Now that the holidays are coming around, many of you will be putting up your Christmas lights in the near future. For myself, one of the frustrating things about my outdoor Christmas lights has having to turn them on and off everyday. My routine was to turn the lights on at 6 pm and turn the lights off at 9 pm everyday. However, I often forgot to turn the lights off, resulting in them running all night until I turned them off in the morning.

I thought there had to be a better way, and of course there was. I found outlet timers which would turn on and off whatever was plugged into them. The ones I used are the Woods outlet timers, which are very inexpensive ($8 for two).

Woods 50006WD Indoor 24-Hour Mechanical Outlet Timer, 30 Minute Intervals

Once I bought these timers I never had to think about turning my Christmas lights off again, as they turned on at 6 pm and turn off at 9 pm automatically, I just had to depress on the dial the times I wanted the outlet to be on. I also used these timers to turn lights on and off in the house when I am on vacation.

There are more expensive versions of outlet timers which have remotes and other advanced features, but the ones I currently have are all I have ever needed.