About a month ago, we had a pretty lively discussion about whether or not you should pay off your mortgage early. A number of readers made great points on both sides of the debate. Since that time, I put together some thoughts on how to pay off your mortgage early for those that are interested in doing so. Today, I wanted to share some thoughts additional thoughts on the topic.

The source for these thoughts is a recent book called “The Frugal Millionaires,” which profiles 70 anonymous millionaires and their thoughts about money. Interestingly, just like with our prior discussion here on FCN, there are ‘frugal millionaires’ on both sides of the fence. Here’s a taste of what they had to say…

Thoughts in favor of keeping your mortgage…

“When it comes to residences, mortgages can be a way for someone to save cash for investing and therefore possibly allow them to earn a higher rate of investment return than one is paying in mortgage interest.”

“If you can have money at a cheap rate then a mortgage is a great decision…”

“If the money is cheap, it can be smart to arbitrage the cost of the mortgage vs. the benefits of a tax deduction and market gains…”

“The US government tax system is set up to reward those who have mortgages…”

“If the government is going to pay you to own a home, why turn them down…”

Thoughts in favor of paying off your mortgage…

“If you want absolute peace of mind, don’t have any debt…”

“For many people the advantage of the ‘interest deduction’ is a myth perpetuated by by real estate agents, mortgage brokers, and even your friends…”

“Mortgages lose their interest rate deduction efficiency as they get older. This [is because] you are paying more principal towards the end of the loan…”

“Take opportunities to pay off a little of the capital on your mortgage whenever you can — even if it seems like an insignificant amount.”

“I prefer not to have one and say get rid of them as fast as you can. Debt will kill you.”

“There’s a great feeling in living in a home you own outright.”

What say you?

While I know that I number of you have weighed in on this already, I still thought it would be worth asking… As I’ve noted previously, we’re doing a bit of both. We’re paying down our mortgage ahead of schedule, but we’re not committing every last penny to the effort. Instead, we’re directing a sizable chunk of our ‘discretionary’ funds to our investment portfolio.

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“How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence.”

-Benjamin Disraeli

In recent years, the adoption of an independent and sustainable lifestyle has become increasingly attractive to a growing number of people. I am one of the many who seek such a lifestyle and, though I am far from reaching this goal, my journey has begun.

Getting there will be neither quick nor easy, but I’m up for the challenge, and am taking things one step at a time. One project that has recently gripped my attention has been growing a vegetable garden.

“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.”

-Henry David Thoreau

There is something powerful about the practice of planting, nurturing, harvesting, and eating your own food. I love the entire process, but couldn’t partake for the last few years. Since we bought a new home, our summers have been consumed with other projects like installing our lawn, landscaping, etc. It wasn’t until this year that I was able to spend time on my garden.

Setting the stage

We live on less than a quarter acre in the suburbs. As such, we don’t have a lot of space. At our previous house, I just tilled up a big spot in the back yard, brought in some compost, planted my veggies, and called it a day. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t fly in suburbia.

I don’t think that having a tilled-up back yard is against the rules of my homeowners association, but I do know it would attract many unhappy looks from my neighbors. Thus, I decided to install our new garden in pretty little planter boxes.

I started with some very reasonably priced wood. Instead of using a common but expensive garden box wood like redwood, I chose to go with Douglas fir. The boards are much cheaper, but will still last for quite a few years. I ended up building two boxes, one for vegetables and the other for herbs. My veggie box is reasonably large at 4′ x 8′, whereas my herb box is much smaller at 2′ x 4′.

When it came time to plant, I started out in two distinct rows but soon realized that I’d run out of space if I kept up that way. Thus, I started staggering the plants to make them fit. While I managed to fit everything in, I’m guessing that thing might be a bit crowded this year — especially for my tomato plants!

“Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.”

-Elizabeth Murray

The contents of our garden

The following list provides a rundown of what’s in our garden this year:

• 3 broccoli plants
• 4 Early Girl tomato plants
• 4 Delicious tomato plants
• 2 Cherry tomato plants
• 4 yellow bell pepper plants
• 4 red bell pepper plants
• 1 green zucchini plant
• 1 Jalapeno plant
• 6 green romaine lettuce plants
• 2 basil herbs
• 1 chive herb
• 1 sage herb
• 1 thyme herb

And here are some pictures of the end product:

The benefits of a garden

When I consider all of the benefits of growing these plants, I get very excited. I’m a total garden nerd! Add to that my rain barrels, and I’m in Heaven. Growing your own garden boosts your self-reliance, along with these other awesome advantages:

• Saves you money. The cost of produce is on the rise, and growing your own not only saves you money, it also frees you from the worry of fluctuating prices!
• You control the pesticide use. Can’t afford to buy organic? You can now! This will be our third attempt at a garden, and we have yet to use any chemicals. There are many natural ways to fend off pests and disease. One trick that my wife and I employ is to plant a Marigold border around our garden.
• Fresh and ripe. Store bought produce is often picked before it is ripe. This is done to prevent spoilage and decrease damage. The problem is, picking produce before it is ripe reduces its nutritional value.
• Great taste. The taste of a fresh, organically grown fruit, vegetable, or herb far exceeds that of its store bought counterpart.
• Ability to preserve. Growing your own food gives you an opportunity to preserve your food for use throughout the year. This allows you to enjoy the fruit of your labors even in the dead of winter.
• Education. A garden is a great way to educate your children about health, independence, and hard work.
• Free therapy. Gardens provide you with an opportunity to commune with nature, which is definitely good for the soul.

“A garden is the best alternative therapy.”

-Germaine Greer

Growing your own garden provides a glimpse of a simpler life that can be very rewarding. Couple the independence gained with the money saved and you have yourself a very powerful tool. Also, remember that you don’t need a ton of land to have a good garden. Here’s an example of great gardening in a small space.

I’ll be a gardener until the day I die.

What about you? Do you garden? If so…why?

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Installing a rain barrel is an excellent way to reduce runoff, keep storm water out of the municipal system, and save money. Pure rain collected from your rooftop has relatively few contaminants, and is perfect for a variety of outdoor uses.

The idea of harnessing rainwater has intrigued me for years now, but I’ve never gotten around to implementing it. That is, until a few weeks ago when I stumbled on a promotion for heavily discounted, professionally crafted rain barrels. I was smitten!

Why you should use a rain barrel

What follows is a list of some of the advantages of using a rain barrel:

• Rainwater is free. Using rain water will reduce your water bill. If you have “city water,” you pay your municipality for supplying the water based on your usage level. If you have “well water,” you pay for the electricity to run your water pump. Rain barrels
• Rainwater can reduce your sewer bill. Because many cities base your sewer bill on your water consumption, rain barrels can provide additional savings. In such cases, your only real alternative is to have a separate water meter installed for your outdoor spigots. A rain barrel is much, much cheaper.
• Rainwater is natural and useful. It’s soft, free of dissolved minerals, and chlorine free. In other words, it’s great for use on your plants, garden, lawn, and for washing vehicles.
• Rainwater usage is sustainable. Collecting rain water for use around my home is no different than the concept of harnessing wind power for electricity. Use of naturally occurring systems reduces the load on our existing infrastructure. I’m not a tree hugger, but I am interested in a more intelligent system.

Rain barrels are a simple, inexpensive, and practical way for us to save money, reduce our environmental impact, and increase our independence from established municipalities. Whether you live in the city, the country, or the suburbs, you too can use and benefit from a rainwater collection system.

Why municipalities want us to use rain barrels

Rainwater collection systems don’t just benefit individuals — they benefit local communities, as well. This is especially true in areas where storm sewers and sanitary sewers are still combined; by collecting rainwater, you can reduce the load on your local water treatment facilities.

In addition, 40% of the water that people use during the spring, summer, and fall goes into such outdoor applications as washing cars and watering lawns and gardens. As such, rain barrels can reduce demand during peak months.

Where can you get rain barrels?

Given the above, it’s not too surprising that many municipalities are selling truckloads of rain barrels with little or no markup. If you’re curious about this possibility, contact your local government to see if they’re doing something like this. I purchased 2 rain barrels for $48 apiece. At retail prices, these would’ve cost me around $150 apiece!

If you’re not as lucky as me, you still have some options:

• Make your own rain barrels. I won’t delve into the necessary parts, tools, and instructions that you’ll need if you go this route. Instead, I’ll provide you with this links to a downloadable pdf with instructions on how to build your own. Unless you find a great deal like I did, I’d suggest going this route — the difficulty level is not very high.
• Purchase retail rain barrels. If you’re not a do-it-yourselfer, and you can’t find a deal from your local government, then check your local hardware store. Not everyone sells them, though, so you might want to call ahead to be sure they have what you’re looking for.

Closing thoughts

I’m fired up to finish the installation of my new rainwater collection system! They’re assembled and ready to go… I just need to connect them to my downspouts. I plan on finishing this project over the weekend.

Have you been kicking around the idea of installing some rain barrels for your home or business? With the many benefits outlined above, this is a great time to put your plan into action and realize the idea! Or do you already have rain barrels in place? If so, let us know how you like them.

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Should you payoff your mortgage early? I asked that question a couple of weeks ago, and the majority of respondents said “yes.” With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a list of strategies for doing just that…

Refinance your mortgage to a shorter term

If you refinance your mortgage to a shorter term, say from thirty to fifteen years, you can dramatically reduce the time required to payoff your mortgage. As an added bonus, rates are typically lower on shorter term mortgages.

The downside here is that you will have to pay closing costs, etc. (unless you opt for a “no-cost” refinance). Your mortgage payment will also increase, but what did you expect? You’ll be paying off your mortgage significantly faster, so it only makes sense that you’ll pay more per month.

Biweekly mortgage payment plans

I’ve written about biweekly mortgage payment plans in the past. The trick here is that, by sending in half of your monthly mortgage payment every two weeks, you end up making the equivalent of an extra payment every year.

Don’t believe me? Do the math. Instead of making 12 monthly payments, you’ll make 52/2 = 26 biweekly payments — the equivalent of 13 monthly payments. This will shave years off your mortgage. Moreover, if you’re paid on a biweekly basis, this approach might match your budgeting process better than monthly payments.

The downside to biweekly payment programs is that, while many lenders offer these sorts of programs, most of them charge a fee for the privilege. While it might seem easy to justify such fees based on your long-term savings, there’s a better option…

Overpay a fixed amount every month

When we bought our first house, I started sending in an extra 10% of our total payment as an additional principal payment. Ultimately, this works out to the equivalent of 1.2 extra mortgage payments each year — on par with the biweekly plan, but without the extra fees. Since you’re sending a fixed amount everything month, this is also very easy to automate.

Pay next month’s principal this month

This is an idea that I first read about in “Wealth Without Risk.” It goes like this… When you sit down to make your mortgage payment, send an additional payment equal to next month’s principal.

If you’re not sure what next month’s principal payment will be, just double the amount from this month — that’s close enough. In case you weren’t aware, your mortgage statement should break this down for you, listing the amounts going to principal, interest, and taxes/insurance.

The primary advantage with this approach is that it really puts your mortgage payments into hyperdrive. Over time, the amount you are paying toward principal will increase, meaning that you’ll pay down your mortgage faster and faster as the months go by.

There are two primary disadvantages to this approach. The first is that the amount of your overpayment is variable (increasing each month) such that it can be hard to automate your payments. The second is that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with the payments since the overpayment continually accelerates as the interest portion of your payment dwindles.

