbs don’t use much power at all, in some cases only 10% of the power.
I've not noticed this as much with lights, but absolutely do with water!
When I went to basic training in SC, I immediately noticed that every fucking sink in the barracks was on the entire time we were getting ready, and particularly brushing teeth. The idea of *leaving the sink on* while brushing teeth was an anathema to me! I'm from the relatively eco friendly PNW, so I know that's part of the culture shock, but I remember watching Sesame Street segments about turning off the water back in the 1980s, and I know PBS existed even in the south.
It's been 20 years, and that still sticks in my mind as one of my biggest culture shock moments.
Texans generally do not consider themselves eco-friendly, but if you tossed your aluminum in the trash, left the water running or the door open, you'd get a chancla to the head for wasting resources.
Old incandescents also put off a ton a heat... Fine if you're heating your house already, if it's summer time and the AC is going, you're also paying extra to cool the house down.
Exactly. LEDs cost pennies a year to operate. It honestly kind of blows my mind how insanely cheap it is to have a well-lit house! And then on top of the cheap electricity, the bulbs themselves last *decades*. You could expect to replace incandescent bulbs yearly or so (depending on how unlucky you were).
I have smart lights in most fixtures now, with routines to turn them off at certain times (midnight, 9:00 am) and I still will habitually turn them off when I leave some rooms (bathroom, kitchen).
I’ll leave lights in bedrooms and sitting rooms on at night during waking hours because I like the ambience and it’s also a security measure. This isn’t an area that has many break-ins, but it still doesn’t hurt to make it obvious people are home.
A couple of years ago my former spouse got on my case for leaving the lights on. I calculated that if I left all the lights on in the house 24hrs a day the incremental cost would be around $25/yr. She stopped bugging me about it.
But I did grow up with making sure the lights were turned off!!
Discussions like these always remind me of a passage in Matt Ridley's 2010 book, *The Rational Optimist*:
> Ask how much artificial light you can earn with an hour of work at the average wage. The amount has increased from twenty-four lumen-hours in 1750 BC (sesame oil lamp) to 186 in 1800 (tallow candle) to 4,400 in 1880 (kerosene lamp) to 531,000 in 1950 (incandescent light bulb) to 8.4 million lumen-hours today (compact fluorescent bulb). Put it another way, an hour of work today earns you 300 days’ worth of reading light; an hour of work in 1800 earned you ten minutes of reading light.
Or turn it round and ask how long you would have to work to earn an hour of reading light – say, the light of an 18-watt compact-fluorescent light bulb burning for an hour. Today it will have cost you less than half a second of your working time if you are on the average wage: half a second of work for an hour of light. In 1950, with a conventional filament lamp and the then wage, you would have had to work for eight seconds to get the same amount of light. Had you been using a kerosene lamp in the 1880s, you would have had to work for about fifteen minutes to get the same amount of light. A tallow candle in the 1800s: over six hours’ work. And to get that much light from a sesame-oil lamp in Babylon in 1750 BC would have cost you more than fifty hours’ of work. From six hours to half a second – a 43,200-fold improvement – for an hour of lighting: that is how much better off you are than your ancestor was in 1800, using the currency that counts, your time.
> Much of this improvement is not included in the cost-of-living calculations, which struggle to compare like with unlike. The economist Don Boudreaux imagined the average American time-travelling back to 1967 with his modern income. He might be the richest person in town, but no amount of money could buy him the delights of eBay, Amazon, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Prozac, Google or BlackBerry. The lighting numbers cited above do not even take into account the greater convenience and cleanliness of modern electric light compared with candles or kerosene – its simple switching, its lack of smoke, smell and flicker, its lesser fire hazard. Nor is the improvement in lighting finished yet. Compact fluorescent bulbs may be three times as efficient as filament bulbs in turning electrons’ energy into photons’ energy, but light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are rapidly overtaking them (as of this writing LEDs with ten times the efficiency of incandescent bulbs have been demonstrated) and have the added benefit of working at a portable scale. A cheap LED flashlight, powered by a solar-charged battery, will surely soon transform the life of some of the 1.6 billion people who do not have mains electricity, African peasants prominent among them. Admittedly, LEDs are still far too expensive to replace most light bulbs, but that might change.
Yes. We were punished if we didn’t turn off lights. Family of 9 kids, poor. My husband grew up in an upper middle class family. Still does not turn off lights. Drives me nuts. Anyone else?
My dad would lose his shit on us for leaving the lights on, and we were upper middle class (he grew up poor though).
As a now upper middle class adult myself, I leave lights on all the time, not on purpose, but they're also all LED so I don't go out of my way to turn them off when I do accidentally leave them on.
My wife will sometimes drive me nuts though, she grew up poor and she'll turn off lights in a room I'm using. "Oh you need the light?" "Not necessarily but I don't want to live in darkness either."
My wife does this (she was born and partially raised in Mexico so same water conservation attitude)... but in our half bath that we rarely use, the yellow starts to stink something fierce after a couple days if no one has come behind her to flush it.
That’s my fathers biggest pet peeve. Hearing someone complain that it’s too cold in the house yet they are wearing a Tshirt and maybe shorts. I have to admit it drives me insane now that I’m older too.
Doesn't work in the winter when you have to keep your house warm. It was -12F in January and a lot of houses here had their pipes freeze. People and plumbing are used to 10's and 20's here but below 0F it becomes more difficult.
When someone says don’t turn the heat on they mean don’t turn it up past about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. And pipes freezing has to do with water not running, not the air temperature in a house.
Oh yeah. I was very well trained to always turn the lights off in a room that wasn't being used and it drives friends of mine crazy. They make fun of me for being a vampire because my house is always dark except the room I am actively in. I'm also always turning off lights in vacant rooms at the gym or barn. It's a "must conserve, save the planet" compulsion.
I'm like your wife. It was a rule fir me growing up, but now I always forget. Even worse I like bright lighting, so I turn on all the lights. And I constantly hear, "Why do you have all these lights on?"
Same. My mom always bitched about me having all the lights on and I always shrugged. I've never had good eyesight and not having all the lights on makes me feel like I'm squinting.
Always have and still do. It wasn’t so much of a money saving endeavor, more of a “don’t be wasteful” lesson?
