Speaker 1: Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I am Matt,
Speaker 1: and today we're discussing slashing your monthly utility bills. Joel,
Speaker 1: that is right. This episode, we're gonna talk about how
Speaker 1: you can make your home energy efficient. We're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about ways to cut your power bill, gas, and water,
Speaker 1: those three main utilities, and I'm looking forward to diving
Speaker 1: into this one with you, ma'am. Yeah, and water. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm I think that one is one that's Water rates
Speaker 1: across the country have been soaring, and especially here where
Speaker 1: we are in Atlanta, it's kind of gotten ridiculous. So
Speaker 1: even cutting your water bill, it's possible, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that as well. I'm excited about it. But first, Matt,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention I saw this really interesting video
Speaker 1: about this musician. His name is Mike Posner, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't really know his music, but he's doing something fascinating.
Speaker 1: He's walking across the entire country, uh, from coast to coast,
Speaker 1: and I like Forrest Gump style, right exactly, Like that
Speaker 1: makes me think of those are the next words coming
Speaker 1: out on and he he actually kind of looks like
Speaker 1: Forrest Gumps did when he with like kind of bushy
Speaker 1: curly hair and like the beard and stuff. Um, but
Speaker 1: it made me think like he's doing something really intentional.
Speaker 1: For some reason. This was the task that he felt
Speaker 1: compelled to take on right now, And it made me
Speaker 1: think of two of a recent listener email that we
Speaker 1: got from listener Todd, and he talked about how he
Speaker 1: ditched his y membership in an email to us. Why
Speaker 1: m c a membership? Yeah, in order to walk his
Speaker 1: dog every day in this beautiful part of the country
Speaker 1: that he's in in Roanoke, Virginia, and even send us
Speaker 1: a picture of kind of this beautiful mountain view that
Speaker 1: he gets with every walk with his dog. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know if every walk is that beautiful.
Speaker 1: That was a particularly beautiful sunset. Yeah, but that's uh,
Speaker 1: it's like McAfee's knob. Did you look it up? I
Speaker 1: did a little bit of research. No, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: just saw the picture and I was like, well, that's nice.
Speaker 1: I wish I could walk to their every day. It's
Speaker 1: a spot. It's on the Appalachian Trail and so there's
Speaker 1: lots of through hikers. But I guess you can just
Speaker 1: hop on there and do the hike sort to Alec
Speaker 1: cart right the quick tangent. Do you have any desire
Speaker 1: to hike the a t ever No, honestly a little
Speaker 1: too intense for me. But I don't know with the
Speaker 1: right in the back of my mind, all right, maybe
Speaker 1: you want to do with me. We'd have to do
Speaker 1: it like sooner rather than later though, before we get
Speaker 1: too old. I don't know. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: doing it like seventy six or anything like that, you know,
Speaker 1: but you can. There's lots of old folks that do it, okay.
Speaker 1: I do consider seventy six old. By the way, if
Speaker 1: sorry to offend any seventy six year old listeners out there, well,
Speaker 1: that impresses me all the more people doing it at
Speaker 1: that age, like that's incredibly impressive. And we had a
Speaker 1: buddy who did, who hiked the whole a T man.
Speaker 1: I think it's really awesome. It just honestly doesn't I
Speaker 1: don't feel a called to do it, but I just
Speaker 1: love that idea too, of of walking more and taking
Speaker 1: advantage of the natural beauty that's around you. To see
Speaker 1: that Todd decided to ditch a gym membership where he
Speaker 1: was walking on the treadmill or something like that in
Speaker 1: order to get outdoors. You know, I feel like that's
Speaker 1: what biking is for me. It's like cool that I'm
Speaker 1: getting all my cardio in on my way to work.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, I do feel this like
Speaker 1: really amazing connection to our city, to nature on that
Speaker 1: bike ride that I wouldn't get if I was stuck
Speaker 1: indoors doing my workout. Yeah, man, that's great. You know,
Speaker 1: when I get out of that, I hear that, and
Speaker 1: I think what we should be doing is focusing on,
Speaker 1: you know, our lifestyle now, but just like enjoying our
Speaker 1: life right now and not getting too caught up with
Speaker 1: the goals. And so, like our listener Todd, like his
Speaker 1: goal might be to be fit right and to get
Speaker 1: in shape, but you don't want to let that goal
Speaker 1: of being in shape overshadow of your life, and so
Speaker 1: why not do something you know with his dog, he's
Speaker 1: able to get out in nature, like enjoy life now
Speaker 1: you can. It's great to set goals, but I think
Speaker 1: sometimes when you overvalue those goals and maybe put too
Speaker 1: much weight on them, you cannot enjoy the here and now.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, maybe this is a little called our
Speaker 1: listeners to. It's great to set goals, but to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're enjoying life the here and now, and
Speaker 1: we like to do that every Weegio by having a beer,
Speaker 1: craft beer. Matthew, that's right. Yeah, So today on the show,
Speaker 1: we are drinking a double Brute Citra in Galaxy I
Speaker 1: p A by Bear Republic Brewing Company there out of California. Man,
Speaker 1: they've been at it a long time since and they
Speaker 1: were kind enough to send this beer out to us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one is called Challenge Series eleven and we've never
Speaker 1: had a Brute I PA on the show before. I
Speaker 1: don't think. I think I've only had maybe two of
Speaker 1: these in my entire life. Actually, it's like a really
Speaker 1: new style. There's like this new fad of trying to
Speaker 1: combine wine and beer, Like these hybrid style beers and
Speaker 1: Brute I p A s are kind of another way
Speaker 1: for them to get kind of the taste of like
