Help: my home lab electricity bill shocked me

So I actually got the Kill-A-Watt Meter last month because the Electricity Bill was getting out of hand and I actually measured everything and the Results were actually shocking or? My old Server with the dual Xeons and the spinning Disk Array and the Network Switch and the Firewall Appliance together pulled actually around 500 Watts continuously which at our local Rate of actually 0.19 per kWh means roughly 70 Dollars per month just for the Homelab Equipment and that is actually before the summer Air Conditioning Load or? So I actually want to consolidate but I actually do not want to lose the Services and I actually thought about maybe ARM Servers or maybe a NUC or something like that but actually the Manuals are not very clear on the Power Consumption Numbers so I actually wanted to ask what you People are actually running and what your actual Wattage Numbers are because I actually need to get this under Control before my Wife actually sees the next Bill or?

WARNINGS: before you consolidate, think about what you're exposing.

A NUC on your network with Wake-on-LAN means another attack surface. What if someone wakes it remotely? What if your WOL packet gets spoofed? I run fail2ban on EVERYTHING, even my coffee machine (not really, but you get the idea).

That said, 500W is insane. My entire setup—firewall, Pi-hole, NAS, the works—pulls 35W. ARM SBCs. Low power. Low heat. Less to go wrong. But don't forget the firewall rules!

(oh wonderful, another thread where someone discovers that Electricity (you know, the thing that makes Computers go) actually costs money) (not that I am judging (well, maybe a little (actually a lot))) (have you considered that maybe (just maybe) the real Problem was buying dual Xeons in 2024) (I mean (not to interrupt myself (but I will)) the NUC route is decent) (though in my experience (which is extensive (painfully so)) the sweet spot is actually) (wait, let me finish this thought) (no I wont) (cheaper to replace the whole thing with a used mini-PC off the secondary Market)

Arm gang
45W nice
Lol