The Kill A Watt meter spent most of the last year in the junk drawer under a roll of blue painter's tape. Last June I paid $25 for it and plugged it into everything on our counter to find out what it costs to cook dinner with each appliance. Since then we've switched electric plans, and Matt keeps asking whether the air fryer is "basically free now." So for the last two weeks of June, it came back out.
What changed: the rate
Last summer we were on a 12-month fixed plan at about 15.4 cents a kilowatt-hour, all-in. In October, after a $373 August bill and an expiring contract, I compared plans on Power to Choose and we switched to a 24-month fixed plan that works out to about 13.6 cents all-in. It runs until October 2027.
The June bills, side by side:
- June 2025: 1,955 kWh, $301
- June 2026: 1,970 kWh, $268
We used fifteen more kilowatt-hours this June and paid $33 less. At last year's rate, this June's usage would have cost about $303. So the entire drop is the rate. The way we cook barely moved the number.
What didn't change: the appliances
I measured the same way as last year: plug the appliance into the meter, cook dinner the normal way several times, take a typical number. The plug-in appliances used almost exactly what they did last June, which makes sense, since they're the same machines cooking the same dinners. The only difference is what each kilowatt-hour costs.
- Oven at 400, a 12-minute preheat plus 45 minutes: about 2.1 kWh. 32 cents last year, 29 cents now.
- Ninja DualZone air fryer, both baskets, 25 minutes: about 0.65 kWh. 10 cents then, 9 cents now.
- Crock-Pot 7-quart, low for 8 hours: about 1.5 kWh. 23 cents then, 20 cents now.
- Instant Pot, a one-hour cycle: about 0.4 kWh. 6 cents then, 5 cents now.
- Presto electric griddle, 20 minutes: about 0.45 kWh. 7 cents then, 6 cents now.
A note on the oven: it's hardwired, so the meter can't read it, and last year's number was an estimate from the bake element's rating and how long it actually stayed on. I didn't turn the oven on in late June just to repeat that estimate. Same oven, same element, same 2.1 kWh at the new rate is 29 cents.
Two new things on the meter
The pellet grill. We didn't own it last summer. It plugs in, so I ran its cord through the meter for last Saturday's pork shoulder, about eleven hours on the grill. The igniter pulls a lot for the first few minutes, then the fan, auger and controller sip power the rest of the day. The whole cook used about 0.6 kWh, or 8 cents. The pellets for that same cook, about 16 pounds, cost $7.20. On a pellet grill, electricity is a rounding error and the pellets are the fuel bill.
The chest freezer. Last August, right after we bought our garage-ready freezer, it used about 0.9 kWh a day with the garage in the high 90s. This June, with the garage thermometer hitting 104 most afternoons, it averaged a little under 1 kWh a day, about 13 cents. That's roughly $3.90 a month to keep a freezer full of food cold in a Texas garage, which feels like a bargain after what we lost when the old one died.
So is skipping the oven still worth it?
In dollars, even less than before. Last year I figured skipping the oven saved us maybe $6 to $10 a month in summer, counting the oven's own electricity and the extra work the AC does pulling its heat back out of an open kitchen. At the new rate, that's more like $5 to $9. The AC is still the real load in this house, and the meter still can't measure it.
We skip the oven for the same reason we did last year: a kitchen that stays near 76 degrees at dinnertime, and a two-year-old who isn't sweaty and cranky in her booster seat by 5:45. That was always the real win. Switching plans saved us more than every air fryer dinner of the summer put together.
These are our numbers, with our appliances and our plan. Anyone else's will depend on their own rate and their own kitchen. And Matt's question about turning the thermostat down to 74 got answered too. The spreadsheet said no.
The meter is going back in the junk drawer. Next summer I may skip the test and just divide by whatever our rate is, which the bookkeeper in me should have realized a year ago. I'm finishing this with the van half packed for a week at Matt's parents' in Tyler, and I am not bringing the meter.
