Using Belkin's $50 WeMo Insight -- a small device you can plug anything into to find out its energy costs -- I methodically went around the house, plugging various appliances into the gadget. I would leave each appliance plugged in for three to four days to get a generalized estimate of usage. Of course, the longer you leave something plugged in to Insight, the more accurate the cost estimate will be.
I started with our fish tank and discovered it sets us back about $2.50 a month to run. Then I moved to an old refrigerator in our basement used for keeping boxes of Popsicles and random drinks cool for us. To my surprise, that old pile of scrap metal was costing us over $40 per month in electricity. We replaced it the next day with a deep freezer-turned-refrigerator that now costs us less than $1 per month.
Our main refrigerator was sucking $27 worth of electricity, and has since been replaced (I haven't had a chance to figure its monthly cost yet). Lastly, I discovered the small space heater I was using to make my office livable during the cold Colorado winters was averaging $98 per month to run -- an insane amount. I'll be replacing it when the weather starts to cool down again.
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