Was it worth it?

We just finished a time-of-use pilot program with SRP last night. They only offered it to the 1st 15,000 customers with the new "instant read" meters. Basically, all the new meters they are installing are digital and can be downloaded to SRP at any time. No more meter readers walking through your yard to check your monthly usage...Maybe that's a good thing with the AZ heat in the summer. Anyway, I called and asked about it in March and they said they would forward my name to the department working on that project. I never heard anything, so I figured I was too late. The last day of April I get a phone call from SRP if I was still interested in the program and I told her yes. She gave me the details of the program: May, June, Sept, and Oct from 3-6pm weekdays would be 27.5 cents a KWH. July and Aug during the same hours, it would be 32.5 cents a KWH. All other hours, including weekends and major holidays would be 6.3 cents a KWH. The rest of the year is just on the basic plan, so no different pricing and no peak hours to worry about. I thought, OK, only 15 hours a week to worry about for 6 months, it shouldn't be too hard. And in the back of my mind I am thinking that the off peak price seems less than the winter rate. The basic winter rate is 8.3 cents for the first 400 KWH and 6.39 cents after that, so my off peak summer prices ARE lower than the regular winter rate. After she finished telling me the details she says, OK, it starts tomorrow-we'll get you switched over. I had less than 24 hours to prepare my house for complete shutdown for 3 hours...Thankfully the previous owners had already purchased a water heater timer and all I had to do was set the times on it. We changed the thermostat on our AC to turn down to 75 at 1:30pm to pre-cool the house and at 3:00 it went up to 85 then back down to 79 at 6pm. Let me tell you, it was MISERABLE some days. And with Ethan's allergies, we can't just pick up and go play somewhere without serious planning. At 3pm, I would faithfully go through the house everyday and unplug everything except the major kitchen appliances and turn off all the lights. We kept a ceiling fan on in the rooms we were in, but all the other ones were turned off. We waited until 6pm to cook dinner, so it was usually 7-8pm before the kids ate. That was hard on them many nights, especially b/c I have to make everything from scratch and can't just go buy a freezer meal from the store. Some days I was prepared enough to do all the prep work in the morning and just heat it up at dinner time. That didn't happen very often, though. It was a long, hard 6 months, but we saved a lot of money by doing it. We are also more aware of the electricity that we use and the kids are always telling ME, Mom lets turn off that light and use the sunlight so we don't have to pay so much money for it. Yes, my kids do say that! Anyway, this is what we saved each month: May $40, June $57.90, July $88.44, August $87.64, September $61.00, October $37.98, for a total of $372.96 over the 6 months. That's a ton of money and the savings helped us a lot. Normally our peak summer bills run almost $300, but this year with our decrease/awareness in usage and the cheaper prices, we never hit $170. That was nice! If we are still here next summer, we will definitely do it again. Although, I think I might figure out how to cook with a solar oven for next year...Anyone have design plans for a good one or know where I could get a quality low-cost one?