Checked my own numbers after reading this and yeah, same thing happened here. Went from filling up twice a month at like $40 each time to maybe $25 extra on the power bill. The math isnt even close. People forget that gas stations are charging you for the convenience too, not just the fuel.

The part about playing tug of war with your cords made me laugh because that was basically my whole life until last year. I actually tried the twist tie thing after seeing it somewhere, and it worked okay for about two weeks, then I got lazy and stopped re-tying them every time I moved a cable. My desk ended up looking like a spider got into the office supplies. Now I use a mix of both, a sleeve for the ones that never move and twist ties for anything I plug and unplug a lot. The real trick is labeling the ends with a little tape so you know which is which without following the whole cord. Two bucks for 100 ties is hard to beat though, and you can't really mess it up.