As many of you have no doubt noticed, the boyfriend's house has one of the rockingest A/V setups around. However, between two controllers for the wii, a wii fit, four Rock Band guitars, two xBox controllers, a Rock Band drum kit, and six remote controls, the boyfriend's house eats double-A's like Jaba the Hut. That's about 50 AA's in various handheld devices at any given time. Costco's Kirkland AA's are about 25 cents each, and since we need to replace them in each device probably twice a year, that's about $25 per year in batteries just for tv and video games. So, we started looking into rechargeables.

The best charger I could find comes with four AA's (and four AAA's), and is about $40. On top of that, we need about 46 Eneloop rechargeable batteries (the good kind that hold their charge) at $2.50 each, for a total of $155. That was all well and good until I discovered that Costco was selling packs of ten Eneloop batteries and a charger for $19.98. Oh, beautiful, bargain-hunting bounty!

Prior to this stellar deal, it would have taken considerable use to justify the expense, but since our cost is down to $100 total, it will only take us four years to re-coup the cost. The manufacturer claims that the batteries will last for 1000 recharges. In my example, we would only have recharged them eight times in four years, so in theory we could continue using them for another 496 years. I can find no information on how long the batteries will last, but I highly doubt I will get my 1000 recharges in. The Sanyo website says ten years is not an unreasonable expectation. If we could get ten years, that would be the equivalent of $250 worth of batteries, so we could save $150. An extra fifteen bucks a year isn't exactly going to send us back to Europe anytime soon, but it will save 950 batteries from going into the landfill. The return on investment is even better where you have a few batteries that are recharged frequently--such as in a camera. I would get a Costco membership and a freezer or extra insulation in the attic or even a box fan first, but if you already have those, this is a good investment.

Recently, I flipped back through my copy of The Tightwad Gazette. I was pleased by the number of things that I now do and what a fabulous difference they have made in reducing our costs while increasing our quality of life. Our food is better now. My wardrobe is better now. Dieting is easier now. Since she has been right about so many things, I decided it's time to delve into what she regards as her second-best money-saving tip (behind comp-shopping for groceries and having a freezer): thrift-store shopping and garage saling.

In the past, I've never been fashionable enough to actually choose good things at a thrift store. Now that I'm better at analyzing cuts and fits, I think I could do better. Since everyone else is going thrift-shopping in Seattle this weekend, I made up my own tour of Bay Area thrift stores. Believe it or not, I did not include every thrift store known to man. I only included ones people said were fabulous. I have divided them up into tours by city or region. My goal will be to see whether it is truly possible to get items of the same quality as those in my current wardrobe for pennies on the dollar. I remain dubious as to making a wardrobe completely out of thrift store and yard sale finds. Some claim there are quality designer pieces at tremendous discounts as well as funky vintage pieces at the right thrift stores. By augmenting such finds with quality basics that last, I expect one could construct a wardrobe quite affordably. Right now, I have most everything I need, so thrift store find will have to be extra tempting. I do need sundresses, so that will be my main focus. While looking at sundresses, I should be able to make a list something like the grocery price book to help me compile a list of good prices for similar items at various stores. If anyone would like to come on any particular part of this excursion, let me know.

Even better than thrift stores, she says, are garage sales. I didn't think garage sales existed anymore between Craigslist & FreeCycle, but I was wrong. What do you buy at a garage sale you ask? She says she virtually never buys things new at the store. Rather, she keeps in mind things that are likely to give out soon, items that could fill the gap till the perfect thing is found, and tools that would allow her to repair items that break or make things that would lower their cost of living/raise their standard of living. She mostly talks about how fabulous they are for kids stuff, since they usually outgrow it before it breaks. Since I don't have kids, I had sort of skipped that part. There are still supposedly fabulous yard sales in wealthy neighborhoods where you can get designer clothes and fabulous kitchen gadgets. Moving & divorce sales are supposed to be the best. Craigslist usually lists where they will be held on the weekend by mid-week. 'Tis the season!

So now that you're planning on your own personal reservoir, you're probably wondering about the most efficient way to power the pumps and filters. Solar power probably comes to mind, but Solar power, for all its thrilling potential and the ever-increasing bogeyman of "rising energy costs" is a much tougher row to hoe.