Speaker 1: a champagne a little bit that kind of dryness I
Speaker 1: feel like into a craft beer. And so yeah, like
Speaker 1: there's no limit to what people are doing with craft
Speaker 1: beers right now. Nice, Yeah, Joe, I'm excited to enjoy
Speaker 1: this beer with you on this episode. We'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this at the end of the show, all right, Matt,
Speaker 1: So onto the subject at hand. We're talking about slashing
Speaker 1: our monthly utility bills. Interestingly enough, I mean, we waste
Speaker 1: so much money on utilities that could be back in
Speaker 1: our pockets if we would be just a little more
Speaker 1: intentional about making our homes more energy efficient. And it's
Speaker 1: important for us to look at the payback time of
Speaker 1: any potential energy saving steps we might take. And some
Speaker 1: of these steps that we're gonna talk about, they're a
Speaker 1: touch more labor intensive, and other steps that we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about in order to make your home more energy efficient,
Speaker 1: well they're super simple and you could probably tackle them
Speaker 1: in an hour, not even a weekend, right, Like you
Speaker 1: could do something really quickly. But it's really important because
Speaker 1: these are changes that we can make that don't just
Speaker 1: save us like five bucks today, but they might be
Speaker 1: able to save us five bucks a month for the
Speaker 1: coming years if we make that small change to our
Speaker 1: energy usage. And so, yeah, I think is an interesting
Speaker 1: topic to cover. Yeah, Joel, Like you said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: cover sort of a range of different things that you
Speaker 1: can do to make your home more energy efficient, things
Speaker 1: that would be easy to do if you even if
Speaker 1: you lived in an apartment or if you're rented a house,
Speaker 1: like things that would have an immediate payback. And then
Speaker 1: also to yeah, like you said, like the bigger things
Speaker 1: that that might take a little bit longer. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna kind of cover the spectrum of the different kind
Speaker 1: of projects that you can do to your home a
Speaker 1: little more energy efficient. But before we even actually dive
Speaker 1: into the tips, right, like, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: ask ourselves why does this even matter? It's not just
Speaker 1: about taking care of the earth. And you know the
Speaker 1: money that you're saving right now, but Joe, like you said,
Speaker 1: like the money moving forward, right, and even beyond that,
Speaker 1: the potential for what that money could grow into if
Speaker 1: you invested that money every month. Don't forget the rule
Speaker 1: of one seventy three right where you can take a
Speaker 1: monthly expense and multiply it by one D seventy three,
Speaker 1: And that's what you could have in ten years if
Speaker 1: you were to reduce a monthly expense and instead invest
Speaker 1: that right, So, say you are able to cut a
Speaker 1: monthly expense by seventy five bucks. You take that seventy
Speaker 1: five bucks every month, invest it in ten years, you're
Speaker 1: looking at a solid thirteen thousand dollars. Man, That is
Speaker 1: a lot of money, that is, yeah, for sure. And
Speaker 1: and so even beyond that, so you're able to cut
Speaker 1: a bunch of bills, right, If you're able to reduce
Speaker 1: some monthly bills, some monthly utilities by two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars a month, in ten years, you're looking at
Speaker 1: forty three thousand dollars, that's like a whole lot of money.
Speaker 1: So just keep in mind that recurring monthly expenses have
Speaker 1: a huge impact on your ability to say for the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we talked about that rule of one seventy three
Speaker 1: in our just general cutting monthly bills episode that we
Speaker 1: did a while back. That's right, And so we talked
Speaker 1: about you know, cutting cable, internet, all these sorts of
Speaker 1: things that that can help you in how much you're
Speaker 1: spending every single month. And that rule of one seventy
Speaker 1: three is just a great thing to kind of grab,
Speaker 1: grab onto and and kind of to do some basic
Speaker 1: math that helps you see how much money you could
Speaker 1: put back in your pocket if you invested that money
Speaker 1: like you said, as opposed to uh, spending it on
Speaker 1: whatever you're spending it on that month. And we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about our monthly utility bills, but we
Speaker 1: didn't go into how you can actually dramatically reduce those bills.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, let's get into that now. Let's first
Speaker 1: kind of talk about electricity, right, power, the power bill,
Speaker 1: the power bill, the dreaded power bill every month. And
Speaker 1: I want to say one thing real quick when it
Speaker 1: comes to the power bill. I know there are a
Speaker 1: lot of utilities out there who will let you sign
Speaker 1: up for something called budget billing, which kind of takes
Speaker 1: into account the way that you've used power over the
Speaker 1: previous year and then gives you a level bill every
Speaker 1: single month. And I think you know that can be
Speaker 1: helpful for your budget. But for me, I don't like
Speaker 1: budget billing. And let me tell you why real quick.
Speaker 1: It's because I actually like seeing how much energy I've used,
Speaker 1: and particularly like in the summer months, if I have
Speaker 1: turned on the air conditioner more than I wanted to,
Speaker 1: I kind of like feeling the pain getting that bill
Speaker 1: in the mail and seeing that I'm spending more money
Speaker 1: than I want to. It changes my usage it changes
Speaker 1: my habits. Uh, and so for me, that's why budget
Speaker 1: billing isn't as good because I don't feel the pain
Speaker 1: in the same way. I like seeing the exact amount
Speaker 1: I used and how much it costs me. Yeah, you know. Actually,
Speaker 1: in the research for this episode, I came across this
Speaker 1: thing called the Sense Energy Monitor. Have you heard of
Speaker 1: this thing or have you seen it? No? What is it? So?
