You know Van Helsing, right?  He’s the famed vampire hunter of books and film.  While vampires and phantoms of all sorts victimize the unsuspecting, Van Helsing is out there with a wooden stake in one hand an a mallet in the other.

Okay, my frugal-minded friends, it’s time to play Van Helsing!  You need to go on a vampire hunt.  Instead of tracking down the reflectionless bloodsuckers, however, you’re going to target a different vampiric beast.  I’m talking about vampire appliances.

Vampire appliances.  We all have them and they’re exacting a toll on all of us.  You don’t need to worry about your refrigerator sneaking into your bedroom and nibbling on your jugular.  These vampires prefer electrical energy over blood, waste and inefficiency over immortality and shape-changing.

Vampire appliances are the various gadgets in your house that continue to suck electricty even while you’re not using them.  If they’re plugged in, they’re running up your energy bill.  No single device is probably squandering a terror-inducing about of electricity, but the combined effect of your home’s vampire hoard could account for a significant part of your monthly utility bill.  It’s a scary enough proposition that the Department of Energy

recommends unplugging when possible.

Appliances with transformers are often part of the wasteful army of the undead.  Your cell phone chargers and other similar power adapters are notorious for drawing electricity even when they’re not connected to anything.  If you’ve ever walked into a darkened room, you’ve probably been greeted by the red and green eyes of other vampires.  These are appliances that stay partially on even when you’re not using them.  They suck “standby” electricity to prepare them for the moment you put them into use by tapping a remote control.  Other vampires are less obvious in their presence.  Many older electronic appliances can sip electricity all night long.

The best way to beat these monsters?  Unplug the appliances when they’re not in use.  If you don’t relish the idea of reaching behind the entertainment center and contorting your body into something worthy of the center stage at a Cirque de Soleil show, you can opt for a power strip with an “off” switch.

So, defeating the beasts doesn’t require a great deal of real effort, time or expense.  Nonetheless, it does require you to do something so we should probably make some determination of the value of playing electrical Van Helsing.  How much money will unplugging electrical devices really put back into your pocket?

That’s going to depend on two variables:  The price you’re paying for electricity and the particular appliances in your home.  Overall, it seems as though people regularly suggest you can save 5% – 7% or more on your power bill by fighting vampires.  Some people report significantly larger savings, others claim that the trimming is trivial.

That’s really only part of the story, though.  By consuming less electricity, you reduce overall demand for energy.  This, in turn, has advantages on a conservation level and on a price level.  Reduced demand results in lower prices.  Thus, your 5% savings is contributing to the possibility of an eventual rate cut for electricity.  True, one person’s actions aren’t going to change our plugged in society.   If enough people unplugged, however, it could theoretically have a price-reducing impact.

So, fighting those phantom power suckers ala Van Helsing will save you mone while reducing your environmental impact and contributing to a reduction in demand for power.  All things considered, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea.

You don’t need the wooden stake.  You can grab a power strip instead.  Don’t worry about draping a garlic necklace around your neck, either.  You can substitute the willingness to take an extra second to flip a switch or to pull a plug.  Going unplugged will be a hard habit to start, but once it’s in place you’ll be killing vampires like a professional  hunter.