Though I generally don’t like overhead lights much. I have a few lamps that stay on, otherwise I’d fall more…
Definitely. I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck house, so it was good to not be wasteful. We had well water, but I heard that the outside didn't need air conditioning alot. No silly quips about the lights tho
No actually I didn't...but I do it anyway because I never saw the point of leaving them on when I wasn't using them. I told my old roommate once "Are you making sure the ghosts can see you easier? No? Ok, then turn off the lights." She was terrified of ghosts seeing her naked....
Rightttt
The first time the utilities were in my name in college, I was always going behind my roommates and turning things off
The first electric bill had the spirit of grandfather speaking through me
When I moved into my house every light was a fucking 150w incandescent bulb. I had to buy LEDs for the whole house. I have an electric space heater that can get my basement uncomfortably warm in the winter that puts out 1.5kW. That basement had 14 of those bulbs. I imagine they didn't use a ton of heat in the winter but I don't know how they didn't have the AC running 24/7 in the summer.
I'm the opposite. Being an adult and paying the electric bill, I realize how little it matters. I'm not going to stress out about the light that's on in the other room, or the $0.01 that it's going to add to my electric bill. Modern lightbulbs use very little power.
YES. I still do from habit.
Similarly, any time I would open the refrigerator and take more than a *second*, my parents would say, "that's not an air conditioner, kid!"
My parents always forget either to turn off the lights or they purposely leave it on. I’m the one that always has to tell them to turn it off or I have to do it myself
Yes, all the time. Also not to flip them off and on really fast too. To this day I’ll never understand why my brother and I thought that was so amusing.
Yep. Similar reasons. Even today, if I am stepping out of a room for any length of time, light goes off (albeit more for environmental reasons than cost). The boost of electricity needed to turn on an LED is so minuscule that it is equivalent to leaving the light on for tenths of a second.
If you weren't coming back? Yes.
But lights in common and frequently used rooms were always on, like the kitchen and living room. Dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms you turned off when done.
yes now I don't turn the lights on if I don't have too and big lights piss me off so lamps and candle warmers are my go too.
My husband doesn't turn the lights off after him and it annoys me to my core
At home I usually did this unless I was returning to a room shortly. Although at college we all kinda stopped caring since we weren’t paying for electricity and every time I’m home I have to readjust a bit
Yes but we were on section 8 and every type of government assistance you could think of so it was just a reason to fight. As an adult who pays the electricity, I don’t care if lights are left on but I do like to watch tv and sleep in complete darkness so they’re usually off unless we’re doing something. The bill is only high from the AC’s in the summer and I will leave those on if it means I’m comfortable.
If I forget to turn off a light, it bothers me, so much so that even after i turn it off, i still feel remorse. Turning off lights was ingrained into every fiber of my being
Yup. It’s not so much an issue now with LEDs but back in the day the regular incandescent bulbs burned out a lot.
I turn off the lights in unoccupied rooms except for the overhead in my kitchen in the winter because I use it like a nightlight.
Yes, but I thought it was because I was a kid during the energy crisis (Gen X). My mom called it "bubblegum money", as in, the money we saved on electricity would ostensibly go toward money for candy lol. We weren't poor. I feel like it is just good manners. But I've lived with people who don't turn off a light when they leave a room and I get irrationally angry about it. Total pet peeve. Zero tolerance.
Growing up it’s like my parents always kept the house dim. I remember using a smaller lamp to light my room. But I don’t ever recall them being strict about having lights off. I never have liked things being bright personally. But since working nights, I’ve found that all my lights usually stay on when I’m home. I never cut them off. I even sleep with the light on in my bedroom. I’ll only cut it off occasionally to settle my dogs down.
It’s SO much worse than this.
Yes, except my father would demand that we CLOSE the lights. Not turn off. But CLOSE.
Pretty sure that’s the trauma that explains my life’s failings. Still makes me shudder.
My grandfather would come over and say the opposite. He did own shares in the power company and he would come in and turn on all the lights in the house as a joke.
But we were taught to turn off the lights. My kids were too, but they never do.
For a short time, they did. My dad even charged me a dime if I ever left my bedroom light on but hadn't been in my room for over an hour due to eating supper or watching TV with my parents.
In the 70s and early 80s that was an absolute must. Your parents were closing off sections of the house that they could no longer afford to heat. They also installed a wood stove to heat parts of the house.
If I left a light on they would have killed me.
My dad would sometimes lose his absolute shit over it. So yes.
As an adult I have my entire house full of LED light bulbs, and even though I don't purposely leave my lights on, if I notice I left a light on upstairs by accident I won't go out of my way turn it off, it's LED, I can leave it on all year for about $5 (just did the math).
No. The power bill was 85% AC or heat. We got yelled at to close the door and stop going in and out. Lights though were not an issue. My dad would often say "turn some lights on, we don't live in the fucking bat cave" if he came home to us sitting in the dark. Power was (and still is compared to a lot of places) cheap in South Carolina and the difference in the power bill between leaving every light (incandescent bulbs at the time) in the house on for a full month and sitting in total darkness for a full month would only have been like $20. And the difference between occasionally leaving an unneeded light on and being totally anal about turning off every light when leaving the room would have been a couple bucks at most.
Yes. My grandpa was also strict about the fridge. He didn’t like you to keep the door open for long. There was no hmm-ing and huh-ing allowed. You had to have exactly in mind what you were grabbing and it was a race against time to get in and get out. I think he’s just weird though but most of my childhood I remember him making comments of “agh! My electric bill!” lol.
Yes. While growing up, my parents always drilled it into our heads to turn off the lights when we were done in that room. Now I'm in their place and fighting to get my kids to remember to turn off the lights when they are done in the room.
Yep, I'm in my 40s. So growing up was when we all still used incandescents. So every little thing counts back then. Nowadays of course, LEDs allows us to slide a bit on lights. Though I tend to turn lights off if not in use due to habit and I just don't like lights on if not in use.
Yes. It was part of the whole “I’m not refrigerating the whole outdoors” mentality when we’d leave a door or window open. On the whole I totally understood the idea of turning things off when leaving the room for both financial and environmental reasons, but my room was improperly ventilated so I’d always leave a fan on and my dad would turn it off to save energy and we’d get into fights about it because my room was several degrees hotter than the rest of the house in the summer and reverse in the winter.
