What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[ChicksnMore]

I think I'll look for a reusable coffee filter next time I go into town...

I got mine on Amazon...I've never seen them anywhere else though they must be sold somewhere.

https://www.amazon.com/Hario-Cloth-...65484d-1c95-4bed-b564-9469fdeef107&th=1&psc=1

 

[Sally PB]

I got mine on Amazon...I've never seen them anywhere else though they must be sold somewhere.

I'm still PO'ed at FedEx, so I won't be ordering anything that has to be shipped to me. I'll be going to the chiropractor next Wednesday, so I'll be "in town," and do some shopping on my way home.

 

[gtaus]

Amazon Prime has been a god-send for people in Hawaii because shipping prices have traditionally been very high compared to the mainland. On Amazon a 65 pound roll of wire costs less than at the local big-box store and they send it across the ocean on an airplane for free. Honestly, I don't know how they can do it and still make money.

Living on a tropical island certainly has some advantages. I was stationed on Guam for 2 years back in the 1980's. It was a beautiful place. However, I think about half the stuff that I had shipped to me from the mainland was "lost in the mail." There were many, many companies back then that would not even ship to Guam (or Hawaii).

It's good to hear that things have improved for you on Hawaii, at least with Amazon. I have no idea how Amazon can fly something to Hawaii cheaper than a slow boat loaded with cargo. They must have contracts in place that give them a discount for shipping to Hawaii. From what I understand, Amazon has special deals with UPS and FedEx because of the quantity they ship. That might be working to your advantage.

 

[gtaus]

Frugal Tip on space heaters/Off-Peak power.

Yesterday it was -28F outside when I got out of bed. Got me to thinking about how many people are being misled about using space heaters and how much money they can save using a small space heater instead of the main furnace.

Typical example, I had a relative buy a $400 Eden Pure heater because he was convinced that it was going to save him money over burning his natural gas furnace.

I mean, the Eden Pure heater he bought had nice wood covering and was like a work of art. But he was disappointed to discover that his electric bill went through the roof.

So, here are some things you need to consider before you buy any electric space heater.

When they say their space heater will save you money, read the fine print, because that statement is based off you closing down all the rooms in your house that you don't need to fully heat. That spare bedroom and bathroom, shut the furnace vents and close the doors. Rooms that you hardly use in the winter, ditto. Essentially, you are expected to close up about half the house and only heat the rooms you need.

Well, you can save money by doing all that with your main furnace. Nothing stopping you from closing the vents and doors to those rooms in the winter that you don't need to fully heat. You will save all that money AND you did not have to buy an expensive space heater.

Next thing, electric heaters are, more or less, 100% efficient in converting electricity to heat. If you have a $400 Eden Pure heater that has a maximum of 1500 watts, it is no better, in terms of heat, than a $20 milk house heater that has 1500 watts!

OK, so a milk house heater is not a piece of art, but it will turn 1500 watts of electricity to heat just the same as the $400 heaters.

Next thing to consider is that most space heaters are designed to plug into the regular wall socket 120v system. Where I live, the regular rate of electricity is about 12 cents per Kwh. However, I had Off-Peak electric put into my house, which runs my main electric furnace, my water heater, the air conditioner, and the dryers. Off-Peak electricity cost me about 6 cents per Kwh. Half the price of the regular rate.

So, what I did, was install a 240v in wall heater, running on Off-Peak power, for a room that I need to occasionally boost the heat.

I only turn it on when we need to heat that room, and leave it off most of the time. It has a really good fan in it and will heat the room up in about 15 minutes. Then the automatic thermostat will maintain that temperature until I shut it off.

You can save a lot of money by having your appliances running on Off-Peak power, but there are some potential disadvantages to consider. The power company has the ability to turn off your Off-Peak power whenever they need to divert more power to the regular system. So, in my case, my electric furnace has to have a backup propane tank if the Off-Peak power is turned off. That is required by law, so anyone here with an electric furnance actually has a dual source furnace with gas or propane backup.

In reality, the power company rarely turns off the Off-Peak power. We had one evening this winter where our dryer did not turn on until about 10 pm. We managed to survive. Other than that, I don't think our furnace has switched over to propane once. As to the hot water heater, well, we have a big tank and if they switched off the power to the hot water heater, you would not know it for hours and hours. The electric company is smart enough to only turn off the Off-Peak power for a short time, so the water heater is back on before we ever run out of hot water.

