Our New CenterPoint Smart Meter: Will it Really Save us Money?
Posted on | February 8, 2010 | 1 Comment
Please note: We live in Houston, TX, so this article is geared towards that area. However, smart meters are being installed in other areas of the country as well.
A few months ago I came home from work to a great surprise: CenterPoint Energy had put a hanger on our front door letting us know that a smart meter would be installed in the next few weeks. Sure enough, four days later we were new smart meter owners!
You may have noticed that since February of 2009, there has been a $3.24 charge on your CenterPoint Energy bill. This is a charge that will remain for 24 months, and then will decrease to $3.05 a month afterwards (with no actual end in sight as of the writing of this article, though I have read that the total cost will be over 12 years and will come to approximately $443 per household) in order to pay for the installation of over 2 million of these new smart meters throughout the Houston, TX area by mid 2012. Check out this link to see approximately when yours will be installed.
The second door hanger that announced our new meter had been installed touted some of the benefits of this new product: remote meter reading, smoother transactions, automatic outage notification, energy efficiency and savings. I was so excited knowing that somehow this new equipment was going to save us on electricity charges, and decided to call my retail electricity provider (REP) in order to find out how it was going to save us money. I envisioned a plan where electricity use at off-peak hours, like doing the laundry at 8:00 a.m. on Friday mornings (I work a compressed schedule, and am off on Fridays) would cost us less than the normal per kilowatt rate we are paying. But the answer I received—at least in the area of saving money on my electricity bill—was less than thrilling.
CenterPoint merely installs this equipment, but your individual REP is responsible for taking advantage of this new technology. So I called up both Mega Energy as well as Reliant Energy in order to get some answers. Aside from the new efficiencies, such as meter readings every 15 minutes which will significantly increase the accuracy of billing and will allow customers to see their bill as the month progresses, as well as the improvements cited above, this new technology is not going to immediately save consumers money.
Right now you can think of your new smart meter as a large kill-a-watt that can give you real time information about how many watts you are using so that you can adjust your behaviors, thus saving you money. In other words, your electricity savings come in the form of you checking your electricity usage as it is occurring, then turning off electronics. We all ready do this in our household because we on a kill-a-watt.
A new plan from Reliant Energy based off of this technology could actually end up costing consumers more money. Reliant rolled out the first time-of-use plans available to consumers with smart meters that charges different rates based on energy demand throughout the day. Under this new plan, for November through March you will be charged 13.6 cents per kilowatt from 6:00 – 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. and 11.8 cents per kilowatt between midnight – 6:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., and 9:00 p.m. – midnight. The 11.8 cents per kilowatt charge on off-peak hours is a welcome change in Reliant plans. However, during the summer month peak hours of 4:00 – 6:00 p.m., the price will be 15.8 cents per kilowatt. While in theory this is a great concept because it will force consumers to use energy at other times of the day, my overall rate plan with Mega Energy is 11.0 cents per kilowatt right now, and I can use the electricity anytime I want to. Why would I switch to this time-of-use plan? There is no incentive to do so. In fact, Reliant’s new plan foreshadows higher electricity usage costs for consumers with their per kilowatt as a base to begin pricing, instead of the per kilowatt rate as a maximum and then a lower per kilowatt rate during off-demand usage.
It is nice to see that we are progressing into more precise technology when it comes to electricity meters, but I must admit that I am disappointed with the lack of new pricing plans from REPs. Hopefully they will come up with programs to entice consumers to curb their energy usage during peak hours and get rewarded for using electricity at other times of day, like turning their dishwasher on before going to sleep at night instead of during peak times. For now, I’ll be sticking with my 11.0 cents per kilowatt plan and enjoying my evening summertime energy use. I just wonder for how much longer?
Tags: $3.24 charge on bill > CenterPoint Energy > electricity use > smart meters
Frugal Confessions Friday!
Posted on | February 5, 2010 | 9 Comments
Hello Frugal Confessions Readers!
For those of you new to this series, check out the introduction here.