Speaker 1: It's this device that you clamp onto the the sort
Speaker 1: of the main cables that go into your circuit breaker box,
Speaker 1: which sounds kind of intimidating, right, but it looks super easy.
Speaker 1: And what it does is in real time, it reads
Speaker 1: the actual amount of electricity that your house is drawing.
Speaker 1: And it's integrated with an app on your phone, which
Speaker 1: is crazy to see real time the exact amount that, say,
Speaker 1: when you're a c kicks on, you can watch it
Speaker 1: spike and then stay there, or you can plug everything
Speaker 1: in your house if you want to, and just with
Speaker 1: nothing else running, you can see how much power your
Speaker 1: fridge is actually drawing from from the system, how much
Speaker 1: it's costing you. Totally fascinating. It's actually it's kind of expensive.
Speaker 1: It's like two or three bucks or something. Well, that
Speaker 1: sounds like a recipe for ruining my marriage because I
Speaker 1: would be like constantly on the app measuring how much
Speaker 1: we're using, being like turn off the I know, I know,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It looks super slick. It had
Speaker 1: amazing reviews on Amazon, and I totally spent way too
Speaker 1: much time reading about it and kind of checking it out.
Speaker 1: I might ask for one of these for Christmas or
Speaker 1: something like that. I thought it might be something totally
Speaker 1: up your alley as well. Yeah, I know they have
Speaker 1: like those individual things that you can plug into your
Speaker 1: outlet per socket, yeah, per socket. But yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: that's whold home overall the entire house. That's what I
Speaker 1: want to know. And I'm telling you that the interface
Speaker 1: was super slick and it looked like you can chart
Speaker 1: it and kind of keep track of, you know, your history,
Speaker 1: don't know, like super cool. Basically, like I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of running, and like I've got run Keeper that's
Speaker 1: what I use, and it kind of keeps track of
Speaker 1: your runs and stuff like that. And you've got this
Speaker 1: history and you've got your numbers. But to be able
Speaker 1: to do that with your with your home electricity, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was totally nerd and out on it and might
Speaker 1: have to add that to the Christmas list. Dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: I love it all right. So let's get into some
Speaker 1: of the actual specific things that you can do to
Speaker 1: kind of keep that energy from spiking, the ways that
Speaker 1: you can cut back on your power usage in order
Speaker 1: to have a lower monthly bill. And you know, the
Speaker 1: number one thing that you can do is actually by
Speaker 1: far the easiest thing, and that is to change your
Speaker 1: thermostat settings. Of the monthly costs of home utilities come
Speaker 1: from heating and cooling our home, and so the best
Speaker 1: way to get around that, right is to change your
Speaker 1: actual thermostat settings. And you know, most local utility providers
Speaker 1: say that you should keep your thermostat on sixty eight
Speaker 1: in the winter and seventy six in the summer to
Speaker 1: prevent overusing, and that's totally true. I try to go
Speaker 1: just a little bit beyond that more like see D
Speaker 1: four in the winter and seventy seven in the summer.
Speaker 1: It's it's summer is a little bit harder. It could
Speaker 1: be difficult with the kids running around. Yeah, everyone's like
Speaker 1: sweating and piste off. I'm with you, though. We try
Speaker 1: to we actually push seventy eight, and we we rocked
Speaker 1: the ceiling fans pretty hard. But there you go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seven eight in the summer for us, and then in
Speaker 1: the winter, I think we do sixty seven during the day,
Speaker 1: but at night that's what you got, big savings right there.
Speaker 1: May I drive it down to sixty one at night.
Speaker 1: There you go. You're not gonna get frostbite in sixty one.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, it's not gonna happen. Yeah, sixty
Speaker 1: one totally safe temperature to be at in the winter,
Speaker 1: but you know, for power again and in the summer months,
Speaker 1: utilize like your ceiling fans. Pretty much all homes have
Speaker 1: ceiling fans built in. If you have an older home,
Speaker 1: that might be something worth actually installing. If you don't
Speaker 1: have a ceiling fans in your house, don't pull a
Speaker 1: jol and get one of those like ceiling fans with
Speaker 1: the with the tiny blades on the that are totally ineffective.
Speaker 1: Those things are worthless, man, and a waste of money.
Speaker 1: But even if you aren't super d I y you
Speaker 1: can just get even a table fan. For me, if
Speaker 1: I get hot, I have a fan in that I
Speaker 1: can flip on and I've got that pointed sitting right
Speaker 1: there for me at my desk, because guess what, for
Speaker 1: maybe close to eight hours and during the day, that's
Speaker 1: where I'm sitting. I'm sitting there working and I'm able
Speaker 1: to keep myself perfectly happy and cool just with a
Speaker 1: little bit of air movement. Yeah, ceiling fans are awesome.