The haphazard approach

If all else fails, I recommend that you at least take what I’ve termed here the haphazard approach. Whenever you run across a small windfall, simply forward it to your mortgage company as an extra principal payment. Get a check from your reward credit card? Send it in. Get a tax refund? Send it in. Find ten bucks in the gutter? You know the drill… Send it in.

Aside from the fact that this approach doesn’t put any additional strain on your budget, paying down your mortgage with found money can be kind of fun. The downside is that this approach is generally less effective than the alternatives. After all, your additional payments will typically be smaller, and will come at somewhat random intervals.

Closing thoughts

The above list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a great starting point. If you have any other suggestions, please share them in the comments. If you’d rather invest than prepay your mortgage, that’s fine. In fact, some of the above strategies can be applied to juicing up your investments. For example, make that extra “principal” payment into a brokerage account.

The important thing is to do something.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» Are Biweekly Mortgage Payment Plans Worthwhile?
» Debt Reduction: Share Your Story
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» Reaching the Mortgage Crossover Point
» Help a Reader: Mortgages from ING Direct
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This morning I wrote about the high cost of hurricane insurance. Since today is the first day of hurricane season, I thought I’d follow that up with a list of tips from the National Hurricane Center on preparing for and surviving a hurricane.

While some of these tips are hurricane specific, others make good sense in the face of just about any natural disaster.

• Take steps to protect your home against unnecessary damage.
• Talk to your family about the types of hazards you might face.
• Identify a safe room, or at least the safest areas in your home for each hurricane hazard. If there is no suitable location in your home, you might need to rely on a community shelter.
• Determine the best escape routes from your home as well as safe places for you and your family to meet.
• Identify an out-of-state family member or friend to serve as a single point of contact for your family.
• Develop a plan for what to do with your pets if the event of an evacuation.
• Post all applicable emergency numbers near your phone and make sure your kids know how/when to call 911.
• Double-check your insurance coverage to ensure that hurricane damage is covered, and that you also have flood insurance (if necessary).
• Stock up on non-perishable supplies and create a disaster supply kit.
• Get a weather radio and be sure to replace its battery every 6 months (along with your smoke detector batteries) to keep them fresh.
• Take First Aid, CPR, and disaster preparedness classes.

You might also want to check out Matt’s list of tips for preparing for a power outage, as you’re likely to be in the dark for at least awhile after the storm passes. If you have any tips of your own, please share them in the comments.

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The 2009 hurricane season officially starts today. As such, I thought I’d talk a bit about hurricane insurance. Unfortunately, according to recent reports, hurricane insurance rates are on the rise. Beyond increased premiums, issuers have been increasing deductibles and, in some cases, dropping policy holders in high risk areas.

These changes have been driven by a combination of higher than expected hurricane-related claims as well as increased costs related to reinsurance (i.e., insurance sold to other insurers to mitigate the risk of losses). Beyond this, the recent economic turmoil has put additional strain on insurance companies, resulting in pressure to increase premiums.

The good news (for us) is that we’re not really in hurricane country. The bad news is that many of you are, and thus might be in need of additional protection.

Do you need hurricane insurance?

In many cases, the damage caused by hurricanes will be covered by your basic homeowner’s insurance policy. That being said, an increasing number of policies actually exclude hurricane-related damage, in which case you’ll need to buy additional coverage. Do yourself a favor and check your policy now instead of waiting until it’s too late.

Note that, even if you do have coverage, you’ll still need to keep a decent amount of cash on hand to protect yourself. The reason for this is that the deductible for hurricane-related damage is typically a percentage of your home’s value, and can be quite high in some cases.

What about flood insurance?

Another extremely important point is that hurricane coverage is generally limited to wind damage, and thus does not cover damage due to a possible storm surge or subsequent flooding. As such, you’ll need to purchase flood insurance if you wish to be fully protected.

Something else to consider here is that, while most flood policies cover the costs associated with repairing/replacing the structure of your home and your possessions, they do not cover alternate living arrangements if you’re forced out of your home during the repairs. If this might be an issue for you, you’ll either need additional coverage, or you’ll need to beef up that emergency fund.

Other considerations

Finally, given the potential for water intrusion during and after a hurricane, you should check to see if you’re covered for mold damage. Mold can be an extremely expensive problem to deal with, and many homeowner’s insurance policies explicitly exclude mold damage, or at least limit the coverage associated with mold claims.

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Should you pay off your mortgage early? Or should you focus on investing with your spare cash? This is one of the most hotly debated topics in personal finance, with vocal proponents on both sides. Today, I thought I’d take a look at this issue from both angles and then share our approach with you.

Why you should pay off your mortgage early

One of the biggest advantages of paying off your mortgage early is peace of mind. Once you’ve paid it off, you’ll wake up every morning and fall asleep every night knowing that the roof over your head is 100% yours. For many people, you can’t put a price on that sort of security.

Beyond the comfort/security aspect, paying off your mortgage early is a bit like locking in a guaranteed investment return. For every dollar that you pay early, you’re “earning” the interest that you would’ve otherwise paid on it over the balance of the loan period. This sounds great, right? Well…

The flip side of the “guaranteed investment return” argument is that mortgage interest rates are often quite low, and interest payments on a mortgage are also tax deductible (for those that itemize). These factors make early payments lose a bit of their luster.

Another advantage of paying off your mortgage early is that doing so protects you from yourself. While paying the minimum on your mortgage and investing the difference might sound like a great idea, there are no guarantees that you’ll actually follow through on the second part of the equation.

To see how long it might take you to payoff your mortgage, there’s a mortgage payoff calculator at this site for mortgage calculators

Why you shouldn’t pay off your mortgage early

The biggest downside to paying off your mortgage early is the (potentially large) opportunity cost that you’ll face. By this I mean that you’ll be giving up investment returns that might significantly outpace your mortgage interest rate.

In other words, why pay off a 5% mortgage when you could be earning 8-10% on that money? Of course, one only has to look at the past year to know the answer… Those sort of returns aren’t guaranteed, whereas the mortgage savings are.

Another important point to consider is the effect of inflation. Over time, inflation erodes the value of the dollar. This means that your future mortgage payments will effectively cost less than they do now, as the money you’ll be sending in won’t be worth as much in terms of “real” buying power.

What are we doing?

Instead of pretending to know what’s best in your situation, I though I’d tell you what we’re doing. We’ve actually gone back and forth on this issue, but ultimately decided to do a bit of both. And yes, I know that answer is a total cop-out, but it is what it is.

We are currently in the fortunate position of being able to max out our retirement accounts while having enough left over to put some extra cash toward our mortgage and to work on building up a non-retirement portfolio, so… That’s exactly what we’re doing. I view it as a bit of extra diversification.

A bit over a year ago, we refinanced from a 30 year fixed rate mortgage down to a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. In doing so, we cut our time horizon in half. Beyond that, we’ve been sending in an extra principal payment every month, further reducing the time until we’re mortgage-free.

Admittedly, this hasn’t been an easy decision for us, and we’re still tempted to waver at times. After all, now is a great time to refinance, and I also suspect that there’s a good bit of inflation looming just around the corner.

Given the above, we’ve been tempted to refinance into a rock bottom 30 year fixed rate mortgage and pay it off as slowly as possible while we focus on building our investment portfolio. However, a wise man recently reminded me that “pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered.” In other words, it pays to be greedy, but not too greedy. In the end, we opted to stay the course.

What about you?

Where do you stand on the mortgage pre-payment issue? Are you looking to get out of debt come hell or high water? Or are you paying off your mortgage on schedule while focusing on your investments?

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I’m guilty of buying small gadgets and/or books that I don’t really need. On the surface, many of these items look like they’ll save me time or money, but I either rarely use them or otherwise find that I don’t want to keep them around. Not only does this waste money, but it also results in clutter. Since we live in an apartment with limited space, eliminating clutter is something that I work on all the time.

Preventing impulse buys

Perhaps the most important thing you can do to prevent clutter is to resist clever marketing ploys. Take a look around yourself. Chance are that much of the clutter in your house is the result of impulse buys that seemed like a great idea at the time even though they weren’t. In order to prevent these types of purchases, you need to learn to distinguish fleeting desires from genuine wants and needs.

Commit to asking yourself some questions before you buy:

• Do I really want/need it?
• How often will I use it?
• Where am I going to put it?
• What’s the worst thing that will happen if I wait?

If you answer these questions honestly, you’ll go a long way toward cutting down on your impulse buy and the clutter that inevitably results.

Combatting clutter once you have it

Despite your best intentions, chances are that excess stuff will gradually accumulate around your home. Be proactive if you don’t want it getting out of hand. Here are a few ideas for getting a handle on things:

Consider swapping with family or friends. Get together with your family and friends to swap furniture, clothes, books, movies, etc. This not only saves you money, it also keeps perfectly useful items out of the landfill and reduces the amount of idle stuff sitting around your home.

Donate items to a worthy cause. Aside from taking things to Goodwill, look for charities that need specific items. For example, Phones for Life and Donate A Phone are always on the lookout for used cell phones, and New Eyes for the Needy wants your old eyeglasses. In addition to clearing our some space and doing a good deed, your donation might also qualify for an income tax deduction.

Sell your excess stuff. Consider having a yard sale, or selling your stuff on eBay. You’ll free up some space, and you’ll also generate some cash that can be used for paying off debt, adding to your emergency fund, or saving for other goals.

Do you have any tips for preventing impulse buys or reducing clutter?

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Since most power outages occur during the spring and summers months, this article will focus on power outages in warmer weather. If you experience an outage in cold weather, make sure you have an alternative heat source such as a propane-powered heater and lots of fuel! Either that, or you’ll need a generator.

This past weekend we had some beautifully terrible thunderstorms that knocked out power for the better part of two days. Though the outage was a pain in the butt, the experience provided us the rare opportunity of being “unplugged” and turned out to be a real blessing in disguise.

Like so many other unexpected situations, involuntarily living without power caused us to think outside the box and to brainstorm ways to prepare in the event that something similar happens again. We were slapped in the face by the reality of our sheer dependence on grid living, and quickly began to revert to products and techniques employed by our ancestors in the pre-electricity era.

We thought about renting a generator but decided against it and chose to “tough it out” instead. Over the last 2 years, we’ve had to rent a generator three times, costing us around $50 each time. We considered purchasing a generator but due to the high debt repayment plan we’re following, we haven’t been able to delegate the $700 needed to purchase one. Instead, we’ve put a few great fundamental precautions in place to prepare ourselves for situations like these.