Part of the difficulty is the fact that I don't know what the energy needs would be for an energy efficient large home, let alone one that pumps and filters all its own water or one that tries to replace its natural gas usage with solar, so regard all of this as wild conjecture. The average American family uses 10,656 kWh per year or 888 kWh per month. I figure I can set up a very energy-efficient home (much like the water-conserving home I planned), but I will have additional costs, so let's leave it as is.

This solar calculator (www.findsolar.com) tells me I would need a 6.79 kW installation to cover those requirements here in sunny California, which would cover 679 sq. ft. of south-facing roof (which agrees with my own calculations). Such an installation would cost approximately $54,000 they say, or about $28,000 after tax breaks and incentives. It guesses that my average monthly savings would be $129.77 for a 25 year savings of $64,851.61. My calculations are a little more grim. By my calculations, even though it pays for itself in energy savings after 14 years, it doesn't beat leaving the $28,000 invested in an interest-compounding investment and paying the energy bills. The capital outlay is simply too large for the return.

However, if you can get a loan for the panels at 5% so you aren't providing the initial capital outlay, and you pay it off within the life of the panels (25 years), the picture is better. You initially pay more than you would just paying the electric bills, but when inflating energy costs overtake your fixed loan payments in year 10, you can start paying yourself back for the extra you initially spent, and in year 17 you break even. At that point, you can start saving the money you would be paying to the electric company in an interest-bearing account. In other words, the investment in solar isn't a good enough investment for your own money, but if you can leverage someone else's, and you don't mind increasing your payments a few hundred dollars a year initially, it can pay you back twenty years down the road.

Some of you may be wondering about the mysterious wonders of leasing solar panels. Basically, you continue to pay the same amount per month for energy, it's just that now you pay half of it to the solar company and half to the electric company. It doesn't really save you any money--it's just for if you want to reduce your carbon footprint (which we all would appreciate. If they ask you to pay a couple grand up-front for the installation on top of the lease, it's clearly a losing proposition.

What is really worthwhile, though, is the new third-generation photo-voltaic cells, which are much cheaper to produce and much more efficient at capturing energy. Unfortunately, they are still in development and won't hit the residential market for another 10-15 years. The question is: how much cheaper will they be and how soon will they come out? I've heard wild rumors that they would be able to be installed for something closer to $12,000, and that they would be able to cover your whole roof, so you might even make money selling energy back to the electric company (at a discount of course). IF something were to come out in ten years and IF you could install it for $12,000, you would make a lot more money by waiting and paying for electricity until that happens. However, if it costs more than $12,000, then your gains from waiting start to dwindle. You're still making money by waiting even if it costs $24,000 then, especially if the cells last longer than 25 years. If it takes 15 years for them to hit the market, you still make money until the projected capital outlay balloons to $20,000. All in all, it's a gamble. Interest rates are low right now, you could lock in a return by getting a low-rate loan and reduce your carbon footprint. Who knows, maybe in 10-15 years, interest rates will be much higher, solar companies will want to recoup their research costs initially, and the price will be more than projected.

So the jury's still out on solar. I think if you have the credit, and you doubt the pace of technological advancement, you switch over to solar. If, however, you believe in all this alternative energy talk, then you make sure when you renovate or build that your house is wired for solar. And then check your roof insulation. You lose thirty percent of your house's heat through the roof. Make sure that's sealed up tight. Make sure your dryer and stove are gas, or start hanging your laundry to dry (you can use hangers on a free-standing rack indoors). Keep one side of the sink filled with soapy water and do your daily dishes by hand. Switch all your lights to cfl's and then turn them off when you leave the room for more than half an hour. Plug all your appliances and adapters into power strips, and power the strip off when you're not using them. Other than hanging your own laundry to dry, none of those takes any longer than arranging for the installation of panels. Lower your energy costs now and put the difference in an interest-bearing account for the day the new panels arrive. You might just be able to buy them outright.

While we were in Europe, I developed a new hobby: self-sufficiency. It has led to the recent posts about cooking and shopping and what all it takes to look groomed. Some of you have laughed, but I warn you, we’re about to go swimming in the deep end.