Speaker 1: Attic fans. If anyone has an attic fan, make sure
Speaker 1: to use it. Matt Our first house had an attic fan,
Speaker 1: and it was freaking awesome, man, because let's say in
Speaker 1: the spring, where the temperature is eighty two during the day,
Speaker 1: but it is, you know, sixty two in the morning
Speaker 1: when you first wake up. You can open up the windows,
Speaker 1: open up the door, and turn on your attic fan
Speaker 1: and it sucks in all the cool air cools down
Speaker 1: your home like eight degrees in like three minutes. It's
Speaker 1: so nice, man. It just helps you to not have
Speaker 1: to use the A C nearly as much. I'm a
Speaker 1: huge proponent of attic fan. Yeah, I've never lived in
Speaker 1: a house that had an attic fan, but anytime I've
Speaker 1: seen one of those in action, it kind of blows
Speaker 1: my mind. All right, So now we need to ask
Speaker 1: a question. I guess about thermostats. We just talked about
Speaker 1: setting your thermostat at different temperatures. Where do you come
Speaker 1: down on the smart thermostats that are kind all the
Speaker 1: rage these days. Man, I've got one. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of the Nest thermostats. You know, they were greats.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of folks who have a
Speaker 1: predictable schedule though, they cannot get the fancy or nest
Speaker 1: thermostat right like, they've got different levels. Now they've got
Speaker 1: the I think it's called the E Nest, and then
Speaker 1: they have the Nest learning. The Nest learning is the
Speaker 1: one that automatically will will learn from your behavior and
Speaker 1: sort of where you set the thermostat and will create
Speaker 1: its own sort of schedule. But if you have a
Speaker 1: predictable schedule, you know that every day you're gonna leave,
Speaker 1: you know, this time of the day to go to work,
Speaker 1: you don't really need the learning thermostat and you can
Speaker 1: save yourself. I think it's a hunter Bucks cheaper to
Speaker 1: get the E thermostat, And so it's basically a programmable
Speaker 1: thermostat that you can change on your phone at any point,
Speaker 1: but it's not learning. That's all you need because you
Speaker 1: set the schedule, you said it and forget it and
Speaker 1: you're good to go. Man. Plus, it's just awesome to
Speaker 1: be able to you know, turn down say you forget
Speaker 1: to turn down the heat, you know, in the winter,
Speaker 1: or turn up the A C in the summer if
Speaker 1: you go on a trip, and to be able to
Speaker 1: hop on your phone and do that and not basically
Speaker 1: be stress the entire time you're away thinking damn, I'm
Speaker 1: cooling my house for nothing or I'm heating it for nothing.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, so I haven't made the transition
Speaker 1: to a smart thermostat. I just disciplined and actually turn
Speaker 1: it off before you leave, right. Discipline might be one
Speaker 1: word I would say, probably anal. I'm like, really, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not anal about many things in life, but about
Speaker 1: the thermostat setting, I kind of am. You're that roommate
Speaker 1: in college where you would you do the thermostat battles with? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Probably I was that guy. Yeah, And so yeah, at home,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty intentional about what we said it on
Speaker 1: and when we kind of create a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a comfortable environment when we're all at home versus
Speaker 1: you know, when I leave for work and we're kind
Speaker 1: of heading outdoors bumping it up so that the A
Speaker 1: C isn't running right. So I don't feel it necessarily
Speaker 1: the need to get a smart thermostat. I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people who aren't as diligent in setting
Speaker 1: their thermostat settings appropriately, then you know, one of those
Speaker 1: kind of smart thermostats could be helpful, and especially because,
Speaker 1: like you said, you can remotely change those settings, which
Speaker 1: is great. Speaking of that, Matt, So you know, we
Speaker 1: just talked about budget building, and that's something that a
Speaker 1: lot of electricity providers offer. A lot of of power
Speaker 1: companies also give you the choice to do a time
Speaker 1: of use electricity plan, and they incentivize you to use
Speaker 1: your electricity at certain times of the day, pretty much
Speaker 1: like the off peak times that most people aren't using it.
Speaker 1: And you are on one of those plans. So how's
Speaker 1: that working out for you, guys? Yeah, it really has
Speaker 1: worked out for us. And what's good to mention there
Speaker 1: is that it's only for three or four months out
Speaker 1: of the summer. Like, so it starts. I don't even
Speaker 1: think it starts in May. I think it starts in June.
Speaker 1: I think it's like June, July, and August, maybe September
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, that makes sense, like the sort of
Speaker 1: summer hot, hot months, but it's only for those three
Speaker 1: or four months out of the year. And like you said, they, yeah,
Speaker 1: they incentivize you to use less electricity during the peak
Speaker 1: hours of the day. Uh. And that's basically like like
Speaker 1: from nine to six or something like that, or maybe
Speaker 1: it's seven. I forget. I don't know because I've got
Speaker 1: a set's on my thermostat and I don't even really
Speaker 1: think about it, right, But so that means that your
Speaker 1: air doesn't kick on at all between those hours. No,
Speaker 1: it's on, but we keep it a little bit warmer, right,
Speaker 1: So so in the summer months it's a little bit warmer,
Speaker 1: and then once we break into that zone, that period
Speaker 1: of time when the cost drops, that's when it kind
Speaker 1: of kicks on. So it's a little bit warmer. In
Speaker 1: her house, we're a little more dependent on ceiling fans,
Speaker 1: table fans and things like that. But then I think
Speaker 1: it's seven o'clock for for Georgia. Power Once that time
Speaker 1: hits our a c drops a degree or two and
Speaker 1: the house gets cooler, and for us, I think man
Speaker 1: it's saved us close to like ten of our power bill,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of average over the course of the year.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is ten times less expensive in those
Speaker 1: off peak hours. And so in particular, if you get
Speaker 1: home from work a lot later, or you know that
Speaker 1: you can do your laundry run the dryer in the evening,
Speaker 1: or especially say, if you work the night shift or
Speaker 1: something like that, right if you have a schedule that's
Speaker 1: reverse of most folks where you're kind of sleeping during
Speaker 1: the day and not doing much, but then at night
Speaker 1: that's kind of when you wake up and kind of
Speaker 1: start your life. But there are some big savings that
Speaker 1: could be had there. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Matt.
