Saving money

Compact fluorescent life expectancy

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , ,

There’s a lot of talk about compact fluorescent life expectancy. I actually tracked my CFL lifespan. Here’s what I found.

I noticed this week that a compact fluorescent bulb in the kitchen had burned out, so this week I bought an LED bulb to replace it. I started writing the dates on bulbs back in 2008 so I could track how long they last. This particular bulb was dated 1-2011. So the bulb lasted 3 years, 8 months. That’s a lot better than a standard incandescent light bulb. I suspect I may have had CFL bulbs last less time than that, but I know I’ve had bulbs last longer, too. The most recent bulb I replaced prior to this one was from 2008.

If your CFL bulbs are burning out early, here are some tips. They work. Remember, my bulbs lasted three years or more.

I have about 16 CFL bulbs left in the house now, and I’ll continue using those until they die. I have around 28 LED bulbs. All in all I prefer LED; they give more lumens per watt, tend to reach full brightness faster, and generally give off a better quality of light, but the biggest advantage–an advantage they have over incandescent bulbs as well–is the complete lack of ultraviolet light so they don’t fade the paint on your walls or the stuff hanging on your walls. Supposedly they don’t attract bugs either, but that seems to not be entirely true. Still, cutting down on ultraviolet light and saving money are good things.

Read this before you buy a car

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

My former classmate Judd Slivka, now a journalism professor at Mizzou, pointed me to Long-Term Quality Index, a long-term study of the reliability of used cars co-created by our fellow Mizzou alumnus Steven Lang. Judd called it an outstanding example of data-driven journalism, and I agree.

The results are enlightening. Read more

How to cut your water bill

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money , ,

I’ve talked a lot about how to cut your electric bill and how I successfully cut mine 19 percent, but I haven’t talked much about water bills. Part of it is because water is cheap in St. Louis–the two largest rivers in North America converge here–but in some parts of the country, water usage is at critical levels, so cutting your water bill could mean saving real money.

I’ll never forget a commercial I heard when I was in third grade. “Did you know that every time you flush your toilet, you use 5-7 gallons of water?” a guy said with a drawl, before urging people to flush less. Being very juvenile, I thought it was funny.

But if your house is older, your toilet may very well be trickling water all the time, literally nickel and diming your water bill continuously. You can fix that for less than $10. Read more

My counterpoint to Forget Frugality

Dave Farquhar Landlording, Saving money , , ,

I saw a reference this week to an editorial by Ramit Sethi called Forget Frugality. While he has some good points, I think some of his advice is counterproductive and even contradictory. He argues that you should focus on earnings and negotiation instead of trying to actively cut costs.

I really think you have to do a combination of the three, and you should start with what you have the most control over, which is your own budget. Here’s what I have to say about his seven strategies. Read more

Tips on buying used stuff

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just found a Lifehacker piece on buying used stuff without getting ripped off. I have plenty of experience in this area.

The key, I think, is to deal in person, and test as much functionality as you can before handing over the cash. Read more

Some stock advice from the Post-Dispatch

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

I found this warning about trying to time the markets in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch over the weekend. The warning was that 2009 was when the stock market bottomed out. Nobody predicted that was when it was going to happen. People who were buying stocks in 2009, when things looked bleak, are sitting much prettier than people who weren’t.

Although the economy as a whole is still a bit shaky, the stock market has had a historic run from 2009 to now. It just goes to show that the markets are fickle. Very fickle.

When the market was sinking fast and hard in 2009, I saw an opportunity. The fortune my grandfather made in the Great Depression is something of a family legend. (Where that money went is another legend that I’m not interested in speaking about.) That year looked like it might be the best opportunity I would see in my lifetime, so I sunk every dime I could into my 401(K) that year and encouraged my coworkers to do the same, though the most vocal of them were certainly talking about how much of a waste of time the 401(K) was, as far as they could tell.

I don’t know how many listened, but those who did probably are glad they did.

You can’t time the market. The best you can do is buy whatever is cheap. Take the emotion out of it. Set it up and make it automatic. Buy stock every payday by having automatic withdrawals, set a mix of blue-chip stocks, growth stocks, small company stocks, and bonds, and set the portfolio to rebalance. Some years it’s been the big companies that made the best return and some years it’s the small ones. Rebalancing forces you to buy low and sell high, to take last year’s profits and turn them into next year’s.

Remember. The market is fickle. It’s not God, and it’s not infallible. It’s actually very fickle and stupid. The way you beat a fickle and stupid market is by not being fickle. Don’t trust the market. It’s not trustworthy. Exploit the market.

