More

Well I have read a few more chapters in the first frugal book I picked to read.

Chapter 4

In this chapter the author speaks about energy wasting areas of your home.

She talks about using surge bars and turning off all those energy sucking electronics in your home. I already do this for most of our electronics. But prefer not to do so with the satellite dish or TV (my TV is not an instant on one, it takes a fairly long time to come on). The satellite dish would need to download all the programs if turned off completely. Much easier to leave it on.  I do have the computer, printer, coffee pots, and my sewing machines turned off using the power bar.

The basement is a big energy guzzler. We did not have any insulation in the old walls, now we have more and it is warm down there without any heat on whatsoever.

Our furnace is about 40 years old and tomorrow we are replacing it with a new energy efficient one (finally) and hopefully will be able to vent it into the part of the house that uses electric heat. If not we will as the author suggests add thermostats to them to control the heat.

Another suggestion the author makes is to control the humidity in our home. What she says makes a great deal of sense and we will be trying to add moisture to our home this winter and take moisture out of the air during the summer.

Decluttering the basement will make more room for food storage. I already can a few things, but if we manage things correctly and the garden cooperates we should be able to build a cold room/root cellar to easily store more.

The author talks about garages being a money saver. A car parked in a garage will not be needed to be run to defrost windows. In fact our son has a garage and he never even plugs in his block heater during the coldest part of the winter. We always have to plug in ours and that takes a great deal of electric power. This is something we will need to discuss and perhaps look into building next summer.

She also says not to put your overflow fridge or freezer in an uninsulated garage as they do not work properly. The fridge would have to work twice as hard to maintain a proper temperature. Once again using more power and causing the fridge to perhaps fail. If the garage gets too cold, well the fridge will just shut off.

Computers will last longer if turned off regularly. But she does say that if you leave your computer for longer than 10 minutes you should shut off the monitor and if you are not going to use the computer for more than two hours shut it off completely. Hmm, I will try shutting the monitor off when we do not use the computer for an extended length of time.

Chapter 5 is about Media.

Now I do download free books onto my ereader and buy books from garage sales and rummage sales, I go to the library as well. I have lots of books (well not as many as I used to) but have made a conscious decision not to buy any more unless they are authors I love. If I bring any books in from now on from sales they will be donated or I try to sell them for a little extra cash.

Our satellite dish is our main source of entertainment. We don't have Redbox, Silver Screen or the Netflix where you can rent movies. I do have an android box which I have been using more and more to watch old series and movies. I love it and could see us downgrading our satellite package.

I do have Netflix on my tablet and watch some programs on that. Kris has a subscription and is paying for 4 devices, two for him and two for me. He says it is the least he can do since we help him out whenever he needs it. I also send meals home with him.

I don't have any magazine subscriptions, I look at the online magazines instead. Saved quite a bit that way.

So I have found a couple of new ways to cut back on spending in these chapters and will try to make them a habit over the next few months.

Everybody have a wonderful evening.

God bless.