LOL.. I thought the same thing. Must be nice!
Example: I just got my bill. $295.00.
Of course I have a full apartment over the garage being used by my mother. Yep 2 water heaters. 3 heat pumps, 2 dryers, 2 washers, 2 stoves, 2 dish washers, 2 microwaves ---- god help me.

All numbers are kwh.

Old Address:

March: 221
April: 217
May: 173
June: 153

New Address:

July: 393
August: 349

And an update.
Yesterday I recieved my august september bill.
Changes in usage from the previous bill are
I'm using the clothes dryer again About 6 loads in september
I changed that water pump to the more efficient one half a month into the bill
the lights are on a little bit more due to it being dark earlier
I've been doing lots of construction including running a cement mixer for about 30 hours

The results are 0.82 kw/h used for a total of 1213 in 62 days or roughly 600 kwh/month This is still too high for my tastes but is way down from the 1500 kwh/month I started at
It's also just shy of 40% lower then the previous bill.

I'm quickly running out of inexpensive things to do to reduce the usage but here is the list of things still coming up.
- The hot water tank
I'll be doing a few things here. First up is about december I'll be redoing my bathroom with a complete gut. At that time I'll be taking the hotwater tank and relocating it into a closet. I'll possibly replace it at that point with a more efficient model and for sure I'll be rapping it in a large amount of insulation to try and keep it warm when not in use. I'll also be adding a timer to turn it on in the morning and then off during the day during weekdays.
I don't get sun in the winter but solar preheating will be looked into for next spring. I'll plumb everything with this in mind.

-the fridge
It's getting worse noise wise lately and seems to be running more often, it may be going. I have no intention of replacing it this year however.

-electric heat
The project to get wood heat is well underway, hopefully I'll have my first woodfire going mid november.

Really the biggest gain for long term savings is the girlfriend is completely on board at this point. That makes it far easier to explain why you turn the tv off at the power bar instead of with the remote

I'd be interested in brands especially with web links to them.

So far for oil I have:

Thermo Pride's OH6 Low-Profile Highboy Oil Furnace 87.2% AFUE at medium fire with Riello Burner option.

and for natural gas I have:

Dave Lennox Signatureâ„¢ Collection G61V Variable Speed Gas Furnace up to 94.6% AFUE.

We bought one model below the "variable speed" versions, and we are glad we did. Some of the top-end models keep the air circulation fan on 24x7 - which is not part of the measured efficiency of the unit. If your house is well insulated and not "leaky" having the fan run continuously seems wasteful.

I recommend you look at the "condensing" models but not the "fan runs all the time" models.

This may not be quite the information you are looking for, but the efficiency of geothermal heat pump (water furnace) is 300-400%.

If you are replacing a furnace, you might want to take a look at it. We just replaced a 30-year-old 65% efficient oil furnace with a heat pump. The price of fuel oil locally is $2.30/gal. If we had gone with a 90% efficient oil furnace, it would have taken 18 years to recoup the cost. Switching over to gas drops it down to 16 years. The geothermal pays for itself in 5 years. Yes, the initial expense is high, but if you are replacing a furnace anyway the differential cost is much lower.

PM me if you want more specific numbers.

About four years ago I put a bryant 95% condensing gas furnace in. It is not variable capacity. At the same time I put a heat pump in for use as an AC/ supplimental heat system. (basically an ac system with a little extra pipe.) Bryant and Carrier are the same company. I am really happy with the new furnace. It is so quiet you can barely hear it running. Really heavy, I had to put it over a load bearing wall in my attic.

I put the system in myself with the help of a friend who owed me one. I bought new, scratch and dent equipment from a local distributor. (I know they are not supposed to sell to people who are not gas certified, but, hey, I had cash) It cost $2500 for the furnace, the 12 SEER condensor, the evap, tubing set, electronic air cleaner, humidifier, uv duct germ killer, fancy thermostat. My buddy (Union journeyman HVAC/sheetmetal guy) built and installed all of the rigid insulated ducts for $2000. The estimate I got from a local contractor came to $11,000. I used the difference to insulate the hell out of my house and replace all of the doors and windows.

I can heat with either gas, electricity, or both. I'm planning on putting a buried evaporator in for using ground mass energy this year. With gas running about 11-12 a thousand right now, I'm using the heat pump. THe ground mass systems are a lot more efficient that the fan coil units. Currently, it is only getting into the 40's at night, when it starts dropping into the 20's I'll go back to gas.

I used to heat with wood, and I would go through about 6 cords a year. I used, last year, a total of $200 in gas. It is actually cheaper to run this rig than burn wood (costs 175 a cord here). Of course I keep about 10 cords in the woodshed "just in case".