Speaker 1: My my sister just switched over to Google Fi from
Speaker 1: like a traditional cell phone carrier, and she's become so
Speaker 1: much more cognizant of the data that she's using. It
Speaker 1: seems very similar to one of these kind of time
Speaker 1: of electricity plans, because you're just way more thoughtful about
Speaker 1: the energy you're using when you're directly seeing the impact
Speaker 1: a whole heck of a lot more. And she's kind
Speaker 1: of become that same way, Like she's very thoughtful about
Speaker 1: you know what. I can wait to look that up,
Speaker 1: I can wait to check my email, I can wait
Speaker 1: to watch that YouTube video because I know that I'm
Speaker 1: paying for every single tent of a gig of data.
Speaker 1: And we talked about Google Fi, you know, back in
Speaker 1: the day, about and still it's one of the best
Speaker 1: cell phone providers out there, but it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's gonna help you realize how
Speaker 1: much data you're actually using. And I think that that
Speaker 1: can usually typically be a good thing to kind of
Speaker 1: put that in front of our faces. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: L D bulbs. You've got these in your house, I
Speaker 1: know for sure, man. L E D bulbs are truly
Speaker 1: besides the thermostat settings, they're probably the next greatest thing
Speaker 1: you can do in order to kind of curb electricity
Speaker 1: usage at your house, And in particular, the first thing
Speaker 1: would be to replace the most used lights in your
Speaker 1: house with ELI D bulbs. It's great to make it
Speaker 1: an eventual goal to have all of the light bulbs
Speaker 1: in your house as L E D bulbs, But if
Speaker 1: you just have a few lamps or a few overhead
Speaker 1: lights in your house that you use, you know, nine
Speaker 1: of the time that you feel like are usually typically
Speaker 1: turned on. Replacing those with l D bulbs is going
Speaker 1: to result in a major savings, especially because l D
Speaker 1: bulbs have become so much cheaper these days. You can
Speaker 1: even at times find them for close to a dollar
Speaker 1: a bulb. Used to be like twenty bucks of bulbs
Speaker 1: right right when they first came out. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: those bulbs are on sale for thirty each, Like what
Speaker 1: a deal. And when they first came out, the light
Speaker 1: wasn't very great from l D bulbs, That's true. It
Speaker 1: was kind of that like tacky blue light or whatever.
Speaker 1: And and now there's much warmer colors available in l
Speaker 1: D bulbs as you can find out there at the stores.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, especially if you're looking, I know you're
Speaker 1: not a fan of this, Matt, but buying the Costco
Speaker 1: and nothing against Costco, just haven't really joined the cult yet.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that episode still to come. Yeah, we'll make
Speaker 1: that happen. But buying in bulk from a warehouse club
Speaker 1: is a great way to to get a lower cost
Speaker 1: on those l D bulbs, and those typically use ninety
Speaker 1: percent less energy than a traditional bulb does, which which
Speaker 1: is insane. That's big difference. Yeah, that's insane. Anytime you
Speaker 1: hear return on anything like that's something you want to
Speaker 1: go for, right and not available typically in the investing world.
Speaker 1: By the way, exactly and specifically, what that means is,
Speaker 1: over the course of the lifetime of that bulb, you're
Speaker 1: looking at on average, eighty dollars in savings, and each
Speaker 1: one of those bulbs, on average will last about fifteen
Speaker 1: times longer than a traditional incandescent bulb. All right, Matt.
Speaker 1: Another big energy suck in a lot of homes is
Speaker 1: having old appliances. And I'm not the kind of guy
Speaker 1: that would suggest getting rid of your the fridge in
Speaker 1: your kitchen in order to get a new one that
Speaker 1: would quote unquote save you on energy, right, I feel
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that later, but that's typically not
Speaker 1: a recipe that ends in you saving a lot of money, right.
Speaker 1: It's like buying that new pre is because it's going
Speaker 1: to save you on gas. You know. Usually that's a
Speaker 1: flawed way of thinking about it. Um. But let's say
Speaker 1: you have a secondary fridge a beer fridge, as something
Speaker 1: I'd say, and probably how I would use a secondary fridge,
Speaker 1: not that you have one, not that I have one,
Speaker 1: but getting rid of that secondary fridge that's in the
Speaker 1: garage or whatever, and pticularly if it's in a garage
Speaker 1: and it gets warmer and it has to use more
Speaker 1: energy in order to stay cool. You're talking about like
Speaker 1: a lot of money every year that this secondary fridge
Speaker 1: is costing you. And older refrigerators are notorious for for
Speaker 1: using a lot of energy. And you know what, your
Speaker 1: local utility company might even offer you an incentive to
Speaker 1: donate that fridge, to get rid of it, to give
Speaker 1: it to them, And so it's worth it too as
Speaker 1: you're thinking through some of these things to actually check
Speaker 1: out your local utilities website. There might be incentives to
Speaker 1: do a lot of these things. They might even offer
Speaker 1: a deal for you to get a new programmable thermostat
Speaker 1: at a reduced rate. Jump on those rebates. Yeah, tons
Speaker 1: of those rebates on your local utilities website. So it's
Speaker 1: definitely worth checking that out. And while we're talking about fridges, Jole,
Speaker 1: you also want to make sure that you're taking care
Speaker 1: of your fridge. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: that you want to clean the coils on your fridge
Speaker 1: or freezer to keep it working efficiently and properly. Most fridges,
Speaker 1: a lot of times there's like that little plastic grate
Speaker 1: at the bottom, and what you want to do is
Speaker 1: just pop that off and take a look up under
Speaker 1: there and tell me what you see. Because if this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound familiar at all to you, or this is
Speaker 1: something that you haven't done, you are in for a
Speaker 1: treat because there's gonna be so much junk up under there.