How to deal with a power outage

• Stay informed. Know your power company’s phone number and call them immediately to report the outage. They will also be able to give you an estimate of how long the outage will last. Another thing you’ll need to stay informed is a crank operated radio.
• Maintain a good first aid kit. Be sure to include a few days supply of any prescription medications.
• Ensure you have a good water source. If you have an electric well pump, you’ll lose water pressure, so be sure you have enough drinking water ready.
• Create an old time refrigerator. Keep ten or more two liter bottles or half gallon milk containers filled with water in your freezer. When the power goes out, place five or six of the frozen bottles in your refrigerator to keep things cool. This is actually how the original refrigerators worked.
• Pack a cooler of food. Take a few essential food items out of your fridge and place them in a camping cooler with two or three more frozen containers, or with some of the ice cubes from your freezer.
• Tape off your fridge and freezer. Put painters or masking tape over your fridge and freezer doors so you don’t absent-mindedly open them. This will help keep all the precious cool air inside where it belongs. You can also put heavy blankets over them for added insulation.
• Candles, lighters, flashlights, and batteries. Stockpile twenty or more large, cheap candles for use as light sources. Keep several candles in each room and give each person (but not your kids!) a lighter. When anyone enters or leaves a room they can light or blow out the candle accordingly. You’ll also want to stockpile batteries and give each person in your house a personal flashlight. I suggest investing in a good flashlight such as a Surefire. There’s a high initial cost, but these lights are virtually indestructible and will last forever as long as you don’t lose them.
• Have a camp stove ready. If you have an electric stove, invest in a propane powered camp stove and a few portable propane bottles so you’ll have a way to cook if needed. Just be sure to read the instructions for your stove and cook outside if necessary.
• Prepare your pantry with a few quick emergency meals. An example of a meal that you can whip up quickly and with minimal effort is black bean spaghetti. Mix together a can of black beans & a can of spaghetti sauce, boil up some noodles and voíla, you have yourself a healthy and cheap emergency meal. Some other quick & easy options are soup, crackers, beans, and peanut butter & honey sandwiches (my wife’s favorite).
• Have a collection of non-electric games. These will give you something fun while the power is it. Consider things such as Yahtzee, playing cards, dice, trivia, charades, Monopoly, etc. My wife and I played Yahtzee by candlelight. Very fun and actually quite romantic.
• Make sure you have “car chargers” for cell phones. This will ensure that you can keep your battery charged even when the power is out. Just be sure to plug your phone in during any car trips during the power outage, no matter how short they might be.
• Disconnect garage door opener. Make sure you know how to disconnect your garage door opener so you can get the car out of the garage.
• Go outside. If it is still light and the weather is nice, go for a walk or a bike ride, or any other activity to get you out of the house. Sometimes my wife and I go for a nice relaxing drive in the country. Just be careful with gas usage if your local gas stations are also affected by the outage.
• Internet access. If you need internet access and have a laptop, take it to your local coffee shop. If you don’t have a laptop, go to your local library. Of course, if the outage is widespread, you might be out of luck.
• Maintain a positive attitude. This is crucial for keeping spirits high… Especially if you’re the head of the house.

These tips, when employed as directed above, will help you wait out a two or three day power outage without losing all the food in your fridge to spoilage. If you are out of power much longer than this, you will likely need a generator.

Life without power

During our recent outage, my wife and I realized that we actually enjoyed our “time in the dark.” The time we spent without electricity was some of the best we have spent together in months. We talked for hours, went for a long bike ride in the rain, and played Yahtzee by candlelight. We had so much fun together, and were able to truly pay our full attention to one another, that we enjoyed each other’s company on a deep and unusual level without all the interruptions of modern life.

Because of this, and as an additional way to lower our monthly expenses, we’re considering going “Off The Grid” one day a week. We’re actually going to turn off all the breakers in our electric panel and live as though we have no electricity (with the exception of our refrigerator and freezer of course). But that’s another post for another time!

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I’ve talked at length in the past about how your credit score is determined and why it’s important. Aside from paying your bills on time, one of the biggest things you can do to protect your credit score is to keep a close eye on your credit report.

While you’re entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus (see #1, below), sometimes that just doesn’t cut it. Take, for example, our run-in last year with a wayward collection agency.

When we first discovered the problem, we burned through our free credit reports trying to figure out what was going on. We then needed to monitor the situation until it was resolved, so we ended up using a free trial of TrueCredit (see #3, below) to keep an eye on things.

Given the above, I thought I’d put together a list of options for getting your credit report for free. Start at the top and work your way down.

1. Get it free, the old-fashioned way. As noted above, you can go to annualcreditreport.com and get one free credit report from each of the three major bureaus.
2. Place a fraud alert on your credit report. Whenever you file a fraud alert, all three credit bureaus will automatically send you a free hardcopy of your credit report.
3. Get it from TrueCredit. A 30 day free trial of TrueCredit provides you with access to reports from all three credit bureaus plus your credit score. Just don’t forget to cancel – here’s how.
4. Get it from MyFICO. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial of ScoreWatch from MyFICO.com, which comes with access to your Equifax credit report and FICO credit score. Here again, don’t forget to cancel.
5. Get it from FreeCreditReport.com, bay-bee! Last but not least, you can sign up for a free trial of TripleAdvantage, which access to your Experian credit report. FreeCreditReport.com has gotten a bad rap in the past, so just know this… You’re signing up for a seven day free trial. If you want a truly free credit report, be sure to cancel before it ends.

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This is just a quick note to let you know that HSBC Direct has extended their 3.50% APY promotion. This offer was originally set to expire on August 15th, 2008 but it’s now slated to run through at least September 15th, 2008. For those that aren’t familiar with HSBC Direct, they offer no fees, no minimums, and they’re FDIC insured. We’ve had an account with them for several years now, and have been very happy.

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This is just a quick reminder to change your furnace filters this weekend if you haven’t done so in awhile. Your heat and air system will run much more efficiently with clean filters, meaning less energy consumption and lower energy bills.

While my goal is to do this monthly, I typically forget to do it until I here the wind whistling through the clogged filters in our air returns. So…

This reminder is as much for me as it is for you.

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As many of you know, we renovated our house this past fall. The work that we had done included an addition, replacement of our deck, conversion of our old laundry room into a powder room, and the construction of a small outbuilding.

Over this past weekend, our property tax re-assessment showed up in our mailbox. While I was expecting to see an increase, I wasn’t prepared for what I saw when I opened the envelope, especially given current market conditions.

As it turns out, we’ve been slapped with an increase that pushes the assessed value of our house well beyond fair market value. I know this because the house next door, which is more or less comparable to ours, though it’s a bit larger and has a concrete instead of asphalt driveway, sold within the past month for considerably less than our assessed value.

So what’s a guy to do? Appeal the re-assessment, of course. I’ve drafted a letter to the County Board of Tax Assessors outlining our case. Here it is (minus some sensitive details):

To whom it may concern,

We are writing to appeal the recent re-assessment of the following property:

[Our property details, including address and parcel number]

This property (our primary residence) was re-assessed due to renovations. However, we believe that the new assessment in that our property has been assigned a value well in excess of fair market value. What follows is our reasoning, based on a recent comparable sale directly adjacent to our property.

According to county records, our property has the following characteristics:

[Square footage, lot acreage, other pertinent details, assessed value]

The comparable property (located at 123 Next Door Street) has the following charactersitics:

[Square footage, lot acreage, other pertinent details, assessed value]

As you can see, these two properties have equivalent lot sizes, but the latter has more heated square feet and a concrete instead of asphalt driveway. Given that the assessed value of our property is substantially higher than the fair market price of a more valuable property located directly next door, we believe that an adjustment is in order.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

nickel and his bride

While I think we have a solid case, I’m a bit worried about that fact that the paperwork that we received states that the re-assessment is intended to reflect the fair market value of our property as of January 1, 2008. Unfortunately, the most pertinent comparable sale (that of our neighbor’s house) occurred within the past month.

The only other properties that have sold in our neighborhood within the past year or so are really different from ours in terms of lot size, square footage, etc. While it’s possible to go outside of our neighborhood for comps, we’re in a relatively isolated area, so you have to go quite a distance before you run into similar types of houses.

So… I’m going to take my best shot with our neighbor’s house as the primary data point. If things don’t work out, we can escalate our appeal beyond the Board of Tax Assessors. Either that, or we can try again next year.

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After a weekend spent working around the house, I was reminded of the value of being able to make simple fixes yourself. I’m a reasonably handy guy, and I take a certain amount of pride in being able to fix simple plumbing, electrical, etc. problems myself.

Beyond the satisfaction that comes from maintaining my own house, there are a number of financial rewards associated with doing this.

1. Doing it yourself means that you don’t have to pay someone else to do it. Given how much electricians, plumbers, etc. charge per hour, your savings can be substantial.

2. Depending on how you’re paid, hiring someone else to repair things instead of doing can cost you a decent chunk of money in terms of lost wages. Given that most professional tradesmen work business hours, someone will have to be available to meet them, explain the problem, and then babysit them while they finish the job.

3. Often times people put off minor problems off until they become major problems, primarily in the interest of saving money in the short term. But guess what? Major problems can cost disproportionately more to fix than minor problems. If you knew how to make basic repairs, you’d be able to head a lot of these things off before they get out of hand.

4. Finally, depending on the sort of problem that you’re experiencing, the fix itself can result in direct savings. For example, we had a couple of leaky toilets. The fix was dead easy — it took a grand total of about 2 minutes to replace the “flapper” in each toilet (ignoring the time required to buy the replacement parts). And yet, from here on out we’ll be saving money on our water bill. It might not be a lot, but everything counts.

The good news is that, if you don’t know how to do any of this stuff, salvation can almost certainly be found online. While I typically just end up Googling to find what I need, there are also some nice one-stop repositories of do-it-yourself, such as eHow.com, DoItYourself.com, and Instructables.com that can serve as good general resources.

(Note that Instructables tends to feature more cool hacks and fewer simple fixes, but it’s still worth a look. Thanks Tyler!)

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On the heels of our mortgage refinance, I thought I’d put together a rundown of all the things we did two years ago to get our old house ready for sale. What follows is a rundown of all the ‘major’ stuff that we did just prior to putting our house on the market…

1. Had a moving sale
2. Gave a bunch of stuff to Goodwill
3. Moved a bunch of stuff to storage
4. Minor drywall repair
5. Minor paint touchups throughout the house
6. Washed all windows
7. Had Stanley Steemer clean the carpets ($225 for the whole house). For what it’s worth, you can find exceptional ideas on buying, repairing, restoring, or maintaining carpets online and save money that usually falls underfoot. Cleaners, installers, and professionals offering other flooring options are offering special pricing now in the distressed economy.
8. Repaired a ground fault by replacing the cable from our house to the lamp post
9. Re-painted our mailbox and lamp post
10. Replaced exterior light fixtures on alongside garage door
11. Fertilized the lawn about two weeks before putting it on the market
12. Re-did the mulch beds with fresh pine straw

While this stuff took us a few days to get done, we actually turned a profit in that our moving sale generated more than enough in the way of profits to cover the costs of everything else, plus we had tax savings from the Goodwill donations.

When all was said and done, all three realtors that we interviewed walked through the house and said it was ready to show without doing a thing. And guess what? They were right. We sold our old house for very close to our asking price in under six days. Of course, the market was a heck of a lot better back then than it is now, but still… If you’re thinking of putting your house on the market this spring, be sure to do what you can to spruce it up.

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Do you have a home inventory? If you’re anything like us, you don’t. While we used to have a video inventory, it’s woefully out of date — and to be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure where it is. Obviously, this means that it would be pretty difficult for us to put together (and substantiate) an accurate claim if something bad were to happen to our home.

Since creating an inventory of everything that you own can be a daunting task, I thought I’d point out a free software tool designed to make the job easier… The Insurance Information Institute has put together a freely downloadable home inventory software package called “Know Your Stuff.”

