But know that I’m all grown up and paying my own electric bills, I really appreciate the fact that dimmers can help reduce the amount of money one needs to hand over to the utility company every month. Over the past few months, more and more energy-saving products have crossed my desk, but one of my favorites has been the Amertac™ Westek® Screw-In Lamp Socket Dimmer. It turns out that you can actually transform any lamp into a 3-step lamp by just screwing one of these Westek® dimmers into your lamp’s light bulb socket. Once the dimmer is installed, it takes only a light touch on any metal part of the lamp to adjust its light output. Pretty neat, right? Not bad for something that costs less than $12 and requires only a few turns of the wrist to install.

And this lamp socket dimmer doesn’t just save you money on electricity – it also cuts back on your light bulb costs, because you don’t need to use the more expensive 3-way light bulbs. Standard bulbs will work just fine – just keep in mind that these only work with incandescent bulbs, not CFLs.