Speaker 1: Typically you want to do this maybe close to once
Speaker 1: a year to kind of keep all the dust and
Speaker 1: junk and food whatever gets kind of kicked up under
Speaker 1: the fridge. It's gonna look like there's a squirrel limited
Speaker 1: beer fridge when you pop it off, like the sarious
Speaker 1: squirrel all time. So in the same way, cleaning the
Speaker 1: coils on your fridge is essential to that fridge running well.
Speaker 1: It's like changing the filter and which we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about in your HVAC unit every every few months, right
Speaker 1: to keep it running at optimum condition. And that's going
Speaker 1: to ensure that your fridge, you know, lasts for as
Speaker 1: long as it's supposed to and at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, keep those cooling costs down. You know, there's
Speaker 1: other things you can do make sure you're cleaning your
Speaker 1: lint filter. When it comes to using your dryer, also
Speaker 1: use those dryer balls, you guys, use those the wool
Speaker 1: balls that you throw in there. Nope, dude again, I
Speaker 1: was reading about those and kind of geeking out. We're
Speaker 1: totally going to get some of those. They cut down
Speaker 1: on how long it takes for your clothes to dry
Speaker 1: because they kind of spread the clothes out as they
Speaker 1: bounce around, and they evidently work as a natural fabric
Speaker 1: softener as well, so you can save money that way
Speaker 1: as well. You know what else they say about dryers,
Speaker 1: do your drying batches back to back to back so
Speaker 1: the dryer doesn't cool down and have to heat all
Speaker 1: the way back up. I like it, man, that's so smart.
Speaker 1: And even consider air drying your clothes. Right, it's a
Speaker 1: little more old school, but you can also save a
Speaker 1: ton of money that way, and it's better for your
Speaker 1: clothes as well. All right. Another interesting thing to watch
Speaker 1: out for when it comes to your power bill is
Speaker 1: this thing called vampire electronics, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: cool name, but but really, keeping your computers and TVs
Speaker 1: plugged in constantly what can cost you? And even if
Speaker 1: your TV is not on, or your computer is plugged
Speaker 1: in and charging. But whatever, it's a hundred percent charge.
Speaker 1: You don't think that it's actually costing you money to
Speaker 1: continue to have it plugged in. Well, in all likelihood
Speaker 1: it is. And so the best way around vampire electronics
Speaker 1: and them sucking money out of your wallet as they're
Speaker 1: plugged into the outlet is to have that on a
Speaker 1: power strip, and that way once your computer is fully
Speaker 1: charged or when you're not using let's say your TV.
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, a culprit of this is often like
Speaker 1: a cable box. So even if you're not like watching cable,
Speaker 1: if you don't have your TV turned on, it can
Speaker 1: be sucking electricity out even though you're not using it.
Speaker 1: And so a power strip turning it off when you're
Speaker 1: not using it and then powering it back on. It
Speaker 1: might be a little bit of an inconvenience, it might
Speaker 1: be a little bit annoying, but it can save you money.
Speaker 1: So vampire electronics. That phrase, you know what, it immediately
Speaker 1: made me think of for some reason, Vampire Weekend. No,
Speaker 1: although that maybe would have been more hip. Great band,
Speaker 1: great band? What was Bunikula? Did you ever read that
Speaker 1: book as a kid? It was this. It was this
Speaker 1: rabbit that was like this vampire rabbit, and it sucked
Speaker 1: all the life or the blood out of vegetables that
Speaker 1: they turned white. It totally sounds like a book you
Speaker 1: would have predic Why not, Right, anyway, after the break,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about some more ways that you can
Speaker 1: save money when it comes to your utilities. We're gonna
Speaker 1: specifically talk about your gas bill. All right, Matt full Back.
Speaker 1: We just talked about cutting your monthly electricity bill. Now
Speaker 1: let's talk about cutting your gas bill. And not everyone
Speaker 1: across the country use the same kind of gas. You know,
Speaker 1: we down here in the South use natural gas. Up
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, there's a lot of home heating oil
Speaker 1: that's used. But I think there are some common things
Speaker 1: that we share in ways that we can actually cut
Speaker 1: those bills. Right, and so again, like those thermostat settings
Speaker 1: are important in the winter, and putting on layers and
Speaker 1: blankets are really important in order to be able to
Speaker 1: keep your your house at a lower temperature, therefore saving
Speaker 1: your money when it comes to the heating element that
Speaker 1: you're using. Yeah, and when we were talking about power,
Speaker 1: we talked about the low end of the thermostat right,
Speaker 1: how at night I set our thermostat at sixty one?
Speaker 1: And you know we've got little kids. Are you wearing
Speaker 1: like three snuggies or what? No, I won't share exactly
Speaker 1: how I sleep, but it's pretty minimal. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: But our girls, I think some folks might have heard
Speaker 1: what I said earlier about you know, it being sixty one.
Speaker 1: But we do keep an electric radiator heater in the
Speaker 1: girl's room. And the way that we're able to control
Speaker 1: and make sure that they are at a safe aperature
Speaker 1: in our sleeping well is that we actually have a
Speaker 1: thermometer that is in the bathroom that borders their room
Speaker 1: with a little sensor that goes through the wall. I
Speaker 1: just drilled a hole into the wall. The little sensor
Speaker 1: pops out, and it measures the temperature in the girl's room.