While I haven’t ever used it, it looks pretty nice. You start by naming all the rooms in your house, and then you add items to your inventory on a room-by-room basis. You can even add photos of your stuff and scans of your receipts. And best of all, it’s available in both Mac and PC versions.

Once you’ve pulled it together, you can print out a copy for safe storage, or stick one on a flash drive that you stash somewhere off site. You might also consider e-mailing it to yourself and leaving it on the server for safe-keeping.

If you’ve been thinking of putting together an inventory, then maybe this will be enough to nudge you into action. Honestly, as hard as creating the initial inventory seems, the hardest part will likely be maintaining your inventory as you make new purchases or get rid of old things. But even having a semi-updated inventory is far better than having nothing at all.

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It’s been awhile since I provided an update on our home renovation, so I thought I’d take a minute to fill everyone in with what’s been going on… They actually finished the job late last week, and we’re very happy with the results. In total, we spent a bit under $50k, which covered:

(1) a 320 sq ft addition (enlarged dinette, new laundry room, and new closet for the boys)
(2) installation of a built-in desk in the dinette area for my lovely and talented wife
(3) the conversion of their old closet to a pantry (closed one side, opened the other)
(4) re-carpeting/painting the boys room
(5) replacement our deck with a new, and much larger deck (325 sq ft)
(6) conversion of the old laundry room to a powder room (i.e., small bathroom)
(7) installation of a utility sink in our garage
(8) a 12 x 12 foot standalone workshop (designed to match the house)
(9) painting the entire exterior of our house for a totally “finished” look

All in all, it was a very smooth process that seemed to be helped along by the slow real estate market. Indeed, pretty much every subcontractor was available within a day of contact (at the most). The only real hiccup was that the flooring subcontractor installed the wrong hardwood, which had to be torn out and replaced. As it turns out, the manufacturer had mislabeled the boxes and the work crew apparently didn’t notice the mismatch. The best part is that it’s virtually impossible to tell that it’s an addition (unless, of course, you crawl under the house and look at the foundation).

Needless to say, we’re thrilled to have this behind us, and equally thrilled that we were able to pay for it with cash. Thus, we can enjoy it without a monthly HELOC payment to remind us how much it cost.

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Are you in the market for compact fluorescent lightbulbs?

If so, then check this out…

During a recent trip to Lowe’s, I discovered that they’re running a 2-for-1 deal on 4-packs of 13W compact fluorescent bulbs (Item #146558). This brings the price down to $7.98 for 8 bulbs, or a buck apiece. These bulbs are equivalent to 60W incandescent bulbs in terms of brightness, and this particular make performs quite well — they come on instantly, require minimal warmup to achieve full intensity, and the light quality is pretty darn good. According to the sign, the offer runs through January 1st.

All of this being said… It might be a “your mileage may vary” sort of thing, as the other store in town wasn’t aware of the special (though they honored it when I brought it to their attention). Nonetheless it can’t hurt to check.

For reference, these bulbs come in two different package types…

The first is a blister pack:

And the second is a box:

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This past weekend we had to replace our vacuum cleaner. For the past 6+ years we’ve been living with a Hoover than neither my wife nor I really liked, but it did the job so we dealt with it. However, having survived over six years in a house full of little boys, it was on its last legs and we knew that we’d be replacing it sometime soon.

With all of this in mind, I was thinking of picking up a new vacuum cleaner for Christmas (romantic, I know). But that all changed this past Saturday morning when I awoke to the smell of burning rubber. As it turns out, my wife had gotten up earlier than me and was in the process of cleaning up around the house. Unfortunately, the vacuum seized up and burned out, and all we were left with was a non-functional vacuum and low-hanging cloud of smoke.

Since messes tend to accrue around here rather quickly, we were in a bit of a rush to find a replacement.

We only knew three things:

» We wanted an upright vacuum
» We wanted something that excels on carpet and hard floors
» The name Dyson was burned into our minds from all their advertising

My first step was to hop on over to Consumer Reports to check out their ratings. Here’s a quick rundown of their top 10 (based on performance in a number of categories), complete with model numbers and estimated “street” prices:

1. Sears Kenmore Progressive w/Direct Drive (35922; $300, CR Best Buy)
2. Hoover WindTunnel 2 (U8311-900; $250)
3. Sears Kenmore Progressive w/Direct Drive (bagless version of #1; 36932; $300)
4. Hoover WindTunnel 2 (U8361-900; $320)
5. Eureka Boss Smart Vac Ultra (4870; $150, CR Best Buy)
6. Electrolux Oxygen3 (EL5035A $400)
7. Kirby Sentria ($1350)
8. Riccar SupraLite (RSL3; $350)
9. Hoover Tempo Widepath (U5140-900; $60, CR Best Buy)
10. Bissell Healthy Home (5770; $250)

So what can we learn from all of this? Well, for starters, price isn’t necessarily a good indicator of performance. Second, despite all of the hype surrounding Dyson, their best model (the DC17 Absolute Animal, $550) finished just outside of the top 10 at #11. And you know all those Oreck ads you hear on the radio? Their top rated model (the XL21-700, $750) rounded out the top 12.

In the end, we went Sears Kenmore Porgressive w/Direct Drive for a couple of reasons… First, it was the top performer despite having a mid- to lower-end price tag. Second, we knew exactly where to buy it. Since it’s a Kenmore, it has to come from Sears, and our local store happened to have it in stock. Thus, we didn’t have to chase around town trying to find what we wanted. And to top it all off, they had it was on sale for $249.

Setting it up was a snap, and my wife seems quite happy with it thus far (I still haven’t had a chance to try it out).

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Quick question to all of you out there that track your finances in Quicken, MS Money, or something similar… Do you keep track of your home’s value in your software package of choice? Or do you track it separate from the rest of your finances?

I’ve always been a big proponent of tracking net investable assets as opposed to actual net worth, but I’ve recently been re-thinking this. The main reason for this change of heart is that we’re currently renovating our house to the tune of roughly $50k. Given that our home’s value will be increasing as a result of these renovations, it seems odd to treat that money as if it simply disappeared.

I see that Quicken has an option for tracking homes and other assets, but I’ve never messed around with it. In short, I’m thinking of going back and creating an account for our first house, and populating it with values ranging from the initial purchase price to the eventual sale price (I’ll basically just interpolate the values in between). For our current house, I’d probably play it somewhat conservative and just track the assessed value, which tends to lag behind market values in our area.

Anyway, I just wanted to get your thoughts on how best to handle this.

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Well, the windows finally showed up (two weeks late) and our renovations are proceeding quickly. In the past week:

(1) the exterior got finished (though they still have to paint around the newest windows),
(2) the electrical rough-in got completed,
(3) the heat and air ducts got run,
(4) the county inspector gave us a thumbs up,
(4) the insulation got put in, and
(5) the drywall went up

Ah, the drywall… What a treat. We now have a nice coating of fine white dust everywhere. Everywhere. This despite our best efforts to cordon it off with plastic sheets. And they’re not even done sanding it yet! The upcoming week will see a lot of activity, with the flooring getting installed, the trim work getting done, and the interior getting painted (hopefully).

There will still be some work left at that point — cabinets, new carpeting in the boys room to tie into their new closet, shelving in the new laundry room, pantry, and closet. The new deck also needs to get stained, but… We can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. And we’re very happy with the decisions that we’ve made up to this point.

We’re leaving the conversion of the old laundry room into a powder room for last — after all, we can’t very well keep up on laundry for six if we tear out the old laundry room before the new one is ready.

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Not quite six months ago, I wrote about that fact that our central air conditioning was having trouble keeping the house cool. Cleaning the filters didn’t help, so we called for service. Unfortunately, the A/C repairman couldn’t find anything obviously wrong, aside from the fact that it was low on refrigerant. Since he couldn’t find an obvious leak, he recharged it, added a dye so they could find the leak in the future, and then handed us a bill.

Things were fine over the remainder of the air conditioning season. The weather finally cooled down, and we were able to stop running our A/C for a month or so. But this week it turned cold, so we flipped on the heat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working very well — it was pushing plenty of air, but it wasn’t pumping out much heat. Given that we have a heat pump, which basically means that the A/C runs in reverse to produce heat, I figured we were suffering from the same problems as before.

This time around, we called the heat and air guy that’s been running duct work for our new addition. He came out and not only verified that we were once again low on refrigerant, but he also found the leak. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the coil is cracked, and it’s going to cost about $1,000 to replace it.

Normally, it would be a simple decision to repair it. But right now, the situation is a bit more complex… Since we’re adding on to the house, it’s possible that our current A/C unit won’t be able to handle the additional load. We originally decided to take a wait-and-see approach — if the A/C unit couldn’t handle the additional space, we could always replace it later. Our current quandary is whether we should: (1) roll the dice and pay for the repair in hopes that the unit will be able to handle the additional space, or (2) bite the bullet and upgrade to a larger system (which will probably cost around $8k).

A bit of background:

Our current system is 4 tons which, based on most rules of thumb, was already on the small side for our house (3000 sq ft before the addition). That being said, it never really had trouble keeping up, and it’s better to have an undersized A/C unit than one that’s oversized. With the addition, we’re now up to 3300 sq ft. While that’s just 10% more space, it might just be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

The other consideration is a newer A/C unit would be substantially more energy efficient, although I haven’t had a chance to run the numbers.

So… We now have to decide between spending $1k to fix a heat and air system that might not be sufficient to heat/cool our house, or cut our losses and replace it with a larger system that would definitely handle our needs.

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This past week didn’t see much progress on our home renovation. Both the addition and workshop are roofed, sheathed, wrapped, and partially sided. Our new deck is also in (and it’s fantastic), but… Not much has happened over the past week or so because the new windows were delayed. The good news is that the windows showed up just after lunch today, and the contractor will have his guys out here tomorrow (Saturday) to get things rolling again.

The other bit of news is that the county property tax assessor stopped by. We’re nowhere near done, but he was able to take measurements, which is basically all he needs to do his job. As it turns out, our county just hired a couple of new assessors whose sole job is to canvas the county looking for unpermitted work — i.e., garages, workshops, etc. that were built with pulling a permit, such that they’re not on the tax rolls.

Fortunately, we’ve already received our property tax statement for this year, so we won’t be on the hook for the additional taxes until next year.

Edit: Ugh. The windows that showed up weren’t the right ones. Looks like it’s more hurry up and wait for us…

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I’ve written previously about that fact that we’ve been thinking about adding on to our house. Well, we’ve decided to go ahead with the addition, and our contractor will be taking the first tangible steps this morning when he tears out our old deck.

As I noted previously, we’re adding on off the back, thereby expanding our dinette, creating a new and larger laundry room, and creating a new closet for one of our bedrooms (which sleeps Sons #1 and #3). The deck will be replaced with a new (and larger) one, and we’re also converting the boys’ old closet into a pantry (closed up on their side, opened up on the dinette side) and turning the old laundry room into a nice, centrally-located powder room.

Finally, we’re adding on a small storage building/workshop out back. Think “shed” but nicer, in that it will be on a concrete slab with electrical service as well as roofing/siding to match our house.

Depending on the weather, the entire process should take about two months. But how long it will take is anybody’s guess.

