G'day folks.

I'm a little stuck, I want to measure mains load - I don't need it overly accurate, just enough to work out if something (say a tv/fan/etc) is on or off.

I'm looking to do it with the least number of cheapest components I can get my hands on (or hopefully already have)

I've looked at the safer sure fire options of using a current transformer or a hall effect based sensors (ACS712 for example) but they're either really expensive, or not very easy to obtain.

I know I can measure current drawn with a multimeter and a 10watt 0.1 ohm resistor across the lead - but how do I get that to a PIC?