Moved.. see here..

Well I've sprung for my own domain now.. so if you're interested..

visit www.lencurrie.com to see my new spot.

Trying out Tim Sykes "Tim Alerts"

Well I just signed up for TimAlerts.. a real time alert service specializing in short selling penny stocks. His record is pretty impressive so far, and for me.. it's time to get back into the game a bit.

I will post my review fully once I get into the groove a bit.. Right now I'm just funding my trading account to see how well I can do. I know one thing.. my main interest is preserving my capital!

Let's see how you do Tim!

Easy way to save money? Bring your own coffee cup in the morning!

Now I know this applies to my Robins Donuts which I frequent pretty much daily.

They have what they call a 'refill cup' policy, so if you bring the cup.. they will fill it up at a portion of a regular cup of coffee.. The reason I am bringing this up is that Robins just increased their cost of coffee (I'm assuming to stay with Tim Hortons on this), and as such.. I started looking at how to cut the costs of my morning cup of 'jo.

Well, the cost difference is this.. a regular Large Cup of Coffee is $1.64 after taxes.. with my own Refill cup, it's only $1.38. I mean you're only saving $0.26 per cup.. but if you're like me and have one every day, that means that I'm getting a free cup every week and a half approximately. Not too bad if you ask me, plus my coffee stays warmer longer! That's definitely a plus side.

The only drawback is lugging around the cup(s), however I usually bring my lunch in to work anyhow, so it's not really an issue, and if you're like me.. you have more than one 'thermos cup' handy.

I've cut my energy bill this month 50%.. proof and how I did it.. (I think anyhow)

Well I haven't posted in awhile (again) and I must say that I feel like a tool for not doing it sooner, lots of good things to write about. This post however will be a little bit of knowledge sharing on how I saved over 50% off my bill..

First off.. here is the proof.. this is my Maritime Electric power bill last month.



I was as surprised as anyone. This bill is from 04-Aug-2008 to 02-Sep-2008. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had an EcoEnergy Audit performed on August 20th, which really started me on this 'energy kick'.

The first thing that my auditor did, was unplug my Van-E Air Exchanger.. I will admit I know nothing about Air Exchangers or Furnaces.. but that's starting to change. He mentioned that I really dont' need it plugged in at all during the summer months (it has been on 'low' for as long as I've owned the home I believe.. I've never changed it), and it only needs to be remote in the winter when it can be triggered from the switches found all over the house. He mentioned that it's likely costing me $200 a year or more if that was the case.. which equates to about $17 a month.

This is something that is sort of struck me funny.. something as simple as unplugging this thing, could save me that much money.. and that is a lot to me. He had one of these electric meters, and I was intrigued by it, so I went out and bought one at Canadian Tire, the exact same model found here.

A little math for you before I tell you some of the things I did.. I don't know about you, but I can still hear in the back of me head my Dad telling me to shut off the damn lights when I was not in the room.. well, it means more now than ever now that I've been a homeowner for 4 years. In my kitchen.. I had 8 light bulbs on 2 switches.. they are all 60 watts. so while they are on, say for 3 hours a day on average.. that's 1440 watts or 1.44 kWh a day. The price of a kWh right now on PEI is 15.5 cents. Soooo, over the course of a year, that is 525.96 kWh, at a cost of $81.52, or $6.80 a month!! And that is simply my kitchen lights! Now, I had them on dimmers before, which may have saved a little.. but since you can't find dimmable CFL's at a reasonable cost yet.. I've replaced them again with on/off switches and CFL's. These suckers use only 13W of electricity each.. which after all the math is done.. would only be 114 kWh over the same time period, and only cost me $17.67 a year or $1.42 a month. Pretty big difference no?

Another example, the Van-E air exchanger that my auditor friend unplugged for me.. it was running on low 7/24 x 365.. at an avg of 35 watts. Which would equate to 61362 hours a year = 2147.67 kWh... or $332.89 a year... do I need to tell you that it's about $27 a month?

Another shocker.. I didn't know this.. but did you know that a toaster uses energy when it's not toasting?? for me it was about 11 watts.. unplug that sucker when you're not using it!!

