Electricity!

  Everyone is so concerned about energy nowadays. What's your carbon footprint? Emissions, electricity. All the energy companies are giving us tips on how to save energy, something my mum has been doing for years. She always nags us about not leaving the TV on standby, turning the lights off, not leaving the fridge door open.
  We take electricity for granted and I'll never worry about how much I use until I'm the one paying the bill. Mum doesn't care about the planet either to be honest, she too, only cares about the cost.
  Don't get me wrong guys, I care about the environment. I walk pretty much everywhere and take the bus often - actually that's probably because I can't drive but it still sort of counts - I only ever use one major appliance at a time and only boil the kettle when I need to, only using the amount of water I need.
  The reason I'm talking about energy is not because I'm advertising 'use less emissions', I'm no tree hugger. The reason is we got a meter reader, which tells us how much we're using in the house and how much it's costing us in a day.
  Right now it's about 50% more than usual as we're home and off school and work and using more things, the telly is on all the time. But it really surprised me how conscious I am of the fact we're using energy, even though I'm not paying for it, I'm kinda surprised, which is what the companies want. Well they don't want that because they get less money, but the government wants that and the ozone layer does too.
  One thing that I do find hilarious is how crap the companies are at giving these things out. We just switched, and our old company never gave us the meter reader we ordered about six months ago, both meter readers from both companies arrived within days of each other, even though we've switched.
  My Grandad is now enjoying nagging my Nan even more about the kettle being on too much - we gave them our spare.