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Wow. We just got a whopper of an electric bill for August. For background, we live in a 3,000 square foot, entirely electric house in the relatively deep South. We’ve also been experiencing a scorching summer with numerous record-setting days, especially during the month of August. So how bad was it? $376,73. This is despite our best efforts to reduce our electrical usage by doing things such as switching over to compact fluorescent light bulbs throughout our house, insulating our garage door, and a variety of other energy saving tricks. We also have a relatively shady, somewhat wooded lot.

In terms of historical usage (see graph below, keeping in mind that we’ve only been in our house for a little over a year), we actually used more electricity last February when we went through a cold spell and wound up burning 4,317 kWh. At the time, however, our bill was “only” $329.06, or $0.076/kWh. This past month, we used 25% less electricity than during February (3,223 kWh) yet our bill was roughly 15% higher ($376.73). This disparity was driven by a per unit increase of more than 50%, resulting in us paying $0.117/kWh in August. Ouch.

When we moved into this house, one of my goals was to reduce our electrical usage relative to that of the previous owners. Unfortunately, I didn’t have their actual usage data. Rather, I knew what their average bill was over the previous 12 months. As I reported earlier this summer, we actually managed to hold even relative to the prior owners in terms of our electric bills, even in the face of rising energy prices. While this almost certainly translates into lower overall electrical usage, I’m always looking for ways to do better.

One of our major limitations when it comes to reducing our electrical usage is the size of our family. We have four young boys, which translates into lots of laundry, lots of dishes, and lots of bathing. All of these things use hot water, which comes straight out of our electric water heater. Moreover, my wife is a stay-at-home mom. Thus, we can’t really back off on our heating or A/C during the day without creating an uncomfortable environment. Finally, we’re planning on a housing addition. While it’s not going to be a huge addition (roughly 300 square feet), it certainly won’t help when it comes to reduce our heating and cooling costs.

On the upside, we’re planning on replacing our current washer and dryer with high efficiency front-loaders when our new laundry room is done. We’re also working on teaching the boys to be more efficient when it comes to bathing — as it stands, they often get lost in their thoughts in the shower and we have to prompt them to finish up and get out. Hopefully our plan for instituting shower timers will work out. I’m also planning on replacing their shower head with a low-flow version. These changes will actually be doubly-beneficial, as they’ll not only reduce the amount of work that our hot water heater has to do, but they’ll also reduce our overall water usage.

In the long run, we’ll probably end up changing out our heating and air for a more efficient system, as that’s our largest energy drain. That, however, is a relatively large expense, so we’ll need to make sure that it makes sense before we take the plunge.

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As part of our planned home addition, we are in the very early stages of thinking about buying a new washer/dryer set. Early as in we haven’t even had a chance to check Consumer Reports yet. For background, we’ve had top-loading in the past and are hoping to make the leap to front-loaders. Given that we have four growing boys, capacity is a major consideration. So… If you have any insight or advice when it comes to front-loading washers and dryers, please don’t be shy… Share what you know in a comment. Thanks!

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This past Friday morning, we met with a contractor to discuss adding on to our house. We’re not planning on going crazy, but there are some limitations with our current floor plan that we’d like to remedy. For one thing, the table in our dinette can barely hold our family of six, and the boys are growing fast. Unfortunately, there’s no room for a larger table. Similarly, we do a ton of laundry (boys get dirty fast, after all), yet we have a very small laundry room. We’d also like to have a dedicated pantry (we currently use wall shelving in the garage for this), and we’d like to add a “powder room” (toilet + sink) in an accessible part of the house. As it stands, you need to pass through “private” space to get to the existing bathrooms. So…

We’re looking to add on off the back, thereby expanding the dinette, creating a new and larger laundry room, and creating a new closet for two of our boys (we have them paired up two per room). Their old closet will then be converted into a pantry (closed up on their side, opened up on the dinette side) and, finally, we’ll convert the old laundry room into a powder room. That’s the current plan, anyway. As currently drawn up, it’ll add just over 300 sq. ft. to the house. We still don’t have any idea how much this will cost, however, which is part of the reason we met with the contractor to get the ball rolling.

And before anyone asks… Yes, we can get by without these changes. They definitely fall into the category of “want” vs. “need.” But what’s the point of working hard and saving money if you never spend it on things that you want? We also have one of the least expensive/smallest homes on the street (even though it’s not particularly small), such that we don’t really have to worry about “over-improving.”

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About a year ago, I wrote about wanting to reduce our electrical usage as compared to the previous owners of our house. As it turns out, they averaged $165/month for electricity during the year before we bought the house, and my goal was to reduce our usage as far below theirs as possible. There’s nothing particularly significant about this number – I just thought it would be a useful exercise to try and beat it. Unfortunately, I only have information on the average amount of their bill, and not on the actual energy usage. Thus, increased energy prices will obscure at least a portion of our improvements.

For background, our house is roughly 3,000 square feet, fully electric (including the hot water heater and furnace), and located relatively deep in the southeastern United States. Anyway, we now have a year of electrical bills to look back on, and guess what? We’re dead even with the previous owners at $165/month. A few thoughts on this…

First of all, we also have a larger family (four vs. two kids) which makes cutting our usage relative to the previous owners somewhat of an uphill battle. Second, I don’t have good data on average temperatures over the periods under consideration, but the majority of our winter and summer electric usage is heating and cooling. Thus, a particularly hot summer or cold winter during one year or the other would make this a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. We’d really need to have data over a longer time period to make a truly accurate comparison. Finally, while we’ve done a lot in the way of cutting corners, including bumping up the thermostat in the summer and installing compact fluorescent bulbs throughout the house, we’ve also increased our electrical usage in two notable areas. First, we got a bearded dragon last fall and have thus been running a 100W basking bulb plus a UV bulb for roughly 13 hours per day. We also installed a dehumidifier in our crawl space last fall, and it runs pretty steadily during the warmer months.

All in all, I’m reasonably pleased with our performance so far — holding even with the previous owners in the face of increased energy costs constitutes a small moral victory if nothing else. We’ve made a couple of additional changes recently that will hopefully help with energy efficiency in the coming months/years. First, I finally got around to insulating our garage door (more on this in the future). We also recently replaced our front door with one that not only looks much better, but is also far more energy efficient (by which I mean it doesn’t have huge gaps for air intrusion all the way around it). And now that I have a year’s worth of data on actual usage as opposed to cost, I’ll be better able to keep track of things going forward.

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A couple of recent articles (one at The Simple Dollar and another at Money Smart Life) got me to thinking about living in a flood zone and how important it can be to have flood insurance. Can you imagine what it would cost to recover from a flood? And are you prepared to foot that bill if it ends up happening? In most cases, the answers to these questions are no and no.

Before we go any further, let’s talk a bit about what exactly flood insurance is (and isn’t). Unlike a standard homeowner’s insurance policy, flood insurance covers losses due to flooding. A standard flood policy covers things such as structural damage, damage to your furnace, water heater, and/or air conditioner, debris cleanup, and damage to floor surfaces such as carpeting and tile. You can also buy a policy to cover your belongings.

If you live in a high risk area, chances are your mortgage lender requires you to carry flood insurance. But how exactly is flood risk determined? In general terms, FEMA has identified land areas (referred to Special Flood Hazard Areas) that run a 1% or greater risk of flooding in any given year. These are referred to as 100 year flood zones, and being located in one typically means that you have (and should probably want) to be carrying flood insurance.

While 1% per year doesn’t seem like a lot, consider the odds over time… Indeed, the chances of having at least one flood in a 100 year flood zone during a 30 year span (the life of a typical mortgage) is just a shade under 26%. That’s right, if you live in a 100 year flood zone, the odds are a little better than one in four that you’ll experience a flood during the life of a standard 30 year mortgage. Even over 10 or 20 years the chances of a flood are still pretty substantial, at 9.6% and 18.1%, respectively.

So how do you know if you need flood insurance? In many cases, your mortgage lender will tell you. But if you’re interested in checking things out yourself, you can take a gander at the flood maps — these are sometimes available at your local library, your county planning commission, etc. You can also check them out online at the FEMA Map Service Center. Alternatively, you can search for your address over at FloodSmart.gov.

Finally, how do you get flood insurance? If your community participates in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) you should be able to purchase flood insurance from a local insurance agency. You can search for agents in your area by going here. Just keep in mind that there’s typically a 30 day waiting period before flood insurance takes effect, so you can’t simply wait for it to start raining before you call.

When considering your options, please keep in mind the importance of insuring against events that you cannot afford to deal with.

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Well, my wife just called and informed me that the A/C repairman couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with our system other than the fact that it was low on refrigerant. Given the age of our house (just over five years old) and the lack of any obvious leaks, this means that we most likely have a slow leak somewhere in the system. They recharged it, added a dye to help localize the leak, and then handed over a bill for $192 for the service call, diagnosis, and recharging. All in all, it wasn’t the most satisfying experience in that our house is now nice and cool, but the underlying problem still hasn’t been addressed. Oh well, we’re at least partway to a solution in that the leak should be detectable on a future visit.

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Yesterday afternoon we noticed that our air conditioning was having trouble keeping the house cool. My initial reaction was to clean the air filters, but that had no noticeable effect. I then noticed that the air coming out of the vents wasn’t particularly cool. Fortunately, it’s still cooling down nicely at night, so we were able to pop open a window and sleep comfortably. The other bit of good news is that the heat and air guys can make it out to our house this afternoon to take a look. The house is only about five and a half years old, so I’m hoping that it’s nothing major. Details to follow…

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Gardening can be a great way to reduce food costs and landscaping can be a great way to improve the value of your home. Unfortunately, not everyone is born with a green thumb. So if you’re interested in setting up a garden or doing a bit of landscaping, but are struggling to make sense of labels such as full sun, partial sun, partial shade, and full shade, then you might be interested in cool little gadget called SunCalc.

Simply stake it into the ground first thing in the morning and then check back 12 hours later. One of four indicators will light up letting you know what sort of light that area is receiving. At first the $30 price tag sounds a bit pricey. However, when you consider the startup costs associated with gardening and/or landscaping (especially when you’re dealing with perennials), it might be worth it to be sure that you get the most from your investment.

Alternatively, you can just keep an eye on your surroundings… The SunCalc is simply recording the amount of time that it receives direct sunlight during that 12 hour period and then categorizing as follows:

Full Sun: 6+ hours
Partial Sun: Less than 6 and more than 4 hours
Partial Shade: Less than 4 and more than 1 1/2 hours
Full Shade: Less than 1 1/2 hours

Given that a lot of people don’t have time to sit around all day and keep an eye on the sun, it seems like this could be useful for some. And no, I’m not affiliated with the makers of SunCalc in any way — I just thought that it looked cool.

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It’s been a long time coming, but my wife and I just bought a new bedroom set. We ended up going with a bedroom suite our of Broyhill’s American Era collection, and it should be delivered this afternoon. For whatever reason, our own bedroom has always been the lowest priority when it comes to furnishing our house. Here we are ten years and four kids into our marriage, and our current bedroom furniture consists of:

(1) a kind-sized bed with no head or footboard,
(2) my wife’s dresser, which we bought used for $35 about eight years ago,
(3) my dresser from when I was a kid, and
(4) a $3 garage sale nightstand.

Very eclectic. But today that comes to an end.

At this point in life, we’re not interested in cutting corners just to save a buck. Rather, we wanted to find a good deal on good furniture that will last us a long time. We ended up finding we wanted online, viewing it in a local showroom to be sure we really liked it, and then using the online store locator to find Broyhill dealers within delivery distance. We then called around to get the best price (a bit like we do when we buy a car, although not quite as intense).

