Driving, drinking alcohol, voting, having sex, watching adult media content, smoking, having your own doctor. Most countries have laws in place about such things. The kiddies can't do certain things until they are of a certain age.
But don't they also have to learn what to do as they become an adult of a certain age? Like turning off lights in rooms they aren't using? At what age do they discover the wonder of saving money by turning off unused electric appliances and lights?
The third time they have to pay an electric bill? Cast your minds back to when you became conscious of the need for 'turning things off' to save money.
My lads aren't bad but the unoccupied bathroom light was on for half an hour today, and I turned it off. The clothes on the drying rack in the spare bedroom were dry, so I turned the overhead fan off. I then closed the door as there is no point in heating an unused room.
OMG, the new clothes airer is empty, and the pile of dry clothing has been removed from the bed.
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When you pay the bills !
ReplyDeleteAndrew you are sounding like a Dad, ..the correct answer is when you have to pay the bills
ReplyDeleteWe were taught from a very young age to turn off lights when we left a room, along with not wasting food and water. Dad was very strict on this! Bunyip
ReplyDeleteWhen I turn things off - like lights or appliances, I am not thinking about saving money but about saving the planet. I look along the chain and I see where that power is coming from - those ancient forests, those millennia long before any humanoids evolved on this planet. I think we owe it to future generations not to squander the power that is so much a part of all western lives. I felt this to be so from the nineteen seventies - when I was seventeen or eighteen.
ReplyDeleteYep YP. Save the planet. For we who can afford the electric, think of the environment.
DeleteI'm not sure what you are getting at with this response.
DeleteIf money isn't a consideration for someone, then they should think of the benefits to the environment by being responsible with energy usage.
DeleteThis is something I learned as a child, my mum was quite strict about "waste" with lights being turned off and doors closed as we exited rooms, soap being used until the sliver was almost transparent, leftovers being mixed into "savoury mince", washing being done only once a week, so Saturdays all clothes and sheets/towels etc got their turn in the laundry. As an adult visiting neighbours would call me "stingy" but got more thoughtful when we compared electric bills and mine was always the lowest by about $50 which was quite a lot back then. As I type this I have one lamp illuminating my table and the washing machine running. But at today's prices my electric bill is still going to be too high and this month the rate was raised yet again 😢 Also I have "discovered" the "Oodie" they've been around for a while and aren't the most stylish of clothes, but boy are they warm! I wear mine and don't need to turn on the heating!
ReplyDeleteWell, my mother always told me to turn off lights, so I guess when I was a kid, but it didn't really sink in until I was on my own and the electric bills came to me.
ReplyDeleteWell Andrew, my parents taught me to turn off lights, always, turn off power points and so on, they didn't have to tell me a second time so therefore your question is not applicable to me I guess. I still turn the lights off, don't leave anything on at power points, oh yes, I do it's the TV's and microwave. We have ducted heating which is fabulous for airing the clothes for a day or two, and yes, it warms the other rooms too but the cost of running it is not expensive in my thinking.
ReplyDeleteNothing teaches energy saving faster than seeing your own electricity bill.
ReplyDeleteI learnt at a very young age about turning lights off when leaving a room. I prefer natural light as much as possible, anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt was drummed into me as a child but I never succeeded with my own kids. They left every single light on.
ReplyDeleteMy parents grew up in "the Depression" so as a kid, turning lights off was drummed into me and my siblings until it was second nature. And it still is, but not because of the Depression - now it is something called "paying the bill." And saving the planet. Funny, though, I still turn off lights and appliances, even when I am using electricity during the day that is free, supplied by my rooftop solar panels. Some habits never die.
ReplyDeleteI grew up being shouted at the turn it off. It kind of never left me.
ReplyDeleteIt was pounded in to me as a child, but it took having to pay the bills myself to start shouting at others to do it too. Probably in college in first apartment sharing arrangements. Roommates! Always exasperating.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a household where the mantra was, "When you leave a room turn out the lights!"
ReplyDeleteIt stuck.
It depends on so many factors.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. :)
DeleteThe obvious answer already given by others is that it's when you are paying the bills. Attitudes to saving electricity are probably also conditioned by its cost. Electricity became relatively speaking less expensive for households between the 1930s (when our parents' attitudes were probably formed) and the 1960s to the 1990s (when our attitudes were probably formed). Now the pendulum has swung as energy costs have increased this century.
ReplyDeleteI doubt if you save much by turning lights off. For one thing, lighting these days consumes less electricity as a result of the forced phasing out of incandescent globes.
For me, as YP says, it is more about an attitude to waste and the environment.
Heating, cooling a different matter.
Apparently you could save over $100 a year if you switched off all your appliances on standby at the wall. Then you would have to switch them back on when you wanted to use them.
When staying with his family in China in the past 10 years D experienced some frustration as his brother-in-law would (in D's view) obsessively turn off appliances including D's phone while it was on charge.
That's amusing about D's Chinese experience. I recently learnt about the issues visitors to Australia have with our power points, as they plug in their phone to a power outlet but forget to switch the power on, because many countries don't have power point switches.
DeleteThat's normal for me, I'm a thrifty person, not to say stingy, I've been careful about money and energy savings for as long as I can remember. For example, when I was a little girl, we washed our clothes in the yard with water from the well and dried them on a clothesline. And so on...
ReplyDelete