You see, it occurred to me, while sitting on the lakeshore in Bellagio watching the fisherman pull in his nets, that with a suitable location it might be possible to retire from working and live a life that wouldn’t wear so hard on the earth. Mostly it was an intriguing thought experiment, but now with the job market being what it is and the not-too-distant sale of my house, it’s a little more practical to think about. So I’ve been reading up on sustainable living, which includes totally normal things like growing fruits and vegetables in your backyard to crazier stuff like how to farm your own fish in a tank under your tomatoes.

Yesterday, I was looking into catching and storing your own rainwater. I like the self-sufficiency of the idea, but wondered if, like most solar installations, it costs more than it saves. I did some digging and found that the average American family uses 236 gallons of water per day, or 86,447 gallons a year. I added up my own numbers and figured a family of four could get by on 138 gallons of water per day between four showers, 8 teeth brushings, cooking, running the dishwasher, a load of laundry, and five bathroom visits each. 138 gallons per day adds up to 50,370 gallons per year. Coincidentally, about 47,500 gallons of water each year falls on a 3000 sq.ft. roof in the east bay. So that’s good—with some tinkering, you could get by on the amount of rain you get—as long as you can store all the winter surplus for use in the summer.

So this is where it gets fancy. Because we have dry summers and wet winters, by the end of March, on average, you would have to be holding 19,672 gallons of water in storage to get you through to September. That’s a little more than most backyard swimming pools. Obviously, the first best step is to see how little water you could get by on each day. If you saved your laundry, shower, sink, and dishwasher water for use in the toilets and the garden, you could get by on 88 gallons per day, and you’d only need to store 16,104 gallons of water. That’s still a lot, but not impossible. Adam had mentioned seeing something the other day where people sunk massive water tanks under their driveway to store all their rainwater. Since a 5,000-gallon tank runs about $2000, and I can get no clearer indication on how much a complete system costs, I decided to guesstimate $10,000. This could be wildly off, but we’re using the guess-and-check method here. My question is: which offers the better return on investment, leaving the $10,000 invested with compound interest and paying your water bill, or buying your own water system and investing the saved the water bill payments. Like always, I gleefully trotted out my excel spreadsheet and furiously typed in my calculations.

Interestingly, buying one gallon of water in the East Bay costs the same as buying 172 gallons per day, so if you’re going to try to save here, you’ve gotta’ go whole hog. A family using our 138 gallons of water per day and living above 600 ft. in elevation (because who doesn’t want a view?) pays $918.04 per year to East Bay MUD. If that same family saved that money each year and invested it in the same interest-bearing vehicle as they would have had the $10,000 in, they save about a thousand dollars a year, while the $10,000 only makes about $300 in the early years. By buying the water system, the family starts making money in year 11. Now that’s a long time to wait for something to pay you back, but after thirty years, the water tanks are ahead by $41,336,99 (adjusted to today’s dollars). Even if you need a new pump or some filters, I still think you’re ahead. If you’re like my grandparents and you spend 55 years in your East bay house on the hill, the water tanks installed the first year in the house pay you back $199,793.60 (in today’s dollars) more than the $10,000 would.

I’m not yet saying that this is what you should do with your money or your water. There are probably a number of other hidden costs, like maintenance, energy to run the pumps, filters, etc. Let’s say it costs you $200 a year in maintenance. You’re still ahead at year 15. All that additional costs do is move your break-even date. What I’m saying is that it is a financially reasonable decision to save and filter your own rainwater. Now it’s time to look into a pond as storage that would also farm tilapia and fertilize the tomatoes.

This is a shopping update to let all the ladies out there who enjoyed "The One Hundred" in on a bargain. Item number 96, the Hunter Wellington boot, which retails for $115-150 is now available in limited colors at www.6pm.com for $49.95. With all the recent rains, they're looking more appealing than ever!

I promised awhile back to explain to you all how to get your groceries at the cheapest possible price. This will probably be the craziest-sounding, most exhaustively researched post in the history of this blog, and I realize some of you will frown on the idea of going to such lengths just to save a little money. But the drop in grocery bills is too huge not to share (we’re down about 75% from last year).

