Is Your Oven Secretly Doubling Your Monthly Electric Bill?

Ditching the habit of preheating a huge oven for every meal is one of the quickest ways to keep your utility bill from skyrocketing. While turning off the lights and adjusting the thermostat is standard advice, the real savings lie in the little gadgets in your kitchen. A full-size stovetop is power-hungry, especially when an air fryer or compact microwave can do the same job with a fraction of the power.

By repurposing your kitchen toward these high-efficiency alternatives, you avoid heating your entire home and wasting electricity in empty spaces. It’s not just a matter of convenience; it’s a strategic decision to reduce your monthly costs during peak seasons. Whether you’re reheating leftovers or cooking a fresh dinner, keeping the large oven off is truly the best solution for your budget.

I calculated the total energy needed to run a microwave and compared it to the approximate energy consumption (and cost) of a full-size oven. Here’s exactly how much you could save over the course of a year.

Just like the air fryer, the microwave proves to be an extremely energy-efficient way of cooking, even more so when you consider how quickly it cooks. You can definitely save money on your energy bill if you find ways to use your microwave instead of the large oven.

Here’s how I got these numbers.

How much energy does a microwave use?

Microwaves run on electricity alone, and a standard microwave requires about 1,200 watts. Larger, more powerful microwaves may use a little more energy than this rate, while smaller microwaves generally use a little less. If you were to use your microwave for 15 minutes each day, that would work out to 300 watts per day or 0.3 kWh. In New York, where I live, a kWh costs about 17 cents, so your daily cost would be about 5 cents. Multiply that by 365 and you get an approximate annual total.

And what about the cost of running a microwave?

Running your microwave for 15 minutes each day uses approximately 109.5 kWh and, in New York State, would cost you approximately $18.60 per year. If you used it for an hour every day, it would cost approximately $74 for one year.

Learn more: I love this $98 microwave that’s also an air fryer

How much energy does a gas oven consume?

To calculate the cost of running your gas oven, we take the oven’s energy rating in Btu and divide it by 100,000. Multiply the result by the cost per therm of natural gas in your state (varies by state), then multiply by the projected number of hours of use.

How much does it cost to run your oven?

To calculate the cost of operating an 18,000 Btu furnace, for example, you would divide 18,000 by 100,000, which gives you 0.18. We will also need to find the average price per therm of natural gas in your state. This chart shows the most recent prices via the US Energy Information Administration. Note that this table is listed in dollars per thousand cubic feet, so you will need to divide it by 10. For example, if the price of the table is $23, you would use $2.30 to calculate the cost.

In New York, the price is currently $2.20 per therm (about the US average). Next, we will multiply this price for a therm by the number you calculated in the last step (0.18 in this example) to get the operating cost per hour of use of your gas oven.

For a New Yorker, it will cost approximately 40 cents per hour to operate an 18,000 Btu oven. If I had to run an oven for an hour a day, it would cost $146 per year. In some states, including Georgia, Florida and Ohio, natural gas is about 30% higher than the national average. In Hawaii, it’s more than double.

How much energy does an electric oven consume?

To find out the total cost of operating an electric oven, you will calculate the power consumed per hour of cooking. Most electric ovens consume around 3,000 watts, a power that varies depending on temperature. Once you find the wattage via the appliance label or an online product listing, multiply it by the number of hours you use the oven each day (we’ll use 1 hour for this calculation), then divide by 1,000 watts to find the kilowatt hours, or kWh, of electricity used.

And what about the cost of running an electric oven?

Next, find the average price per kWh of electricity in your state. To do this, you can consult this table which presents the 2020 prices in cents per kWh. Multiply this amount by the number you just calculated (3 kWh in this example) to determine your operating cost per day.

With New York’s current electricity rate of 17 cents per kWh, a 3,000-watt oven would cost approximately 51 cents per hour when operating at high temperature. If I used my oven for about an hour a day for a year, that would be roughly equivalent to $182 per year.

How much energy and money can you save by using a microwave?

A microwave oven uses much less energy than a gas or electric oven. Using your microwave for an hour each day would cost you about half the total energy of a natural gas oven and 60% less than an electric oven. Keep in mind that it is very likely that you won’t use your microwave for an hour every day, as it cooks much faster than a standard oven.

I always recommend an air fryer to reduce energy costs

While the microwave proves to be an energy-efficient appliance, it lags far behind other ovens in terms of results. Microwaves are great for defrosting and reheating some frozen meals, but if you overcook the food in the microwave (which isn’t hard to do), you’ll almost certainly end up with a rubbery, inedible lump.

Air Fryers are another quick and energy efficient countertop appliance which gives significantly better results than microwaves. An air fryer is a super convection oven that blasts foods with fast-circulating air so they get crispy on the outside without overcooking the inside. Air fryers also require almost no preheating time, which means even more savings on your monthly electrical costs. Here is my complete guide to air fryers to help you decide. The best part is that you can get a great air fryer for under $75.

And if you’re curious, Instant Pots and multicookers also use much less energy than an oven. We’ve also already done the math to see how much you can save by buying brand-name groceries in-store, whether shopping online is cheaper than in-store, and whether buying meal kits saves you money compared to buying groceries.

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