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'Advice From a Single Girl' blogger "Victoria" remains anonymous with this back-to-the-camera shot.

January 29, 2009

'Single girl' delivers on Team Power Smart goal

Posted by Nola Poirier

Forget Lavalife and Plenty of Fish. There's a single girl out there who's really got her stuff together, is concerned about a world wider than herself, has a great sense of humour, and on top of all that, has reduced her energy consumption by 25%!

The anonymous single girl – she says I can call her "Victoria" – writes a blog called Advice from a Single Girl, with a header that begins:

"Maybe I'm that girl you saw today, maybe I'm not. But maybe something I'll say will help you out with that girl and you'll live happily ever after."

I think she's right. If we all take actions like the ones she describes in her January 16 blog entry, where she tells how empowering it has been to join Team Power Smart and reduce her energy use, then we might all live more happily ever after, instead of telling stories about the planet that begin: Once Upon a Time...

I'll bet that energy reduction is the real relationship clincher for her too. It is with so many singles these days. And whether you're interested in single girls or not, Victoria has some pretty great ideas we can all learn from.

Tale of a single girl

So I emailed her to find out more about where she lives. Here's her response:

"I live in the Rockland/Fernwood area of Victoria, close to downtown and close to the ocean. I live on the second floor (of three) but there's no apartment below me, so that's nice. Means I can tap dance without disturbing anyone if I wanted to!

"I have hardwood floors, tall, vaulted ceilings, and nice big windows. So although my place isn't huge, I get a lot of light. I can't see the water, but I can often see fireworks and things from downtown, and I can hear the church bells and carillon ringing.

"What else... um, there are lots of trees around so it's really a very pretty place. I don't know exactly how old my building is, but I still have those glass, screw-in fuses in my oven. Oh, and we had a mini-power outage this morning, so that's kind of ironic somehow!"

Then I asked her to share what she did to reduce her energy use by 25%.

"Here are some of the things I did:

"My place, by the way, is an old one-bedroom apartment with radiator heating so I don't have electric heat. I didn't use a fan to cool things off. Instead, I opened my windows and pulled down my blinds to keep the (hot!) sun out.

  • "When it got cold, I didn't go out and buy an electric heater, I just piled on blankets and kept a hot water bottle filled.
  • "I stopped leaving lights on when I left the house. (I used to leave a light on to have a friendlier feeling when I got home, as I live alone).
  • "Now I only ever have a light on in the room I'm in. (I used to have my bedroom light on in the evenings even before I got to bed.) This seems like such an obvious thing to do but I hadn't even really realized I was doing it.
  • "I have two power bars that things are plugged in to. So my computer charger's plugged in to that and I only turn it on when I need to charge my computer (or iPod or whatever else I'm charging). The other power bar has my TV/VCR/DVD players plugged into it and when I'm not *actually* watching TV, they're unplugged completely, or if I know I'm going to watch TV a few days in a row, I'll have them plugged in but the power cord turned off.
  • "I also unplug things when I go to bed, so if I was, for example, using a heating pad for my back, I wouldn't just switch it off at night, I'd actually unplug it too. I try to think that if the plug's in the wall, it's using electricity and it doesn't have to be. (Well, except for my fridge.) :)

"In a nutshell, I didn't do anything drastic. I didn't go out and buy energy efficient anythings or change my appliances. I just unplugged a lot of things (because, really, I can wait an extra minute while my TV resets itself because it's been un-plugged), and I turned off lights that weren't directly in use. (That was a big one).

"Also, on months when my bill came back larger than the time before, I tried to think about what I might have done or forgotten and fix that for next time. - Like the night I woke up and realized that I'd *not* switched the heating pad off, but had turned it up to full... d'oh! Now I unplug it too. Or when I had the fan going on a super hot summer day and realized I could just go outside for cryin' out loud and turn off the fan."

Feeling inspired? For more ideas on how to reduce energy in your home or business, check out our Green Your Home and the Green Your Business guides. And if you haven't already, join Team Power Smart.

Nola Poirier is a freelance writer and a key contributor to bchydro.com's Green Guides.

Previous posts by Nola Poirier, who lives on the Sunshine Coast:

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Source: BC Hydro

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