Earth Hour 2014

Did you participate in Earth Hour this year? I know some people go to the city to watch the lights go out in the buildings. What a great lesson to teach your kids.

This year, we at Casa de Surely Sarah decided to do a little experiment. It involved trying to gauge just how much energy we waste on electrical devices.

Being the frugal person that I am, I wanted to know what was sucking the most power in our house - because our electricity bill at present is enough to give any normal person a heart attack.

So, at 8.30pm, I got out our little electricity meter (obtained via a city council "green" initiative a few years ago), lit some candles and turned everything off.

Here's the numbers for what happened next:

Initial reading (all devices on, air con on, lights on, tv on)
3.166kW
$0.44/ph

Everything off
0.059kW
$0.00/ph
 (at this point C drove himself into a frenzy trying to figure out where that 0.059kW of energy was coming from - we never did find it)


+Lights
0.059kW
$0.00/ph

+Computer powerboard
0.119kW
$0.01/ph

+Microwave
0.126kW
$0.01/ph

+Water cooler
0.213kW
$0.03/ph

+Fridge and Freezer
1.605kW
$0.22/ph

+Air con
2.843kW
$0.39/ph

What did we learn? Well, for one thing, that lights don't contribute much, but added up with power points with standby power they do contribute to energy use. The water cooler was a surprise - it's on 24/7 so may have to rethink how much power it uses. One thing we did know already was that our fridge and freezer aren't very energy efficient and we need to look at replacing them.

And of course, air conditioning is the main culprit. We do tend to switch it on more than we should, so maybe this stark reminder of how much it costs us might help us use it less!

Did you participate in Earth Hour? What do you do when the lights are out?

No texting and no Twitter make Sarah something something

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From Friday last week, to yesterday afternoon, I couldn't use my iPhone. First World Problems, I know.

What I wasn't prepared for was the sense of loss and helplessness that this situation evoked in me! I would continually pick it up, start to text someone and remember. Put phone back down. Pick it up a minute later, open Echofon and try to tweet and then remember.

Due to some barring placed on it by my service provider (a little matter of an overdue bill... but we won't go into that. Suffice to say there was no notice and apparently since it wasn't a full suspension of service I don't deserve any. Not happy.) I could receive incoming calls and texts but not send anything, or access the internet. Do you know how frustrating it is to not reply to a text when you want to? And if I wasn't home I couldn't pick up the home phone (which has also had a fault on it, don't even ask!) and make an old-fashioned landline call to tell people why I couldn't respond!

Telstra couldn't seem to remove the bar, despite me complying with their billing request. So I spent the entire weekend and Monday not texting, tweeting, calling, instagramming, Path-ing, playing Words With Friends or checking into GetGlue. It was strange - I've had my iphone for only a year but it felt like my arm had been cut off. Basically it had been rendered a black brick on which I could only play Freecell.

Finally after 4 phone calls and a complaint logged via the web I rang Telstra yesterday afternoon, said "complaint" into the RVA and miraculously was put through to a person who knew what the hell they were doing. He fixed it within 5 mins, and I could use my phone again. Halle-freaking-lujah!

I spent 30 years of my life without an iPhone, and  4 days without one sent me round the twist. What has become of me?

Are you too reliant on your Smart Phone? Is your life on there? How have you coped/would you cope without it?

Postal Heart Attack

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This afternoon I had a Postal Heart Attack.

You know it - you're standing over the bin, opening your mail (the best tip EVER, can't even remember where I read it! It was on one of your blogs, I'm sure) and merrily throwing ripped envelopes in when from one emerges a bill that makes you look twice, your eyes focus on the little line that says 'Amount Due'... and then...

"WHAT THE FUCK?"

This occasion saw me charging out the front door to where my beloved other half was attempting to fix my car and demand loudly and at length for all the neighbours to hear how the EFFING EFF we had managed to double our phone bill this month.

After that I had a little cry, C cheered me up by reminding me we always manage to sort these things out, I had a shower and then looked at the bill again when I felt stronger.

I urge you all to learn from my lesson - NEVER go over your mobile data cap, if you have one. The excess charges won't be pretty. They will be excessive. And there's nothing you can do about it, because they give you fair warning.

Sigh.

Runnin' up mah light bill

There's a bit in the The Original Kings of Comedy show that my fiancee has been over-quoting lately. It's basically about grandmothers and their propensity to berate about the power bill.

Everything you did over your mean grandmama's house gonna run up her light bill. "Don't you come in my house talking loud! You gonna f*ck around and run up my light bill! My light bill be sky high cause of yo' "

So now every time I forget to turn off a light before leaving the room, I get "Turn off that bulb! Yo' gonna run up mah light bill!"

In the past three years we have been living in our house, I have watched our electricity bills spiral out of control. At first we thought it was the pool pump, so we cut down the unnecessary hours that it was on. Then, we unplugged the second fridge under the patio – we aren’t really big drinkers so we didn’t have much booze that would require an entire other fridge. We tried to avoid using the dryer wherever possible and hang clothes on the line to dry, and attempted to rug up rather than switch on the heater in winter. To add insult to injury, we have a gas stove and solar hot water. So we are not even using power for those things to start with!