Here is my confession of the week:
I love the Container Store because I love organization and cleanliness. Part of redoing our laundry room means that we took down the ancient shelving in the closet, spackled (a lot), and put up a new shelf system. This was so important and fun to me, and I knew just where we were going to get a closet system from: The Container Store. Their Elfa system was on sale at 30% off in January, and so the timing seemed perfect.
However, they did not have the right measurements that we were looking for (one large shelf up top, and two smaller shelves down the left side in order to keep a lot of space in the middle for things with handles like vacuum cleaners and brooms). Paul had mentioned that I should look in Lowe’s instead, and could probably get the same thing for half the price. Well…he was right!
Lowe’s sells a large piece of finished particle board (oak–the same kind at the Container Store), as well as white-powder coated tracks and everything. My total cost came to: $45.11! I priced the same materials at the Container Store, and it would have been (with the 30% discount): $132!!!! Amazing…though I have to admit I will still be shopping periodically at the Container Store when I want to spoil myself:).
What is your frugal confessions of the week? I’d love to hear them!
Tags: Container Store > Frugal Confessions > save money on home closet system > Saving Money
Cost Discrepancies in Veterinarian Services: Are you Shopping Around?
Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 1 Comment
Before Lyla—our half-Siamese, half-attitude, kitty cat—the only veterinarians I had ever come into contact with were ones for our cows (60 in total) on the farm. Every few months our vet would come in, take some temperatures for cows that were looking a bit weary and give lipstick-sized pills to others. Occasionally we witnessed a twisted stomach surgery. Under anesthesia, the cow would be put on its back and hoisted up by all four hooves so that the vet could operate.
Now I am only responsible for the health of one animal. In the last 2.5 years that I have owned Lyla she has had her vaccinations, she was spayed, and I had a general exam for her in order to fly her to Houston from Florida where I used to live. But other than that, we have stayed out of veterinarian offices.
When I had these services done, I never questioned whether or not I was getting the best deal. After all, a spay surgery is the same at any clinic, and a rabies vaccination has the same material no matter who administers it, so why should I worry about pricing these services out? Inspired by a recent conversation with my carpooling buddy for work who informed me of his suspicion of price differences found between vets, I decided to investigate. I googled local vets in my area (Houston, TX), and chose 5 of them to call and ask their prices for typical cat veterinarian needs, such as being spayed/neutered, rabies shot, and general exam.
Below is what I found:
| Clinic A | Clinic B | Clinic C | PetSmart Banfield | Clinic D | Price Range | |
| General Exam | $40 | $57 | $44 | $34.95 | $48.50 | $34.95 – $57 |
| Spay | $120 | $374 | $218 | $354.18 | $208.69 | $120 – $374 |
| Neuter | $64 | $239 | $153 | $194.47 | $140.64 | $64 – $239 |
| Rabies Shot* | $25 | $18 | $45 | $15.95 | $28.89 (+ mandatory checkup fee of $48.50) | $15.95 – $45 |
*May last for either 1 year or 3 year, which could partially explain the difference in pricing
As you can see, there is a huge range of prices for veterinarian services. I know I will be shopping around for vet prices before taking Lyla in again.
How has your vet bills compared with those above? Have you found price differences between clinics?
Tags: cost of owning a pet > Saving Money > saving money on pets > veterinarian costs
Honeymoon Savings Goal Update: January
Posted on | February 2, 2010 | 1 Comment
Hello Everyone! We were able to add $301.99 to our honeymoon savings goal this month, bringing the total to $1,670.78 (check out progress bar in right hand column). The breakdown is below:
- $121 from ING Checking Account Opening Bonus
- $120 from Freelance Writing Income
- $11 Hasbro Rebate
- $9.99 Oil of Olay Bodywash Rebate
- $10 Gas Rebate
- $30 Carpooling
How are you doing with your savings goal? Have you started a new one for the New Year?
