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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
09/07/09
Call me crazy, but replacing a $30 land line with $200 of cell phone bills does not equate to "savings" in my book.
Ignoring my obnoxious comments - the article has excellent suggestions and information.
04/30/09
09/07/09
One of the often discussed items that use enormous electricity are the dozens of devices sucking power in the house that are not doing anything. This is generally a product of having homes on "AC" power when nearly all electronics use "DC" and must convert that power. While it is a great idea to unplug this power converters and devices when not in use, when you actually measure their power draw it becomes apparent that they do not waste nearly the electricity that is often advertised. Some do - but they are rare. Still, unplugging them when not in use is still a brilliant idea, if possible.
04/21/09
The beauty of it is that I can still use my remote to turn the thing off and on. Its perfect.
04/21/09
Netflix and Handbrake FTW. Want to really get the most out of Netflix. Get a show in, burn it using Handbrake, and return it. This cuts down on disks lying around doing nothing. You can watch your shows whenever you want. This of course doesn't work for Blu-Ray titles, but it's nice to get 20 to 40 more disks a month.
Attraction memberships. As a father, I make it a habit for the family to get out of the house and do stuff. One of the boys favorite thing to do is go to museums, the zoo, or parks. However, a lot of places have entrance fees. You can eliminate that by joining a membership. Depending on how many times you go, you can save hundreds of dollars. Added in the fact that my sons have my old hand-me-down cameras, they spend extra hours on Photoshop editing their photos and posting them on their own Flickr account. This sounds like its expensive, but it really isn't. Especially in contrast to how expensive toys and video games are.
Which leads me to Gamefly. I pay about a fourth of what I would buying games. The boys usually play a game, finish it, and it's never heard from again. This way, they get a game in the mail, rip it open, play it, beat it, return it. Probably at the cost of $12 per game.
04/21/09
04/21/09
04/21/09
If you live in an area where you could lose power/water due to natural disasters, the 40-50 gallons of water you have in that heater may be the only potable water you have for a few weeks. In case of a disaster that's a couple weeks worth of drinking water.
As for the CFLs, CFLs tend to put out poor light until they heat up. If you're like me where most of your light use is: Turn the switch on, find something, and tun the switch off, you end up looking around wondering if you're going blind because the damn light is so dim. I'm sorry, I probably have the lights on in my place for less than an hour total each day. I shower, brush, etc in the ambient light in the morning.
I find it easier to cut bills by simply cutting consumption period. I don't need the lights that much, so I don't use them. I unplug computers/electronics when they're not in use regularly.
What I'm currently trying to figure out is the tradeoff between paper towels/wash cloths. Which is worse?
04/21/09
Also you will find with CFLs that the better quality light you get, the better the ballast inside is. The better the ballast, the quicker the warm up time. If that's a concern of yours, pay the extra dollar or two for the name brand bulb.
And definitely go with wash cloths and rags. I made the switch two years ago. I bought fifty cotton shop towels from the hardware store for about $5. I keep some for clean up use and others for food and hand drying use. When those get too ragged looking, they go in the cleaning pile. Yes, it uses water and resources to clean them... but I can usually toss them in with a load of laundry that's going to be washed anyway.
04/21/09
04/21/09
Earl Sinclair: At least they're still giving us a choice.
04/21/09
04/21/09
04/21/09
I never got them because one of my biggest cost cutters is to buy less DVDs.
04/21/09
04/21/09
04/21/09
Might cause more problems: lets say you shower in pairs and its simply less efficient. Or lets say you start to get..ahem..steamy, and then that starts and finishes in a long shower. Then lets say you start and then leave shower, and when its over you need another shower...rinse wash repeat. Basically more water used, more time wasted, and then you lose your job because you were late and they're looking to fire people and then your girlfriend leaves you and you're left taking showers by yourself with money you don't have an then they shut the water off and you're left drinking whatever you can squeeze from your tear soaked belongings before they're hauled away by repo men (one of whom your girlfriend is dating) and you end up trying to find ways to kill yourself but can't because you can't afford bullets, the ceiling in your tiny apartment is so low you can't hang yourself, you can't stick your head in the oven because the gas is shut-off, you can't afford a car much less a garage or gas, you've dulled all your razers trying to shave off your hobo beard to get yourself another job, and when you go up to cops jabbering like a madman they simply laugh and walk away. In the end your left lying there, trying to starve to death, but can't because roaches keep crawling in your mouth while you sleep. All this, because you took a freaking shower with two people.
04/21/09
Best Case Scenario: Water Savings
Worst Case Scenario: Sexual Gratification
Neither of those scenarios bother me in the least.
04/21/09