Frugal Framnett

In my last post I report the payback period for a photo-voltaic roofing system is in excess of 15 years. Well, I was revisiting my analysis in preparation of presenting it here and lo & behold I notice I bonked!

In my analysis I misunderstood one key piece of data and based the analysis on that. I am in the middle of reanalyzing the data and it appears I the bonk led to me to overstate the payback period by twice! It appears the actual payback period would be under ten years.

I will continue to work on the analysis and present it when it is complete. Still, this realization comes too late for us our roof is on and is conventional. Perhaps this will be our first remodel job?

Drat, I have to rewrite this, my blog software [undisclosed] lost the previous version of this post, probably for the best.

We are no eco-freakos this does not mean we are careless of the environment, it means we look for prudent means to take care of the environment. It is common for people to take the no pain no gain approach to environmentally conscious living. We see those people scouring for used vegetable oil for their cars, or building houses from donkey dung and shredded newspaper, placing photovoltaic solar panels on their roofs, and installing geo-thermal heat pumps heating & cooling.

Yes, you heard me correct. Lorie and I are building a house. I have looked into photovoltaics and geo-thermal as a means to power, heat, and cool our house. My analysis was not encouraging, showing payback periods of roughly 15-17 years. Sorry, too long, I need a payback period of 10 years or less. To go with these emerging technologies would have been an extravagance we can not afford. Maybe in five years our means will have sufficiently expanded and the price of the materials will have come down to a level where it makes sense.

Now, there are people out there who can afford such technologies and I say go for it. If you have the wealth you can assuage your guilt. However, do not think you will be getting payback anytime soon on your investment (I will present my analysis in another post).

In fact, I put before you, the idea such extravagances are more damaging to the environment than conventional technologies. Why? Because price is a measure of input resources both in terms of material and labor’s time. More resources means more impact upon the environment.

However, the early-adopters provide one crucial benefit. They serve as the guinea pigs on which we can experiment and learn to produce and deliver the technology more appropriately and inexpensively.

Do not get me wrong. Not all environmentally friendly technologies are boondoggles. Lorie and I cut our electric bills roughly in half by switching most of our lights to compact fluorescents. Guess what? The reduced electrical consumption is beneficial to the environment and saves us money! Other technologies we use to save money and the environment is as simple as heavy wool sweaters and heavy wool quilts.

In order for environmentally friendly technology to catch on it has to be a value, not extravagant!

This category is similar to Cheap or Frugal. However, in this category we we will be on the other end of the cost category.

Just like we make a distinction between money saving techniques that indeed save money and those techniques that cost money in the end we also make distinctions between paying more to save money in the end and spending money just to spend money.

An example of this is furniture. You can go to a store and buy furniture that is very expensive, however it will last forever and look good forever. The alternative is to go to a store with very cheap furniture and it falls apart after a couple of years and you have to spend again to replace it.

So we would discuss whether or not an item, despite its high price, is a good value or not. Always understand, you have to judge if your financial situation and priorities are your first considerations and then you can start thinking about value.

For example, to go back to the furniture. You can spend (for instance) $25.00 for a computer desk but it is cheap and you don’t expect it last more than 5 years, but you can go to another store to buy a computer desk for $500.00 but it will last a lifetime. The $500.00 desk may be the better value but if your budget can not spare the $500.00 then it may be better to not buy a computer desk (and make due some other way) or to find something in between.

The $25.00 desk may be cheap and the $500 desk may be a value.

A $70.00 pair of shoes may be a value and a $270.00 pair of shoes may be extravagant. I encourage you to vote and comment in these postings!

Is an interesting exercise. In order for Lorie and I to go with a roof mounted photo-voltaic system we must be reasonably certain the extra expenditure will pay itself back in a reasonable period of time. I am looking for less than ten years, and my understanding is industry looks for a payback period of five years or less.My first cut at trying to determine payback period was to do some web searching and see what others reported. However, this search proved to be disappointing. Most sites do not go into specifics about the electricity actually generated, savings realized and the like. One site based on a photo-voltaic electrified home in Wisconsin was non-responsive to an e-mail query. Then I determined I would have to get analytical myself. What information would I need? Here is a summary:

1. Projected electrical usage
2. Surface area of exposed roof
3. Insolation hours
4. I Bonked!
5. Power generation capability of the material
6. Cost of the material
7. Electric rates

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Some years ago a good buddy of mine had a diesel pickup truck. When he purchased the truck it already had a large number of miles on it.

Sometime after he purchased it (from a private party) the truck’s glow-plug controller burned out. Now, the glow-plug controller was essential to starting the truck. However, instead of buy a replacement for whatever they cost the person bought two small screwdrivers and a wire with alligator clips. The screwdrivers were attached to each other with the alligator clips and the driver or companion would manually opening the truck hood and making the needed connection.