All of this to no avail. The electric bill continues to rise. In desperation, I booked a ClimateSmart home service. This is a Qld Government initiative similar to the water home service that was offered during the water restrictions a few years ago. For $50, a qualified man comes to your house and goes over your electricity usage. He gives you all this wonderful stuff:

[image: mine]

… plus gives you good advice on how to reduce your bill. All I wanted to know was which appliances sucked the most power, but the ClimateSmart man went above and beyond. He confirmed it wasn’t the pool pump or the dryer that was killing us – it’s our fridge and freezer. Apparently they’re pretty old and are just electricity guzzlers. He suggested replacing them and also installing another electricity meter, with the capability to monitor the times we use electricity – this will allow peak and off-peak billing through the electricity provider (hopefully our current one offers this, otherwise we’ll have to switch). Basically, for the outlay of a few hundred dollars, he estimated that we could cut our quarterly bills IN HALF.

So now it’s just a matter of deciding when to do these things – we’re trying to save for the wedding at present, but I really want to take on board his suggestions. And guess which item in our house sucks the most electricity of all? The electric kettle. Apparently it actually uses less power to boil a cup of water in the microwave!

Now C is obsessed with watching the little power meter, and getting it down as low as possible. It shows in cents how much electricity you are using at present, and it spikes up and down according to whether the kettle is on, the fridge is humming or the pool pump is working. After a week of meter-watching, I’m over the novelty of it I can tell you.

The one gadget I do like though is a remote control for your power switches. C has installed the little receiver plug on the outside carport light, so I can turn it on from inside the house with the remote, without having to grope about finding the garage switch in the dark. Wondrous technology!

Have you instituted any energy-smart behaviours or technology into your home?

No money, Mo' Problems

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Today I have a day off from work - it's a day in lieu as I worked the local show holiday last month. It comes at a timely moment following a few things that are pissing me off at work lately coming to a head yesterday. I tweeted about it but won't bore you with the details here. Let's just say that if I continue to be "spoken to" about bathroom breaks I'm looking for a new job!

I had nothing planned for today so decided to do one of the two things that have been on my mind lately: sort out our finances.

I've never done a household budget before. Some of you may be amazed to hear this, but I've never really seen the need. Oh, I've watched money experts on the TV talking about how important it is, and read countless blogs about how essential it is to know where your money is going, but let's face it - I'm a fundamentally lazy person, and have never been that great with money.

Despite this, I am in charge of household finances. We have numerous discussions about how I hate this role but have agreed that I'm the best of two bad choices - unfortunately the other half is worse than me with dollars and cents. When I was single, it was so much easier - I had few expenses and used a shoebox method of bill payment. When I got a bill, it went in the shoebox. When I remember to pay it, I wrote "paid" on it and back into the shoebox it went. It wasn't sophisticated, but it worked.

This simple method combined with no mortgage or rates and a smaller grocery bill meant that I could save quite a bit of money. I also lived at home for a while, and with no rent expenses (thanks mum & dad!) I was able to save over $10,000 in a year. And then I blew it all on international travel - I know, what an idiot (I REGRET NOTHING!!!).

Flash forward six years and I'm engaged, got a mortgage I get stressed thinking about and all those lovely household bills that come in ominous window envelopes. I'm pleased to say I just finished doing a budget using a combination of my bank's online budget calculator and Open Office suite (a pox on you and your registration key Microsoft!)

So now I'm going to have a little relax on the couch in front of Dr Phil. And after lunch I might consider tackling some spring cleaning.

Good stuff

Image: mine*

Just lately, we have been feeling that there's a lot of "good stuff" going on in our lives. It's a really nice way to feel too, as my partner and I have been through some tough times over the past few years.

I always felt it was mainly about money (ie. we never had enough) but looking back, it was more about other issues - The Truck (deserves a separate post by itself), my job dissatisfaction, C's business. But just lately, really good things are starting to happen.

It all started when I read The Secret last year. JUST KIDDING. Though I did actually read The Secret last year at the urging of a friend. I practiced the visualization techniques for a while, then forgot about them!

This year, however, things have really started getting on track for us. Good things that have happened to contribute to this positive feeling are:

- C proposed, and my parents offered to pay for the wedding (phew!)

- I got a new job

- The Pulsar got written off, so C finally had the means to fix The Truck, and it is now back on the road (the beast of a thing)

- We had a financial windfall, which will make a significant dent in our mortgage

Funny how these four things have made such a huge difference to my personal happiness. C is a pretty happy person anyway, he doesn't tend to worry about things like bills, mortgages, world hunger etc. like I do. But even he has expressed his amazement in the way things are going lately.

And you know what the greatest thing is? I just know that life is going to get better. I'm not sure how, but there are things coming up that are going to be fun (the wedding), amazing (the honeymoon) and interesting (who knows?). It's this feeling I have - that the good stuff is going to keep on rolling in. Wishful thinking? I hope not!

*yes, I took a photo of my own hand. Because I couldn't find any nice pics of a thumbs up, ok?!