Just wondering. My electric utility sends me a usage comparison against a home similar to mine and a very efficient home. No matter what, I score really below average. I live in a 1 bedroom apt and have converted all my lights to LED, so the only big draws are my computer and my 42" tv. I also have a router and modem for my internet connection I use a small toaster oven for most cooking. 
 
I turn the pc on when I get up and off about 16 hrs later. It has a 700w power supply and runs 2 SSD's and 1 traditional HD. All my peripherals and the pc are on power bars that I shut off when the pc is down. I really don't want to be powering off every time I leave the pc because powering up is when things always break.

we have smart meters here, where it tells you how much you are using per hour. I think they can also use it to know from the street without having to read the meter. 
 
it's not THAT much, as the things with heating elements in take a lot of power. kettle etc.
 
you can figure it out by taking a reading for an hour with the pc and an hour without it on.
 

The big one is the the router esp the WiFi. Transmitters cost money. If you don't use it either set it to sleep certain times of get an electricity plug with a timer switch.

Myself I always would recommend fully shutting down a PC at the end of the night. Clears out any crap in memory for starters. Why waste energy.

If your TV is plasma, it can draw 200W or more, easily. My 51" plasma draws over 2A @ 120VAC when the screen is mostly displaying white (like ice (I watch a lot of hockey)). My power center has volt and amp displays, and I see the amps very with the colors displayed and their relative brightness from 0.5A to 2.0A or more.
 
FWIW, 700W is the rating for the power supply. Conservative design would have max usage of 350W. Most PCs, however, save money by using power supplies whose ratings are more like 75% max usage. So, cheap PCs, for the same power consumption, would have about a 450W to 500W supply for an expected max usage of 350W.
 
In any case, it's unlikely that you're consuming more than 250W; likely less.
 
I run my PC every day, for at least 12 hours. I have a 2-story 1800 sq.ft. home. I have gas heat and cooktop, and electric everything else. I live at 7,000 ft. and seldom use my A/C. When I did for a few days, my monthly bill went up to $70. Now, it's back down below $30. Note that I also have a whole-house air exchanger that runs 12 minutes per hour.
 
The point of all that being is that my PC adds negligible cost to my monthly electric bill. I'm under $1/day. Even if my PC is 25% of that (which I doubt), my daily cost for running it is no more than 25 cents.
 
Your DAW is not your problem.

I'm suspicious of the electric co. I don't have access to my meter so I can't see my usage, and I think that just sucks. My lighting for the entire apartment has an advertised usage of about 70 watts. LED lights are amazing but very expensive. The truth is that in my parts of the world, I pay more for fees and taxes than my actual electric consumption. Go Canada. Average monthly electricity usage is $14 but the bill is about $45.
 
I'm surprised JonBuoy hasn't got into this racket.

ampfixer
I don't have access to my meter so I can't see my usage, and I think that just sucks.

Isn't that illegal?

ampfixer
Just wondering. My electric utility sends me a usage comparison against a home similar to mine and a very efficient home. No matter what, I score really below average. I live in a 1 bedroom apt and have converted all my lights to LED, so the only big draws are my computer and my 42" tv. I also have a router and modem for my internet connection I use a small toaster oven for most cooking. 
 

That is truly weird. I expect the comparison "home" is just wrong. Nowadays, the average home is going to be running at least one computer and a flat screen TV, and is going to be using fluorescent lighting. If you live in an apartment, it is difficult to figure the total electricity usage. Some apartments put the resident's heat, water heater and air conditioning on the resident's meter, others figure it into the rent. An electric range/oven may be metered either way. If the company's comparison "home" is an apartment where the only separately metered circuits are the wall sockets and lights, and you are being billed for heat or electric cooking that could explain the difference. If there is access to natural gas in your community, it is likely that it is being used to heat water and cook in the average apartment, and to heat the living space via a central furnace. If your apartment is using electricity for these uses and it is being metered to your unit that would explain the difference. It would be a good idea to research that issue.
 
As noted previously, a 700 watt rated PSU is going to deliver that at full demand before it craps out, but unless it is very poorly designed indeed, it will only draw slightly more than the sum of the individual components connected to it. Most people can do very well with a 350-400 watt PSU. http://powersupplycalculator.net/ 
 

I measured 4 of my computers with an ammeter during various activities. For some of these activities, the readings varied quite a bit, so I tried to capture a peak 1-second average. The ammeter was reading a loop of the AC power cord. Here are some of my measurements in watts:

• With the computer plugged in but powered down, they used 5 to 7 watts each because I did not turn off the power supply.
• While booting, the lowest measured computer (I3-4130T, 8GB, 2 HD) used 68 watts peak and the highest (Pentium D-930, 4GB, 2 HD), was my rendering computer in 2006) measured 210 watts peak.
• When idle, they used from 42 watts for the lowest one to 139 for the highest.
• When running memtest, they used 57 watts for the lowest, 205 for the highest.
• When running windows performance assessment, they peaked at 63 for the lowest one and 217 for the highest.

I don't think I measured sleep, but I imagine it would be way way lower than idle. I didn't measure my current rendering computer. The only computer I leave on is the lowest power one.
 
The monitor is another power drain, as is a TV, but when they go into low power mode, they don't use much. My old LCD TV is said to use 79 watts running and .7 watts standby.

No, not at all. It idles at 100 watts, it maxes out at maybe 500 watts including monitor and sound system, which it only hits in games. My A/C is on a 240v, 50a line so it can draw around 10,000 watts or so when spun up. Doesn't take much time of A/C to beat out a computer running 24/7. A/C is by far the big one, followed by dryer, and stove, and then fridge. Take those out and the bill would be $20/month or less. 

You should be able to look at your electric bill and determine how much it costs to run your computer. The bill should tell you what the price is per kilowatt/hour, but even if it doesn't it should tell you how many kw/hours you're being billed for and calculate the rate from that. Note that in some parts of the world there are two price tiers, one for high-consumption periods and another for low-consumption times of day.
 
How much power your computer consumes can vary quite a bit, but let's assume you're using 200 watts (a high estimate) and have the computer on for 12 hours a day. That's 2.4 KW/H. If we assume 20 cents per KW/H, that would come to 48 cents per day, or around $15 a month.