Out of curiosity, how often do you use a Kill A Watt meter? $23 seems like a high price just to plug a device into for a couple days to say "oh maybe I should turn this off more often"

Myself? Never, as I don't have one. When I want to find out what a device is consuming, I hook it up through my Fluke multimeter to obtain the current draw, then calculate the rest.

But, for general use by anyone not a EE or Electrician, hooking up a general purpose multimeter to mains power to measure current draw is a not recommended, much danger here, operation.

Therefore I erred on the side of caution and recommended the method that was most safe for all involved in all situations.

What I suspect you will find, however, is that you will find uses for the device that you never anticipated once you have one.

Many libraries have them to check out for a few days.

Some community share programs lend them out for free. Including some libraries:

https://seattle.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2655545030_kill_...

I've always had the same concern stopping me from getting one. I wish I could go to Best Buy or someplace and rent the darn thing for a few hours instead.

The kill a walk is really handy for debugging battery charging. I seem to use it on a regular basis, but I tinker with stuff a lot.

cheaper to buy smart plugs. https://www.amazon.com/Etekcity-Monitoring-Required-Warranty...

This is the comment I came here for. I bought a Kill A Watt some years ago when I wanted to get a feel for what my devices were using and can't say enough good things about it.

For USB, I also recommend a USB Power Meter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J7236K2 to see how much current your peripherals use when charging/when full.

Many UPSs also will report power usage.