Tags: pay cash for honeymoon > saving on wedding > Savings Goal > wedding budget > wedding savings
“Why Are we So Clueless about the Stock Market?”: A Book Review
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 3 Comments
As I read Mariusz Skonieczny’s book, I couldn’t help but think back to my first job out of college. I was hired to make international sales (I was the entire department) on a grant given to this brand new start-up company by the USDA. About midway through my year there (after the one year grant was through they laid me off), I started getting these aggrandized thoughts in my head about the company truly taking off in the next 2-4 years, and me being in at the ground level of it all. In fact, while the company did not have an IPO (Initial Public Offering), they did have private investors, and I remember grumbling to the president one day about the fact that it was a shame that they had an income minimum on who could invest.
Now I am so thankful that I was unable to invest my hard earned $10,000; one of the other six employees was laid off shortly after I was, and their inactive website has finally been deleted off of the internet. Had I read Skonieczny’s book while in this first year of my post-grad employment, I probably would have gotten the idea that a lay-off was around the corner. The troubling signs I witnessed internally and that Skonieczny points out as bad business included too much debt and a very high price to earnings ratio (P/E).
In my case, it was pure dumb luck that I didn’t make that investment. But now that I am older and would like to pick some of my own stocks to invest in, I am glad that I read Skonieczny’s book for a number of reasons.
- Skonieczny made the connection for me between stocks and the actual companies behind those ticker symbols, something I have failed to do up until now
- Many times I have looked at the charts showing the rise and decline in the price of a stock, but I have always had the question of when to know you are getting a good deal (i.e. the stock will rise in the future versus sink like a sack of potatoes). Skonieczny shows how to find the value of a stock—admittedly an unwieldy thing to do—in order to determine if there will be future profit
- He reiterates the idea that you need to buy stocks at a discount in order to make the most profit; this is something that I wholeheartedly took advantage of during the recession in both my IRA and in US Steel, and the profits began coming in several months ago
While I am unsure if after reading this book I will be able to make these calculations on my own (there is still a mental block to the idea of it), knowing that these calculations exist, and knowing some key things to look for when trying to decide whether or not to purchase a stock has truly opened a slit in the curtain for me to reveal the Great Wizard of Wall Street.
Did any of you take advantage of discounted stocks during the Recession?
It’s Frugal Confessions Friday!!–I’m Back!
Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 9 Comments
Hello Everyone!
Well, after a two week hiatus on Frugal Confessions Friday, I am back again! Who knew that renovating a laundry room could be so time-consuming and energy-sapping…
If you are new to this series, check out the intro here.
Here is my confession of the week:
Paul and I both decided that we wanted an earthy, hardy, good old cast iron sink for our laundry room. Kohler sells them new for around $700….and other places tend to be several hundreds of dollars as well. I took Aurora’s advice in the comments section of one of my renovation articles, and looked for one on craigslist. We found one!!! It is almost in perfect condition, and is everything we had hoped for. The final price? $80!!!! What a bargain. Now we just have to find a vanity for it….
What are your frugal confessions from this week? I’d love to hear them!
Saving and Sacrificing Without Purpose: Why Do I Want to be Rich?
Posted on | January 28, 2010 | 7 Comments
I want to be rich. I’ve never actually said that out loud, much less confessed it to a large audience. Perhaps it’s some leftover youth fantasy of mine when I linked a certain lifestyle with having lots of money. I even have an entry in my kindergarten diary where I write in crayon that I want to have a million dollars when I grow up so that I can give it away to needy people.
With my money habits—soon to be out of debt except mortgage, very frugal, saving consistently each month, increasing my income—I am headed on the road to becoming wealthy. I am sacrificing a lot in my present life in order to continue building this cash and asset reserve, such as limiting my spending money each month to cover groceries, gas, and a little bit of fun, buying used for almost everything (furniture, cars, books), carpooling, etc. But why do I want to be rich?
Becoming rich—admittedly still a life goal of mine—is some shapeless, amoeba-like idea acting like a puppeteer to all of my financial decisions, but with no real purpose. In other words, I am sacrificing a lot right now, for no particular reason.
When I came to this realization, I began asking myself questions.
- What is my definition of ‘rich’?
- Why do I want to become rich?
