Lowering the Electricity Bill

It is hot here and the AC is on virtually all the time. When I opened my electricity bill, I was in for a little surprise. It was not too high! The company we use have an Electricity Usage Summary that compares our current usage with last month and the same time last year. I don’t find the last month particularly helpful because the temperature difference is 15 degrees. This time last year and this year is a good comparison though.

At the same time last year we averaged 33 kWh per day where this year we averaged 33 kWh (slightly less if you divide total use by number of days) but the heat chart shows that this year has been hotter by an average of 8 degrees. Hurrah global warming. So I count last month as successful in saving electricity.

What have we done to save?

• Turned down the AC to 80-82 degrees. Last year it was 76-78 degrees.
• Closed the blinds and turned off the lights. I also covered a few windows with blankets to keep the light out.
• Made more use of the ceiling fans. I read that using ceiling fans makes it feel a few degrees cooler than it is.

Dave Ramsey Books On Sale

Dave Ramsey’s books, including The Total Money Makeover (TTMM) are on sale on Dave Ramsey’s website.  Of course the library is free and there are also a bunch of Dave Ramsey’s radio shows on YouTube (also free). Maybe being gazelle intense should start with not buying the book.

Husband’s Credit Score Went Up 12 Points

Time to go yacht shopping. lol

The only change to his credit report, I think, is the payoff on the AMEX card. It lowered his utilization which on his revolving accounts was pretty high. He has a couple of old dings that I am researching on the Credit Board forums. I am pretty sure I can get those off with a little work. Not that it really matters, we don’t plan on taking out any loans or opening any cards. We are just being prepared.

Whole Foods – You Suck

Confession time: I do some grocery shopping at Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck). I believe that health and behavior has a lot to do with what kinds of foods one eats and around here Whole Foods is the best place to get certain things. Organic fruits and veggies, vitamins and vegetarian pepperoni being some of those things. I think I mentioned before buying organic for the “dirty dozen” fruits and veggies. We also try to only buy in season which keeps the bill down.

Now on to the reason Whole Foods sucks. The one near my house is smaller and has less turnover of foods than the bigger ones. For a lot of things this doesn’t matter too much but for prepared foods, it is really caveat emptor. Last time I stopped at Whole Foods, I picked up prepackaged pizza crust and a small thing of hummus along with a few other things. Not terribly frugal but I went shopping hungry which is always a mistake. I was looking at the pizza crust yesterday and saw big spots of mold. I opened the hummus and more mold. Neither item was expired either. So now I have to trek back to WF and return the items.

So much for “convenience foods”.

ETA: I just got back from WF and they refunded my money [i]and[/i] gave me a free pizza crust. The manager said the products are both new and he is investigating.

Free Books for Kids Under 11

Half Price Books (and Cici’s Pizza) is rewarding kids for reading this summer. Kids receive a $3 gift certificate for reading at least 15 minutes every day for a week. Parents sign a reading log and take it in to the local Half Price Books to receive the gift card.

Details on Half Price Books website. Half price books has many books for under $3. Younger kids especially can get Scholastic books for a dollar or so.

Associated Content Frustrations

I have been writing a little for Associated Content to earn a little, OK very little, cash. Part of the idea behind writing for AC was to improve my web writing and I am finding that just isn’t happening. There just isn’t any feedback on my writing. Since AC only gives a basic stat counter (number of hits only) per article, it is impossible to tell how people are getting to my articles or what they are doing when they get there.

The other major drawback of Associated Content is the lack of editing ability. Are they stuck in the pre-web era? If I write two related articles, it is impossible to edit the first one and add a link to the second. This lowers my total hits per page, which decreases my revenue.

If AC added some more stats information for each article, I could overlook the editing thing. Otherwise I am going to look closer at the other online publishing sites. Off to take a look at the forums to see if the powers that be will be adding better analytics.

My Debt Hit List – The Car Loan

Husband’s car loan is on the chopping block to be paid off. I sent in $1000 from our stimulus check and husband added the amount we were sending to American Express ($100) to the minimum payment as part of our debt snowball.

FTR, we are starting with $8090 to be paid on the car loan. When we get our next statement I expect the balance to dip below $7000. Yesterday I was playing around with debt payment calculators and according to them, paying the minimum plus $100 will take us over 2 years to pay off that sucker. lol Yeah, right. Like I will allow it to take that long. I still have $2000 for the car loan from our tax return and as soon as I see that Capital One credited our account properly for the $1000, I will send that in.

Buy Dockers Get Free Gas

Sears has a deal where if you buy $100 of mens Dockers, you get a $75 Shell gas card. Thanks to Money Saving Mom for the tip. Fill out the rebate form and send it in to receive your gift card. Here are the details:

Purchase $100.00 or more (pretax amount after application of any discounts) in qualifying men’s Dockers® apparel or accessories at participating Sears department stores and Sears.com and receive by mail a $75.00 Shell® gift card. Multiple, same-day sales receipts indicating a qualifying Dockers® purchase may be combined to achieve the $100.00 minimum purchase requirement.

Qualifying purchases must be completed between 12:00:00 AM (ET) 6/7/08 and 11:59:59 PM (ET) 6/15/08.The offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other Sears promotional offer.

Limit one (1) request per person, two (2) per household, separate qualifying purchases on separate receipts required.The Shell Gift Card can be used only for purchases of goods and services at Shell locations in the U.S.

Unfortunately we bought husband new teaching clothes 2 weeks ago or I would be all over this.

Cheap Ways to Keep Your House Cool

An article on MSN has 25 cheap ideas to keep your house cool. I ran out to Home Depot and bought a new filter for the air conditioning. The old filter was disgusting and replacing it seems to have helped. I also started running the fans at night so I can keep the AC down a few degrees.

Free Outing – Library Story Time

We tried a free outing the other evening – story time at the local library. The one near us has some fun stuff planned. The librarian read a couple of books around a theme, showed a short film about yet another book and had a craft. In theory, this would have been a wonderful idea but there was one catch. Kids age 3 and older have to go into the room by themselves. I told the kid that I would wait right outside for her but she was having nothing of it. To her credit, she did try but ended up wailing for mommy within minutes. So instead we looked for books to check out and take home. She is just not ready yet.

Story time at the library is free although some libraries ask that you sign up for weekly sessions. The best thing about the library – free air conditioning!