Money Matters - Part 15

I would never allow them to control my a/c or heat...that's what programmable thermostats are for

Def agree about people not living within means. How many people 'struggling' have expensive cell phones, four or five TVs and the kids have $120 sneakers!

Family I know declared bankruptcy but she bought both her kids kindles for their b-days

The peak rewards cycling program doesn't affect our thermostat at all, unless there is an emergency. Let's say four people on my block are signed up. They time our compressor cycles so that we as a whole only draw the amount for one at any time, no peak of all four at once. Last summer had plenty of heat and we never 'lost' our AC. Makes sense to me, money for nothing, and if there ever is a total emergency, we'll go to the basement.

highly unlikely that people would be running same cycle, same amps at the same time, people have different efficiencies and different units, set at different temps
just another way they are trying to control our lives

made the last payment on my Tarus!!!! great feeling.

Good for you, Jumper!

My half-sister and I own this house (divided into sort of a duplex) outright, and neither of us have a vehicle payment. Great feelings all around, but even at that, our utilities and homeowner's insurance run over $6K a year. I hate to think what we'll do if one of us needs a new vehicle since we gave up credit (and credit cards) several years ago.

My truck is over 20 years old, and I think her Chevy is probably 8-9 years old. I put many, many more miles on my truck because all my medical appointments are out of state, and I shop at least once a month at grocery stores a hundred miles away for things I cannot get here ... whereas my sis stays in her 'cave' for the most part, and eats junk food.

With all the extra insulation I added to the attic 2 years ago, we seldom need to run the AC; being in the mountains helps. I still haven't solved why the elec. bill for winter heat is so high, probably an inefficient heat pump unit.

Love that feeling when paying off a car

Look fwd to the day the mortgage is paid off!

cars and mortgage are ok --- now about that home equity line......

Woohoo, Jumper!!!

Just got that pay off letter for home equity loan in the mail, I had forgotten about it

This message was edited Jun 26, 2013 7:08 PM

Regarding the energy audit. We learned it was "free" with our electric company. They put in a ton of high-efficient light bulbs that take forever to warm up and gave us one free led. One useful thing they said was to increase the insulation between our attached garage and the house.

I hate those light bulbs that they FORCED on us

Me, too.

Victor - are the solar panels you have paying off?

I assume so! Have not checked closely lately. Finished loan off a while back.

Stormwater fees- what a mess.

Our school chief broke his contract and is leaving. Th e '"School board will decide what to do about the penalties of $10,000 a month for not giving written three month notice as required by his contract.:"
DECIDE??? WHAT DECIDE??? Its a %$^#$@%#^ CONTRACT!!

%$^&#%#^ right!

I'm slowly changing the bulbs back. There may be a few places where we can tolerate a long warm up before a bulb is very bright. DH called them to see if they have any faster working ones, and the person on the other end suggested maybe not to turn the lights off so much ;)

I too am very interested in how people (ahem, Victor) are faring with solar power. We passed it up because the main spot for us is a flat roof which would require weights and we don't want leaks in the rubber roof. Still considering it here.

SOme bulbs better than others- the senior apt where my MIL lives has some very slow onesin the bathroom . Actually, for the late night trips to potty thats not bad.
We unscrew one or more vanity lights to conserve elec. Most times we dont' seem to need all the light they can do.

DH is playing with solar panels from Harbor Freight. So far, pretty much just playing. Discovered that the compressor of the spare fridge pulls too much power to use it; we had hoped to hook up that one circuit to the solar.

Staggering.



The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that a total of 101,000,000 people currently participate in at least one of the 15 food programs offered by the agency, at a cost of $114 billion in fiscal year 2012.

That means the number of Americans receiving food assistance has surpassed the number of private sector workers in the U.S.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 97,180,000 full-time private sector workers in 2012.

geez

i wonder how many of those ARE private sector workers.

Lots of low wage earners probably are on it. This is the part-time job economy - especially with the healthcare law incentivizing it. Also, no doubt there is much fraud. On the radio this AM was a story of a CEO of a small company collecting welfare and food stamps. Not surprising to me at all.

My hometown
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/07/jon_bon_jovi_makes_1_million_gift_to_mary_pat_christies_sandy_charity.html#incart_river_default

Nice.

this pic shows them walking past my old house!!!!

Hard to see any houses...;)

Re 'good' June jobs report:

"The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 322,000 to 8.2 million in June. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job."

Yeah sorry since it's a copied pic can't enlarge it anymore, ours was the one over Bon Jovi's right shoulder

Love how they make the #'s show what they want

You can see our friend/former neighbor's house on the left and the front of our yard at 58 seconds
http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2013/07/video_gov_christie_and_jon_bon.html

No, I meant because of Christie...

he is smaller than he used to be ;)

the waste of $ is just insane!
http://americanmilitarynews.com/2013/07/military-commanders-fuming-at-34-million-base-no-one-will-use/

No surprise. Meanwhile, on radio this AM, they said NYS Nat Guard troops losing two weeks this summer due to sequester. Priorities!

Hard for me to see why they have to spend money and tear the thing down. Give it to the Afghans, weren't we already building them schools? If we can't use it who gives a carp what they do with it?

I would sell it to the Taliban, seems they have tons of $

And they are acting in the senate like our young people have to pay for the govt with their student loans.

So, we had a Smart Energy Rewards day on Wednesday. We have the new Smart Meter and they called Tuesday and notified us we would earn $ if our usage was below our average. We upped the thermostat to 80 and scrupulously avoided laundry, vacuuming, washing dishes, LOL. Today they called and told us we earned $19 for reduced usage- ka ching! Expected a buck or two, something nominal.

Phase 2 of the solar refrigerator- DH took plastic containers, filled them, froze them downstairs and then we brought them up to the upstairs fridge. Penny saved is a penny earned!