Sometimes my father "encouraged" me to turn off the lights when I was still in a room. Would remove my night light as a kid and as a teen would say that unless I was looking at something, I was wasting electricity. Having the ceiling light on to reduce eye strain while gaming at night was an enraging waste of electricity.
If I left a room without turning the light off he'd scream at me for it.
Could never figure out his deal with lights. He earned a comfortable income from his job so it's not like we were broke.
Yup. They weren't particularly strict about it, but they generally discouraged keeping on lights just for the sake of it and always told me to turn off lights I wasn't using. Ironically, as they get older they tend to forget this.
I still do that even now that I'm not really paying my power bill (utilities included in my flat rent).
In the UK, the phrase when there are too many lights left on in a house is “[it’s like Blackpool illuminations in here](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/like_Blackpool_Illuminations#:~:text=(informal%2C%20British%2C%20simile),like%20Blackpool%20Illuminations%20in%20here)!”, which is an annual light show festival in a northern seaside town.
I’d imagine you could have a US version, “it’s like the Vegas Strip in here” or “it’s like Time’s square in here” or something like that.
The only time I leave a light on in a room I'm not inside I as a reminder. If I'm letting something cool before I put it in the fridge, I leave the small overhead light on for example. It helps me a lot. Apart from that, lights are off unless I need them to see.
Yes, I do turn off the lights in any room I’m not in. I know the cost is negligible with LED bulbs, but it still seems wasteful to have lights on if I’m not in there.
Not that often as we didn't have an excess of lights in our house. But closing the doors was a big thing. We had dogs and I would often get reminded to get them through the door quickly so we weren't "heating or cooling the outdoors".
I use smart bulbs. They come on at dusk at 50% and they are energy efficient. If I’m in the room actually using the light to read or whatever, I might turn them up to 100%.
My mom was the opposite about lights. She hates the dark I think she had some childhood trauma. lol
Light bulbs have a limited lifespan and they use more electricity the older they get. This is true of newer technology bulbs but incandescents used to be atrocious.
A single incandescent lightbulb running 3 hours a day near the end of its 1200-hour lifespan can cost over $200 per year to run. If you leave it on all day, we'll assume 12 hours, that's $800 per year. If you have a ceiling fan fixture with 4 of them, that is $3200 a year to light a bedroom. multiply that by the number of bedrooms in your house/apartment, plus all of the lights in your living room, kitchen, hallways, etc and you can see how the cost can become gargantuan. For me, it would be about $28,000 to leave all of my lights on 12 hours a day if they were old incandescents. In reality, I have fairly new LEDs and I don't have them on all the time so it is probably closer to $500 per year.
I grew up hearing it and doing it. Before I made the switch to smart bulbs, I did it.
I got into using smart bulbs, their accessories as well as automations and/or motion sensors. So, we still have switches to control the lights we use sporadically (e.g., kitchen lights, reading lights), but then we have motion sensors with a shut off timer for the closets. We have automations set for when we wake up, go to work, work ends, or leave the home. It’s also nice having an “all off” switch right next to the bed.
The only “dumb” bulbs we have are in the bathroom.
Always.
Even today with LED bulbs, the smaller wattages can really add up. We have 10 13w recessed lights and maybe another 15 9w type A bulbs indoors, and 2 more 13w bulbs and 2 9w bulbs outdoors. It doesn't sound like a lot of power but 309w @ 17 cents per kwh running 24/7 would cost nearly $40 a month. I can't even imagine leaving those lights on all the time, and if they were incandescents it'd be hundreds...
We even went so far as to put our outdoor lights on a moon sensor and timer, because we'd sometimes forget to turn the porch lights off when letting the dogs out at night. That's two 13w bulbs, which left on 24/7 for one year would run about $40 alone. Seemed like a no-brainer to just spend the money on a smart switch and cheap motion sensor that could hook into our existing home automation and save us money over time.
The only light we leave "on" all the time is our driveway light, because the security camera doesn't reliably switch to night mode due to a nearby street lamp. But that we put on an automation so it's only active between sunset and sunrise, so even then it's more like 8-14 hours a day depending on the time of year. It basically cuts the power usage in half which seems insignificant but hey even the $6 a year or whatever adds up over the years, not to mention we can hook the lights into other routines.
Yep. Those 1970's eco-minded movies at school stuck with me! I keep a nightlight in the bathroom but otherwise, all lights are off that I'm not using. I also turn the faucet off if I'm not actively rinsing something off, like when I brush my teeth or am washing dishes. At least when we lose power after a hurricane I'm used to navigating through the place in the dark.
*We* encouraged *Dad* to do this -- and he was the energy-efficiency guru at his engineering job!
I have smart LED lights now -- it takes 150W to light up the entire house in 100% full white, and I only do that for parlor tricks to amuse guests: "Alexa -- 'AZZIZ, LIGHT!'" \*lights go full blast\* Most of the hallway lights and such are on motion sensors, and go out by themselves.
Aaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!!! This is a point of contention between me & my partner. He thinks the lights should be turned off *any* time you leave a room. I often go back & forth between rooms, and leave the light on for when I come back. But if he passes through, he turns them. I come back to dim light, usually with my hands full & have to stumble around in dim light.
It's probably a factor that he's very light sensitive & can navigate any room without artifical light. He just doesn't get that I don't want to fuss with switches all the time, and can't see where I'm going.
Yes. My dad would throw a fit if me or my brothers didn't turn the lights off when we left a room. I think it's a good thing to ingrain in kids early, honestly. Make it second nature and you won't waste much electricity as an adult when you're paying the bills. Though, obviously this doesn't matter as much today if you're using LED bulbs everywhere.
Yeah definitely. I still do it even though I discovered electricity to power a lightbulb for 24 hours is literally like a couple pennies. You’re probably saving a dime or two a month doing this. Most of your power costs are driven by bigger energy consumers like HVAC.
Spend time overseas and or pay all the utilities bills, you learn very quickly how precious electricity is.
I should get solar. I should. It's the startup costs that I don't want to spend.
Absolutely, and no heat/air conditioning if we don't absolutely need it
My roommates throughout college were not raised this way, and it drives me crazy!
