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!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
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:
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!
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