To be honest, we were amazed by the wide disparity in pricing. Different stores within 10-15 miles of our house varied in price by as much as 25%. Since we were also in the market for dressers for the boys, my lovely and talented wife negotiated a discounted (below the lowest of the local prices) package deal for everything — our bedroom suite plus three additional dressers (same brand, but from a different collection). All in all we’re happy with the deal that we made, and very excited about the prospect of finally having some decent furniture in our bedroom.

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We live on a fairly large (a bit over an acre), partially wooded lot. Out front there used to be a stand of pine trees that the former owners removed. In its place, they left a large pine straw bed with a nice water oak (Quercus nigra), and then they planted a ton of shrubs as well as a handful of cherry trees. Unfortunately, they had somewhat odd tastes when it comes to shrubs, and they also didn’t really seem think things through with regard to placement. Thus, we were left with a number of unhealthy, or just unsightly plants in our landscape.

The other problem is that a huge pine straw bed is a lot of work to maintain when there aren’t pines growing overhead. In short, you have to buy dozens of bales of pine straw, haul them home, and then spread them out. Not much fun. Needless to say, when we moved into our house last summer, I couldn’t wait for fall when we could start re-claiming our landscape. Since we live fairly far south, Spring has sprung (or at least it’s in the process of springing) and so we spent the weekend in the yard.

What follows is a quick rundown of what we did. Note that, while most of our efforts have focused out front, some of these things actually involved the side or backyard.

- Removed ca. 20 miscellaneous shrubs (all dead or unhealthy)
- Moved 11 shrubs (Abelia x ‘Rose Creek’; sun-loving, but had been in the shade)
- Moved 2 redbuds (Cercis canadensis; planted last fall, second thoughts on location)
- Planted 12 azaleas (Azalea x ‘Autumn Twist)
- Planted 2 dogwoods (Cornus florida; one white, one pink)
- Planted 3 Tulip poplars (Liriodendron tulipifera)
- Filled a ton of holes left by shrubs that we had removed
- Spread a bit more pine straw to cover the gaps left by shrubs that we removed

This comes on the heels of the following, last fall:

- Removed 4 scraggly shrubs with hideous red blooms (didn’t even bother checking the name)
- Removed 3 wimpy cherry trees (Prunus spp., not sure exactly which ones; left 2 nice ones)
- Planted 3 redbuds (Cercis canadensis; mentioned above)
- Planted 5 white dogwoods (Cornus florida)
- Planted 1 red maple (Acer rubrum)
- Planted 1 Shumard’s oak (Quercus shumardii)
- Spread too many bales of pine straw to count

Left to do:

- Plant groundcover so we can keep the weeds at bay without continually replenishing the pine straw

(In case you’re into this sort of thing, we’re in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7b).

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Weird topic, but shortly after we moved into our house, I noticed that we have two apparently non-standard air returns. The openings measure 5.5 x 13.5 inches, and so we need filters that are 5.375 x 13.375 inches. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find anything to fit these dimensions.

We’ve always used the cheap spun glass filters and swapped them out every 30 days or so. Since the move, I’ve been doing the same thing for the standard air returns, but for the odd-shaped returns I’ve been pulling the filters out monthly, vacuuming them, and sticking them back in. While that’s been a workable short term solution, I’d like to actually solve this problem.

From what I can tell, the previous owners had custom filters made, and I’ve found a couple of places online that offer to do this for you. The problem is that it’s fairly costly… While you can get standard filters for $2 apiece, the prices for custom cut filters start around $6 each. On the other hand, cutting the filters down and then re-attaching the cardboard ‘frame’ isn’t as easy as it looks, so… I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions? Either a cheaper source for 5.375 x 13.375 inch filters, or perhaps another solution entirely?

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The other day I was poking around in Quicken when I decided to tally up the amount of money we’ve spent in various categories. We now have ten full years worth of data in Quicken, so it really gives a sense for the extent to which small things can add up. One thing (of many) that stood out to me is that we’ve spent an average of $141/month on utilities (gas, water, electric) during that period (it was much lower early on, and considerably higher more recently). That doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but consider this… Over a ten year period that works out to roughly $17k — that’s a pretty nice chunk of change.

Anyway, all of this got me to thinking about simple things that people can do to cut their utility expenditures without impacting their comfort level. I’m talking here about ’set-and-forget’ modifications that you put in place once, and then reap the benefits forevermore. What follows is a list of simple suggestions. Some of these are common sense, others are perhaps less obvious. And looking beyond the financial savings, a number of these tricks will improve the comfort of your home, and nearly all of them are also good for the environment.

(1) Replace your incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Admittedly, some of these bulbs really suck (weird colored light, dim until they warm up, etc.) but there are some good ones out there. In fact, we’ve had great success with the el cheapo multi-packs from Lowes and Home Depot. The added bonus is that CF bulbs put out less heat, so they also reduce your AC load in the summer.

(2) Get a programmable thremostat. This is especially useful if you live alone, or if you and your significant other both work a common schedule. In that case, you can dial back your heating/cooling while you’re at work, but have it back at a comfortable level when you arrive home at the end of the day. Similarly, you can automagically control the temperature at… For me, this is most useful in the winter, as I don’t mind bundling up and sleeping in the cold. But in the summer, forget about it! I can’t stand sleeping hot.

(3) Put a brick sealed jar or jug of water in your toilet tank. Doing so displaces water in the tank and causes you to use less. Of course, too little water when you flush can cause problems, so you’ll have to experiment with this one. But be careful… Displacing so much water that you have to flush twice is generally more wasteful than flushing a larger volumne once.

(4) Install low-flow shower heads. Actually, I only put this in for the sake of completeness, because I hate weak showers. I’d much rather cut my shower short than deal with wimpy water flow.

(5) Install aerator screens on all of your faucets. Any reasonably modern house will have aerators on their kitchen and bathroom sinks, but many don’t have them when it comes to laundry or utility sinks. The magic of aerator screens is that they increase the apparent ‘power’ of the stream of water as it comes out of the faucet. Thus, you don’t need to turn the faucet up as high to get the same effect.

(6) Get a separate water meter for your exterior hose bibbs and/or irrigation system. In most locales, your sewer bill is tied to your water usage. Why pay more for sewer service in the summer when much of the water isn’t going down the drain? Many water utilities allow you to have dual meters, only one of which gets billed for sewer service (the one that feeds your house). Of course, you could also xeriscape, which obviates the need for irrigation and is far more environmentally friendly.

(7) Insulate your attic access. When we moved into our new house, we were having trouble balancing the upstairs and downstairs temperature. As it turns out, one of the problems was attic heat leaking into our upstairs through two attic access doors. The doors were about 3/8 of an inch thick (wood) and had no insulation on their backside. Insulating them greatly diminished the problem, and allowed us to bump up the thermostat considerably during the summer while still maintaining a comfortable temperature throughout the house.

(8) Balance your vents to achieve an even, comfortable temperature throughout your house. The other problem that we had in regulating the temperature between our upstairs and downstairs was that all of the vents were wide open when we moved into our house. After a bit of experimentation (mainly involving closing some of the downstairs vents) we were able to balance the upstairs/downstairs temps. Again, this allowed us to bump the thermostat up a good bit. And in the winter we reversed the procedure. Works like a charm.

(9) Weather strip your doors and windows. Just think, a 1/4 inch gap along the bottom of a 3 foot wide door is 9 square inches of open space. If you had a 3 inch x 3 inch hole in one of your exterior walls you’d fix it, wouldn’t you?

(10) Insulate your garage door. I did this at our old house, but haven’t gotten around to doing it at our new house. But it works wonders for controlling the temperature in a room above the garage.

(11) Plant trees in strategic locations around your house. This is a longer term solution, but deciduous shade trees can keep your house much cooler in the summer without blocking the sun in the winter. Planting trees also helps offset our high-carbon lifestyles.

(12) This is where you guys come in. Instead of capping this list at twelve, I’d love to hear your ’set-and-forget’ utility saving tips. Please leave a comment below.

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Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had a crash course in the hidden costs of home ownership. Here’s a taste of what we’ve been dealing with…

$900 to renew our termite contract: To be fair, we knew this one was coming. Our house was treated for termites when it was built, and covered for five years following construction. We ended up buying it just before the original contract was up. Fortuantely, this is a one-time fee, although we have to make a smaller annual payment to maintain the bond. We ended up going with Termidor, which has a lifetime warranty, and any necessary retreatments will be free of charge.

$1500 for exterior work: We dropped a pretty sizable chunk of change on some trim work on the exterior of our house. First off, the frieze boards (just below the soffits in the gables of our roof) were totally infested with carpenter bees. The good news is that it was just superficial damage. The bad news is that it was starting to look like crap, so we just decided to bite the bullet before the problem spread. As it turns out, the builder had just slapped up wood trim and painted the exposed surfaces rather than: (1) priming/painting all saides, (2) wrapping it in aluminum, or (3) using Hardi-Plank (i.e., cement board) or the equivalent. We had it replaced with Hardi-Plank. It ended up being a pretty big job, but we’re glad that we had it done.

We also had a door fram replaced. The base of our garage service door frame was rotted out on both sides. This is something that the inspector picked up on, and the previous owner had repaired. However, the guy that did the work did a pretty crappy job, and we decided to have it re-done (right) ourselves. Note to self: Always ask for money off the purchase price to fix stuff like this rather than letting the owner take care of it. I probably should’ve made a stink about it when I did the final inspection, but I just decided to deal with it.

$750 for tree service: We lost several pines to bark beetles. My neighbor and I dropped three of them ourselves, but there were two others that were to close to the house for comfort. Thus, we ended up hiring someone to take down those two trees, and to pull the others out and grind them up.

Here’s a bit of advice if you’re ever dealing with pine beetles: Get the trees on the ground as soon as possible. The beetles typically get from tree to tree by climbing up them and then gliding from one to the next. So if you can get the affected trees on the ground, you’ve effectively stopped the problem from spreading. Or so says our neighbor who’s a forester.

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This one has been a long time coming, but… I finally got around to creating a ‘roadmap’ of sorts for everything that we went through this past spring/summer as we prepared for our move, and then actually relocated. So… If you’re interested in learning more about what you can expect when moving, decisions that have to be made, etc., then look no further. And be sure to read the comments as well as the posts, as a lot of people pitched in with tips, tricks, and suggestions that ultimately made the process a lot easier for us.