Speaker 1: And so what that means, man, is that we're able
Speaker 1: to let the temperature in our house get pretty dang
Speaker 1: cold at night, like we're talking about, but we can
Speaker 1: check in on that and see where the temperature is
Speaker 1: in their room without even going in there. And so
Speaker 1: that allows us to save a lot of money when
Speaker 1: it comes to gas and targeting that specific room all
Speaker 1: three of our girls are in that room sleeping, and
Speaker 1: we keep the temperature in the room at a solid
Speaker 1: sixty eight. You know, it ranges that safe temperature for
Speaker 1: us is between like sixty seven and like seventy two
Speaker 1: is perfectly fine for the kiddos. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: most people don't consider the prospect of individually heating or
Speaker 1: cooling rooms, And I think that's such an important thing
Speaker 1: to think about because most of the time we're spending
Speaker 1: a lot of our evenings in one or two rooms,
Speaker 1: or we don't want our kids to be cold, and
Speaker 1: so we bump up the temperature of the entire household
Speaker 1: so that we can so we can keep our kids
Speaker 1: warm and their rooms. For me, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: overheated if we keep the Tampa anything above sixty six.
Speaker 1: But I want my girls to be warmer than than
Speaker 1: I am because I just can't handle that much heat.
Speaker 1: Les's because they're kiddos, right Like, they don't know it's
Speaker 1: wake up and kind of pull the comforter up and
Speaker 1: warm themselves. We've got young kids, and so the thing is, though,
Speaker 1: once you get your house warm, you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that that heat stays inside the house. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk now about some weather stripping and cock like
Speaker 1: when it comes to older houses in particular, man like,
Speaker 1: that is such an important step that you can take
Speaker 1: to make sure that you don't have actual drafts of
Speaker 1: cold air coming through your walls coming through your windows
Speaker 1: in the winter. You can buy this sort of ugly
Speaker 1: window wrap that goes over your windows and kind of
Speaker 1: use the hair dryer to kind of shrink wrap. It
Speaker 1: looks a lot like saran wrap, but for your window.
Speaker 1: It's ugly, but from windows that you don't open very often,
Speaker 1: it can actually work and can save you money for
Speaker 1: Have you ever used that before? So I had when
Speaker 1: we bought our house. We had it on a couple
Speaker 1: of windows, and it made a huge difference. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: kept it on for that winter, but then decided that
Speaker 1: we don't really want to re put it back on
Speaker 1: every winter. But but no, it does make a big difference.
Speaker 1: It's kind of unsightly. A similar option, though, is you
Speaker 1: can use this It's called seal and peel. It's like
Speaker 1: this removable cock And so if you know you've got
Speaker 1: old windows, like on our old house, there are windows
Speaker 1: that I can stand next to you and literally see
Speaker 1: the ground without anything obstructing my side. But like between
Speaker 1: the two sashes, like between the panes of glass and
Speaker 1: the ceiling peel cock, it goes on, but it's not
Speaker 1: meant to be permanent. And so if you want to
Speaker 1: open the window in the spring, when the mature starts
Speaker 1: getting a little bit warmer before it gets too hot,
Speaker 1: you just peel that off and you can pop open
Speaker 1: your window. It's great stuff, that's nice, you know, Matt.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people quickly go to
Speaker 1: replacing windows or doing you know, major renovations in order
Speaker 1: to make their house feel more comfortable. And new windows
Speaker 1: are nice, but they're really expensive, and they also aren't
Speaker 1: going to save you quite as much energy, I don't
Speaker 1: think as you thought they would. And some of these
Speaker 1: kind of interim things, some of these smaller things that
Speaker 1: you can do, like the peel and seal cock, are
Speaker 1: a way to save a lot of money on your
Speaker 1: monthly energy bills to make your house feel more comfortable
Speaker 1: without spending a lot of money. That's right. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: new windows, even though they might be double or even
Speaker 1: trouble pained, it's still glass, and so the our value
Speaker 1: on those windows, it's significantly lower than the insulation in
Speaker 1: the wall that you have in the you know, the sighting,
Speaker 1: like all the layers that you have on a regular
Speaker 1: wall are vastly superior to your window. So the fact is,
Speaker 1: if you have a window and you want to have
Speaker 1: a nice view to your yard and natural light coming
Speaker 1: into your room, like, fact is, it's going to be
Speaker 1: less efficient than if you didn't have windows. But what's
Speaker 1: key here is that you remove drafts so that you
Speaker 1: can remove air flowing in and out of your house
Speaker 1: when you don't want it, in particular in the winter
Speaker 1: when that cold air I wants to get inside your house,
Speaker 1: and specifically blackout curtains like big things can have a
Speaker 1: major effect in in kind of preventing those drafts from
Speaker 1: coming through and making your house feel uncomfortable. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: creates that insulating layer right there in front of the glass,
Speaker 1: So make sure you close those at night. Yeah, Matt.