So, here goes. Following an example from “The Tightwad Gazette,” I started a price book. A price book is a book you use when grocery shopping to record the ingredients you frequently purchase (one per page), and its price per ounce at local grocery stores. I’m sure in the not-too-distant future it will be possible to take a picture of the item or scan its barcode with your phone and pull up a list of prices at nearby stores, but until then… I kept a list of the items on my shopping list. Not surprisingly, everything is cheapest at Costco. That creates two small problems: 1) Costco doesn’t carry everything, and 2) where do you store two gallons of olive oil?

The first problem is solved simply—FoodsCo (FoodMaxx/Kroger’s) carries many things, including usable quantities of fresh produce, at Costco prices. The first time I shopped there, I got a full cart of groceries for $60. The parking lot is a little off-putting (bring handi-wipes), but the values are well worth it, and the people are super-friendly. The few items I can’t find at Costco or FoodsCo are usually available at Lucky, which is the next cheapest and often has things on special for lower than Costco prices. It pays to scan the circulars for Safeway and Lucky online once a week to check for produce or meat specials (this is how you find the fifty-cent-a-pound pears). Specialty items can be gotten at Rainbow Co-Op or Safeway. Now that I virtually never shop at Safeway, when I do go for something I’m shocked by the prices. Oatmeal at Costco costs a tenth of what Safeway charges. A trip to Safeway for dinner that night costs about a fourth of our average non-Safeway grocery bill for the month.

Problem number 2 is really a matter of how much you enjoy the concept of a pantry. I, personally, love the idea of an entire closet full of delicious food that virtually never perishes. Honestly, what could be more comforting? Most everyone has a closet full of junk, a cupboard housing pots and pans you never use, or an awkward space that could be used for storage. I moved all my vitamins to the bathroom and put lazy susans in my corner cupboards to get more storage, then I stocked up on the canned goods we use and oatmeal. It really wasn’t hard to fit an extra bottle of olive oil, or six extra cans of tomatoes. I passed on the 25 lb. bag of sugar, and it turns out that’s fine since it periodically goes on sale at the grocery store for the Costco price. By only buying things I know I will use, and then using them, finding space for Costco purchases hasn’t been a problem.

So far, so good. However, meat & vegetables are hard to get through in bulk. It helps to use the Debbie Meyer Green Bags (available at Bed, Bath, and Beyond) and to store all your produce properly. You can also organize your freezer better to get more in, but sooner or later, you come to the line in the sand. There is no turning back from an incredible sale on fifty pounds of frozen meat (or in my case, free turkeys). You can purchase an extra freezer for less than $500, and over the course of a year, it will almost certainly pay for itself in what you save on meat. It allows you to keep just about everything you eat nearly indefinitely. You can freeze shredded cheese, nuts, egg whites, cream—anything with a reasonably high fat content. You can pour leftover liquids (juice, tomato paste, chiles, soft cheeses, pesto, etc.) into ice cube trays, then store the cubes in freezer bags. You can save batches of soup, casseroles, fresh bread—just about anything that might go bad in your fridge can be saved in the freezer. Additionally, it allows you to cook in large batches and freeze half, cutting your cooking time in half. You can track down your most expensive food purchases, like pasta sauce, and make and freeze your own when the vegetables are in season. Or increase the quality of your eating by always having things like homemade toaster waffles and pancakes on hand. The freezer makes life so much easier (and better!). Now I can aim to go to the grocery store once, maybe twice a month. I only have to cook a couple days a week, and we eat better than we ever did before.

If you want to go whole hog, you can can your own fruits and vegetables. Unless you get a fabulous deal on produce and the thing you’re making is really expensive, it’s probably not worth it. However, for things like making your own Pad Thai sauce or your best Mango Chutney, you can save yourself quite a bit, so I thought I’d mention it. All it takes is a pressure cooker and some jars (which Wal-Mart carries at the best price year-round). There are ample government and university websites covering the various food safety measures that must be taken, but none of it is that difficult. You just need a timer.

So now that it’s all out there, before you go calling me crazy, take a look at the USDA's cost to feed families at different levels of spending. Many who work at meal planning and bulk shopping come in well under their thriftiest plan (I think I manage for about half that). Adopt some or all of these strategies as they suit your needs. The difference between the most liberal plan for a two-person family and the thriftiest is about $4200 a year--and they're not including eating out. There are a lot worse things you could do for an after-tax $5000 per year.

