With energy prices rising and likely to continue that trend for the forseeable future, conserving energy not only makes financial sense, but environmental sense as well. To help with these tasks here are a couple of items which are very valuable:

• Smart Power Strip – These are really cool as a single outlet on this strip controls whether or not power is supplied to other outlets on the device. For example, if you plug your TV into the master outlet and your DVD player and cable box into controlled outlets, when your TV is turned off your DVD player and cable box are automatically turned off as well. As you can guess, turning on the TV would turn on these devices as well. There are also ‘always on’ plugs which are ideal for things you don’t want to automatically shut off, such as your answering machine.
• Electricity Usage Meter – Another cool toy. Simply plug this meter into an outlet and then plug in a device (or an entire power strip) into the meter and you can see how much voltage the device is using. This way you can find out exactly how much power your (for example) computer is pulling. Use this meter to find the most power hungry devices in your house and get them under control.

These are just a few of the items out there. Does anyone use any other gizmos which help conserve power?