Here’s What it Costs You to Run Christmas Lights in Indiana
Halloween is over, now it's time to start getting your Christmas decorations out. If you're planning on putting out Christmas lights on your home in Indiana, it could cost you a pretty penny.
We all know someone who goes all out for Christmas each year. You've seen the homes around Indiana full of lights, inflatables, and epic Christmas displays. Then, you have those who don't get too wild with things, they simply put up some lights outside, put up the tree, the garland, the poinsettias, and they're done. Decking the halls may not be an expense we consider when making our holiday plans. Not only does it cost money to purchase the decorations, but there's also the cost to power them. There are lights on the tree, lights outside, the lit-up Santa on the front lawn, the inflatables, and the musical Christmas village. All of those things add up. As if the electricity bill alone wasn't expensive enough, come December and January, that bill can be pretty staggering if you go all out for Christmas...especially if you're Clark Griswold.
I'll be honest, we don't really have a lot of outside decor for our house at Christmastime. Mainly because I am cheap and I don't feel like paying any more than I already do on the electric bill. Quite frankly, I don't even know how much it costs to have a holiday display outside. That was until today.
Recently, the website JoyBird found out how much it costs to power holiday displays in each state. They broke it down into three different commitment levels for homes. You have the categories of typical usage, heavy usage, and enthusiastic usage. According to JoyBird:
We classified typical users as households that feature 10 strings of lights, one wreath, one garland, and two outdoor decorations. We defined heavy users as those who power 45 light strings for wrapping trees, a 200-foot C9 string in the yard, a 500-foot C9 string on the roof, and one wreath. Our enthusiastic users are those that go all out, incorporating enough lights for 55 strings to wrap trees, 95 icicles, five motifs, a 150-foot spool of rope, a 500-foot C9 string in the yard, and an 800-foot C9 string for the roof.
With those categories in mind, JoyBird looked at the cost to run that amount of LED lights and that amount of incandescent lights per season in each state based on the state’s residential electricity rate.
How Much Does it Cost to Run Christmas Light Displays in Indiana?
The calculations assumed that the lights would run on average, seven hours a day from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day. Looking at the data, it appears that Indiana is a little on the higher side compared to most other states. Not quite the highest though, that spot belongs to Massachusetts. That being said, let's see how things faired for Indiana.
Hoosiers in the "typical use" category will pay $3.00 over that period if they use LED lights, and $20.30 if they're using incandescent lights.
"Heavy Use" Indiana residents are looking at $28.83 for LED lights, and $217.32 for incandescent.
Finally, "Enthusiastic Use" holiday light displays, for the Hoosiers who go all out with their holiday light displays, will cost residents $75.66 for LED lights, and a staggering $585.95 for using incandescent.
So a couple of big takeaways from this are: First, and most obvious, the more you have, the more you'll spend. Secondly, your cheapest route is to make sure that your light displays are LED. That will cost you much less than using incandescent bulbs. Keep those things in mind this holiday season. Which category best describes your house?
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