It's hard to figure out how to save energy in your home if you don't know how much you're using and where. That's why those who are serious about saving money or electricity are turning to electricity meters.

Formerly the province of serious electronics geeks with $1,200 to blow on a big, elaborate meter, pocket-sized electricity meters are now becoming popular with the masses.

Daniel Dern at ComputerWorld took a close look at some of the products out there, and recommends a "plug load meter" that measure the output of an individual appliance. It tracks the device over a period of time so you get high and low output numbers, then calculates how much energy it uses and how much money that costs over a typical month or year.

According to NewScientist, if Americans want to save their economy, they should go on a diet. Not only that, but ecologists say that "the apparently looming energy crisis could be averted if US residents cut their calorie intake."

On the surface, this sounds like it could be contradicting plain economic reason. The U.S. must consume more, not less, to save the economy, right? But is that long-term thinking in the face of higher food and energy costs?

The scientists who tried to bring their point across, David Pimentel of Cornell University and colleagues, showed how a few relatively simple changes can save energy. A lot of it. Changes include improvements in farming to more efficient bulbs, reduced transportation distances, cutting on packaging and more.

Fine, you say, what's that got to do with my diet?

Is President Bush fishing around for something to do after he leaves office in January? Yesterday at a press conference he seemed to be trying out the job of dispensing personal finance advice. I know, I know, telling people how to save seemingly microscopic amounts of money seems so glamorous. The fancy financial calculators! The posh setting (your home!).

Other presidents have been tempted. If WalletPop were around in 1977, Jimmy Carter might have wanted to write a barn-burner post headlined Will a sweater lower your heating bills?

President Bush -- who learned from reporters in February that analysts feared gas was heading to $4 -- dropped quite a few money-saving and economy-stimulating tidbits into his press conference. As busy as he's been these last seven years, he's still moonlighted a bit, instructing Americans about the meaning of recession or the value of shopping.

The Rand Corporation just came out with news saying severely cutting our dependence on oil, gas and coal is going to be harder than they intially reported. When Rand did the same study in 2006 and came out with more favorable results, it was because of an error in the computer model. Rand was calculating how hard it would be to cut 25% of our energy to renewable resources by 2025 for the Energy Future Coalition. They run the group 25 by '25, which is trying to make that metric a rallying cry and goal.

Rand says that the getting there will require "dramatic progress in renewable energy technology." They also hint that they would like to get rid of ethanol subsidies, though they aren't counting on it. They're huge fans of the potential for biomass. They'd really like to see the country to switch from making ethanol from corn--which is highly inefficient, though popular with farmers--to making it with agricultural and wood waste or switchgrass.

For many people the report will be a re-affirmation of the obvious: we can't just count on natural progress to reduce energy waste. That's the kind of thinking in President Bush's goal to cut greenhouse gas by 2025 -- but only after letting it go much higher for the next 10 to 15 years. Both major presidential candidates have indicated they're willing to be more serious about the project. Rand thinks the free market may produce some better alternatives now that gas is so expensive. The Rand report also thinks some kind of requirement for renewable energy isn't a bad idea to foster the market--as long as it's phased in sensibly. Right now only 9.5% of our electricity and 1.6% of our motor vehicle power comes from renewable sources. That is a long way to go to 25%.

Wynn Brower, age 10, figured that his family was wasting $1 every night that they kept all four computers on. At just 25 cents per computer per night that adds up to $365 for his family each year. He won an award at the science fair, then went on to save his own Monroe County, Indiana, $25,000 a year by getting them to turn off its 550 computers overnight.

I had scoffed when a computer savvy friend scolded me for leaving my computer on all the time. You must really love Con Ed, she said. I didn't think I was using much electricity at all. In the large scheme I'm not. But if everyone does it every night, then we all are. Brower's project is a great reminder that even though our computer may sleep and the monitor may go dark, we are still wasting a lot of energy.

Obviously, the amount of power and money you waste depends on how energy efficient your computer is and how much you're paying for power. Arizona Public Service Company estimated how much it costs to run various office equipment.They calculated that a computer costs $39 to run 24 hours a day for a full year. A 15-inch monitor was $54. A laser printer was $44. Their calculations for what it saves by turning it off overnight were smaller than Bower's -- turning off all three would save $9, $12 and $14 a year. That's only 2.4 cents for just the computer overnight, but nearly 10 cents for all three.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, run by the University of California provides a great resource for finding ways to reduce your energy consumption through its Home Energy Saver website.

The energy calculator takes climate data as well as local information and combines it with your current residence to find projects you can do to increase your energy efficiency. While the questions are geared toward someone living in a house, my results provided useful tips for apartment living,

I think my favorite part about this energy savings project is that it lets you choose the number of years between installation and the time the upgrade pays for itself. For example when I ran the survey I choose items which would pay for themselves in the first year, since i hope to be moving into a home by that time. I ended up with three actions to take on the actual building which I will pass on for now and two interior activities to reduce energy consumption all of which should pay for themselves in year one. If I purchased a programmable thermostat and finished my conversion to CFL lighting as the survey recommends I would save $120 in energy costs in just one year.

This is a really easy way to get a snapshot of your home energy uses and look for ways to lower your monthly bills. I can't emphasize how great it is to choose actions and upgrades based on the time it takes to pay for itself in savings. Finally the use of local information and the ability to enter my own utility prices pushes this tool over the top. The options I went with are just the tip of the iceberg, homeowners looking for items that pay for themselves over longer periods of time will find even more ideas. I am definitely bookmarking this so that I can run it on any home I am ready to purchase, in case I want to ask for any upgrades before I purchase.

Every so often, I come across a statistic that makes me pause for a moment. This week, the big stat was 14%, which is the amount of household electricity that the average refrigerator consumes. By comparison, lighting takes up a measly 9%, clothes dryers take up 6%, and color TVs take up 3%. This makes refrigerators the single most energy-consuming appliance in the average home. Incidentally, this also means that roughly $0.14 of every dollar spent on electricity goes to paying for the fridge. That's a lot of money.

One solution, of course, is to throw away the old icebox and pick up a new one, preferably a model with the new "Energy Star" rating. These fridges use half the electricity of models produced before 1993, 40% less than models produced in 2001, and 15% less than the current government regulations require. That having been said, new refrigerators are pricey, and you might not have several hundred dollars burning a hole in your pocket. While you save up for an Energy Star fridge, here are a few things that you can do to put your refrigerator on an electricity diet: