The TV uses about 60W of electricity. If I leave the TV on for 1 hour then it uses 60 Wh. Thats 0.06 kWh. A kWh costs me about 11c. So leaving the TV on for 1 hour costs about 0.66c of electricity. Leaving the TV on 3 hours is roughly 2c. If I left it on all day long it would be roughly 10c.
If equate my time to be worth the national minimum wage of $7.25 per hour then 1 minute of my time is worth 12c.
Because turning the TV off takes 1 minute that is worth about 12c. Therefore...
Leaving my TV on all day is worth it to save the 1 minute of my time.
Now I cant exactly magically take 1 minute of my time and turn it into money. But I do value my free time more than minimum wage. If I could pay money to do away with all the wasted time in my week and it added up to 2 hours then I'd happily spend 1 hour of that time in a money making endeavor in order to pay the money and end up with 1 extra free hour. I don't think I'll leave my TV on all day because I don't like wasting electricity. But if I know I'm going to be using the TV off and on over a day I may leave it on a few hours to save waiting 1 minute multiple times after it powers up each time.
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