Papa B
Greedy Green
It’s almost a cliche that when the cost of living goes up the desire of average people to save money goes up. If you are attuned to any media outlet or have to pay utilities, you may have seen a rise of interest in renewable energies. By in large, that’s a good thing and I believe that the marketing guru’s are stating to catch on.
Here’s the problem that I have seen with the “Go Green” people: they focus on saving the planet. Unfortunately, not everyone wants to do that or cares about that. I don’t. However… if you can save me some bucks that I don’t have to dump month after month into my house via electrical bills AND I don’t have to radically change my lifestyle, you’ve sold me.
Up to about a year a go I was eco-adverse. I didn’t mind that other people wanted to save the planet but it bothered me that for me to join them I had to give up all the things I enjoyed about being an American, drive a weird car, AND I had to pay more for the privilege of being green. No thanks!
Then something changed. The housing market was at a all time high, life seemed like it was only getting better, wages were up, everyone was spending like crazy, even the Republicans and Democrats agreed we were in a golden era. It was then that my wife and I realized that a tree can only grow as tall as its roots will allow and our economic tree had grown way to fast. We rushed to get out of our consumer debt and find ways to reduces our monthly expenses. Think about it. If we reduce our cost of living and the economy booms then we’re two times better off but if the economy tanks (like it did) then we are able maintain the lifestyle that we have.
Ok, if you have stayed with me this far, good for you.
While shopping one day I saw these funny little compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) that used an amazing small about of electricity. I scratched my head and wondered off. When I got home I started looking around my house at the lights. I have two big ceiling fans with light kits on them in our family room. Each light kit had 5 bulbs at 60W a piece. So I did some quick math: 60W times 5 is 300W. So if I replace those bulbs with the 13W CFL (13 x 5 = 65) I could reduce the cost of lighting that room by 78% I was sold. I started changing out all my light bulbs.
I’ve astounded my liberal and conservative friends alike with my rambling about conserving energy. But in the end I’m just Greedy Green. I’m not trying to save my planet, I’m just trying to save my money.
Check out the life expectancy of those CFs when you switch them on and off frequently– they drop to the life expectancy of incadescents. The ROI isn’t quite what the charts claim with the type of use that is likely.
That’s true, but the cost for each bulb has come why down. I found that the reduction of energy usage was more important than life expectancy. HOWEVER, I would rather go LED but the cost of those are still obscene.