Archives for May 2011

With the arrival of summer and gas prices at around $4 a gallon, the water cooler conversation has turned again to fuel efficiency. One important thing to remember is that the MPG number is not directly proportional to how much money you’re paying for gas. The chart below shows the annual cost of gas varies with the miles-per-gallon rating. Assumptions are 12,000 miles driven a year at $4/gallon.

Going from a medium-sized SUV that gets 20 mpg (Ford Explorer, Nissan Xterra) to a compact car that gets 30 mpg (Honda Civic, Ford Focus) will save you $800 a year. That is more money than going from the compact car to a hybrid like a Toyota Prius that gets 50 mpg combined, which would save you $640 a year.

Now, if you are driving a full-size truck that gets 15 mpg, just going from 15 to 20 mpg would also save you $800 a year. So we see that going from 15 to 20, 20 to 30, and 30 to 60 mpg are each about the same size “step” in terms of annual savings. For heavy drivers, each such step would be nearly $1,000 a year in gas, and that’s assuming gas prices don’t keep increasing! Look up your car’s numbers at FuelEconomy.gov.

So while making the jump to 50 mpg would still save you the most gas, the Prius still costs more money than a similarly-sized compact car like a Honda Fit. One piece of good news I read recently was from Scott Burns at AssetBuilder that his Prius batteries have lasted 100,000 miles and 8 years with no need for replacement. If you get good at buying and selling used cars on Craigslist, you could conceivably make the swap to a more fuel-efficient car relatively painlessly.

A recent government study found that over 25% of Americans now rely solely on a cellular phone for calls. In some states, over a third of people were wireless-only. This is a growing trend, and I wonder if you readers are any different?

What Is Your Phone Situation?

• Cell Phone Only
• Cell Phone + VoIP Solution (Skype, Vonage, Ooma, MagicJack)
• Cell Phone + Landline (Both)
• Landline Only

View Results

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Factors that increased the likelihood of being wireless-only were having a lower-income, being younger, and renting. It’s suggested that being poor means you’re more likely to cut landlines as an extra expense, while being young means you may simply never have had a landline. Finally, both prepaid basic plans and packaged plans offering unlimited minutes have become cheaper and widely available.

One major factor stated for keeping a landline is for reliable emergency usage. Other possible reasons that come to mind are that you make a lot of calls, better clarity, or you wish to minimize radiation exposure. I solve those problems with my significantly cheaper VoIP phone service.

Ever since I stopped moving every year, I’ve wanted to get a big dining table, something that could fit at least 8 people. Finding one big enough at a retail furniture store was difficult, and when I did find it they were really expensive. While working on our house, we discovered home improvement stores that stores that sell reclaimed or recycled building materials. There are many local non-profits that do this, but one national “chain” is the Habitat for Humanity ReStore, which accepts material donations to fund their charitable home-building goals.

I was exploring one of these stores when I came across a 8 ft x 3.5 ft sheet of what look like reclaimed hardwood flooring. Upon closer inspection, it was actually pieces of the flooring from an old high school basketball court. The underlayment was still attached, and it was pretty sturdy. A handmade sign suggested making a table out of it. How cool is that?

The store had already recycled a piece for themselves. After some sanding and adding a border with reclaimed 2x4s, here’s what it looked like:

It cost us $60 plus $20 in reclaimed wood for the border, legs, and apron. Now to borrow some power tools and learn some carpentry…