Things you may not know about the California Initiative process:
1) The number of signatures required to place an initiative on the ballot is a percentage of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. It is 8% for constitutional amendments, and 5% for statutes.
2) The 2006 gubernatorial election had 8,679,048 votes cast. Therefore a constitutional amendment currently requires 694,323 signatures, while a statute needs 433,952.
3) All signatures must be collected during the circulation period, which is 150 days.
4) To get a constitutional amendment on the ballot for 2010, the proponents need to gather 4,629 signatures a day. For a statute, that number would be 2,894.
5) For approximately one million dollars, you can hire enough political consultants and professional circulators to get your initiative qualified.
6) There is no limit to the amount a ballot measure committee can spend in support of a proposition.
7) There is no limit to the amount an individual or corporation can contribute to a ballot measure committee.
8) Most other states have a 365-day circulation period.
9) Under a 365-day circulation period, you would need to collect 1,903 signatures per day to qualify an amendment; 1,189 for a statute.
10) California allowed an unlimited circulation period until 1943.
11) An amendment takes precedence over a statute concerning the same law. If both pass, only the amendment takes effect.
12) Once an initiative has qualified for the ballot, it cannot be amended or withdrawn, even if the legislature passes a similar piece of legislation prior to the election.
13) From 1911 to 1939, there was a high of 35 initiatives per decade.
14) In the 1960’s, there was a total of nine.
15) In the 1970’s, 22 qualified.
16) In the 1980’s, 46 qualified.
17) In the 1990’s, 61 qualified.
18) The number of constitutional amendments has increased 30% over the last decade.
19) California’s constitution is eight times longer than the U.S. Constitution.
20) To pass a new tax through any legislative process in California, a proposed law needs a 2/3 majority to pass.
21) To ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, three-fourths of the states must pass it by a majority vote of the state’s legislatures.
22) For the California legislature to pass a constitutional amendment, both houses must pass it with a 2/3 majority.
23) To pass a constitutional amendment as a ballot initiative, 50% of those voting plus one must vote in favor.
24) The Democratic Party’s Initiative Reform Task Force met in November 2008. Their recommendations included requiring constitutional amendments to pass with a 2/3 majority in two consecutive elections.

To find out more:
californiaprogressreport.com
healthvote.org
ballotpedia.org
L.A. Times Editorial

Once you have all the appropriate tools and you’re cooking for yourself, you may, like me, wish to slough off a few pounds you have accumulated over the year. When I decided to fit back into my jeans, I first started just trying to cut back a little—no desserts, eating healthier meals, and exercising more. After about a month of that, I had lost no weight. One day I was too lazy to cook, and stumbled onto Jack’s “program.” Jack lost a ton of weight skipping breakfast, eating something very small at lunch, and then having a typical (for him) dinner. I had always thought it was a dangerous diet and that it didn’t create the habits one needed to maintain weight loss, but Jack is alive and kicking and quite fit several years later, so I decided to keep going on my own version.

After some experimentation, this is what I came up with.
1) Eat breakfast. Skipping it is easy, but bad for building long-term habits. Have a bowl of oatmeal made with 1/3 c old-fashioned oats (2/3 c water & 3 min. in the microwave). It’s only 100 calories, and you can add sugar-free Splenda syrup or cinnamon for calorie-free flavor.
2) For lunch, have something small: leftovers, a piece of fruit and cheese, soup & salad, or half a sandwich. Usually, I can keep lunch under 300 calories, though yours might be larger.
3) Dinner is normal, though I try to only use whole-grain, high-protein, or high-fiber carbohydrates. I like to stick to Sonoma Diet-like proportions: one half plate vegetables, one fourth plate meat, and one fourth plate carbs.
4) No dessert. It’s crucial for me to get away from eating sugar & high-glycemic index carbohydrates. They are my Achilles heel. Since going cold turkey is too cruel, I allow myself dark chocolate. It’s dense enough to be satisfying in small quantities. Additionally, it has raised my standards for dessert—now I want a lot more flavor and less butter/sugar. I also think The Finer Things Club is helping. There’s no shortage of dessert to look forward to in my life, so it makes it easier to put off until then.
5) I also avoid alcohol, though I’ll have a drink at a party (no mixers).
6) On the weekends, I eat what the boyfriend’s eating, which is usually healthy, but if it’s not, I don’t stress. It slows the weight loss, but keeps me from feeling like I’m depriving myself. Getting back on the program on Monday is hard, but easier if I focus on eating just the three meals. My choices get healthier as the week goes on.
7) Exercising while on a low-calorie diet is difficult. What works best for me is wearing a pedometer during the day, then going for a walk in the evening that gets my daily total up to 10,000 steps (usually a 20 minute constitutional around Dolores Park is just right).

