This might be subjective, I don't know. However, it's a serious problem for me. My electrical bill is outrageous. It's three times as large as my next-door neighbor, and four or five times the size of my neighbor's across the street. It's worse in the summer (I live in central TX), but I've had the air conditioner inspected, and while the house is right at the maximum capacity for our unit, the unit should still be able to take care of the load. That also doesn't explain why our winter bills are larger than the comparables.
What I would like to do is check the amount of current drawn by each running appliance and calculate where all my money is going. I just don't know how to go about doing this.
Best Answer
For devices that plug into an electrical outlet, you can use Kill-a-Watt or equivalent to monitor how much electricity they're using.
If that doesn't give you a clear culprit, one low-tech method is to look at the electric meter as you turn off circuits at the service panel one at a time until you see a big change in speed at which the wheel is spinning (for older meters) or the digits are changing (newer meters). If you can narrow down what's using a lot of electricity, you can look at devices one at a time on that circuit to see if one is using more than its fair share.