Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Save Money by Turning Off Appliances

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Saving money isn’t the only thing out there if you want to become wealthy.  All it does is reduce the amount of money you spend.  You’ve still go to find ways to make more money through a better paying job, passive income, or a second job.  But, it’s still an important part of a well-rounded wealth plan.  One of the more popular, green, methods of saving a few dollars is to turn off your appliances.  Turning them off isn’t the end of it though.  Many of them still pull a small amount of energy from the electrical system even when they are, technically, off.  While it isn’t a whole bunch, it still can amount to enough to keep you from realizing your full savings.  In the UK, they have electrical sockets that have switches built into them that turns the socket completely off, and cuts it’s supply of electricity.  Unfortunately, here in the US, we don’t have such a thing.  But, we can buy power strips and adapters that have timers and switches to cut the supply to the sockets.

Power Strips

Power strips come in many different shapes and sizes, and almost all of them have a switch of some sort on them to cut the power.  Buying one isn’t a huge problem.  Your local Walmart likely has several to choose from.  Consider the things you’ll be plugging into the strip, however, when shopping for one.  If you’ll be plugging in sensitive electrical equipment, like computers, DVD players, laptops, and printers, you’ll want to have one with a surge suppressor, at the least.  You might even consider getting one with a battery backup system so that the equipment stays on when there’s a power outage.  If you want to get really fancy, take a look at this strip from Belkin.  It’s the Conserve Smart power strip.  It’s got a socket that can detect when the item plugged into it is turned on or not and shut off several of it’s other sockets based on that info.

Power Adapters

Adapters also come in several shapes and sizes.  If you want to get a close look at what you are using in electricity, you can use an adapter that will monitor usage and has a readout of the total usage. Something like this Kill-A-Watt energy usage monitor would do the trick.  A more simple, and elegant, solution is the Belkin Conserve Energy Switch.  It’s a simple adapter that goes between the socket in the wall and the device you’re plugging in.  It’s got a toggle switch built right in allowing you to simply flip the switch and cut the power to the device.  It should work great for devices like coffee makers, shredders, and anything else that doesn’t require multiple sockets or anything fancy.

Pull the Plug

Yes, there is an even simpler solution.  Simply pull the plug from the outlet.  No fancy adapters or power strips needed.

With any of these solutions, there’s a small amount of learning curve in play.  You’ve got to learn to remember to flip the switch or unplug the stuff when you’re not using it.  You’ve also got to learn to remember to flip the switch back on or plug the stuff back in when you do want to use it.  Not the biggest thing, and as you do it more and more, you’ll get used to it.  One small note, that I don’t think I really need to say, but I will anyways, is that this isn’t meant to be the be-all, end-all of conserving energy methods.  Making sure you’re using the most energy efficient appliances in the first place, for instance, is likely to save you a lot more on your energy costs than unplugging appliances.  Switching out your incandescent light bulbs for more energy efficient alternatives is also more likely to save you more money.  But, if you’re looking to squeeze a few more cents from your watts (terrible electricity pun, I know.), you’ll do everything you can to save some money, including unplugging or cutting the power to your appliances with a switch like those mentioned above.

Share with everyone!  What are your energy conservation tricks?  Do you turn the heat off all winter and wrap yourselves in wool blankets?  Do you turn off the fridge in the winter and simply store your goods outdoors in the snow?  Tell us!

Reasons why homes owners should consider “going green”

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Everybody knows it’s great to go green, but have you ever considered why? Here’s some advice for homeowners on how greening their homes can lead to a higher quality of life.

1. Homeowners with greener homes pay less for water and electricity each month. If you’re one of the green-savvy homeowners who have installed solar panels or a solar water heater, you are at a great advantage. Although these systems are usually used to complement traditional means of providing electricity and heating water, some lucky homeowners have discovered that they can produce enough green energy to go entirely off the grid. Not to mention that maximizing natural light can lead to lower consumption of electricity, as well.

2. Green homes last longer and sell higher. For those homeowners who are fortunate enough to be able to build their dream green home or participate in the construction of a home already in progress, green additions can be well worth the investment. Not only do these homes produce less waste during the construction process, but their green features — such as reclaimed bamboo floors and solar panels — last longer, giving them a higher resale price if you ever decide you want to move. And who knows how much more in-demand green homes will become as fuel prices continue to rise?

3. Green homes are healthier for you. When going green, it is important to think of the little things, as well. Using non-vinyl window blinds can help reduce the amount of lead particles in the air around your home, as well as using chemical-free paints. These chemicals, when ingested over a long period of time, can lead to health complications that you may not even be aware of. So greening your home is also a way to live a longer, healthier life.

Don't forget to recycle!4. Green homes require less maintenance. Whilst you’re spending time around the house this year treating your deck and polishing your floors, consider this: design materials made from recycled product often require little to no effort to maintain and last longer. This means that you can actually save both time and money by incorporating things like environmentally friendly flooring in your home’s decor.

