Frugality

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.

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.

A Frugal Engagement

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It is possible to get engaged without spending a lot of money.  Being the frugal person I am I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on getting engaged.  The only money you really need to spend on getting engaged is the purchase of a ring.

In my case I proposed before I had a ring and we picked out our rings together on Amazon.  They didn’t cost much and I was able to mostly pay for them using gift cards I had purchased with Swag Bucks.   It is a lot easier to buy your rings for a reasonable price if you do not buy diamonds.  Besides the cost there are plenty of other reasons why you should not buy diamonds.

Even a tight fisted miser like me wants to be romantic but that doesn’t mean you need to spend a lot of money.  If you can’t come up with romantic proposal ideas that don’t cost a lot of money just Google “romantic proposals” and you will find plenty that can be done on a frugal budget.  My proposal wasn’t very romantic but I did get a do over.  Her engagement ring arrived while she was at work and when we went out to dinner that evening I surprised her by getting down on one knee and proposing.  Even though I had already asked her to marry me before the second proposal was an emotional moment and was much appreciated.

Money should not be an obstacle to getting engaged.  You can get engaged and still be frugal.

The Hazards of Cutting Your Own Hair

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I’ve been cutting my own hair for several years. At a conservative estimate of $10 a month for a haircut, I save $120 a year by cutting my own hair. My only cost is a $10 pair of clippers (that I got for free). Being a frugal person I’m always looking at ways to cut my expenses. Before I got my clippers I was getting my hair cut to a short buzz cut anyway so I decided it would be easy to just cut my own hair. I usually just put the 1/2 inch guard on the clippers and buzz away. It doesn’t take any skill and it is pretty difficult to mess up.

Tonight I found a way to mess it up. I forgot to put the guard on before I started cutting my hair. I cut a stripe right down the middle of my head. My mistake was immediately obvious but it was too late, I couldn’t uncut my hair. At that point I had two options, I could either go for a reverse mohawk hairstyle or just cut it all off. I didn’t think I could pull off a reverse mohawk so I cut it all off. Hopefully, I won’t be mistaken for a skinhead while I’m waiting for my hair to grow out. On the plus side I shouldn’t need to cut my hair again for quite a while.