How are you conserving electricity?

I've recently gotten hooked on the personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly, and while I was reading founder J.D.'s interview with his 'millionaire' next-door neighbor, this tip jumped out at me:

“Learn to figure your own power bill and know why it is what it is. People should learn about electrical use. That’s a drain on your monthly budget. Every penny saved on electricity is a penny you can use for something else.”

Obviously, if you're saving money on your bill you are also conserving electricity -- good for your wallet, good for the planet. So I looked up our electric bills from the past two years and discovered that this month's bill is $20 more than it was a year ago. In fact, every single month this year our bill has been between $7 and $40 higher than the previous year! Yes, the rate has increased, but our family's usage has also increased. Where? How? It doesn't feel like we're using more energy, but apparently we are. This distresses me.

So how can I figure out what's racking up our bill? Through another GRS post on electricity I discovered Michael Bluejay's guide to saving electricity. Now this is an amazingly comprehensive site and he covers it all, even explaining how to read your meter and what a kilowatt hour is. Here's something I never considered: I'm home alone five days a week for 7 hours a day, spending most of that time in my office. Yet the heat (set at 68 degrees) is running all day, warming the entire house! Bluejay recommends using a space heater instead. While I can't imagine us solely heating our home with space heaters, there's no reason I can't use one in my office and turn off the central heat during the day. Duh.

Here are some other ideas I need to implement:

• Get a Kill A Watt and figure out which appliances are energy hogs. (Maybe our second freezer is the culprit here?)
• Get a Smart Strip for the computer and entertainment center, which automatically cuts off all of that phantom energy that is always being generated even when these electronics are turned off. (Anyone using these? Any noticeable results?)
• Put the computer in sleep mode when I walk away. I need to put a sign by the door reminding myself to do this!
• Change out more of our recessed and overhead light bulbs to CFLs. All of our table lamps are CFLs, but I haven't been super happy with the light quality for the recessed fixtures. Any good brands to recommend?

The one thing I feel good about is that we've taught our kids to be vigilant about turning off lights when they leave a room. They are both the Light Bulb Leaders in our house and will not hesitate to remind their parents to flick the switch.

Have you taken a good, hard look at your electric bill lately? Have you made any energy-saving changes that have had a noticeable impact on your bill?