Thanks for all the replies. As long as you are talking about other utilities, here is my rundown for all my utilities and car insurance in the Ohio Valley. BTW, I really like the $6 per month water bill person! We pay about $25 for 2 months of trash pickup.(just went up 18%) We pay $1800 per year in property tax on our $190,000 house Our water bill averages about $64 with college kid and $45 per month without kid and covers our sewage as well. Car insurance is pretty cheap. About $400 to $450 per year for a new car under $20,000 with full coverage and $500D We use NG to heat. We keep the thermostat set at 64 at night and keep the heat off during the day. House gets down into the low 50's in daytime. I usually turn on the heat around 9 PM and shut it down at 8 or 9 am. To heat this way cost us $250 a month to heat a modern 2400 sq ft house. (including garage as it has some water pipes in its ceiling). We've been told our gas bill will go up almost 30% this season. Summer gas bill is the minim about $24 per month. As the NG runs out prices for all heating methods will only keep climbing. Even the coal will run out someday. Winter '08 they said they had a coal crisis brewing in China. Some say water will peak too and we had better know how to do the 'rain catchment' thing.

When the soil gets dry about 1/2 inch deep it is time to water. Be careful not to over water though! Better to go a little too dry than to over water.

just a thought: poinsettia is also Euphorbia and if allowed to dry completely also will drop leaves. just barely moist is what it likes. I read the same about Euphorbia tithymaloides. Although when in ground it behaves more like a real succulent and can tolerate dryness. It is a native FL plant and grows in dry tropical forests in central America. so very hot and high humidity too. I've seen it growing outside in central FL in great thickets in dappled shade. if you give it good hot sunny window you can probably water it more. that said...Poinsettias drop leaves when too wet too - so..a lot depends on how water retentive your soil mix is. I can easily keep Poinsettia going in self-watering pot, but with half perlite for aeration. I also grow other succulents like Jades and Sansevieria and hawortias on top wicks (wicks inserted around the perimeter of the pot to wick less, as opposed to bottom wicks). my jades drop very few leaves when grown like that. when I don't wick and allow them to get bone dry, that's when they drop most.. so you need to observe and experiment a bit and water very carefully only when at least half the pot is dry. what sort of mix is it in?

If you cover with plastic, it isn't going to dry out. The only reason to keep it moist is to keep the bacterial degradation going, and unless you're doing in situ composting, that really doesn't matter much. To the extent your soil actually freezes, not much bacterial degradation will be going on anyway.