- What do I think my life and lifestyle will be like if I become rich?
After thinking on these questions for quite a while, here’s what I came up with. Being rich to me is still hitting that $1 million mark, but I admit $300,000 looks good, $500,000 looks good (heck right now $100,000 looks good!). To me, reaching the million dollar mark means that I will have the freedom to live however I choose. Right now, and for the first 27 years of my life, my choices have basically revolved around money, with all other decision filters in the background. In fact, I don’t even know that I would be able to switch off the “can you afford this” or “should you buy this” filter even if I were rich!
Understanding what motivates you is a very important step in any type of goal that you have. It will give you purpose, and help you in actually attaining your goal. In my case, analyzing my own motivations has brought me more purpose to the seemingly repetitive decisions and sacrifices that I make each day and to the money that I put into my accounts each month. It is why I automatically deposit into an IRA retirement account, why I diligently pay off my entire credit card balance each month, and why I wing my arm around like a vertical carousel to get the last bit of ketchup out of the bottle (this does work!).
I certainly have some more analyzing to do on this goal, like what choices will I choose once I am wealthy? Are they choices I can choose now, but am simply putting them off because I feel I cannot attain them without wealth? Perhaps my next step is to make a list of specific things I feel that I can do once I attain this goal.
What sort of financial goals do you have, and what is your motivation for having them?
5 Breaches of Frugality: Do These and Consider Yourself Cheap
Posted on | January 24, 2010 | 2 Comments
fru⋅gal /ˈfrugəl/ [froo-guhl]: economical in use or expenditure; prudently saving or sparing; not wasteful
cheap [cheep]: stingy; miserly
Something that bothers me is when someone uses the word ‘cheap’ and ‘frugal’ interchangeably. I am a frugal person, and proudly so. I am not cheap, and when I sometimes cross the slim border between the two words (it does happen), I am not proud of myself.
There are things that cheap people do that I find unforgivable. I want to share a few of these to further express the difference between being frugal, or smart with your money, and being cheap, or stingy with your money. And yes, these are all real examples I have either read off of other people’s blogs, comments, or witnessed in real life.
- Submitting rebates for “full satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” products when you were completely satisfied by the product; this throws marketers and retailers off because they typically want to figure out what is wrong with their product, and use feedback (positive or negative) as a way to do this. Plus, it is just dishonest.
- Using a Buy-One-Get-One-Free meal coupon, and making the other person pay for their meal (i.e. you get your meal for free).
- Taking only half or less of the medication you are prescribed in order to save money (this one is courtesy of my late grandfather).
- Eating from the salad or soup bar in Whole Foods or any other store without paying for it (personally witnessed at Whole Foods).
- Sitting in a non-public location (like a Starbuck’s, McDonald’s, etc.) to use the internet without purchasing anything.
What do you find unforgivable?
Tags: being cheap > being frugal > difference between frugal and cheap > stingy
When Delaying Spending Money Costs you More in the End
Posted on | January 20, 2010 | 3 Comments
Sometimes my life seems to revolve around delaying gratification—the satiation of my needs and wants—by delaying purchases or services. By nature, my consumer pulse is sluggish at best, so it is not a far stretch for me to do so. I do not constantly feel a nagging craving inside of me for new, better, and more technologically advanced.
But I have found that sometimes delaying gratification by not making a purchase or having a service done actually ends up costing me more in the end.
Here is a perfect example: I went three summers (two in Southern Florida, and one in Houston) without AC in my car. On any given summer day, you could see me cruising down the road with all of my non-automatic windows down, sitting up towards my steering wheel so as not to gather a small pool of sweat on the small back of my business shirt while driving to and from work. By the third summer, I was ready to give in. A mechanic charged me $100 or so to put new Freon into my car, which worked for the day. By Day #2, the AC was no longer working; turns out that because I had waited so long to put new Freon into my car’s AC system, something burst, and my entire AC system went bust. To fix it would have been close to a $1,000 (mind you, this was the vehicle I had originally purchased several years ago for just $1500).