There are days I’m sure I have less than a thousand calories, but I don’t think I’m managing it consistently (which is good). However, aiming at less than a thousand seems to let me actually lose weight instead of aiming at twelve hundred and ending up at fourteen or sixteen hundred. I don’t think I’m losing at an unhealthy rate—in a month I’ve lost about six pounds.

After a few more pounds, I will go back to my healthy eating plan. Because I’m not crazy about cooking, I designed it so that I make a double-batch of lunch one day, then a double-batch of dinner the next. That way I only have to cook once a day, and there is always something healthy available.

All of this is to say that losing weight is hard, and getting too hung up on rules (“never go below 1000 calories a day,” “no carbs,” “don’t break with the plan”), can make it harder. My theory is that when you start by doing all the things you know you’re supposed to, you can break a few rules.

Once I started cooking, I discovered that certain tools are necessary, while others mostly clutter up my cabinet. After spending more than I really needed to on some items and recalling the bewilderment that accompanied me to the Macy’s Home department when I first moved out, I set out to see how inexpensively you could equip a fully functioning kitchen. I think you can do it for around $200 (prices are, of course, subject to change). Here’s what I came up with (after the jump):

Now that the fashion makeover is taken care of, and you’re all looking fabulous, I thought it time to share with you my other recent project: cooking. Last year, my job was quite stressful and required working till eight or nine two days a week. The three other weekdays, I was in no mood to deal with grocery shopping or cooking, so I did what we all love to—Takeout! It was fabulous, in a way… delicious food, often bought by my wonderful boyfriend, pizza every week, plenty of leftovers for the late nights, and lunch in ready-made packages every morning from the grocery store. Meanwhile, I watched my waistline and my budget balloon. So when I finally managed to free myself from my miserable job, I set out to learn how to cook. My criteria were (as always) numerous:
1) I needed to be able to make things in 30 minutes or less, because I come home hungry.
2) Recipes needed to be simple and foolproof--no temperamental souffles for me.
2) I did not want to go to the grocery store more than once a week.
3) Meals needed to be low-calorie and nutritious to stop the ballooning. Hello, vegetables!
4) Food should be delicious, so everything had to taste good.
5) Ingredients needed to be affordable, better yet, cheap. No exotic pastes that needed to be tracked down in specialty markets.
6) Variety. Who wants to eat the same thing all the time?

So that was it. I wanted cheap, easy, quick, delicious, healthy food—in essence, takeout from my kitchen, but better. I started by making a list of thirty things that the boyfriend and I like to eat (Variety—check!). Then, I got recipes for those dishes on my favorite website, www.cooksillustrated.com, (Delicious—check!). Then I compared those to the recipes in the Cooking Light cookbook, and added more vegetables and lean protein to trim down the calories (Healthy—check!). In order to make the recipes less daunting, I re-formatted them to list instructions and ingredients just once, to make times easier to track, and to let me know what pans and temperatures to use right at the top (Easy--check!). Anything that took longer than half an hour got simplified or cut out (at first, I tried to make some exceptions to this rule, but I still haven’t made those dishes, so… Quick—Check!). The last part anyone born after 1965 will find totally crazy—inconceivably, I planned my meals for the month.
That’s right, I made a calendar of meals for thirty days. I grouped together things that used the same fresh ingredients. It allowed me to figure out what basics I could keep in the cupboard or freezer, and what I could shop for fresh once a week. With a finite shopping list, it was easy to stock up and then go to the grocery store just once a week (check!). And from there, it was easy to find the cheapest grocery stores (which I’ll talk about more later).
In case you’re looking for a similar situation, you can see what I came up with here.