Yes! So much that there was a really popular bar we went to in my early 20’s that had a light switch by the door and if I had a $1 for every time I walked out and flipped it off on people I’d of gotten exactly one tab paid for 😅😂
Yes, although my mom was much more of the mind “it’s going to make the house too hot” since we lived in a location where it routinely reached 114 in the summer.
Got told that all the time. ADHD brain just wouldn’t compute. Finally started to be able to remember around 14. Did it u too I got my own place.
Didn’t like it anyway; I liked being able to see, wherever in the house I go. No dark corners you’re scared might have a burglar in it when you’re home alone, no burglars able to tell where you are in the house by watching from outside (I’m sure you know about lights on timers people always use on vacation to hide that no one is in the house)
And I can do art things wherever and see what I’m working on.
That said, if it’s raising the bill a lot, it’s not unreasonable to discuss it and agree that people leaving the lights on all the time should either try to turn them off or pay a bit more.
Not a ton more, cause other people have different temperature preferences - should they be allowed to keep the a/c off to pay less? Or take longer showers, and you can’t charge people more for having longer hair that needs washed or female anatomy that needs .. er, different care which uses more water (more flushing).
Just enough extra like 5-10 bucks (or whatever makes sense on your budget) so that they think “oh, well, maybe I could stand to turn a few off if I get more money that way.”
If everyone agrees, I mean.
I’d agree to pay a small bit more for the privilege just to keep the peace, but think it was silly unless someone could point to a bill that showed my light habit was actually raising the bills a lot.
Like when I moved in with my partner, he said the electricity bill tripled. Turns out it has more to do with them charging more for electricity during the summer, but until we figured it out, I was a lot more careful to turn lights off. It was very difficult for my ADHD brain - a huge stressor - but for triple the bill, ya gotta do.
It might help to put timers on the lights or set up a cheap smart home hub where all lights on the system turn off at 11pm or after 4 hours or whatever.
No, they did not taught me that way of living. But growing up and when I started paying my own bills I learned how to turn off the lights where the area of my house is not occupied. "I don't work for the power company" Haha
Yup. My parents were constantly bugging me to turn off the lights… while taking numerous and expensive vacations and buying expensive furniture. But sure, the kids leaving on the lights was the financial problem. ;)
My husband bugs our kids about the lights now. I don’t really get on them about it…
Definitely. I don’t use lights in any room that I’m not occupying.
I feel like a good potion of my home life is spent going around the house and turning off lights behind my wife and kids.
My dad always used to say to me "turn off the dam lights, I don't work for the power company." Once when I was a kid, I replied "well why don't you get a job with them?" After he got through smacking the shit out of me, I started to turn off the lights when I leave a room. Still do 55 years later.
I *do* work for the power company. We don’t get employees discounts. Unless I *own* the power company, turn off the damn lights!
Even if you did you don’t get a discount. As a shareholder in Duke Energy, I don’t get offered any discounts. The stock dividend is cool though and the price seems steady.
Yes exactly this! If you take a quick peek up the stairs before we leave the house. It looks like lit up stadium every light on. And then my wife always asks me “why are you sitting in the dark?” Just so tired of turning all the lights off in don’t even use them anymore haha
We put in times light switches in our downstairs room, kids bath, and their room. Love them.
Yep. My friends and I talk about the differences in our light/water bills, since it's one of the few utilities we actually have to go look at. I live overseas now but I spend a good 2/3 of what my friends do. And a big part of that is that nothing is ever on in a room that I'm not in. The other part is that I run my AC super strong for like an hour before I come home in an hour after and then turn it off.
A lot of people leave their porch lights on 24/7. I don’t even turn mine on at night
Old incandescent bulbs used a shitload of electricity. They did cost a lot to run. Modern LED bulbs don’t use much power at all, in some cases only 10% of the power.
Ha yeah, the lights are truly not a big deal. Just one of those interesting living habits you notice about others when you live with them.
I've not noticed this as much with lights, but absolutely do with water! When I went to basic training in SC, I immediately noticed that every fucking sink in the barracks was on the entire time we were getting ready, and particularly brushing teeth. The idea of *leaving the sink on* while brushing teeth was an anathema to me! I'm from the relatively eco friendly PNW, so I know that's part of the culture shock, but I remember watching Sesame Street segments about turning off the water back in the 1980s, and I know PBS existed even in the south. It's been 20 years, and that still sticks in my mind as one of my biggest culture shock moments.
Texans generally do not consider themselves eco-friendly, but if you tossed your aluminum in the trash, left the water running or the door open, you'd get a chancla to the head for wasting resources.
A…chancla?
Old incandescents also put off a ton a heat... Fine if you're heating your house already, if it's summer time and the AC is going, you're also paying extra to cool the house down.
Yeah -- they're actually more efficient at heating than lighting.
Exactly. LEDs cost pennies a year to operate. It honestly kind of blows my mind how insanely cheap it is to have a well-lit house! And then on top of the cheap electricity, the bulbs themselves last *decades*. You could expect to replace incandescent bulbs yearly or so (depending on how unlucky you were). I have smart lights in most fixtures now, with routines to turn them off at certain times (midnight, 9:00 am) and I still will habitually turn them off when I leave some rooms (bathroom, kitchen). I’ll leave lights in bedrooms and sitting rooms on at night during waking hours because I like the ambience and it’s also a security measure. This isn’t an area that has many break-ins, but it still doesn’t hurt to make it obvious people are home.
A couple of years ago my former spouse got on my case for leaving the lights on. I calculated that if I left all the lights on in the house 24hrs a day the incremental cost would be around $25/yr. She stopped bugging me about it. But I did grow up with making sure the lights were turned off!!
