Living Simpler: CFLs are energy hogs!

For the last 5... maybe more years we've been told to throw out your old energy hogging incandescent bulbs and purchase these new CFL bulbs and save money while being green. Well I say throw out those energy hogging CFLs and replace them with the LEDs.

Dont get me wrong, CFLs are much more energy efficient then the ol' incandescents but their days are numbered and as soon as LED bulbs start falling in price they will be the new king of the hill. Right now you can replace a 60watt incandescent for a 13 watt CFL.  However, there are already LED bulbs that put out the same amount of light as a 60 watt incandescent but use only 6 watts of electricity. The problem is the cost because a regular 60 watt bulb is easily less then a dollar but the equivalent LED bulb hovers around the $50 mark. Ouch! Granted, the LED bulb will last years longer but it still costs an arm and a leg.

Katie and I can't afford to spend $50 on a bulb so we have done something different. We have replaced all the lamps in our bedroom with these little nightlight candelabra LED bulbs made by C. Crane which cost around $5 each. These lights do not put out an incredible amount of light but enough to see where you need to go. They also only use .85 watts each!

According to this spreadsheet we will save about $4.00 every month and about $50 every year using these bulbs instead of incandescents, BUT we run these bulbs off solar energy which equates to even more money saved.

One day all our bulbs will be LED but until then we'll have to suffer through those energy hogs called CFLs. :)