The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a study regarding the power usage of consoles. During the course of the study it found that gamers who leave their consoles powered on all the time spend more than $100 a year to leave their game console idle.

At first glance this appeared to be a damning study, especially if the NRDC defined "on" as a console left in standby mode; however the actual definition of "on" for this study was leaving the console completely up and running.

The cost of leaving your console on all the time varies, but no matter which console you choose, never turning it off is costly. Leaving your PS3 on all the time will cost between $130 and $160 depending on which version you have, compared to under $15 if it is turned off when it's not being played. Similarly the Xbox 360 costs between $100 and $140 if left on all the time but under $14 if turned off when you're done. The Wii is the most power efficient; only costing $10 if left on all the time, compared to $3 if turned off when it isn't in use. Leaving it on is still wasting $7, however.

The mail carrier knows: when the envelopes from the local utilities start changing color, it's bad news. Most gas and power companies use yellow for warning, pink for impending shut-off. In an NPR interview, Andrea the mail carrier (who is not yet a figure in John McCain's campaign) talked about what she knew about the economy from her mail route. She knew, for instance, that there were many residents on her Seattle route who were constantly flirting with shut-off notices.

Today's Wall Street Journal has more solid proof, citing reports that localities such as Memphis and Pennsylvania had increased utilities shut-offs between 38% and 78% so far this year, with a New Jersey utility company making the chilling observation that it has been "diligent in our shutoff activities" in 2008.

But you hardly need independent verification; all you have to do is walk around your neighborhood and look for the door knob notices in bright colors, the closer to red, the worse off your neighbors are. Utilities are responding to the situation without remorse, considering reducing the past-due amount that will require shut-off and installing new wireless, digital meters that can be shut off remotely without extra cost for sending out a crew. (Brilliant! Power to the ... oh wait ...)

Have you seen many pink envelopes in your neighborhood? I've seen a few in mine, but it's the same houses all the time, so it hardly feels connected to the economic crisis. But with prices up everywhere, this winter could prove to be full of bright colors.

Last month my colleague Carol Vinznat wrote a great article which helped you figure out just how much your appliances were costing you just because they are plugged in, using several different power monitoring tools. The good news is that even if you haven't used one of these personal power meters you can check out Good Magazine's vampire energy chart to spot potential wastes in your house. The bad news is that now you'll have to take action to cut down on the energy lost to these power suckers, a place many households fail.

Thankfully, eliminating power waste from passive energy is about to get easier due to a new surge protector from Belkin which comes with a wireless power switch to let you control when the outlets are turned off. Carol pointed us to some very helpful surge protectors which turn off your computer peripherals when the main PC is powered down. This new offering from Belkin builds on this idea and looks to be an excellent way for home theater enthusiasts to stop power drain with minimal inconvenience all for just $50 from Belkin's website.

I've thought about just flipping the switch on our surge protector to save money on the passive power that comes with having two game consoles, a receiver, LCD TV, and more hooked into my home theater. But like many of your setups, the power strip is buried better than King Tut! By adding a wireless switch to this surge protector, Belkin provides an easy way for me to cut our power usage while still being in control of when the power is cut.

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.

This video has been around for a while but Rob Gruhl does such an excellent job at explaining how to purchase a car that it is well worth your time even if you aren't in the market just yet. Even though the focus of the talk is on how to buy a new car, you can easily adapt most of this advice to the used car hunt as well. I've lamented my last car purchase on WalletPop before and I wish I had watched this video before we set foot in the dealership last year.

My favorite piece of information from this video is to remember that you as the buyer have the power when you go into the dealership. There were numerous times during out purchasing that we thought things were iffy but we didn't walk because we got too attached to the car and forgot that we held the power in the transaction. Something that I don't think most people realize when they go in to purchase a car is that, unless you are buying a first edition Dodge Charger, there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of almost identical cars out there for you to purchase.

I wish we had remembered that when we went shopping, instead I got in the mindset that this is the only one we will ever find in our price range and began justifying this and that to ourselves, eventually purchasing the car and getting suckered into GAP insurance and dealer financing. Both of which we ended up switching within a month and saving a bundle. Remember, "If you're doing it right, you'll feel like an ass."

Check out our previous coverage on "How not to buy a car" by Zac Bissonnette

Late last year we purchased a used Chevy Equinox which was ultimately financed through a local credit union. We have been members of another local credit union for several years, my wife even longer if you count her years as a "kid saver'. We went with the other credit union because it had a better rate and offered GAP at a cheaper price as well. Once we signed all of the paperwork we set up a direct transfer to cover the monthly payments from credit union A to credit union B. Unfortunately sometime in the first month a transfer and a refund got messed up due to an error on each credit union's part.

Trying to explain the bank error over the phone to people at both locations was difficult because on each bank's computers the transaction looked to be by the books. The error was only obvious when you had both accounts in front of you. Thankfully, after I spoke to the credit union we financed our car with, their employee in charge of direct deposits took it upon herself to call up the other credit union and hash out the details. It turns out the wrong account number was used in a few places, and the money was rejected as payment by credit union B but when the money was sent back credit union A put the money in the wrong account leaving our ledger showing a payment that was never received.