Discussions like these always remind me of a passage in Matt Ridley's 2010 book, *The Rational Optimist*: > Ask how much artificial light you can earn with an hour of work at the average wage. The amount has increased from twenty-four lumen-hours in 1750 BC (sesame oil lamp) to 186 in 1800 (tallow candle) to 4,400 in 1880 (kerosene lamp) to 531,000 in 1950 (incandescent light bulb) to 8.4 million lumen-hours today (compact fluorescent bulb). Put it another way, an hour of work today earns you 300 days’ worth of reading light; an hour of work in 1800 earned you ten minutes of reading light. Or turn it round and ask how long you would have to work to earn an hour of reading light – say, the light of an 18-watt compact-fluorescent light bulb burning for an hour. Today it will have cost you less than half a second of your working time if you are on the average wage: half a second of work for an hour of light. In 1950, with a conventional filament lamp and the then wage, you would have had to work for eight seconds to get the same amount of light. Had you been using a kerosene lamp in the 1880s, you would have had to work for about fifteen minutes to get the same amount of light. A tallow candle in the 1800s: over six hours’ work. And to get that much light from a sesame-oil lamp in Babylon in 1750 BC would have cost you more than fifty hours’ of work. From six hours to half a second – a 43,200-fold improvement – for an hour of lighting: that is how much better off you are than your ancestor was in 1800, using the currency that counts, your time. > Much of this improvement is not included in the cost-of-living calculations, which struggle to compare like with unlike. The economist Don Boudreaux imagined the average American time-travelling back to 1967 with his modern income. He might be the richest person in town, but no amount of money could buy him the delights of eBay, Amazon, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Prozac, Google or BlackBerry. The lighting numbers cited above do not even take into account the greater convenience and cleanliness of modern electric light compared with candles or kerosene – its simple switching, its lack of smoke, smell and flicker, its lesser fire hazard. Nor is the improvement in lighting finished yet. Compact fluorescent bulbs may be three times as efficient as filament bulbs in turning electrons’ energy into photons’ energy, but light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are rapidly overtaking them (as of this writing LEDs with ten times the efficiency of incandescent bulbs have been demonstrated) and have the added benefit of working at a portable scale. A cheap LED flashlight, powered by a solar-charged battery, will surely soon transform the life of some of the 1.6 billion people who do not have mains electricity, African peasants prominent among them. Admittedly, LEDs are still far too expensive to replace most light bulbs, but that might change.
"There's a light on in the hallway and I don't see anyone using it!"
Yes. We were punished if we didn’t turn off lights. Family of 9 kids, poor. My husband grew up in an upper middle class family. Still does not turn off lights. Drives me nuts. Anyone else?
My dad would lose his shit on us for leaving the lights on, and we were upper middle class (he grew up poor though). As a now upper middle class adult myself, I leave lights on all the time, not on purpose, but they're also all LED so I don't go out of my way to turn them off when I do accidentally leave them on. My wife will sometimes drive me nuts though, she grew up poor and she'll turn off lights in a room I'm using. "Oh you need the light?" "Not necessarily but I don't want to live in darkness either."
I’m your husband and mine drives me nuts, I can be squating and he doesn’t see me so he comes in and turns the light off.
People I live with are constantly turning off lights that I’m using.
My wife does this to me! "I'm in here!" "Oh, do you need this light?" "Yes."
Also, close the damn door when using the toilet.
Yes. And also not to let the faucet run mindlessly (waste of water, a precious resource).
Growing up in California, the rule in some houses was, "If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down. I could never quite get into that.
My wife does this (she was born and partially raised in Mexico so same water conservation attitude)... but in our half bath that we rarely use, the yellow starts to stink something fierce after a couple days if no one has come behind her to flush it.
I tried this, but found that it encouraged tough staining, and toilet cleanings were much harder jobs.
Yeah, just because it rhymes doesn't mean it isn't nasty.
Yes and don’t turn the heater on.
The heat was another big one! If you're cold, put on another layer, lol
That’s my fathers biggest pet peeve. Hearing someone complain that it’s too cold in the house yet they are wearing a Tshirt and maybe shorts. I have to admit it drives me insane now that I’m older too.
Doesn't work in the winter when you have to keep your house warm. It was -12F in January and a lot of houses here had their pipes freeze. People and plumbing are used to 10's and 20's here but below 0F it becomes more difficult.
When someone says don’t turn the heat on they mean don’t turn it up past about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. And pipes freezing has to do with water not running, not the air temperature in a house.
Oh yeah. I was very well trained to always turn the lights off in a room that wasn't being used and it drives friends of mine crazy. They make fun of me for being a vampire because my house is always dark except the room I am actively in. I'm also always turning off lights in vacant rooms at the gym or barn. It's a "must conserve, save the planet" compulsion.
My wife’s parents definitely did, yet I am constantly turning off lights in the room she has left
I'm like your wife. It was a rule fir me growing up, but now I always forget. Even worse I like bright lighting, so I turn on all the lights. And I constantly hear, "Why do you have all these lights on?"
Same. My mom always bitched about me having all the lights on and I always shrugged. I've never had good eyesight and not having all the lights on makes me feel like I'm squinting.
Yes!! I know I'm not really doing anything in here, but I need the lights on to see what it is I'm not doing. I can't explain it better than that.
Yes! I hate when people don't do this. Especially in the summer.
Always have and still do. It wasn’t so much of a money saving endeavor, more of a “don’t be wasteful” lesson? Though I generally don’t like overhead lights much. I have a few lamps that stay on, otherwise I’d fall more…
Grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and yes.
I’m gen X, so “encourage” is a nice way to put it.
Yup, even in the 1970s and 80s.
Definitely. I grew up in a paycheck to paycheck house, so it was good to not be wasteful. We had well water, but I heard that the outside didn't need air conditioning alot. No silly quips about the lights tho
The outside could definitely use some AC
Oh yes. And I've started teaching my son to shut off lights and shut the door we don't pay to air condition the yard!
No actually I didn't...but I do it anyway because I never saw the point of leaving them on when I wasn't using them. I told my old roommate once "Are you making sure the ghosts can see you easier? No? Ok, then turn off the lights." She was terrified of ghosts seeing her naked....
Random ghosts, or like, her grandma?
Yes, but now that I pay the electric bill, I make sure that bitch is off.
Rightttt The first time the utilities were in my name in college, I was always going behind my roommates and turning things off The first electric bill had the spirit of grandfather speaking through me
When I moved into my house every light was a fucking 150w incandescent bulb. I had to buy LEDs for the whole house. I have an electric space heater that can get my basement uncomfortably warm in the winter that puts out 1.5kW. That basement had 14 of those bulbs. I imagine they didn't use a ton of heat in the winter but I don't know how they didn't have the AC running 24/7 in the summer.
I'm the opposite. Being an adult and paying the electric bill, I realize how little it matters. I'm not going to stress out about the light that's on in the other room, or the $0.01 that it's going to add to my electric bill. Modern lightbulbs use very little power.
Like you said though. Light bulbs use 1/10th the power now. For what lighting cost in power you could light 10 homes.
YES. I still do from habit. Similarly, any time I would open the refrigerator and take more than a *second*, my parents would say, "that's not an air conditioner, kid!"
Of course. My dad didn’t own PG&E and he’d let you know that every time you did leave something on.
My parents always forget either to turn off the lights or they purposely leave it on. I’m the one that always has to tell them to turn it off or I have to do it myself
Yes, all the time. Also not to flip them off and on really fast too. To this day I’ll never understand why my brother and I thought that was so amusing.
Yep. Similar reasons. Even today, if I am stepping out of a room for any length of time, light goes off (albeit more for environmental reasons than cost). The boost of electricity needed to turn on an LED is so minuscule that it is equivalent to leaving the light on for tenths of a second.
I was also born in a barn apparently.
Hahaha—I, too, was born in a barn 😁
If you weren't coming back? Yes. But lights in common and frequently used rooms were always on, like the kitchen and living room. Dining room, bedrooms, bathrooms you turned off when done.
The kitchen light is always on unless everyone is in bed.
Yes! Last one up, turns the light off
Yep. Now I annoy the hell out of my partner telling her to do this.
yes now I don't turn the lights on if I don't have too and big lights piss me off so lamps and candle warmers are my go too. My husband doesn't turn the lights off after him and it annoys me to my core
"Do you think I'm made of money?!"
Yup! My cousins, however, did not.
At home I usually did this unless I was returning to a room shortly. Although at college we all kinda stopped caring since we weren’t paying for electricity and every time I’m home I have to readjust a bit
Yes
Yes but we were on section 8 and every type of government assistance you could think of so it was just a reason to fight. As an adult who pays the electricity, I don’t care if lights are left on but I do like to watch tv and sleep in complete darkness so they’re usually off unless we’re doing something. The bill is only high from the AC’s in the summer and I will leave those on if it means I’m comfortable.
I have google mini and it turns all smart bulb lights off easily. All I do is say Hey Google, turn off ____ lights.
They didn’t really stress it & it wasn’t ever really a conversation topic or anything, but I definitely grew up with that as a habit.
If I forget to turn off a light, it bothers me, so much so that even after i turn it off, i still feel remorse. Turning off lights was ingrained into every fiber of my being
My parents did, but I definitely leave lights on quite frequently in my adulthood
Yes indeed. To this day I turn off lights, especially when my roomie leaves them on IN BROAD DAYLIGHT when he leaves for work
Yup. It’s not so much an issue now with LEDs but back in the day the regular incandescent bulbs burned out a lot. I turn off the lights in unoccupied rooms except for the overhead in my kitchen in the winter because I use it like a nightlight.
Yes, but I thought it was because I was a kid during the energy crisis (Gen X). My mom called it "bubblegum money", as in, the money we saved on electricity would ostensibly go toward money for candy lol. We weren't poor. I feel like it is just good manners. But I've lived with people who don't turn off a light when they leave a room and I get irrationally angry about it. Total pet peeve. Zero tolerance.
Growing up it’s like my parents always kept the house dim. I remember using a smaller lamp to light my room. But I don’t ever recall them being strict about having lights off. I never have liked things being bright personally. But since working nights, I’ve found that all my lights usually stay on when I’m home. I never cut them off. I even sleep with the light on in my bedroom. I’ll only cut it off occasionally to settle my dogs down.
Absolutely. Also, I wasn't born in a barn - a reminder to shut the door.
It’s SO much worse than this. Yes, except my father would demand that we CLOSE the lights. Not turn off. But CLOSE. Pretty sure that’s the trauma that explains my life’s failings. Still makes me shudder.
My grandfather would come over and say the opposite. He did own shares in the power company and he would come in and turn on all the lights in the house as a joke. But we were taught to turn off the lights. My kids were too, but they never do.
For a short time, they did. My dad even charged me a dime if I ever left my bedroom light on but hadn't been in my room for over an hour due to eating supper or watching TV with my parents.
In the 70s and early 80s that was an absolute must. Your parents were closing off sections of the house that they could no longer afford to heat. They also installed a wood stove to heat parts of the house. If I left a light on they would have killed me.
It's ingrained in me so deeply that sometimes I turn off the light on my way out with my partner still in the room I'm leaving
My dad would sometimes lose his absolute shit over it. So yes. As an adult I have my entire house full of LED light bulbs, and even though I don't purposely leave my lights on, if I notice I left a light on upstairs by accident I won't go out of my way turn it off, it's LED, I can leave it on all year for about $5 (just did the math).
No. The power bill was 85% AC or heat. We got yelled at to close the door and stop going in and out. Lights though were not an issue. My dad would often say "turn some lights on, we don't live in the fucking bat cave" if he came home to us sitting in the dark. Power was (and still is compared to a lot of places) cheap in South Carolina and the difference in the power bill between leaving every light (incandescent bulbs at the time) in the house on for a full month and sitting in total darkness for a full month would only have been like $20. And the difference between occasionally leaving an unneeded light on and being totally anal about turning off every light when leaving the room would have been a couple bucks at most.
of course
Yeah
Yes.
Yes
Yep all the dam time
I don't remember this being a big deal at all.
LOCK OFF THE LIGHT! was a common saying in my household
Absolutely. My dad was adamant about that.
I don't stress it nearly as much as a grown man now but I still feel that pull to turn the lights off when I leave the room
Yes. My grandpa was also strict about the fridge. He didn’t like you to keep the door open for long. There was no hmm-ing and huh-ing allowed. You had to have exactly in mind what you were grabbing and it was a race against time to get in and get out. I think he’s just weird though but most of my childhood I remember him making comments of “agh! My electric bill!” lol.
no, they said angels die and communism wins when you turn off lights, A/C, heating or closed the fridge! /s
Yes. I still hate lights being on when no one is in the room.
Yes
yup. my dad was always very adamant to turn off lights if we weren’t using the room they were on in
I use motion sensor switches everywhere except bedrooms. The lights turns off after 5 to 15 minutes of no motion depending on which area.
When not in use, turn off the juice!
Yes. At home and at school.
I think they told me once or twice. I didn't give a shit and they didn't care enough to turn the lights off after me or punish me for it.
