About Electricity Rates

In the beginning of this year, electricity rates went up. This means that, in 2011, energy will be more expensive for everyone.
At the same time, Portuguese government established an “energy social rate” program for lower income families. This week, I received a letter communicating that I was included in this program. Due to my low income, I will pay a bit less than normal consumers.
In my country, the energy business can be seen as a monopoly with only one provider leading the market. Consumers here don´t have much choice, either they contract services from this company or they will be out of energy.
In the past years, I have taken some measures to lower my electricity bills. As some of my readers probably know, I blog about money and my saving strategies at my Personal Finances blog so I don´t want to duplicate content here by listing my saving strategies.
My saving attitude already saved me some bucks but now I need to adjust my utilities budget and look for more ways to save.
Tonight, I came across an interesting article about LED bulbs and how they can help saving money. I didn´t know about LEDs, I just knew about regular saving bulbs so I guess it would be a good idea to see if it´s possible trying them out on my current lamps.