I’m not sure if this is a “green tip” or just a “money-saving tip”. Either way.
Just a quick thought which I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned earlier. But I thought about it this morning as I pulled down my space heater out of the attic.
For the last 2 winters, Anna and I have used (for the most part) a space heater instead of our gas heat. I’m not sure if this will apply to you electric heater people. But for those on gas . . . you know this . . . gas is really, really expensive. So our friend Tad told us what he does. He went out and bought a couple of space heaters. Not those little metal ones with the orange coals. But ceramic towers. A good one will cost you between $65-$100.
So for the last 2 winters, we’ve stayed relatively warm. We’ve turned off our gas heat and relied on our ceramic heaters. Now if guests come over . . . we obviously crank it up for them.
But when it’s just us . . we leave the heat at . . . wait for it . . . 60 degrees. Which is quite chilly. But then we turn off all the vents in our house in the guest rooms. Keep the doors shut and essentially shave off 400-500 square feet of space that needs to be heated.
And if we’re in our bedroom, we keep the doors shut to the living room. If we’re in the living room, we keep the doors shut to the bedroom. And then we use our ceramic space heaters. You will be amazed at how warm it keeps you. You will literally wake up in the middle of the night sweating! There will be an obvious spike in the electric bill each month. Approximately $40 for us. With the investment of a ceramic heater at the beginning of the season (now) when they are on sale at $75. You can then divide that number out over the course of the winter. So you’re looking at a $55 total for this way of heating.
And the big number that you will save . . .
For us . . . $150 a month! And that’s with the $55 increase factored in.
On Friday, Jim Wallis and Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, engaged in a dialogue on the role of faith in politics at the Family Research Council’s “Values Voters Summit,” tackling such issues as abortion, poverty, the environment, and national security. Below is a video with some of the highlights.
I was talking to Eric on the phone this afternoon and he said my thoughts on water this weekend weren’t feasible. Or at the very least unfair. To which I agree. His point was that each house shouldn’t be rationed the same amount of water. That it wouldn’t be fair for a house of 6 to get the same amount of water as an apartment of 2.
Again . . . I wholeheartedly agree. My point was simply that it also isn’t fair that a family of 2 (us) who uses about $10 of water a month shouldn’t be punished for our conservation. When I take marine showers and Anna takes short showers . . . when we’ve installed low pressure flushing accessories to our john . . . when we don’t take baths or multiple showers in a day . . . when we combine loads when we do laundry and air dry half of our stuff . . . we shouldn’t be punished when we want to keep our lawn as green as possible while we try to sell our house. Or when we want to wash our dirty car.
My point is that there needs to be a more equitable system.
Eric makes a great point. That equality is not a suitable alternative to our water crisis. However, there is a difference between equality & equity. Something that Brian McLaren develops in his latest book Everything Must Change (review forthcoming).
EQUITY is all about fairness and justice. While EQUALITY is about sameness.
There is certainly a place for both. And this is not an attempt to discredit equality. Equality can certainly be a value when it is in regard to our humanity, rights, and opportunities. But in the context of economic systems or even sharing . . . the arbitrary nature of equality is in desperate need of it’s relational cousin . . . equity.
Equality tends to end up focused on black and white rules or concrete morals. While equity is much more contextual in nature and focuses on fairness and justice. It’s more conversational and dynamic.
So in regards to this water situation . . . I’m not advocating a Communist equality system where every one is alloted a certain concrete amount that is the same across the board. But rather a system framed by equity that is more conversational to the legitimate aims of some at conservation and the hyper-consumption actions of others at waste and excess.
Georgia is about to become a natural disaster area. It sounds drastic. But unless you live in the Atlanta/North Georgia area, you really have no idea how bad it has gotten. We live about 5 minutes from the DAM in question. We go there for walks all the time with Jack.
So trust me I get it. But it seems like a pretty disproportionate system. For example, we have been on a partial water ban all summer. And a complete water ban for the past month. We can’t water our lawn or wash our cars. Or we get fined. And pretty heavily at that.
But it bothers me because this isn’t a system that rewards conservation but rather black and white rules. What if I only take a 5 minute shower once a day while some suburban mom takes an hour long shower in the morning and at night. Or what if she takes a long bath. These black and white concrete laws don’t have conservation as their aim. For the last week (before we went out of town) I started taking military showers. Where you turn the water on to get wet. Turn it off while lathering. And turn it back on to rinse off. Not trying to toot my on horn. But it’s just ghetto that we don’t have a system that is equitable. Instead I can’t wash my car or my scooter. Both of which need it after a long trip in which it is covered with bugs.
Then John Linder (who I’m not a huge fan of) says this . . .
“What we’ve learned from this is what a blunt weapon the Endangered Species Act has become, where some obscure bureaucrat in Fish and Wildlife and some obscure judge can decide that mussels are more important than our children and grandchildren,” said U.S. Rep. John Linder, R-Georgia, who spoke after Perdue at Saturday’s news conference.
I get that people are more important than fish and mussels. I really do. But come on! Our children and grandchildren aren’t in danger. And if they are it’s because for the most part we live excessive lives. It’s not the governments fault. Let’s put half the blame on nature and the other half on us for not adapting our lifestyles enough so that they are in sync with our environment.
What we need is a water taxing system. Where you get taxed for excessive use. Or a rewards based system where you get incentives for using less.
But then again the rich can afford a few cents tax on the water. Not taking pot shots at the rich. Because we all need to learn to conserve. I’m just saying.
