Personal Finance Advice

My mom likes to show my friends an embarrassing picture of me. I’m 3 years old, hanging on to my favorite blanket as it’s drying on the line. Laundry hanging on the line, drying in the breeze, was a frequent part of my childhood, and probably yours too. I didn’t even think about it. It [...]

I received a letter from my electric power company recently encouraging me to sign up for the company’s “Green Generation” program. If I joined the “Green Team”, I could purchase energy generated from wind power and landfill gas for a mere .01667 cents per kilowatt hour. I could also purchase Green Blocks instead at $2.50 [...]

In October, I wrote an article entitled “25 Ways to Avoid Turning on Your Heat This Winter.” I included some helpful advice and some silly ones just for laughs. Well, springtime is here and I can say that we actually avoided turning our heat on this winter. Our lowest temperature this winter was 2 degrees, [...]

It falls, taunting you, flake after flake, coating everything you see with white wet and cold crystals. It piles up in the corners, and in its complete blinding whiteness, all you can do is fork over your wallet. It’s a beautiful thief. You must turn on your heat. The blanket of whiteness is on your [...]

This is my project for the weekend – to build a solar window heater (shown in the video below). It’s been a fairly mild winter here in Japan thus far and I have managed not to take out the space heater, but it’s been getting colder and it is just a matter of time. With [...]

I am one of the first to admit that television, video games, the Internet, and cell phones add fun and convenience to our lives. But this past April I took the challenge presented by TVTurnOff.org and shut the television off for the week. For good measure, I also shut off the video games, and the [...]

With heating costs on the rise, it’s tempting to avoid turning your heat on all together in order to save money on heating bills, but who wants to be a human Popsicle in their own house? Here are some creative (and some practical) ways to avoid or delay turning on your heat this winter. Here [...]

I never pay any of our bills. Neither does my husband. But they get paid. Every month and on time. Now I’m not advocating ignoring your bills and racking up a ton of debt. That would be stupid and begging for bankruptcy. What I am advocating is never physically going through the process of paying [...]

When the Electric Choice program first allowed consumers to choose their electricity providers, the media made a big deal about the potential savings for consumers. I called around to several companies but found very little difference in rates. A short time later, I discovered another, less well known method of saving on electricity that doesn’t [...]

It’s that time of year again when the weather starts to get to a hotter and you need to find ways to stay cool. Here’s a question from a reader that is looking for inexpensive ways to beat the summer heat: We live in the Southwest which gets very hot during the summer and our [...]

There is nothing like a good debate between friends to get to the bottom of some of those questions that everybody wonders about. I received one of those questions by e-mail the other day and thought I would give it to all of you to come up with the best answer. A co-worker and I [...]

So you want to help the environment, but you don’t think that you have enough time? Here are 10 simple things that you can do in under a minute that will help the environment and save you money at the same time: 1. Use Half The Amount (time: none): Try using half the amount of [...]

As home energy costs rise, so does awareness. Even those who have never before paid attention to their electrical usage are taking note as their monthly bills climb higher and higher. For those that would like to more closely monitor the power being used in their home, Blue Line Innovations of Canada offers an small [...]

It’s been a long, cold, rough winter in many parts of the U.S., but due to a new federal law, spring will be coming early this year. As part of the The Energy Policy Act of 2005, the U.S. will switch to Daylight Saving Time (DST) on the second Sunday in March (3/11/2007). This means [...]

It was only a matter of time before the cable companies caught onto the trick of people asking for the introduction rate every time their cable rates were jacked up to the regular prices. While calling and threatening to switch companies had worked brilliantly before (1 & 2), this time I was met with the [...]

I have mentioned previously that there are times when it makes sense to buy certain items to save money. Along these lines. PECO has announced they are selling a $25 (plus $2.87 shipping/handling) energy saving kit that should save you between $125 to $250 a year in energy costs. The kit includes the following: Earth [...]

Looking to spruce up your house with a little paint? Why not insulate the walls at the same time with the same brush stroke. I happened to be looking for paint and insulation for a home improvement project when I stumbled upon insulating paints. It’s a less expensive alternative to placing standard insulation materials in [...]

With winter upon us, the thought of a warm, crackling fire in the fireplace is probably a quite appealing image to a lot of you. What you probably don’t realize is that your fire will cost you a lot more than the price of a couple of logs. Your fireplace is one of the most [...]

Running your computer is pretty darn cheap when viewed at an hourly rate – approximately $0.02 an hour. This figure was obtained with the following assumptions: The typical desktop computer uses around 200 watts of energy per hour (with a 50% / 50% split of energy consumed between the computer and the display screen). We [...]

My mom had a light burn out in the bathroom and she asked me to replace it if I had time today. When I went to do so, I found that the light took four 100w light bulbs which I thought was a bit of an overkill for the bathroom that isn’t that big. Instead [...]