Double To A Million - Step 19 - Insert Clever Title Here
As you can tell I was unable to come up with a clever title for this post.
Update:
I received a ($25.00) Gift to DTAMP from a benefactor that I have been assisting with managing their finances. We set up Quicken and Spreadsheets with Budgets, Monthly Analysis and Auto Mileage records to help analyze and control the situation. I believe it has been a terrific success since starting at the end of March and this person is now well on their way to living a successful and prosperous life.
Along with financial changes, the person stopped smoking, made positive radical changes to their personal life and eliminate many past serious issues that were plaguing them. The person is much more at peace, lacks the stress that was once there and is much more hopeful about the future.
One comment that was made: "I've been looking over all of my finances a lot the past few days and I have to say THANK you. I love what we are doing and I think it's one of the greatest things in life I have ever seen."
I haven't made any more money for DTAMP but am hopeful that additional funds will be added.
As I mentioned before I have increased in my interest towards Zero Energy Homes. I also am very interested in Energy efficient cars as well, or at least one car that I can own. So I have started to do research into both of these areas.
What I have found is though expensive at this point these things are not altogether infeasible.
Here is what I started to do.
I started to research on the internet about these topics. The internet has far more on this all then in years past. It seems people are coming up with the technologies to produce cars that can get between 100 - 200 mpg. Though not cheap, the technology is there and that is what counts right now.
My plan is to eventually either get an Electric powered Auto or have my 2003 Matrix modified for Electricity. Then using Photovoltaic cells on my home to recharge the auto. Before it will be feasible they need to get more than 40 - 50 miles per charge. Once they get to 100 miles per charge that will be more useful for me.
I have also started to work on the design of my Zero Energy home. I have designed and built homes in the past but this one will be more of a challenge. I hope to include passive and active solar, photovoltaics and geothermal for heat, cooling, hot water, electricity etc.
The first thing I did was to go through the home I am in presently and examine all the places I use electricity. Room by room. When you write it all down it can be surprising how many things require electric power. In addition I also have been working at reducing the electricity we consume presently.
Click on Image to See Larger Version
Since moving in I have been keeping track of the electricity used. The above chart shows a monthly view of the Average Kilowatt Hours used. The reason for the rise at the beginning is because Air Conditioning was installed raising the consumption. When we hit the 25.5KWH point I decided to go into conservation mode.
I started to change light bulbs to CFC types. I began hardwiring off electronic equipment, televisions and computers and peripherals (recently I even hardwired off the router and cable modem). So now we have to switch them on before they get power to be used.
I also went around and eliminated all the wall warts to stop them from vampire sucking the electricity every day. Anywhere I could I looked for ways to eliminate electricity consumption.
From that point the KWH diminished. I am doing all this to not only save money but to analyze things for a future lifestyle change. As I said my wife and I are very frugal and it is hard to get blood out of stone but I am trying by finding even more ways to cut back consumption without making life totally spartan.
Where most people love to spend money and get lots of things I enjoy the "less is more" type of lifestyle and decreasing excessive technology. Technology can add a lot of stress. For example, in the month of August alone, my hot water heater got a pin hole that caused my furnace to flood the basement, my router died on me and I had to spend a lot to get a new one, not to mention it died when I was in the middle of that last trade, talk about stress, and my satellite system fried somehow, it wont work if the LNB/Dish is attached to the DVR, if I detach it I can watch the recordings. Oh brother.
When I was young I loved all the technology, wished life was like Star Trek, but now that I am older I am finding technology causes stress, breaks down a lot, is expensive to purchase and replace and my wife hates that her appliances and cars talk at her, bossing her around.
OK, so what I have been doing is creating some seperate spreadsheets of my larger spreadsheets and breaking down my budget to compare all that is spent with the up coming designs of the Zero Energy House, car and life in mind.
One of the things that has been driving me nuts is the Telephone Bill. I wanted to reduce it but didn't think it was possible as I have some of the most basic services available. It seems to be rising about $5.00 per month each year on me. I had gotten Skype so have been able to make nearly unlimited phone calls (10,000 minutes a month) to the US and Alaska for $3.00 a month. It has been great.
The thing is I am also paying for Verizon (Landline) as well. So finally, at least 4 months too late, I called them and asked if I could get rid of Long Distance. As it turns out I can plus a little bit more. For basic service I was also being charged $1.99 for a sensible minutes plan to reduce the cost of local calls. But I use Skype for that so they took it off. Now I will pay more for each call but since I don't use it, it doesn't matter.
I was also paying $5.16 (plan and taxes) for the E-value long distance plan which I found out was not saving me anything. With that plan I paid seven cents a minute. Without any long distance plan I would pay twelve cents a minute. But I wasn't using any minutes at all so I was paying $5.16 for nothing for a long time.
So by getting rid of those two I reduced my bill by $7.15 a month and nothing changes. So instead of paying $28-$30 a month we will be paying between $20 - $23 a month. Thats around $86.00 a year savings.
Unfortunately those savings will not be applied to DTAMP. :(
Present Stake: $1482.87
Motto: It is only "one" found penny.
Slogan: As Simple As Finding A Penny.
Regards,
Xinfinitum
This Double Up Blog is based upon the Doubling Plan "How to Double Your Way to a £Million in 28 Steps". It is an attempt to "Double Your Way to a Million" by going from one penny to one million dollars, starting from nothing. At the beginning you start by finding a penny and then double a penny until reaching $1,000,000.
D.T.A.M.P. - Double To A Million Plan
posted by Xinfinitum | 9:12 AM PermaLink
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