I learned a bit about the importance of maintenance as a long-term cost-saving measure from this and a few other experiences. To hopefully save you a headache in the future, here are a few items that I feel should not be delayed, no matter how tight your momentary budget.
- Health Services: Health issues tend to get worse (which means cost you more money) the longer you wait to get them taken care of. For example, if you wait to get a cavity or aching tooth checked out, you may end up needing a much more costly root canal instead
- Insurance (Health, Auto, Home, etc.): Even if you are in-between jobs, do not lapse your coverage; at least be covered by accidental at all times in case the unthinkable happens, and you find yourself in an ambulance on the way to the hospital
- Leaks: Any type of leak can lead to water damage elsewhere (and possibly mold), which will cost you more than if you immediately take care of the problem
- Early Bird Specials: We’re not just talking about diners…many things, such as concerts, tickets to the Dave Ramsey live event (I missed out on this when the tickets were $15—and now the tickets are $40 each!), products retailers want to get a head start on selling, etc. have early bird specials that save you money for buying in advance
- Things that Appreciate in Value: One of my favorite artists is Kessler. He began selling his work in the Eastern Market in D.C., and when I was in college, his paintings were going for $300 (an astronomical price back then). Now that I am older and wish to buy a real Kessler painting, his originals are going for $1500!! Yet again, an astronomical price. While it’s true that you cannot always tell what will appreciate in value, things like mutual funds, retirement accounts, etc. will most certainly appreciate over a long-term timeframe, and so delaying the purchase of them will only cost you money earned down the road
Tags: delaying gratification > delaying purchases > delaying spending money > Saving Money
5 Ways to Save on Home Renovations
Posted on | January 17, 2010 | 1 Comment
Paul and I are in the middle of our first renovation project together: the laundry room. I know what you may be thinking…”who is going to see the laundry room?”, but for whatever reason, this project makes me so happy. Besides, the laundry room sits right off of our kitchen, and we keep the sliding door open all of the time because the litter box is in there.
Here are a few ways that we have figured out to save money on this project, and hopefully they will help to save you money on your next renovation:
- Borrow from Other People: Currently we have my co-worker’s two handheld sanders and steamer to remove wall paper, and will be borrowing our neighbor’s shop vac. One day I am sure we will own all of these tools, but for right now it is great to be able to borrow them. Also, Autozone has a tool loan program where you can borrow a tool for a certain amount of time with no cost to you. What a great concept! You will need to leave a deposit for the tool.
- Purchase Quality Reusables, and Take Care of Them: We repainted three of the rooms in our home, and still have two rollers, leftover painter’s tape and a sand block. These items are reusable for future projects (such as this one), and so spending a few extra dollars to buy more quality items from the first project has already saved us money. I wish we had had the foresight to purchase a better pan for our paint rollers because we have had to purchase a new one all ready.
- Plan Ahead: A little planning goes a long way in not having to redo things. For example, our laundry room is going to be repainted, we are putting in a new basin sink to replace the original one, we are refinishing the pine wooden cabinet, and we are spackling/painting and putting in new shelving in the closet. The order we need to do all this in order to be most efficient and not ruin any painting is to refinish the wooden cabinet first (very messy, sandy job), then take out the old sink, add a few tiles to the floor below it to match the existing tiles, then paint the closet and walls, then lacquer the wooden cabinet (this is after painting so that if we get any painting on the wooden cabinet, we can just sand it back off), and then put in the shelving unit.
- Moving Coupons: If you go to a post office and pick up an address change package, there is a 10% discount coupon to Lowe’s. Home Depot accepts this coupon as a competitor.
- Use Reward Gift Cards: In order to pay for the majority of this project, I cashed in 10,000 reward points on my credit card for $100 in Lowe’s gift cards, as well as have $200 in visa gift cards for switching our internet and cable service to AT&T Uverse from Comcast. What a deal! We were dying to change from Comcast anyway, and now we have the channels that we want at the same price we were paying before (plus $200 in visa gift cards).
Wish us luck! I will show you photos of the before and after when it is all finished (yay!).
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