Finally, it is important to understand at what point it makes more sense to use Off-Peak electricity or switch over to gas or propane for heating. I got a nice price comparision chart from my electric company on the cost of electric Off-Peak heat versus gas and propane costs. Where I live, the Off-Peak electric rate has been cheaper to heat the house than propane for many years. But propane prices vary depending on where you live. It costs me the same to run the 240v in wall, Off-Peak heater, then it does the main furnace. However, I would be spending a lot more money if I used a regular 120v space heater plugged into the wall socket at twice the rate.

 

[raingarden]

Living on a tropical island certainly has some advantages. I was stationed on Guam for 2 years back in the 1980's. It was a beautiful place. However, I think about half the stuff that I had shipped to me from the mainland was "lost in the mail." There were many, many companies back then that would not even ship to Guam (or Hawaii).

It's good to hear that things have improved for you on Hawaii, at least with Amazon. I have no idea how Amazon can fly something to Hawaii cheaper than a slow boat loaded with cargo. They must have contracts in place that give them a discount for shipping to Hawaii. From what I understand, Amazon has special deals with UPS and FedEx because of the quantity they ship. That might be working to your advantage.

The bulk of our Amazon stuff arrives via USPS. They have some sort of deal going but it's politically controversial.

This may be contrary to the theme of the topic, but I'll usually order something on line rather than drive over the mountain to buy it in Honolulu. The local Safeway delivers much of our groceries.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Frugal Tip on space heaters/Off-Peak power.

Yesterday it was -28F outside when I got out of bed. Got me to thinking about how many people are being misled about using space heaters and how much money they can save using a small space heater instead of the main furnace.

Typical example, I had a relative buy a $400 Eden Pure heater because he was convinced that it was going to save him money over burning his natural gas furnace.

I mean, the Eden Pure heater he bought had nice wood covering and was like a work of art. But he was disappointed to discover that his electric bill went through the roof.

So, here are some things you need to consider before you buy any electric space heater.

When they say their space heater will save you money, read the fine print, because that statement is based off you closing down all the rooms in your house that you don't need to fully heat. That spare bedroom and bathroom, shut the furnace vents and close the doors. Rooms that you hardly use in the winter, ditto. Essentially, you are expected to close up about half the house and only heat the rooms you need.

Well, you can save money by doing all that with your main furnace. Nothing stopping you from closing the vents and doors to those rooms in the winter that you don't need to fully heat. You will save all that money AND you did not have to buy an expensive space heater.

Next thing, electric heaters are, more or less, 100% efficient in converting electricity to heat. If you have a $400 Eden Pure heater that has a maximum of 1500 watts, it is no better, in terms of heat, than a $20 milk house heater that has 1500 watts!

OK, so a milk house heater is not a piece of art, but it will turn 1500 watts of electricity to heat just the same as the $400 heaters.

Next thing to consider is that most space heaters are designed to plug into the regular wall socket 120v system. Where I live, the regular rate of electricity is about 12 cents per Kwh. However, I had Off-Peak electric put into my house, which runs my main electric furnace, my water heater, the air conditioner, and the dryers. Off-Peak electricity cost me about 6 cents per Kwh. Half the price of the regular rate.

So, what I did, was install a 240v in wall heater, running on Off-Peak power, for a room that I need to occasionally boost the heat.

I only turn it on when we need to heat that room, and leave it off most of the time. It has a really good fan in it and will heat the room up in about 15 minutes. Then the automatic thermostat will maintain that temperature until I shut it off.

You can save a lot of money by having your appliances running on Off-Peak power, but there are some potential disadvantages to consider. The power company has the ability to turn off your Off-Peak power whenever they need to divert more power to the regular system. So, in my case, my electric furnace has to have a backup propane tank if the Off-Peak power is turned off. That is required by law, so anyone here with an electric furnance actually has a dual source furnace with gas or propane backup.

In reality, the power company rarely turns off the Off-Peak power. We had one evening this winter where our dryer did not turn on until about 10 pm. We managed to survive. Other than that, I don't think our furnace has switched over to propane once. As to the hot water heater, well, we have a big tank and if they switched off the power to the hot water heater, you would not know it for hours and hours. The electric company is smart enough to only turn off the Off-Peak power for a short time, so the water heater is back on before we ever run out of hot water.

