Quite literally, actually.

I stopped by Target after work tonight to pick up some compact fluorescent lightbulbs. I’ve warned my husband that I’m planning to replace all the lightbulbs in our home with CFLs, which he normally groans about in response, due to the fact that they’re more expensive than regular incandescent bulbs on store shelves. However, with our electricity bill running up to almost $150 for the month of January, I’m more than willing to pay more now in order to save down the line. Obviously, using less energy to power our lights is both good for the environment and the pocketbook.

The Target on Tustin Avenue in Orange didn’t have much variety of CFLs available. There were a few, but mostly 10- and 20-watt bulbs (which replaces 40- and 75- watt incandescent bulbs). Most of our bulbs now use 60-watt, and there were some 4-packs of 15-watt CFLs for $15.99. As luck would have it, there were also specially-priced 2-packs that cost the same as single bulbs ($4.99 each). Unfortunately, there were only three of these special 2-packs for the 15-watt CFLs, which I quickly hoarded into my basket.

Now, what I totally forgot about was that our dining room lighting fixture is on a dimmer. According to this FAQ on CFLs on GE’s web site, we’ll need special bulbs for those. Oh, and I’ll need something to replace the bulbs in the kitchen’s recessed lighting fixture. Maybe tomorrow I’ll check out the hardware store.

More about CFLs:

• How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine is proposing to ban all incandescent bulbs from our state by 2012.
• Operation Light Exchange is Southern California Edison’s program to allow their customers to exchange their halogen and incandescent light fixtures for new, Energy Star labeled lamps.

Filed by Maria in environment, home