A few other items which were definitely notable:

• my LCD monitor used 53 watts when it's screen saver was on.. (it may save the screen, but definitely not energy).. turn off or set the standby time on the computer which can usually turn it off when it's not in use
• Liz' laptop on screen saver mode was 35 watts.. when we closed it and it went to standby mode, it was less then 2 watts.. (needless to say I told her to put it on standby!!)
• All of my home theater equipment, when I had them powered off.. were using 50 watts when not in use!! I have since put it on a power bar, which I turn off when not in use, with exception to my satellite receiver which I have on a separate surge protector but keep on simply due to the 'warm up time' of it being very long.. it doesn't use that much electricity anyhow on standby mode
• likely your dryer is the biggest user of electricity in the house.. so obviously the less you use it, the better off you are... I have a front loading washer which does a great job of ringing out the clothes before I have to dry them, I also make sure I use full loads only!
  

So after all of this, you are likely wondering what my costs were of my electric bill.. I will tell you if you can't tell from the chart.. my August Bill was $147.23.. my September Bill was $73.59. The cheapest it has EVER been.

Book Review: "Stop Working: Here's How You Can!"

So I'm a big fan of the major blogs in Canada with regards to personal finance. I like reading people that are going through the same things that I do. Some are older, some are younger, however I definitely think they are worth reading.

I will mention which ones in a later post, however for now, I want to share my thoughts on a book I just finished reading called 'Stop Working: Here's How You Can!' by Derek Foster.

I was very excited to read this book, and as I started to read the book, I got even more excited to finish it. Derek employs a strategy in which he relies on dividends and distributions to live on, without really worrying too much on the over-all price of the stock itself. Truthfully I think this strategy makes a lot of sense. I mean, why spend every day looking at stock prices and market fluctuation, when you could be doing the things you enjoy every day and getting a steady income while doing it? That's the power of dividends.

The book is good. I will be recommending that my girlfriend reads it, as well as other people I know. Derek is now retired, and although the book was written and published (by him btw, so I'm sure there is some extra income for him!) in 2005, the information is very relevant and if someone was looking to invest in todays market.. well, we're quite down over-all as I write this. Perhaps a good time to look at some solid companies with great dividend growth and outlook? This was why I was excited to read it and finish it. Which I did in about 2 days. (I'm not much of a reader, but doing more and more of it)

The writing style is one that I personally enjoyed, he's not much on BS and gets down to business and facts. The only downside I would bring up would be the fact that I found myself readying to page forward in order to find out where he has the money invested, and how much is he drawing in? As I wanted to know would this work for me? Could I live on this? Etc, etc... but that isn't really even a drawback as it makes the book interesting and a little bit 'suspensful'?

Anyhow, I do recommend reading this book, it sort of emphasizes the importance of a steady stream of income in retirement moreso than a nest egg that you sit on. And personally, I agree with that.

If you'd like to pick up a copy, feel free to at http://www.stopworking.ca

Energy Audit - Booked for Mid-August

So I booked an Energy Audit on my house for mid-August, and am really looking forward to it. The way I see it, every little bit helps, and if they can find some 'leaks' or means of improvement on my house, then I am all for it, and as far as I'm concerned, it's money well spent.

It costs on average $150 for Islanders to have their homes audited, and as CBC reports, it's a very busy start to the 2008 season.

I'm really not sure what to expect for this audit. I've heard a few different things like they will 'suck out all the air out of your house'? Ok, I don't think they can actually even do that.. but I know what I believe they are getting at. Basically, they are looking for the 'leaks' in the house where air is getting out. That's GREAT! I would love to know, so that I can get some weather stripping or whatever it's called and put it on! No leaks = no heat escaping!

It's also the starting point if you're interested in any of the Eco-Energy initiatives that the federal government is offering. That's how I got started, somehow I stumbled across that site and said, "hey! what a good idea!".




Here are the steps listed on the site as to how to apply and get 'eco-energied'. heh heh (yes, I made up that word)

1. Hire a qualified energy advisor to perform an energy evaluation of your home. (booked)
   
2. Select the improvements from your home energy action checklist.(not expecting miracles, but every little bit helps)
   
3. Implement the recommended energy upgrades within 18 months.(I should start saving)
   
4. Call your energy advisor to perform your post-retrofit evaluation, to confirm your new energy rating and to submit your application on your behalf.(not sure about this step.. we'll see)
   
5. Wait for up to 90 days to receive your cheque based on the eligible upgrades performed! (Show me the money!!)
   

I'll keep you posted.

Installing a 'hackintosh'.. a lot easier than I thought

So I spent the better part of last week trying to get my PC converted to a Mac.. the latest version of Leopard to be exact. 10.5.4.