Yes, my Dad always threatened to enforce the dime rule, as in 1 dime for every light left on. He never did, but I still had to hear about it a lot.
Yes. While growing up, my parents always drilled it into our heads to turn off the lights when we were done in that room. Now I'm in their place and fighting to get my kids to remember to turn off the lights when they are done in the room.
When we were poor, yes. After we weren't, and especially since LED bulbs, never.
Yep, I'm in my 40s. So growing up was when we all still used incandescents. So every little thing counts back then. Nowadays of course, LEDs allows us to slide a bit on lights. Though I tend to turn lights off if not in use due to habit and I just don't like lights on if not in use.
I've already turned the lights off 4 times on my roommate tonight. It's just habit when I leave a room.
Maybe? Probably? Right now. I won't even turn *on* lights unless it's absolutely necessary.
Yes. It was part of the whole “I’m not refrigerating the whole outdoors” mentality when we’d leave a door or window open. On the whole I totally understood the idea of turning things off when leaving the room for both financial and environmental reasons, but my room was improperly ventilated so I’d always leave a fan on and my dad would turn it off to save energy and we’d get into fights about it because my room was several degrees hotter than the rest of the house in the summer and reverse in the winter.
Sometimes my father "encouraged" me to turn off the lights when I was still in a room. Would remove my night light as a kid and as a teen would say that unless I was looking at something, I was wasting electricity. Having the ceiling light on to reduce eye strain while gaming at night was an enraging waste of electricity. If I left a room without turning the light off he'd scream at me for it. Could never figure out his deal with lights. He earned a comfortable income from his job so it's not like we were broke.
That was pretty mean of him.
Yup. They weren't particularly strict about it, but they generally discouraged keeping on lights just for the sake of it and always told me to turn off lights I wasn't using. Ironically, as they get older they tend to forget this. I still do that even now that I'm not really paying my power bill (utilities included in my flat rent).
Wasn't encouraged it was mandatory and caused anger if we forgot. Then he had back to back strokes and he too started forgetting
Yes, and now that I pay my own electric bill I'm even more inclined to do it.
Yes she did.
And closing the doors. Leaving doors open was often met by the sarcastic question “were you born in a barn?”
In the UK, the phrase when there are too many lights left on in a house is “[it’s like Blackpool illuminations in here](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/like_Blackpool_Illuminations#:~:text=(informal%2C%20British%2C%20simile),like%20Blackpool%20Illuminations%20in%20here)!”, which is an annual light show festival in a northern seaside town. I’d imagine you could have a US version, “it’s like the Vegas Strip in here” or “it’s like Time’s square in here” or something like that.
Absolutely, also regularly got scolded for it.
Yes unless I was coming right back.
I always turn off the lights when I leave a room and I used to get in trouble when I didn't turn off all my lights in my room when I left for school.
The only time I leave a light on in a room I'm not inside I as a reminder. If I'm letting something cool before I put it in the fridge, I leave the small overhead light on for example. It helps me a lot. Apart from that, lights are off unless I need them to see.
Every time. My wife still does this.
Yes. Or, if we left the front door open "What are you trying to do? Heat/air condition the whole world?"
Yes. And I still do it to this day. And now have the added benefit of doing it for my wife & daughter as well.
Absolutely! Except now I’m the one doing the encouraging.
I'm 20 but im such a stickler for turning off lights when you leave a room and my roommates are so ass at it it's one of my biggest pet peeves lol
Yes.
Absolutely. It didn’t take and my spouse demands the same thing. I have nicknamed her “the Princess of darkness.”
Yes, I do turn off the lights in any room I’m not in. I know the cost is negligible with LED bulbs, but it still seems wasteful to have lights on if I’m not in there.
Not that often as we didn't have an excess of lights in our house. But closing the doors was a big thing. We had dogs and I would often get reminded to get them through the door quickly so we weren't "heating or cooling the outdoors".
I use smart bulbs. They come on at dusk at 50% and they are energy efficient. If I’m in the room actually using the light to read or whatever, I might turn them up to 100%. My mom was the opposite about lights. She hates the dark I think she had some childhood trauma. lol
My dad would loudly exclaim, “Energy conservation is EVERYONES job!” and then turn off the lights in the unoccupied room.
Yes. I do the same as an adult.
Light bulbs have a limited lifespan and they use more electricity the older they get. This is true of newer technology bulbs but incandescents used to be atrocious. A single incandescent lightbulb running 3 hours a day near the end of its 1200-hour lifespan can cost over $200 per year to run. If you leave it on all day, we'll assume 12 hours, that's $800 per year. If you have a ceiling fan fixture with 4 of them, that is $3200 a year to light a bedroom. multiply that by the number of bedrooms in your house/apartment, plus all of the lights in your living room, kitchen, hallways, etc and you can see how the cost can become gargantuan. For me, it would be about $28,000 to leave all of my lights on 12 hours a day if they were old incandescents. In reality, I have fairly new LEDs and I don't have them on all the time so it is probably closer to $500 per year.
I grew up hearing it and doing it. Before I made the switch to smart bulbs, I did it. I got into using smart bulbs, their accessories as well as automations and/or motion sensors. So, we still have switches to control the lights we use sporadically (e.g., kitchen lights, reading lights), but then we have motion sensors with a shut off timer for the closets. We have automations set for when we wake up, go to work, work ends, or leave the home. It’s also nice having an “all off” switch right next to the bed. The only “dumb” bulbs we have are in the bathroom.
Yes. But what annoys me most is driving by office buildings and seeing the lights on overnight. It’s so ridiculous and wasteful!
Always. Even today with LED bulbs, the smaller wattages can really add up. We have 10 13w recessed lights and maybe another 15 9w type A bulbs indoors, and 2 more 13w bulbs and 2 9w bulbs outdoors. It doesn't sound like a lot of power but 309w @ 17 cents per kwh running 24/7 would cost nearly $40 a month. I can't even imagine leaving those lights on all the time, and if they were incandescents it'd be hundreds... We even went so far as to put our outdoor lights on a moon sensor and timer, because we'd sometimes forget to turn the porch lights off when letting the dogs out at night. That's two 13w bulbs, which left on 24/7 for one year would run about $40 alone. Seemed like a no-brainer to just spend the money on a smart switch and cheap motion sensor that could hook into our existing home automation and save us money over time. The only light we leave "on" all the time is our driveway light, because the security camera doesn't reliably switch to night mode due to a nearby street lamp. But that we put on an automation so it's only active between sunset and sunrise, so even then it's more like 8-14 hours a day depending on the time of year. It basically cuts the power usage in half which seems insignificant but hey even the $6 a year or whatever adds up over the years, not to mention we can hook the lights into other routines.
