Here's How Much Your Holiday Lights Are Adding to Your Electric Bill

Devon Forward
·2 min read

Your decorations might be costing you more than you think.

Everyone loves getting into the holiday spirit by putting up lots of decorations, and that usually includes bright and colorful lights. But do you know how much that adds to your electricity bill?

Luckily, there is a way to calculate an approximate value for how much electricity your lights will use this holiday season.

According to WGN9 News, the amount of money you get charged each month on your electricity bill is based on the kilowatt-hour used.

In order to calculate this for yourself, there are some handy tools online, or you can do some simple mathematics. 

First, find out the wattage of your lights, then multiply that by how many hours per day you have the lights on. After that, divide the number by 1,000 in order to get the kilowatt-hour number, also known as the kWh per day.

You then need to find out the cost of energy where you are, which will be listed on your electricity bill. This varies depending on where you live.

For example, according to Choose Energy, the average cost in Washington in December 2022 is about 10.4 cents per kWh, while the average in California, one of the most expensive states, is about 27.3 cents per kWh.

The next step to calculate your holiday energy bill is to multiply the cost of electricity where you live by the number of kWh per day, then multiply that by how many days your seasonal lights will be on. 

While there are many factors involved, WGN9 News provided a good example, calculating with this formula how much a strand of 300 mini lights would cost for a month when lit for six hours a day. 

Using the monthly average of around 16 cents per kWh, a 300-light LED strand would be about $0.60 for the entire month. But if you go for incandescent lights, that'll be much higher, at approximately $2.07 per month. 

To save a bit of money on your holiday decorations, you can always purposely choose lower-wattage lights, which are on sale at any store, like Amazon or Home Depot, or you can get strategic about when you keep your lights on.

There's probably no need to have the string lights on in the morning when you can barely see them in the sunlight, so you can avoid extra costs there. Or maybe for you, the brightest Christmas decorations are worth the extra money!