A great savings to be sure. Instead of spending the couple of hundred dollars to replace the controller a maximum of $5.00 was spent to set up the manual glow plug control.

However, my buddy started to spend money on replacing – (yeap you guessed it) burned out glow plugs. In addition, we were once stuck in the deer woods on a cold ad blowing night without light trying to figure out where to stick the leads.

Eventually, another solution was found and that was to set up a toggle switch to glow the plugs but the expense of replacing burned out glow plugs continued.

I deem not replacing the glow-plug controller cheap. How about you? Vote & discuss!

Not Replacing the Glow-Plug Controler: Cheap or Frugal?

• Cheapskate!
• Frugal (how resourceful)!

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Watch your cell phone bills. I was about to say, know what your bill should be and if the bill is not close review your bill. However, that really is not good enough. as there may be ripoffs lurking in the statistical noise of your bill.

What I mean is if you expect your bill to be around (for instance) $80.00 per month is an $82.37 bill going to make you upset? Probably not, you will probably dismiss it and pay it. It is minor and since I get charged per international text message (which I do send and receive) I can easily explain any deviation from our base bill as arising from text messaging.

However, there are those out there who take advantage of you not getting upset when the cell phone bill is close to the base. I have seen this a number of times on our phone bills.

My wife somehow got on some text message list. Ever other week or so they would send a text message out and bill us $5.95 or something like that for the text message. The message would include instructions to get off the list (reply with “stop” in the subject) that never worked. This went on for a couple of months and I was reviewing my bill and I saw these charges and investigation showed this is a common practice. Somehow they get your number and start sending you text messages and bill you for each message sent. The charges are right at the level they figure many will disregard the minor increase in their bill.

I phoned our cell phone service to complain and not only did the make the text messages stop, they also credited us with the previous month’s charges. I did not ask for anything beyond the previous month charging the older charges to my experience account.

Moral of the story weed (yeah they are hard to piece together) through your cell phone bills and study the charges.

1. How much are they charging you for?
2. What are they charging you for?
3. Is it a charge for a service you request or agreed to?

I wear glasses and contact lenses.

Recently I visited my optometrist and got a new prescription. He issued me a trial pair of contact lenses. Now, usually I am good about not wearing a given set of my contact lenses for too long (I have been getting two week lenses) but the last set from the old prescription and this trial pair I obviously wore too long. How can I tell?

My left eye is red, irritated, and very sensitive to light.

I judge the practice of wearing to wear contact lenses too long as cheap the kind of practice that in the end, may cost way more than what you save. How do you judge wearing contact lenses too long? Please vote and comment.

Wearing Contact Lenses Longer than one Should: Frugal or Cheap?

• Cheap (bad)!
• Frugal (good)!

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Honesty is such a lonely word.
Everyone is so untrue.
Honesty is hardly ever heard.

So sings Billy Joel. Now, Billy Joel is not singing about being thrifty but about love and I have only snipped out the piece that is very general.

The old saying is honesty is the best policy. True, and are we honest with others? Honesty with others is not too difficult, sure there are times when we stretch the truth, we may avoid answering questions, we may twist and squirm; but I think most of us are on the whole honest people. However, are you honest with yourself?

Being honest to one’s self is important for being frugal. Can you tell yourself you do not need that day at the spa? Or do you buy the line you give to yourself you work hard and deserve it? Do you resist the idea that you would be the next Ansel Adams if only you had the new digital SLR?

It is not about mortifying one’s self it is about being honest with yourself about your needs and means. The ease with which we are granted credit makes it so much easier to lie to ourselves. Extending your purchasing with credit is deceiving yourself, be honest.

Get Organized!

Not your finances, but your life and I bet (not literally, gambling is not frugal) your finances will follow! I often find myself spending unnecessary money when my organization falls apart. I am cooking, can not find an ingredient so I go to the store (spend on gas) and buy something I know we have already, but can not find. Or I misplace something else and end up having to replicate a purchase.

This also applies to the organization of time. Sometimes I decide to make something but either do not plan appropriately (or procrastinate) and I end up having to hire someone to carry out the task. This is my big problem during this time of the season, I do not allow enough time for shopping and end up having to buy things in a hurry and you can all imagine how that goes!

Being organized can also help with tracking your spending. If you are organized enough you can store, retrieve, and record receipts so you can closely track your expenses. Like I said earlier tracking your expenses is a crucial component of determining how you are doing in reaching your financial goals!

Here I will post about rip offs & scams I have encountered or those things I think to be rip offs and scams.

I am thinking about dividing this category into rip offs and into scams. Rip offs being just this side of legal and scams being illegal (or should be illegal) ways people try to con you out of your money.