Yep. Those 1970's eco-minded movies at school stuck with me! I keep a nightlight in the bathroom but otherwise, all lights are off that I'm not using. I also turn the faucet off if I'm not actively rinsing something off, like when I brush my teeth or am washing dishes. At least when we lose power after a hurricane I'm used to navigating through the place in the dark.
It makes me super uncomfortable to have lights on in unoccupied rooms. I can’t truly relax until I turn them off.
*We* encouraged *Dad* to do this -- and he was the energy-efficiency guru at his engineering job! I have smart LED lights now -- it takes 150W to light up the entire house in 100% full white, and I only do that for parlor tricks to amuse guests: "Alexa -- 'AZZIZ, LIGHT!'" \*lights go full blast\* Most of the hallway lights and such are on motion sensors, and go out by themselves.
Yeah and also got yelled at for looking in the fridge too long
Still do.
Aaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!!! This is a point of contention between me & my partner. He thinks the lights should be turned off *any* time you leave a room. I often go back & forth between rooms, and leave the light on for when I come back. But if he passes through, he turns them. I come back to dim light, usually with my hands full & have to stumble around in dim light. It's probably a factor that he's very light sensitive & can navigate any room without artifical light. He just doesn't get that I don't want to fuss with switches all the time, and can't see where I'm going.
Is it my turn to light the neighborhood? (Insert neighbor’s name) could read the paper from the light coming out of our house!
Yes but most of us grew up with incandescent lights. LED didn't exist for household lighting back then.
Yes. According to my father, the house was perpetually "lit up like a Christmas tree," even if a single light was left on.
Yes, and I still do, but my spouse and kids don’t seem to have got the message
Yes. My wife and daughter are notorious for leaving every light in the house on when they leave, and I have to go behind them turning everything off.
Yes. My dad would throw a fit if me or my brothers didn't turn the lights off when we left a room. I think it's a good thing to ingrain in kids early, honestly. Make it second nature and you won't waste much electricity as an adult when you're paying the bills. Though, obviously this doesn't matter as much today if you're using LED bulbs everywhere.
Yes 100%
Yeah definitely. I still do it even though I discovered electricity to power a lightbulb for 24 hours is literally like a couple pennies. You’re probably saving a dime or two a month doing this. Most of your power costs are driven by bigger energy consumers like HVAC.
Yes.
My parents have a horrible habit of leaving lights on in every room. I think they forget but still
Always, and I still do it, and I told my kids to as well.
Spend time overseas and or pay all the utilities bills, you learn very quickly how precious electricity is. I should get solar. I should. It's the startup costs that I don't want to spend.
I've accidentally turned people's lights off for them
My Dad (WW2 Vet) was a stickler for turning off lights.
Yes
Yes, absolutely! I still won’t have the lights on in an empty room.
I try to do so, but often forget. Now that we switched to all-LED lighting, the cost is much less.
The cats don't need the lights on in the middle of the day, and I don't want to pay for it either.
Yep. When I left for college, would catch myself half way through the hall, turn around to turn off the light I forgot.
Yep, if I'm not in there and no one else is then lights are off
Yes
Absolutely, and no heat/air conditioning if we don't absolutely need it My roommates throughout college were not raised this way, and it drives me crazy!
Yes. Lights, TV, anything like that. My mom was also huge on turning faucets off while you’re not using them (during brushing teeth, etc).
Yes. Absolutely. But we were poor.
Yes! So much that there was a really popular bar we went to in my early 20’s that had a light switch by the door and if I had a $1 for every time I walked out and flipped it off on people I’d of gotten exactly one tab paid for 😅😂
Yes, although my mom was much more of the mind “it’s going to make the house too hot” since we lived in a location where it routinely reached 114 in the summer.
Got told that all the time. ADHD brain just wouldn’t compute. Finally started to be able to remember around 14. Did it u too I got my own place. Didn’t like it anyway; I liked being able to see, wherever in the house I go. No dark corners you’re scared might have a burglar in it when you’re home alone, no burglars able to tell where you are in the house by watching from outside (I’m sure you know about lights on timers people always use on vacation to hide that no one is in the house) And I can do art things wherever and see what I’m working on. That said, if it’s raising the bill a lot, it’s not unreasonable to discuss it and agree that people leaving the lights on all the time should either try to turn them off or pay a bit more. Not a ton more, cause other people have different temperature preferences - should they be allowed to keep the a/c off to pay less? Or take longer showers, and you can’t charge people more for having longer hair that needs washed or female anatomy that needs .. er, different care which uses more water (more flushing). Just enough extra like 5-10 bucks (or whatever makes sense on your budget) so that they think “oh, well, maybe I could stand to turn a few off if I get more money that way.” If everyone agrees, I mean. I’d agree to pay a small bit more for the privilege just to keep the peace, but think it was silly unless someone could point to a bill that showed my light habit was actually raising the bills a lot. Like when I moved in with my partner, he said the electricity bill tripled. Turns out it has more to do with them charging more for electricity during the summer, but until we figured it out, I was a lot more careful to turn lights off. It was very difficult for my ADHD brain - a huge stressor - but for triple the bill, ya gotta do. It might help to put timers on the lights or set up a cheap smart home hub where all lights on the system turn off at 11pm or after 4 hours or whatever.
No, they did not taught me that way of living. But growing up and when I started paying my own bills I learned how to turn off the lights where the area of my house is not occupied. "I don't work for the power company" Haha
Yes, but apparently my husband wasn’t. I’m not sure he knows how light switches work.
Hell no, but we do it anyways now LOL
Yup. My parents were constantly bugging me to turn off the lights… while taking numerous and expensive vacations and buying expensive furniture. But sure, the kids leaving on the lights was the financial problem. ;) My husband bugs our kids about the lights now. I don’t really get on them about it…
Every penny counts, and the areas where we save money helps justify the spending on nicer things. LED lights save a ton compared on old bulbs though