Two years ago my boyfriend (now husband) got a $400 light bill in the mail. Instead of turning off the lights and setting the A/C to 80 degrees when you leave for work—like most sane people would—he spent three days reading up on the Internet about tampering with your electric meter. Anyway, long story short he finally bought a programmable digital thermostat and thought the problem was solved.

If your husband is like mine, you might save a lot of trouble by taking a little advice. First, get an energy audit so you can see where you are really spending your money. Second, make him think it was his idea so it will actually happen. That shiny new thermostat helped a little, but the audit we ordered detailed the truth. One of our compressors was on its last leg, our attic and walls lacked insulation, the stripping on the windows was sub-par and the French doors in the back of the house were leaking cold air.

Energy audits are in demand, especially in the summer and particularly if you live in Houston where its summer just about year-round. An auditor will inspect the structure, roof, HVAC and mechanicals, plumbing, and interior and exteriors of the entire improvement. Most inspections will be concluded with a report detailing potential areas for cost and energy savings. Usually the report will include recommended contractors, products and services. Further recommendations on financing large capital improvements that could help you make your home energy-efficient may also accompany the document.

Some of the advice we took, and some of it we didn't. My point (in case you're lost) is that the energy audit gave us the ability to make educated decisions regarding our energy consumption, and some of the additional financial obligations that come with owning a home.

"Good things come in small packages" is how the old saying goes; I wonder if that applies to weird packages too? You might ask yourself, "What exactly is an LED bulb and why does it have such an odd name" as you reach for the same incandescent bulb your great grandparents used to buy like two hundred years ago (just kidding, the incandescent bulb was patented by Alexander Nikolayevich Lodygin in 1874). Grandpappy was a smart man, so if it worked for him it works for me, right?

Well wake up, times they are a changing. They split the atom, landed on the moon, deciphered the human gene code, and eliminated poverty—well they're still working on that last one. Another one they're working on is saving our planet from becoming an ever-lasting waste pile of humanity, and these "weird" little LED bulbs are a giant step in the right direction.

A light-emitting diode (LED) is extremely small, consumes little energy and contains no lead or mercury, making it quite environmentally friendly. LED's emit light when connected in a circuit, with a semi-conductor chip that has two regions filled with positive and negative electric charges serving as the nuts and bolts.

LED bulbs last 15 years or longer, aren't toxic and use something like 90% less energy than their predecessors. This is really a no-brainer, and the boys at Commerce Energy figured out a way to make it easy by offering the bulbs on their website. The Commerce Energy bulb base comes in both a screw and pin design, making it easy to switch out old incandescent or halogen bulbs. What does this mean for you the consumer? It means more money in your pocket and less destruction to our precious environment, considering about 10% of all home energy costs come from lighting. For once, you can give your pocket and our environment a break at the same time.

P.S. You should still turn the light off when you leave the room!

For more technical information on LED's, please see this Wiki.