Hybrid air-source heat pump - fossil fuel dual seems to be a big win. Air source heat pumps are cheap to install and will work on many days. The idea of using electric as a backup for an air source heat pump is a loss since electric heat is expensive. If you are using a fossil fuel furnace for the bad days in many locations the air source heat pump will cheapen the not-so-bad days.

Ground source heat pump is good on paper but I've been unimpressed with the news from http://www.groundloop.com/ and my property is not an easy place to install things. Ground source heat pumps are expensive.

Actually, when I was referring to using electricity, I really meant the heat pump. I confused them, but the heat pump runs on electricity, so I call it electric heat. I guess that most people associate electric heat with resistance-type units.

What I need to do is figure a way for my thermostat to look up gas prices online, electricity prices online, temperatures of the inside and outside air (calc. the efficiency of the heat pump), and decide whether it's cheaper to run the heat pump or the gas burner. Then I would really have something.

Be sure to also look at rebate programs in your state/province/ country, etc. In our province there are grants for certain furnaces, etc.'

There's some good advice above. Some of the issues of cost revolve around how handy you are and how much of the work one does oneself. A high efficiency furnace can mean more maintenance and service calls down the road. Building codes can add some added costs to a new furnace or conversion such as clean air intakes, venting, etc.

Everyone's situation is unique but look at the alternatives for every dollar spent. There's a good comment above about more efficient windows, more insulation, etc.

I bought a Kill-A-Watt meter at the Texas RE Roundup, http://www.theroundup.org/ for US$35. I think some websites sell them a little less than that.

At work, I measured the power usage of my office Dell computer and monitor running Windows2000 with the Kill-A-Watt meter.
With the comp off and the monitor's power switch on, the PC still draws 4-5 watts. (Hint: Turn off the monitor power button too when you turn off the PC. Stop those vampires!)
After booting up, the PC will consume anywhere between 120-180 watts. I did not measure the PC's energy use while a CD was getting burned. When the monitor goes to sleep, the PC still draws about 40 watts if the drives, fans, and power supplies are kept energized. A screensaver consumes more energy than idling the monitor.

There are about 2000 Dell computers at my employer. If we can get all the employees to use the "Power Options" feature (located in the Control Panels) and get all the employees to power down either when they're away from their comp, (like out to lunch), and also get everyone to turn off their PC overnight and over the weekends, we may save the agency a lot of dollars. I hope I get recognized for my energy conservation tip at work.

I agree that an electric water heater and the frig are two of the biggest electric items in one's home. Central electric heating is another biggie.
I purchased a passive solar water heater almost three years ago, and I estimate that I'm over a third (perhaps closer to half with the cost of electricity rising) of the way towards my ROI vs. utility electricity costs.

I also replaced my frig. I bought an EnergyStar frig rated at 458 kw-hr per year.
I measured a washing machine cycle (not including the rainwater pump's use--that's next to measure) with the Kill-A-Watt meter and learned that the washing machine used 0.27 kw-hrs for one load.

What kind of washing machine is that? I find the figure astonishingly low.

To heat 10 l of water from 20°C (tap water is usually cooler than that) to 45°C (cool wash) requires about 250,000 calories. This is equivalent to 0.29 kWh, assuming no losses (100% efficiency) and that assumes zero consumption for turning the drum, pumps, spinning etc. Our washing machine does this heating twice in a cycle (prewash and wash). A warm or hot wash or colder mains water would increase the figure. I'd be VERY surprised if our machine, which is an economy model for 5 kg dry weight, did not average at least 1.5 kWh/load, which usually lasts over an hour (not measured it, though).

The load of wash was a cold-water load. I did measure the rainwater pump's power use for one load yesterday. The pump consumed 0.15 kw-hr. So that brings the power use up to 0.42 kw-hr per load.

Even when I run a hot water load, the power usage remains the same since my hot water is solar heated. Needless to say, most of the time I only do a hot-water load when the sun is out!

Sorry, to get clothes clean, you should never put hot water into a washing machine. Reason: much of the components of sweat and some other contaminants like spilt food include proteins which are similar to albumen (egg white). When dry, they are difficult to dissolve, but will do, with agitation, in cold water, but it takes ~10 minutes to do so. In water at > ~40°C they solidify into an insoluble contamination.

This is why - at least here in Europe - all washing machines have only a cold water connection and the pre-rinse and wash start at cold for some time and only then start to heat the water internally. The same goes for dishwashers (try wiping a plate with egg white and putting it into the machine during the hot wash cycle, when the water is at 85°C, and see how well it doesn't clean!)

Many new PC's have functionality that allows them to wake up from the network, at a specific time or from the keyboard. This draws a few watts constantly.

Turning off the power bar or unplugging it is the only way to really get rid of these issues.