How Much Do Holiday Lights Add To Your Electric Bill?
Chances are if you’re someone who hangs Christmas lights on your house around the holidays, you’ve got them up already…or maybe not:0) If you’re like me you try, repeat, try to get them up early so you and your family, friends, and neighbors can enjoy them for a long period of time. I was able to get my lights up pretty early this year and one of the thoughts that usually comes to mind while I’m getting them up is about how much I’m actually saving by using LED light instead of the old incandescent type. It’s not just the house lights though, there are all the lights in the house as well including the bulbs on the Christmas tree.
How Much Do Holiday Lights Add To Your Electric Bill? Well, with inflation at an all-time high, and everyone trying to save wherever they can, I finally decided to find out. The folks at Electric Rate answered the question “How much electricity do Christmas lights use?” We all know our electric bills go up at Christmas and around the holidays, but what are they really costing us each month?
First of all, it comes down to which type of lights you use, LED or incandescent. Assuming the lights are on for six hours a day over 30 days, a string of LED lights will cost less than a dollar. But a similar-sized string of incandescent lights will cost about $3-5 over the same time span. Multiply that by how many strands of lights you use, and you can figure out the impact on your bill. So, I did the math. If I’m spending a dollar a strand per month, then it’s costing me less than nine dollars a month to light up the house. that’s compared to about as much as fifty dollars if I was still using the old incandescent kind.
One final note for those who prefer the incandescent, they also have LEDs that have the same yellow glow as the incandescent, not just bright white.
One more final, final note in case you were wondering: “LED” stands for “light emitting diode.”