5. They help maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with the environment. This may seem like a no-brainer, but green homes do a lot more for the environment than just reduce waste. Home builders who know how to work with the environment in the process of designing their homes can actually use things like the angle of the sunlight to eliminate the need for artificial lighting. They can also take advantage of wooded areas on the land for climate control inside the home instead of destroying the trees.

photo credit: Pylon757

Data Backup on a Budget

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One of the most common things we hear in the computer repair shop that I work part-time in is that the computer has crashed, and could we please make sure to get the data off of the hard drive before we re-install windows.  And, the first question we always ask is, “do you have your data backed up?”  I probably don’t have to tell you what the common answer is to that question.

Many computer users assume that backing up their data is expensive.  We see advertisements for services that cost $40-$50 a month, and for external hard drive solutions that are several hundred dollars.  But, keeping your data safe, doesn’t have to be expensive.  In fact, I’ve got all my important data backed up, and I spend less than $50 a year.  It’s not because I have some inside information, or get favors from tech companies.  You can do it too.  And, if you value your data at all, you should.

This is the set-up I currently use.

Data Backup BudgetPicture Backup

Pictures are one of the top two things that people are concerned about losing when they bring their computers in.  Unfortunately, pictures are also the largest files that you’ll likely have to backup and store.  If you take a lot, you can have Gigabytes of pictures that will need to be backed up. In my set-up, I pay for a full membership to photo sharing site, Flickr.  It’s about $26 a year, and allows for unlimited uploading to the site.  The pictures are then stored on Flickr’s server, and I can get to them whenever I want.  I should note that this isn’t the most elegant solution, as I would have to download the images one-by-one if I wanted to restore them to my local PC.  I’ll go over some more efficient services at the end, but you’ll likely have to spend more money to use them. (See note below: 4/15/13)

Data Backup

For any files that are important, besides pictures, I use a service called Dropbox.  Their basic plan is free, but limits you to 2GB of data storage.  Because I backup my photos elsewhere, I’m able to store everything else that is important with them, and keep the free account.  After several years of using it, I am getting close to the 2GB max, so I may have to upgrade to the next plan up soon.  The first paid plan allows for 50GB, and is only $9.99 a month, so I don’t think I’d ever have to go above that plan.  I should also note, here, that if you have a very large music collection on your computer that you’d like to backup, you’ll likely have to look at a paid plan. (See note below: 4/15/13)

Other options for data backup

There are several other options that you could use for data backup.  The aforementioned external hard drives can be super easy to use.  One drawback to using one, however, is that the data is still physically located in the same place as the PC you’re backing up.  That’s fine if you only need to restore because of PC failure, but can be a disaster if you have to restore due to something like a fire or flood.  Ideally, external hard drives that are used for PC backup should be placed in an off-site location, but since that’s a bit cumbersome and likely to keep you from actually backing up your data, they should be at least placed in a fire-proof safe when not in use.

Another, more ideal way to back your data up, is through a service like Dropbox.  There are a few others that are specifically designed and marketed as data backup services.  Carbonite is probably the most well-known of them, but there is also CrashPlan, and Mozy that do the same job.  Carbonite and CrashPlan come in at $59 a year (about $4 a month), while Mozy comes in at $5.99 a month. Crashplan has a free plan, but it requires you to have your own server to back up to.  This can work out if you have a second computer at another location or have a friend that you trust with your data.  They’ve also got a plan that’s $33 a year, but it limits you to 10GB total storage.

Not backing up your data can be an expensive mistake to make.  Not only can it cost you a lot of money ($100 or more) to get your computer fixed, but you could lose all of your valuable data.  Save yourself the money of having it recovered, and save yourself from losing years of photos and information; get a data backup plan.

Update 4/15/13:

One of the nice things about a disaster recovery backup plan is that you usually don’t have to use it.  More often than not, our computers run on and on until we replace them and we transfer the data to the next machine.  Earlier this week, I had to put my set up to the test.  My main storage hard drive crashed.  While I tried to recover the data from it, it was lost.  With a newly formatted hard drive, I was able to reinstall Dropbox and as soon as it was done syncing, I had all the data that was in Dropbox back on my PC.  The Flickr photo backup was a little bit more cumbersome.  There are several apps out there that you can run that will allow you to download all of your pictures one after the other.  I ended up using one called Flump.  It worked, but the pictures are in one heck of a mess.  None of them have any names, and the structure I had before is lost.  So, I’ve got 7000+ pictures to sort through.  Moving forward, I’ll be adding one of the above back up services (Crashplan or Carbonite) to my PC to back up my file structure and other assorted things.  For the $59 a year it costs, it’s worth the added convenience of not having to deal with the sorting of files and individual applications.

Do you backup your data?  What do you use for your data backup plan?

Original Image Credit:Hard Disc Crash by barnoid, on Flickr