Inspired by the wise and wonderful people at the Downsizer forum, I’m setting the Green’s an eco friendly, sustainable challenge. We’re doing an electricity consumption challenge!

It’s very easy to set up. All you do is take a reading at a set time today. And then go about your week as normal.

Find the Downsizer forum at http://www.downsizer.net/

Next week at the same time as today, you take another reading.

For the following week, you put all actions in place to reduce your usage.

Then you take another reading two weeks from today at the same time.

Hopefully you see a decrease in your overall usage, which will prove to you that making conscious choices about your electricity usage can reduce your carbon emissions and therefore your bill. Hopefully this will be an incentive to keep up the changes you have made, or look for even more ways to lessen your reliance on the national grid.

If you want to move towards a more self sufficient lifestyle, you have to firstly know what your needs are. i.e. how much electricity do you need a week? Then you look at ways to reduce it. In an ideal world I guess we all get down to only needing a small amount that we can generate ourselves.

Some people aspire to living off the grid, and watching what electricity we use, why and when can give us vital information so that the switch is as easy as possible.

If you want to join in with your own electricity challenge, why not leave a comment with your meter reading and let us know how you get on?

The Stunning photo of the pylon comes from the following photography site: http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/index.htm

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