I was very surprised when I first loaded up the boot disk I had obtained as it pretty much took me right into the installer and I was able to run it and start the install almost immediately. VERY impressed was I.

30 minutes later, I was sitting in front of Mac OSX 10.5.4. Wow.. that was incredibly easy! BUT, small issue.. no network card detected.. even though it was there and working fine with Windows XP. This caused a few headaches, but I decided upon reading up at www.insanelymac.com that I would install one of the spare network cards I have and see if that worked.

Blammo.. Internet access here we come!

Now I was ready (and am still in the process of).. customizing all the applications I have obtained.. and the interface.. transferring files from my external hard drive to it, etc.etc. What I like about this part is that you do a lot of learning about the operating system and how it's made, etc.

For example, I am having problems with my sound card. It will recognize it, and play to a certain extent, but only from the right speaker, and the sound is very crackly. I'm still trying to figure out why this is, but I believe it to be a driver issue, and as much as it's easy to install drivers for windows.. I must admit that doing the same for a MAC is a little trickier.

So far however, I must admit.. I love the Mac. It's very graphical which is right up my alley, and I haven't ran into a program which I had for the PC that I wasn't able to get or use on my 'hackintosh'. I thank the people at Lifehacker for their website and their awesome tutorials and findings. Easily my favorite site on the net.

Options Trading Basics, by me. Pt. 1

Options Trading - in stupid terms

Options Trading isn't hard.. it's very easily actually.. and I still think it's the best way to play the market if you have a general idea which way the market is going to go. That being said, it can be expensive if you want to limit your risk, and it can be expensive if you're wrong. No question.

I'm going to start off with a concept that I'm all to familiar with... gambling. ;-)

Most people know how to gamble.. risk money, to try to win. In Vegas, and in all casinos.. the house has the edge. In Stocks, I believe the investor has the edge, however you have to know what you're doing.

An option is nothing more than a contract that you buy (or sell, but we won't cover that), to own shares of a security at any given time. For example, if I think that Google stock (GOOG) is going to go 620 next month (August '08) at the time of this writing, I can purchase that option for $5.20. Doesn't sound like much does it?

No, it's not, however you can't just buy 1, you have to buy 100. So we're talking $520. As of todays close the share price, was sitting at $533.44. So, if I purchase that contract, I'm thinking that GOOG is going to dramatically rise in price by about 87 points (dollars) by August 15th, options always expire on the 3rd Friday of every month..... am I crazy???

Well, yes.. I sort of am.. but the truth is, GOOG doesn't have to get to 620 for me to make money, all it has to do is rise. Optimally, it will rise quick, and rise big. Because for example if 2 days from now, GOOG went up $20 (which it's been known to do), to 553.77, well.. now that 620 is a lot closer, and as such, the price for that contract is going to go up.. how much?? Well.. likely around the $9.00 mark, or $900. And at that time, what we have bought, we can sell. We would sell it for $900, and pocket ourselves a nifty little $350-ish profit, less commissions. How do you like %62 in your portfolio?

Sounds easy right? Well, as I said.. it is, but there are a LOT of factors here to consider.

1. May not go the way you want.. obviously, your $520 option can turn worthless if GOOG goes straight down and never recovers, or doesn't move at all for the rest of the month.
   
2. GOOG stalls. Meaning, it doesn't move anywhere. Say a week goes by, and GOOG stock is still at 555? Well, what's called 'time decay' kicks in, and is always there.. time decay means that you have less time for it to move to $620, which affects the options price. Even though it hasn't gone down, it hasn't moved up! which is what we want, so the price will go down slightly, and much more dramatically as time gets closer to the 15th of August or expiry date
3. Earnings. Stocks move on earnings.. as I write this Blog entry, GOOG missed their earnings report, and the stock has plunged 50 points. Yes.. 50 points. Ha! So now, instead of having to go up 87 points, GOOG now has to hustle up and go over 137 points! Good luck!!
   

There are other options to consider, but that is the general idea on how it works. Now this is what I like about it, if you know of a stock that's going to go down big soon.. you can purchase what's called a 'put'. This is the opposite of a 'call'. A Call means you think the stock is going to go up, and a Put means you think the stock is going to go down. But all the same factors are the same.

I think that's where I'll cut it right now, and I'll resume with Pt. 2 soon.

I had to have a little fun this morning.

EDIT: what the hell? It looks like they erase your settings after a day.. so now instead of me and my brothers faces.. we get this generic crap. Dammit!

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