Finally, it is important to understand at what point it makes more sense to use Off-Peak electricity or switch over to gas or propane for heating. I got a nice price comparision chart from my electric company on the cost of electric Off-Peak heat versus gas and propane costs. Where I live, the Off-Peak electric rate has been cheaper to heat the house than propane for many years. But propane prices vary depending on where you live. It costs me the same to run the 240v in wall, Off-Peak heater, then it does the main furnace. However, I would be spending a lot more money if I used a regular 120v space heater plugged into the wall socket at twice the rate.

I'd never heard of off peak electricity! We have solar but it's good information to know regardless. Did you already have propane set up or did you have to install it? If you installed it...how much did that cost?

 

[gtaus]

I'd never heard of off peak electricity! We have solar but it's good information to know regardless. Did you already have propane set up or did you have to install it? If you installed it...how much did that cost?

I live in northern Minnesota. One of our main expenses in owning a house is heating it in the winter months. When I built my new house, I checked into the options I had for heating. Off-Peak electricity was the least expensive option for heating where I live. But, as I said, you are required to have a backup system to any main Off-Peak system. So, I had a dual source furnace (electric and propane) installed. For the past 20 years, I have mainly been heating the house with Off-Peak electric as it has been cheaper than heating with propane. My furnace is set to heat with Off-Peak electric, and, if for some reason, the electric company turns off the Off-Peak power, then my furnace automatically switches over to propane heat.

I cannot remember how much it cost to install a dual source furnane compared to just a propane furnace, but IIRC, there was not much a difference that was not made up in the savings of using Off-Peak heat perhaps even in the first or second year.

Which is why I also mentioned that you can buy those 240v in wall heaters and have them run off Off-Peak electricity at the same rate as my main furnace. If your electric company offers an Off-Peak electric program, it's certainly worth looking into to see if it would save you money. I know it saves me 100's of dollars every heating season.

 

[gtaus]

We have solar...

I checked into total house solar systems, but where I live, the payback was something like 25 years at the time. And, IIRC, the solar systems were not able to provide enough power to heat my house and I would still have to heat with another system. So, I had to take a pass on that idea.

Of course, where you live, makes all the difference in the world in what options you have. Recently, I watched a YouTube video where a guy, who had a whole house solar system, was advocating most people would be better off with a grid system that recharged the house batteries and a gas/diesel generator for times when electricity was not available. In his setup, he could run his house off batteries for 2-3 days. With even some small solar panels, he could extend that out another 1-2 days. If the grid electricity was still down after that, he could recharge his house batteries using his generator for about 2 hours per day. He calculated that running the generator for 2 hours per day would cost him about $25 per week to charge up his house batteries to run his essentials.

He called that system a "grid-down" setup, which would only cost about $5,000.00 compared to his whole house solar system that he spent something like $95,000.00 if I remember correctly. His rationale was that chances are most people are not going to lose grid power longer than a few days, maybe a few weeks if hit by a big storm, but the advantages of a "grid-down" system was that your initial investment is a fraction of a whole house solar setup and your payback period was a few years, compared to 20 years with the whole house solar system he bought.

I have lived in my house for 30+ years. The longest power out period we have experienced was about 8 hours one summer day. I don't know what happened that time, but most of our power interruptions are more like only a couple of minutes. I have all my computers plugged into UPS battery backups, and I can only remember once in the last 5 years where I actually had to shut down the computers before the batteries were depleted. We have reliable electric service where I live.

 

[Sally PB]

The longest power out period we have experienced was about 8 hours one summer day.

I think our longest was 4 days. Fortunately, it was May, so we weren't worried about cold. It was sometime in the 90s; we hadn't gotten our generator yet. A friend in town let us shower and fill up water jugs at her house.

 

[Jabroni]

I think I'll look for a reusable coffee filter next time I go into town...

Consider a french press. I got one after my 2nd coffee maker in 3 years broke and I was fed up. Has a built in mesh filter and makes even cheap crap coffee taste great. Cheaper than a coffee maker too. The mesh top filter can even be used to froth milk if you like fancy coffee sometimes. Downsides are that you need to boil water in a kettle separately and pour it in yourself and time the steep yourself. And you can't just prep and have your coffee started for you in the morning or just press a button. But it's as easy as a water boil, a 40+ second cooldown, mix, and 4-minute steep. I use the built in timer on my stove. No more filters PLUS no more bitter coffee.