We're really struggling with phantom power load at our house.

The phantom power load, which is estimated at 15 percent of the household electrical bill, is what goes to devices when they're not doing anything directly for us. TVs, phone chargers, computers, etc. As a pretty electronic family, we have lots of these.

Several factors have been getting in the way, but it boils down to laziness and habit. Lazy, because I don't feel like going around the house every night and snapping these things off, and then going around again in the morning and snapping them on. I want the remote controls to work, so that when i want to watch TV, I just hit the button, rather than getting off my ass.

One recommendation for dealing with this is to put them on power strips, so that instead of separately shutting off, say, the VCR, the DVD, the TV, the receiver, and that do-hickey that makes the remote control work from anywhere, I could just hit one button on the strip. But that's still a button in the basement, a button in the living room, a button in the office, etc.

In our two-person household, we run three computers — four if G. is working from home — and they all stay on all the time. I've got my laptop now set to turn off every night, and turn back on in the morning, but some of the software I usually have running cancels the log out with some dialogue box. That's the bad-habit part of the equation — I could shut that software off before going to bed, but if I could do that, then I'd remember to shut the damn thing off myself.

Would we like a 15 percent cut in our electrical bill? You bet.

Would we feel good about keeping that much carbon out of the atmosphere? Absolutely.

Are we even approaching perfection in our energy-saving ways? Not by a long shot.

It is what friends of mine and I call an AFGO: Another freakin' growth opportunity.