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How you can cut $10-50 off your monthly utility bills AND get a netbook for FREE

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How you can cut $10-50 off your monthly utility bills and get a netbook for FREE

Are you paying more than $40 a month for your electricity bill? Do you still use a Desktop PC to surf the internet?

Then here is a great way how you can save between $10 and $50 a month on your electricity bill.

Replace your Desktop PC with a Netbook!

Today's netbooks come with 1.6 GHz dual-core Intel CPUs, 1-2 GB of RAM, and a 160+ GB harddisk. That's just the spec my old desktop had.

Many desktops have a 2-3 GHz CPU, but otherwise it is more or less the same. After all it is more the amount of RAM that makes a difference in speed under Windows.

Buying a new PC is a small investment, but you will see that the netbook is basically for free.

I myself got the ASUS Eee PC 900HA, which is really good value for the ridicously cheap price.

How much electricity do computers use?

Yet, a typical netbook draws only 10-30 Watts from your mains socket, while a typical Dektop PC guzzles 100-1000 Watts, depending on your specs, not to speak of the fan noise. That will add up to bite a big chunk off your wallet, if you are a heavy PC user like me.

Drawbacks?

But Netbooks have tiny keyboards and screens you might say. True, but it does not matter. You can just plug in your Desktop's monitor into the netbook's external VGA connector. And the Desktop's keyboard and mouse you just hook up via USB. If you keyboard or mouse is still PS/2, there are very cheap PS/2 to USB adapters. I got mine for $6.

So how about the missing DVD drive? Be honest - do you ever use your PC's DVD drive? I am using my netbook for 6 months now and never miss it. If you really need it, you can consider buying a cheap USB drive, or just power up your desktop for that occassion.

Break-even after a few months

I did the conversion, and I am saving $40 a month on my bills. My netbook cost me $260 + $6 for the PS/2 adapter. Do the math, and you see that I was break even-after only 6 months.

I even improved my user experience -- the desk with my monitor and keyboard looks exactly like before, and I do not notice any difference in the speed of the webbrowser or Windows user interface.

On top of that my PC is portable. I can take my files to the coffee shop, or watch a movie off the netbook on the living room TV.

I am still wondering what I should do with the free space my huge old PC box used to occupy.