I’ve had financial advisors try to sell me other gimmicky investments over the years. None has come close to matching the simple formula of evenly dividing holdings between those four categories in plain, simple no-load index funds. (You may have to settle for a managed fund for your growth holdings, but that’s OK.) Then rebalance. Whether it’s better to rebalance once a year or once a month or once a quarter is unclear. Your 401(K) may only give you one option anyway, so don’t obsess over it. The important thing is having a schedule.

When I was still in my 20s, I lost most of my retirement savings to poor management. I don’t intend to repeat that.

Oh, and one more thing: Don’t look at your financial statements. Toss them in a drawer in case you need them. The only time I look at them is when I’m trying to get a mortgage. Real estate is cheap, but stocks are expensive, so I’m buying real estate. I have to prove I have six months’ worth of mortgage payments stashed somewhere to get a loan, so that’s when I look at those statements–and then, just to make sure the big number is big enough, and that I’m putting it right-side up in the scanner.

Cree releases a $20 100W-equivalent LED bulb–but do you want one?

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , ,

Cree joined Phillips in offering an LED bulb in the 1600-lumen class, suitable for replacing 100W incandescents. The Cree bulb costs $5 less than the Phillips competitor, in unsubsidized markets. (Many utilities subsidize energy efficient bulbs because it’s cheaper than building more power plants. Really.)

I own several Cree 60W equivalents and I’m very happy with them. They’ve been dependable, the price is reasonable, the quality of light is outstanding, they turn on instantly, and, believe it or not, they’re designed and built in the United States.

Now that Cree has four different bulbs at different ratings and three different price points, I weighed the pros and cons of each. Read more

The Channel Master DVR+ is a cord-cutter’s secret weapon

Dave Farquhar Saving money

One of the key things that keeps people from cancelling cable and saving themselves $100 a month is the DVR. They don’t want to lose the ability to time-shift their favorite shows and rewatch favorites during rerun season.

Channel Master has the solution for that: The Channel Master DVR+, an over-the-air DVR that works with any antenna and records shows,up to two at once, to an attached USB hard drive. There are no subscription fees, and you can plug in whatever sized hard drive you want. Plug it in to an Ethernet connection, or plug in a USB wifi adapter (a $40 option) if you want the DVR to pull down TV listings over the Internet for you.

The $250 price could be a bit off-putting, but it’s a one-shot purchase. Once you pay the $250, plus whatever hard drive you attach to it, and the wifi adapter if you want it, you’re done. No monthly fees. No losing your shows if you change plans. And if you want a bigger hard drive, just get a new one and plug it in. And since the hard drive is detachable, it probably means you can plug the drive into a computer and copy its contents to another drive for backup, so if the drive ever fails, you don’t lose everything.

To me, the flexibility makes up for the price. I’ve considered trying to build such a device in the past, but by the time I bought a case, motherboard, CPU, memory, and tuner card, I would be out $150-$200, and then I’d probably have to spend most of a weekend getting it all working together. And after that, there’s no guarantee anyone else in the house besides me would be able to figure out how to use it. Getting something I can just take out of the box, plug in, and let the family use is worth a bit of a premium.

And besides, even if I sunk $400 into the thing, that’s four months of cable.

I’m not exactly sure when the DVR+ will be available, but if I can buy one this summer, I intend to.

CFL bulbs burn out quickly? Here’s what to do.

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money , , , , ,
CFL bulbs burn out quickly? Here’s what to do.

I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about CFL bulbs lately. I’ve written about how to address premature CFL burnout before, but I guess it bears repeating. It’s a five-minute fix, usually, to get the bulbs to last a while. So here’s what to do if your CFL bulbs burn out quickly.

CFL bulbs do seem to be more sensitive to minor electrical problems than older bulbs. Fixing the tab in your light socket or replacing your light switch is often enough to make the bulbs last as long as the package said they would.

Read more

What I’m doing to protect myself after the Target data breach

Dave Farquhar Saving money, security , , , , , , ,

As you’ve probably heard, Target had a bad month. Between the days of 27 November and 15 December, about 40 million credit card numbers were stolen, making it one of the biggest breaches of its kind in history. As far as we know, the card number and security code were stolen, but debit-card PINs and addresses were not.

Target says they have contained the breach and are cooperating with credit card companies and authorities. Cringely has some analysis, but it has more for people like me to think about how we do things at work than it does for consumers.

And, well, as luck would have it, I shopped a lot at Target between the days in question. And I used both my credit and debit card during that time. Here’s what I’m doing, some of which may be counter-intuitive.

Read more