Here we go… Broken down into general categories, and then presented chronologically…

General Topics/Articles:
- Staging Your Home for Sale
- The Lengths to Which Mortgage Lenders Will Go
- How to Write a Mortgage Gift Letter
- What’s a Piggyback Mortgage?
- Rules Regarding No-Interest Family Loans
- All About Title Insurance
- The Cost of a Failed House Deal

The Process:
- Help Us Find a Realtor
- Storing our Stuff
- Preparing for our Moving Sale
- Moving Sale Results
- Improving Our Curb Appeal
- Finding a Mortgage
- Our House is on the Market
- First (Lowball) Offer Received
- Roadtrip – Time to Buy a House
- Offer Made, Offer Received
- Counter Offer Made, Another Offer Received
- Bought and Sold in Under Six Days
- Help us Choose a Mover
- Home Inspection Today
- Home Inspection Complete
- The Countdown Begins…
- Ten Days Until Closing
- Final Walkthrough Today
- We’re Homeless…
- Wire Transfers When Closing on a House
- (Another) Final Walkthrough Today
- Homeless No More
- Our Mortgage was Sold
- Pre-Paying our Mortgage

Moving With Kids:
- Eight Year Olds and Real Estate
- We Bought (and Sold) a House
- The Big Move Approaches

Random Headaches and Other Minutiae:
- SunTrust vs. Bank of America Online Bill Pay Question
- Broadband Internet Woes
- Broadband Internet Crisis Averted
- Broadband Internet Coming Soon(er than Expected)
- Reducing Our Electrical Usage
- Our Dish Network TV Experience (So Far)
- Our Dish Network Experience (Continued)
- Cut Your Own Grass or Use a Lawn Service?
- Our John Deere Model 125 Lawn Tractor
- The Dish Network Runaround
- Our Online Banking Changeover
- Money Saving Tip: Live Next Door to Someone Who’s Moving
- Cell Phone Overages – A Hidden Cost of Moving
- Bank of America’s “Out of State” Check Policy
- Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
- Paint Recommendations?
- What Would You do With a Bunch of Bricks?
- Dish Network Customer Service STILL Sucks
- Summer Electric Bill Pain
- Termite Control: Sentricon vs. Termidor
- Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb Changeover Complete
- Solving Dish Network Customer Service Problems

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» We’re Homeless…
» The Countdown Begins…
» Roadtrip – Time to Buy a House
» Bought and Sold in Under Six Days
» Our House is on the Market
» Homeless No More
» Ten Days Until Closing
» Help Us Find a Realtor

I’m starting to feel like a broken record here, but I think we’re getting close to the end of our Dish Network saga… About a week after filing a complaint against our Dish Network reseller, I still hadn’t heard back from the Better Business Bureau, so I decided to escalate the situation on my own… I hopped on over to Yahoo! Finance and looked up the contact information for Dish’s parent company, EchoStar Communications Corporation (DISH). Once I had the number for their corporate headquarters (it’s 303-723-1000, by the way), I grabbed the phone and settled in for a fight.

When the receptionist picked up, I explained that I’ve been having trouble with my Dish Network service and that the ‘regular’ customer service reps had been unable to help me. I then asked if they had a higher level of customer service that could intervene. She said yes, and asked if I’d be willing to hold while she got someone. I agreed, and after a ten minute wait I was speaking to someone in their Corporate Customer Service wing.

After explaining for the umpteenth time that we hadn’t received the $49.99 credit for what should have been a ‘free’ installation because the reseller screwed up and failed to note that I had signed an 18 month agreement, the rep explained to me that the reseller is responsible for setting up the account, so I really need to deal with them. I then re-explained that I had been trying to deal with the reseller for nearly three months, and had gotten nowhere. After a bit more prompting, she agreed to put me on hold and call the reseller on my behalf. A few minutes later she was back on the line. Apparently the reseller claimed (as they have been telling me for months) that they’ve been trying to send the paperwork to Dish to change the account, but they’ve had no luck. I told her that’s the same runaround that I’ve been getting all along, and so she put me on hold again and went to speak to her ‘Promotions Manager’.

When she got back on the line, she had good news… The Promotions Manager had agreed to manually change our account to reflect the 18 month agreement. According to her, this means that we’ll be receive the $49.99 credit on our next bill, and that we also now qualify for the Digital Home Protection Plan free for the duration of our contract. This service, which is basically an extended warranty on our Dish hardware, normally runs $5.99/month. I wouldn’t have paid for it in the first place, but since it’s free, I’ll take it. I just have to remember to cancel it at the end of our contract, as I’m sure they’ll automatically ‘upgrade’ us to the paid version as soon as our agreement lapses.

Anyway, I digress… The bottom line here is that going straight to the corporate mothership was the most direct route to salvation. Granted, I spent 32 minutes on the phone (yes, I’m anal, and I time stuff like this). But this saga is now (hopefully) coming to an end.

As an aside, escalating things to the corporate level is often a good way of getting satisfaction. I had similarly frustrating troubles with service on my Apple laptop about 18 months ago. The logic board had gone out for the second or third time, and the replacement part was on seemingy eternal backorder. I was finally able to get this resolved by going to Apple’s Corporate Customer Care. Their solution? They sent me a brand new laptop in place of my nearly three year old PowerBook that was almost out of AppleCare coverage. The replacement was the current top of the line, complete with a new warranty, and eligible for three more years of AppleCare. Some companies just know how to take care of their customers. Apple is right up there with Hampton Inn in my book.

Oh, by the way… Later in the day I finally got an e-mail confirmation from the Better Business Bureau saying that they’re on the case, and that they will be working for a resolution. They also asked me to notify them if I had resolved the situation on my own. Given my experience thus far, I decided that I’m going to leave the BBB on the case until I actually see the credit for our installation fee show up on our bill.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Dish Network Customer Service Salvation (For Real This Time?)
» Dish Network Technical Problems: This is Getting Ridiculous!
» Dish Network Customer Service Salvation (At Long Last)
» Dish Network Customer Service STILL Sucks
» Dish Network Customer Service: Drat, Foiled Again!
» Money Poll #16: Telecommunications Spending
» Dish Network Technical Troubles Solved
» From the Archives (September 16th – September 22nd)

This weekend marked the completion of one of my major electricity-saving projects — the conversion of our house from incandescent lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs. We still have (I think) four incandescent bulbs in closets, but those get so little use that it wasn’t worth switching them over. All in all, I ended up swapping out 107 bulbs. In terms of energy savings, we reduced the total wattage of lights in our house by nearly 80%, broken down as follows:

60W ‘Regular’ Bulbs (74 Total)
Before: 4440 combined watts
After: 962 combined watts (using 13W CF bulbs)
Savings: 3478 watts (78.3% reduction)

60W ‘Chandelier’ Bulbs (9 Total)
Before: 540 combined watts
After: 63 combined watts (using 7W CF bulbs)
Savings: 477 watts (88.3% reduction)

65W Recessed ‘Spotlight’ Bulbs (16 Total)
Before: 1040 combined watts
After: 256 combined watts (using 16W CF bulbs)
Savings: 784 watts (75.4% reduction)

150W Exterior ‘Floodlight’ Bulbs (8 Total)
Before: 1200 combined watts
After: 184 combined watts (using 23W CF bulbs)
Savings: 1016 watts (84.7% reduction)

The only place that we traded down in terms of intensity were the ‘chandelier’ bulbs and the exterior floodlights. We replaced the 60W ‘chandelier’ bulbs, which light our front porch and the garage service door with 30W equivalent bulbs. However, when bunched in threes (as they are in our fixtures) they cast more than enough light to get the job done. As far as the floodlights go, we have two on every corner of the house, and we replaced the 150W bulbs with 90W equivalent bulbs. Again, these are more than enough to get the job done.

From a financial perspective, it’ll take us quite awhile to break even — after all, these bulbs aren’t cheap. However, they last far longer than incandescent bulbs, meaning reduced replacement costs, and the power savings will really start to add up over time. Hopefully all of this will make a dent in our recent high electric bills. Yes, air conditioning is our main summer expense, but lighting isn’t trivial, and the two are completely unrelated… After all, incandescent bulbs generate an awful lot of heat which makes your AC work even harder.

Setting aside the financial considerations for a moment, we’re also doing the right thing with regard to scaling back our energy usage, so we’re getting a bit of return in terms of warm fuzzy feelings.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Saving Money With Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs
» Carnivals – Week of 09/04/06
» The Benefits of Switching to Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
» Weekly Roundup – 04/06/07
» From the Archives (August 26th – September 1st)
» From the Archives (August 24th – August 30th)
» Weekly Roundup – 04/20/07
» Get Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs on the Cheap

I ran across an interesting program on our electric company’s website the other day… In an attempt to reduce electical demand during peak hours on the hottest days of the year, they are offering people cash to have a small, remote-controlled switch installed on their air conditioner. When demand for electricity peaks on weekday afternoons (between noon and 7:00 PM) from May through September, the electric company will be able to throw the switch and reduce the run time of your air conditioner.

More specifically, the switch will reduce your air conditioner’s typical run time by 65%, meaning that if it normally runs for 20 minutes when it comes on, it will run for only 7 minutes when the power company needs to reduce usage. So what’s in it for the customer? First off, they’re offering a $20 credit for allowing the device to be installed. After that, they’re offering a $2 credit for every day that the system is activated. While this looks like a solid way to save a few bucks, there is little other financial incentive here. In fact, they readily admit that this program is unlikely to reduce overall electrical usage… That’s a bummer, as we’re always looking for tricks to reduce our electrical usage. Rather, load cycling programs such as this typically shift energy usage from peak periods to non-peak periods, thereby allowing a fixed amount of generation capacity to serve a greater number of customers.

As I recall, my parents took part in this sort of a program when I was a kid. However, I think they received a percentage off their bill for taking part, rather than a small credit each time the system is invoked. While I’d like to be a good citizen and help the power company out, we’re most likely going to skip this program. After all, my lovely and talented wife stays home all day with our boys, and I’m guessing that she won’t be crazy about having the temperature creep up during the heat of the day.

Anyone have any experience with programs like this?

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Carnivals – Week of 08/28/06
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage: One Year Later
» From the Archives (August 26th – September 1st)
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #2
» From the Archives (August 24th – August 30th)
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #1
» Carnivals – Week of 06/12/06
» High Electric Bills and the Battle Against Increasing Energy Costs

We live deep down in termite country, and it’s time to think about extending our termite contract. Our house had a clean bill of health when we bought it earlier this summer, but the initial five year termite contract is almost up. Thus, we’re currently considering our options. Right now we have two main alternatives… The Sentricon System and Termidor.

The Sentricon System consists of a series of bait stations surrounding the perimeter of your house. The pest control company periodically monitors these stations and, once they detect termite activity, they replace the wood bait with a poison that is supposed to wipe out the colony. Sentricon is probably the most ‘green’ solution out there, but its effectiveness has also been brought into question by a number of so-called experts.

Termidor, on the other hand, is a chemical termiticide that provides a soil barrier surrounding your house. From what I’ve read, it’s far more effective than Sentricon, and not particularly dangerous to people. Termidor costs about $50 more than Sentricon up front, but the annual contract, which covers monitoring, periodic reapplication (if necessary) and repair of any termite damage is about $150 less for Termidor as compared to Sentricon.

We had Sentricon at our previous house, and we never had any termite activity (either in the house or in the bait stations). But that house was built on a slab foundation, and it was much more difficult to apply a chemical barrier in that situation — in fact, some companies refused to even treat slab houses. Our new house is on a crawl space, so you can readily access the foundation (inside and out). Thus, chemical treatment is a more viable alternative.

Does anyone out there have real life experience with either of these? Any recommendations? And please don’t say to just go without — where we live that’s just not an option.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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» From the Archives (August 19th – August 25th)
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» Roadmap for a Successful Relocation
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» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #1
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» The Lazy Cheapskate’s Guide to Saving the Planet

I’ve written in the past about working to reduce our electric bill. Given that we’ve only been in the house a coupe of months, I still don’t have a good feel for what to expect, but I do know that the previous owners had a year-round average of $165/month.

