Money Saving Tips (add yours)

[AlohaSteven]

I was wondering about that 75% figure (for total energy used being drawn while we think appliances are off) since it seemed high to me, along with a lingering doubt about the light-switching issue, so wrote to a couple of engineer and architect friends. To summarize their responses, they said-

-the general principle is correct (switch off a power strip with appliances plugged into it in order to prevent devices using electricity when we think they are turned off) but the actual phantom electricity drain is more usually between 10% of total energy used up to (rarely) 75% depending on the type of device and how often it is used versus just sitting there inactive yet plugged in to a live circuit.

-with incandescent lights it is cost effective to switch them off every single time one leaves a room, but with florescent lights it is only cost-effective overall (factoring in life of the bulb and so on) to switch them off if you will be out of the room for at least five minutes. Five minutes or more out of the room, switch off florescent lights; re-entering in less than five minutes, leave florescent lights on.

Also, by way of money-saving strategies, the airline rules have changed recently and the reward for giving up one's seat is not always as generous as it used to be (depending on the carrier) but to save money if my schedule is flexible enough to allow me to do so, when I check in I always put my name on the "I volunteer to give up my seat and be bumped if this flight is overbooked" list. I have received quite a few "free" tickets that way, plus sometimes being put up in an airport hotel room for the night and flying the following day.

A couple of retirees I know who have all sorts of leisure time actually go it one better with this strategy and in consequence only pay for one in two to one in four of the tickets they fly. One's schedule must be completely flexible to do this, but you if you deliberately book yourself only on flights which have historically been way overbooked (certain times of day on certain days on certain routes have a high likelihood of being overbooked) and arrive an hour early to check in so you are standing at the desk when it opens, so to be the first to place your name on the volunteer-to-be-bumped list, then the odds favor you receiving a "free" ticket. Basically, with this strategy you buy one ticket and often get a second in exchange for your time and bother for perhaps having to wait several hours to overnight. You can also get another "free" ticket by giving up your seat on the next flight that you were bumped to, and so on ad infinitum. I know a gal who bought one ticket and got her name listed first for "volunteering to be bumped in case of overbooking" on several successive flights both outbound and on the return segments of the same re-arranged trip (they routed her through multiple cities instead of on nonstop flights ...but the connections were repeatedly overbooked); her one ticket turned into FIVE tickets (four as rewards for being bumped). She arrived a day later than originally scheduled on both the outbound and return, but that was in her planing from the outset so was not a problem. This has to be a world record for leveraged airline tickets, one turned into five! You only have 365 days from date of issue to use those reward tickets, so she took a couple of special vacations just to make use of all the extra tickets she had. Such a deal.



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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Pres. John Adams, Scholar and Statesman


"There's a scientific reason to be concerned and there's a scientific reason to push for action. But there's no scientific reason to despair."

NASA climate analyst Gavin Schmidt

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