Andy Hough

Beware of Vampires

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I am talking about vampire power users. These are electronic devices that suck energy – and money from your wallet – even when they are not on. Vampire power is also known as standby power. According to the EPA standby power accounts for 5-10% of the residential power used in the United States. This could be even higher if you have lots of older, less-efficient, electronic devices.

It is pretty easy to determine which devices are using standby power. If the device has a remote than it needs to use standby power to be ready to respond to the remote. Devices that don’t have remotes but are ready to respond at the touch of a button are also using standby power. A microwave is a good example of this type of device. Also if the device has a clock than it is obviously using power. The other main type of device that uses vampire power is a plug-in adapter that converts AC to DC. Cell-phone chargers and laptop chargers are the primary examples of this type of device.

There are several ways to reduce your use of vampire power. You could just unplug your devices whenever you are not using them. For devices that you use frequently or have a hard to reach outlet though that could be a pain. In that case a power strip is handy because it will allow you to plug in several devices and shut power off to all of them with a flip of the switch. If you don’t want to turn off the power to all your devices you can get a power strip with individual switches. If you only need to turn one device on and off you can try this On/Off Adaptor Adapter with * LIGHTED * ON/OFF Switch!

Cutting your use of vampire power is an easy way to reduce your electricity expense and it keeps you from wasting electricity. Why pay for electricity that you aren’t even using? For more information on vampire power and saving money on electricity in general I recommend you check out Michael Bluejay’s saving electricity site.

Can Two Live As Cheaply As One?

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From my experience I would have to say no. Moving in with my fiancee isn’t going to save me any money. My half of the rent is only $25 less than what I was paying before and utilities will likely be quite a bit higher and erase that savings. I don’t think there will be any savings in any other areas but maybe there are some that haven’t come to mind. My monthly expenses will remain about the same.

The primary reason I won’t save any money is that our two bedroom apartment is about twice the cost of my studio apartment. The new apartment is a lot nicer but I’m not sure if it is really worth the extra money. I suppose this could be considered lifestyle inflation and I would guess lifestyle inflation is a major reason why many couples don’t realize much or any savings from combining their expenses. In our case we didn’t have a lot of time to find a new place so we couldn’t review all the lower cost options. Next time we will be able to get a better deal. I am not complaining, there are a lot of benefits from our combining our households but saving money isn’t one of them.

Online Income Report – May 2010

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When I share my monthly income totals people often ask for more details about my online income. To satisfy people’s curiosity I am now going to have a monthly report detailing how I made my online income. For the month of May I made $580.69 in online income. I am counting the money I actually received, not the money I earned but will be paid later. Most money I earn online is paid the next month so any efforts I make to increase my online income this month will not actually show up until the next month. Here is breakdown of my sources of income.

Google Adsense  –  $346.81

Text Links –              $42.26

Direct Ad Sales –    $71.47

Affiliate Sales –       $120.15

Since my Adsense is paid a month after I earn it I already know it is going to be down significantly this month.  My affiliate sales are going to be up significantly though and will more than offset the Adsense decline.  Going forward I plan to keep my affiliate sales up and build my Adsense back up as well.  I would like my other sources of income to be larger than Adsense in order to be less dependent on Adsense for income.  The Adsense income seems to fluctuate quite a bit and I usually can’t figure out what is causing the changes.  If there is any other information about my online income you would like to know, just ask.  I’m willing to hear any tips you have for increasing my online income too.


How Long Will It Take for a Washer and Dryer to Pay for Themselves?

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Our new apartment has washer/dryer connections and we bought a used washer and dryer for $150. Prior to that we were doing about five loads a week at the laundromat. It is pretty easy to figure out how much it cost us to do our laundry at the laundromat. The cost was $1.50 per load to wash and $1.25 per load to dry for a total cost per load of $2.75. Taking that total times 5 we were spending $13.75 a week at the laundromat.

Finding the cost of using our own washer and dryer is a little harder to figure. I found a website that has a laundry costs calculator. Using the calculator I determined that we have a total cost per load of $0.53 or $2.65 a week. Our laundry costs are low because we don’t have to pay water and we only use cold water.

We are saving $11.10 a week by having our own washer and dryer. A little math shows that in 14 weeks our washer and dryer will have paid for themselves. It actually is an even better deal than that because I place a high value on not having to spend several hours each week at the laundromat.

The next step is to be even more frugal and reduce the use of the dryer and the volume of laundry.

May Income – $1614.01

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Here is a breakdown of my income for May.

Online Income

$580.69

Interest

$29.61

Stock Dividends

$14.87

Mystery Shops

$39.86

Bank Bonuses

$10

Surveys/Cashback

$14.71

Job

$924.27

Total

$1614.01

It was a pretty good month for income but not as good as I had planned.  I had planned on working more for the Census but with my relocation that didn’t happen.  This month I will have very little job income so my income total will be way down.  My main sources of income this month will be alternative income and passive income.  I should make a little more from mystery shops and maybe a little more from online income.  There probably won’t be any other big changes to my income unless I get in the medical study.