We’ve done quite a bit thus far in terms of insulating a few nooks and crannies, switching over to compact fluorescent bulbs, playing with the air vents to balance the upstairs/downstairs heat load, and raising our thermostat from 70 (which is what the previous owners had it set at) to 77, which is still quite comfortable. But I also knew that we were in for a (relative) whopper of a bill after the unseasonably hot July that we just experienced.

Well, I just got on e-mail from our online billpay service, and guess what? Our electric bill jumped from $129 in June to $220 in July. Ouch! I still haven’t seen the bill itself, so I’m unsure how much of this is due to increased usage, and how much is due to fluctuating energy prices. Either way, I’m hoping that it heads back down sometime soon…

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» From the Archives (August 19th – August 25th)
» Automating our Finances
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #2
» Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb Changeover Complete
» High Electric Bills and the Battle Against Increasing Energy Costs
» Roadmap for a Successful Relocation
» Reducing Our Electrical Usage: One Year Later
» Natural Gas Prices Change (Again)

Back in mid-July I wrote about the fact that Dish Network customer service sucks. Well, here we are… Just over a month later and I’m not-so-pleased to report that their customer service still sucks. That’s right, we still haven’t received the rebate for our installation fee.

To make a long story short, we were promised free installation for signing up for 18 months of service — we just had to pay the installer $49.99 and we’d get that amount back in the form of a credit on our first bill. Surprise, surprise, our first bill showed up without the credit. After going back and forth with Dish about this, I was forced to take it up with the reseller, who (apparently) failed to forward the necessary paperwork to Dish. After numerous phone calls, as well as faxing the contract back and forth, mailing it back and forth (twice), and a whole lot of sitting around waiting, nothing has happened.

So tonight I sat down and filed an online complaint with the Better Business Bureau. To be honest, I’m still not sure if the fault in this case lies with Dish or the reseller, but I’m not willing to deal with either of them any longer. And I figure that setting a fire under the reseller is the surest way to get our money back.

By the way, I invite you to Google the following phrase: Dish Network customer service. Check out what comes up in the results just after Dish Network’s main page.

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Dish Network Customer Service Salvation (For Real This Time?)
» Money Poll #16: Telecommunications Spending
» Dish Network Technical Problems: This is Getting Ridiculous!
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» Dish Network Customer Service Salvation (At Long Last)
» Dish Network, You STILL Suck
» Finally… Customer Service That Rocks
» Carnivals – Week of 07/17/06

This might be a weird question, but when we moved into our house there was a brick pile out back in the near edge of the woods. The former owner saved the leftover bricks when he had the house built so he could eventually build a matching barbecue (but he never got around to it). We knew that the pile was there, but we figured that we’d use the bricks for something, so we didn’t ask them to remove it. But… We didn’t realize the pile was as big as it turned out to be.

When we finally got around to digging into the pile (it was covered by about four years of accumulated pine straw) we discovered close to 800 bricks. Thankfully we had recently purchased a John Deere 125 lawn tractor, complete with a small dump cart, so it was easier to move them than it could’ve been.

While we’re thinking of using a decent number of these bricks (say 150-200) to line our front walkway and the adjacent mulch bed, we’re at a loss as to what to do with the rest of them. We’re not really interested in building a barbecue, and right now we’re actually leaning toward getting rid of them… More specifically, we’re thinking of advertising them on Craigslist or FreeCycle and just letting someone haul them away.

That being said, I’d also like to hear about any creative uses that you might have for these things before we let them go. So… What would you do with a bunch of bricks?

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

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» From the Archives (August 5th – August 11th)
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By now we all know that manufacturers often overstate the virtues of whatever it is that they’re selling. Think about the EPA mileage estimates plastered to the window of the last car that you bought. How do these numbers stack up to your real world experience? Well, it’s the same deal in the world of appliances. Size ratings aren’t all that indicative (in an absolute sense) of how big an appliance really is. This is particularly problematic when you start talking about refrigerators — unlike mileage estimates, where you can use the numbers to make relative comparisons amongst models, you can’t necessarily rely on size ratings as a relative measure of usable space in the wonderful world of refrigerators. Let me explain…

On the surface, it seems like it’s easy to pick the fridge with the most storage space — just check the label and pick the one that offers the most cubic feet. Right? Well, not really…

As it turns out, manufacturers are required to calculate volume by measuring the length, width, and height of every part of the refrigerator (and freezer) box and doing the math (length x width x height = volume). But they include space taken up by shelves, hardware, and that annoying indentation in the back side of the door that accomodates the water and ice apparatus.

The problem here is that side-by-side and top-mount refrigerators differ substantially in the proportion of this total volume that is actually usable. In fact, according to numbers from Consumer Reports, only about 65% of the total volume of a side-by-side unit constitutes usable space, whereas 78% of the total volume of a top-mount is usable. (I would assume that bottom mounts are similar, but I don’t know for sure.)

So what does this mean for you? Well, it’s important to keep this difference in mind when appliance shopping. After all, based on these numbers a 22 cubic foot top-mount refrigerator is every bit as ‘big’ as a 25 cubic foot side-by-side (and maybe even a touch bigger). Assuming that each unit is equipped with similar bells and whistles, however, the former will always cost a good bit less than the latter.

Setting aside the price difference, this huge difference in usable space is one of the main reasons that we were so enamored with our GE Artica 24.6 cubic foot top-mount refrigerator. Given the size of our family, space is at a premium for us, and we can’t afford to sacrifice capacity for the ‘convenience’ of a side-by-side — I set that off in quotes because I frankly don’t get the appeal of the side-by-side configuration even though many swear by them.

And what about bottom-mount refrigerators? This is an entirely subjective argument, but here goes… First off, I really don’t get the appeal. I understand the argument about not having to bend down to get into your fridge, but something just doesn’t seem right about them (I’m a creature of habit, I guess). But more importantly, putting the freezer on the bottom means that our kids can’t get stuff in and out of the fridge, so we’d be at their beck and call everytime they wanted a sip of milk. And with four kids in the house, that’s almost all the time.

Anyway, the next time you’re in the market for a fridge, keep in mind that comparing capacity estimates across styles isn’t an apples-to-apples sort of thing… If you want more bang for your buck, you’ll come out way ahead by steering clear of side-by-side refrigerators.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Carnivals – Week of 07/31/06
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» From the Archives (July 22nd – July 28th)
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» On the Road

We’re starting to think about painting the interior of our house, and we’re in the market for good paint… At our old house we used Pratt & Lambert with an eggshell finish. It wasn’t cheap, but we really liked it. Unfortunately, Pratt & Lambert is relatively hard to come by in our new area. So… We’re now considering the likes of Benjamin Moore, Sherwin-Williams, Porter, or Duron. To be honest, we’re somewhat biased against the latter two, as we’ve experienced the builder-grade ‘flat’ version of both, and we weren’t happy with them. But to be fair, pretty much all flat-finish paint sucks, so it’s possible that we’d be much happier with a better grade of either of these two brands.

Anyway, we’re once again interested in an eggshell or satin finish and, given the amount of labor involved, we’re not interested in dirt cheap paint. Rather, we want a good, durable paint (but we don’t want to overpay, either). So, can anyone provide any insight? (Preferably based on personal experience.) Thanks!

For more information on moving, check out my Roadmap for a Successful Relocation.

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Just a quick note to report on Emigrant Savings Bank’s total incompetence when it comes to running an online bank. If you’re not familiar with Emigrant, I’ll just say that they run a relatively popular online bank known as Emigrant Direct. And as I mentioned previously, Emigrant Direct went offline this past Friday, July 21st at 5:00 PM EST to roll out a new website, promising to this morning (Monday, July 24th) at 9:00 AM EST.

Well, reader reports began trickling this morning saying that the site still wasn’t accessible even though it was well past 9:00 AM EST. When I checked around 11:00 AM EST, the site was up, but I couldn’t try logging in because I didn’t have my new access code with me (they sent this to all customers via snail mail). However, a number of other readers reported that the site was timing out or otherwise non-responsive.

I just checked and, as of 5:00 PM EST — fully eight hours after they promised to be back online — the site is still down. So… If the hubbub over Emigrant Direct’s funds availability policy didn’t give you pause, their inability to remain online certainly should. You make the call… Poor planning, or a sign of troubled bank? While they’re FDIC insured, BankRate.com recently lowered their saftey rating to two stars.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Emigrant Direct, you might want to consider going with HSBC Direct or ING Direct ($25 account opening bonus available here).

Update: Looks like Emigrant Direct is back up, at least for me. Click through to get my first initial impressions of their new interface.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» New Emigrant Direct Website, Access Code
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Awhile back, I set a goal of substantially reducing our electric bill as compared to the $165 monthly average of the previous owners. For a quick bit of background, our house is roughly 3,000 square feet, completely electric (including the water heater and furnace) and located relatively deep in the southeastern United States.

In the time since I set that goal, we’ve done a bit of insulating, swapped out most of our incandescent lightbulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs, and also worked on finding the sweetspot with our thermostat (i.e., the highest we can go and still maintain a comfortable home environment).

Well, we just received the bill for our first full month of service (our initial bill covered just part of a month) and we owe just a shade under $130 — $129.68 to be exact. While I’m pleased that we’re well below the target, I must admit that I’ve never lived in a house with electric heat before, so I’m not sure how summer and winter bills will compare. That being said, it’s been hotter than hell over the past few weeks, so I think we’re doing pretty well.

That being said, there are still some areas where we could improve — for example, we leave the computer and laser printer on (albeit asleep) round the clock for convenience. One thing that we could do here would be to set the computer up to automatically shutdown at night and restart in the morning. That way it would be ready when we need it, but it wouldn’t waste juice when we don’t. I could also throw the laser printer (and a variety of other electronic devices) on timers such that they wouldn’t draw power during the night, but I haven’t gotten around to that. If I really wanted to go hog wild, I’d invest in a Kill-a-Watt and track down all the ‘phantom’ electrical use in our house.

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Related Articles at fivecentnickel.com:

» Reducing Our Electrical Usage, Update #1
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» Reducing Peak Electrical Usage
» Carnivals – Week of 08/07/06
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» From the Archives (July 22nd – July 28th)
» From the Archives (June 3rd – June 9th)
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Over the weekend my family made our first trip to an IKEA store. We’ve been in the market for a relatively inexpensive, yet reasonably good table for our dinette, and we haven’t run across anything that we like (either in local stores, in the paper, or on craigslist). We live about an hour from the nearest IKEA, and we’ve heard a lot about it, so we thought that we’d give it a shot.

To make a long story short, it was a pretty interesting place with some decent deals. Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was the number of U-Hauls (and the like) parked in the loading area — quite a few people were making serious hauls.

While didn’t end up finding a table that we liked, we did solve one annoying problem in our house… We don’t have actually have a coat closet, although there is a recessed ‘nook’ near the front door. My wife and I have talked about framing that in and turning it into a closet, but that’s not a high priority right now. Still, we need a convenient place to hang a few coats, stash the kids’ backpacks, etc. Ikea to the rescue! We found a great wall-mounted hat/coat rack with small cubbies, as well as a matching ‘bench’ with six larger cubby holes beneath it. Both pieces are pre-finished and made of solid wood (no particle board), and the total came to a little under $150. We also picked up a couple of throw rugs in sizes that we haven’t been able to find anywhere else.

Anyway, that brings us to the question of the week…

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