Jordon Cooper linked to a MSN (they’re still around) article entitled 10 Easy Ways to Save $500 or More. Some of the ideas are really legit and we are even practicing a few of them. I thought it might be a cool little thing to do on the blog. Give a few of my “money-saving” tips. Some people think of me as a tight-wad. Which I don’t really understand because some of my other friends would think of me as an excessive materialist. A label that I would probably agree with. It’s not that I don’t like to spend money. It’s just that if I do actually spend money, I do it on things that I enjoy and that are quality and that will last as opposed to transient trends or cheap stuff.
This is why I don’t buy a lot of clothes. And when I do, I buy solid color shirts and nice jeans. Then wearing the jeans 6 out of the 7 days. Gross right? But what I don’t spend on clothes I spend on tech stuff. I guess I learned this from my parents. Where growing up I wore off brand shoes and clothing, ate generic store brand cereal and poptarts, and kept my old shampoo bottles so that I could refill them with the 5 gallon bucket of shampoo that my parents special ordered from a beauty salon supply store. But what my parents saved by being excessively frugal in those areas afforded them the luxury of having a beach house. It all evens out in the end. So this is no way bragging. We just bought a Vespa afterall. It’s just a few of the ways that Anna and I have chosen to save money in certain areas so that we can use it in other areas. I’m convinced the only reason we have the nice things that we have (house, computers, scooter, cameras, dog(?), etc) is because we’re both penny pinchers in the areas below. And because I’m lucky enough to have a wife who doesn’t care about “things” as much as she cares about us.
Anyway . . . my list.
Be Selective In Your Clothing Purchases: This is the easiest one for me. While the others are much more of a challenge. Try to by clothes that aren’t “trendy” and fashionable for a season. If you shop like that, you’re constantly having to buy a new wardrobe every 4-6 months. Which most of can usually never afford. So we end up buying a “trendy” purse, shirt, pair of jeans, and/or shoes every now and then. A couple of years later we look like a fashion timeline of outdated fashions. Still rocking the Louie V from 5 years ago. Or still believing Birkenstocks are going to come back in style. We end up having a hodge podge collection of outdated stuff that was trendy a couple of seasons ago. This is the thing I’ve learned about fashion. It’s extremely transient. What is cool today will be lame tomorrow. And I know fashion is lame. But let’s be honest, 95% of us want to look half way stylish and nice when we go out. So my recommendation . . . stick to the basics. Stick to what always works. Whether it’s 1980 or 2020. For me, it’s nice jeans and solid colored shirts. Or basic, simple stripes. Or solid color button ups. In this way, I only spend $100 every 6 months or so. I’ll go out and buy some new solid colored shirts and a new pair of jeans to replace the ones with the holes in the knee. And I’m certainly not trying to brag, but I always feel “stylish”. And I do it on less than $250 a year. It also helps to buy things at the end of a season. By your winter clothes at the beginning of the Spring when all of the winter stuff goes on sale. It sits in your closet for 8 months but it’s a whole lot nicer paying $14 for a sweater as opposed to $60. Same for summer clothes. By bathing suits, sandals, and shorts at the end of the summer. For women . . . I’m not sure what to tell you! But again, I think basics and solids are hard to go wrong with.
Conserve Energy: Anna will probably divorce me for this at some point because of my constant nagging. But turn off the lights when you leave the room. Turn off the television and radios when you leave the house. If you’re gone on vacation, turn your air off and your hot water heater down. Try changing the air temperature by just 2 degrees in the winter and the summer and you’ll easily shave $25 off your monthly bill. Wear sweat pants and long sleeves in your house in the winter and knock it down another 2 degrees and you can $400 in one winter. Change out a few light bulbs and you save another $100 or so.
Cut Back On Entertainment: This one is hard for me because I like television, music, movies, and concerts. But if you only go to 2 concerts a year as opposed to 10, you can save another $400. Try renting your DVDs instead of buying them. Most of us buy DVDs on a whim because we like the movie and then rarely ever watch them again. We usually spend between $15-20 on them. But we could rent them 3-4 times for that amount. Try limiting what you see in the theaters. And ultimately, just cut back on media in general. Anna and I went without any television, cable, or satellite for our first year of marriage. Instead we opted for coffee houses, Yahtzee & Backgammon, actual conversation, and movies cuddled in bed. Which is a much better posture than sitting on separate couches anyway. Even now . . . just get basic cable (8 channels) for $15 as opposed to the expanded package for $60+ and you can save another $600. Even if the show you love only comes on cable, you’re still cheaper buying the season on iTunes than you are going with satellite or expanded cable. And music, movies, and television are easy to if you believe in piracy . . . ahem . . . I mean open-source.
Food & Drink: This one is the hardest one for me/us. Us on the food. Me on the drink. We eat out a lot. And every time we do usually spend $20-25 easily. Getting rid of just one of those meals a week saves us $1200 a year! Considering that most times I’ll drink a couple of beers. That adds in as much as $10. Choosing to drink water over a soft drink will save you $150 a year just by substituting 2 soft drinks a week. And sharing meals cuts the price in half. That’s what we call easy math.
These are just a few of the ways that we try to save money so that we can spend/give it in other areas. I recognize that one mans frugality is another man’s excess. I know it’s all about perspective. There are many things that we still buy that we think are frugal but others would think are excessive. And vice versa. This is just an exercise at thinking about what we spend money on and why we do it.
So if you made it this far? What tips do you have? What are areas/ways that you try to save money?
BTW – I think the world would be a whole better place if everyone practiced #2 on their list (wink wink).
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