Speaker 1: And one thing I've got some experience with is insulating
Speaker 1: an attic. That's huge. That's one of the number one
Speaker 1: ways that you can cut down on your heating and
Speaker 1: cooling costs is by having an attic that has proper
Speaker 1: insulation in it. This is something that you can d
Speaker 1: I y, you don't have to hire this out, and
Speaker 1: even if you did, it's not terribly expensive. But it's
Speaker 1: not really that hard to do. In particular, like blow
Speaker 1: in insulation. I'm not talking about the spray and phone,
Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the blow in cellulos exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: But yeah, my buddy J and I did it in
Speaker 1: just a couple of hours, and you know, he was
Speaker 1: kind of feeding in the cellulo stuff and I had
Speaker 1: this long hose and I was up in the attic
Speaker 1: can spraying it and we would kind of go back
Speaker 1: and forth and take the other person's job. It was
Speaker 1: kind of fun, uh and and really ultimately you know,
Speaker 1: cut down on the heating and cooling costs. So it's
Speaker 1: something you can do in just you know, a Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: and it's something that often, Like I said, we talked
Speaker 1: about how energy providers will pay you money to perform
Speaker 1: some of these energy saving techniques to your home, and
Speaker 1: that was something that my energy provider, I want to say,
Speaker 1: they paid for almost like the costs sweet rebate that
Speaker 1: was going. Yeah, it was really good. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's something to look into as well. And while we're
Speaker 1: on the topic of insulating, you can instant your water
Speaker 1: heater and your pipes as well. That way you're using
Speaker 1: less energy there. And if your house has a down attic,
Speaker 1: you know with like the stairs right that kind of
Speaker 1: allows you to walk up through the ceiling, those are
Speaker 1: notorious spots for energy leaks, and so you can insulate
Speaker 1: those with these big foam blocks that kind of go
Speaker 1: on top of it, or this thing called an attic
Speaker 1: tent where it's sort of seals the whole. You walk
Speaker 1: up the steps and then you unzip it et style,
Speaker 1: you know, like kind of go through the can, go
Speaker 1: through the radioactive hatch. And that's a great way to
Speaker 1: to save on your energy costs, especially in the winter
Speaker 1: when it comes to your heat. Yeah, one interesting thing
Speaker 1: to consider is getting a home energy audit, and lots
Speaker 1: of local utility companies offer free audits in person and
Speaker 1: if not, at least lots of times, I'll have an
Speaker 1: online version. And if your local utility doesn't offer something
Speaker 1: like that, well, the U. S Department of Energy has
Speaker 1: some online tools that can kind of help you gauge
Speaker 1: where your energy loss is coming from. Um, So that
Speaker 1: can kind of be helpful in at least seeing you know,
Speaker 1: where most of your dollars are escaping essentially out of
Speaker 1: these crevices in your doors and floors and windows and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Yeah, Joel, I mean that's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest categories of an energy audit, right,
Speaker 1: is to see where as air getting in or out
Speaker 1: of your house. And you know you can kind of
Speaker 1: do that yourself as well. You can d I why
Speaker 1: it by closing all your doors, right, all of your
Speaker 1: extra your doors, getting a stick of incense or a
Speaker 1: few sticks whatever, but then flip on all of your
Speaker 1: into your exhaust fans. So if you have a hood
Speaker 1: over your range, you know, any bathroom fans that suck
Speaker 1: air out of the house. And essentially what you're doing
Speaker 1: is creating a vacuum, so that air has to get
Speaker 1: into your house somewhere, and it's going to come from
Speaker 1: the path of least resistance. And so you take that
Speaker 1: stick of incense, you light it, and you go near
Speaker 1: the windows where you think you might have some air leaks,
Speaker 1: and anywhere you see sort of that's you know, that
Speaker 1: smooth line of smoke that should be going up. I
Speaker 1: can normally would you know, you start seeing that smoke
Speaker 1: kind of disrupted. Well, you know that, even though if
Speaker 1: you can't feel it, that's where you've got air coming in,
Speaker 1: and you can look for ways to to seal those gaps.
Speaker 1: For me, I don't need to light a stick of
Speaker 1: incense in the winter, man. I can stand in front
Speaker 1: of windows and when the wind blows, I can feel it.
Speaker 1: So through our old crappy windows have a long wind
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah, man, these old homes kind of drafty, right,
Speaker 1: all right, So another thing you need to consider is
Speaker 1: furnace maintenance, changing your filters like a few times a
Speaker 1: year at minimum, And if you have pets, you might
Speaker 1: want to consider replacing your filters like every other month,
Speaker 1: because you know what's expensive, What filters are a little expensive,
Speaker 1: but what's more expensive is your furnace not running efficiently.
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, in all likelihood, the
Speaker 1: fewer years that you're going to get out of that furnace.
Speaker 1: So being able to kind of extend the life of
Speaker 1: your HVAC system by replacing the filters as often as
Speaker 1: you should, that's gonna be one of the best things
Speaker 1: that you can do in order to save energy. Every month. Yeah, Juel,
Speaker 1: you know another way that we can get our natural
Speaker 1: gas or energy costs down is by lowering the temperature
Speaker 1: on your water heater. You know, by default it is
Speaker 1: typically sets at a temperature that will give you water
Speaker 1: that's about a hundred and forty degrees. But you can
Speaker 1: turn that down a little bit. You can take that
Speaker 1: down a hundred and twenty, which is still plenty hots
Speaker 1: for your dishwasher or the other needs you might have.
Speaker 1: And you know that can easily save you fifty bucks
Speaker 1: right there. Washing your clothes in cold tap water when
Speaker 1: you can, uh is the best way to save money
Speaker 1: on water heating costs too. And speaking of water map,
Speaker 1: we're going to get two ways to reduce your water
Speaker 1: usage that are easy to understand and pretty cheap to
Speaker 1: implement right after the break, right, So let's round this
Speaker 1: thing out now with water Agua. The biggest way that
Speaker 1: you can save in your water bill is to choose
Speaker 1: to have a yard that doesn't require lots of water
Speaker 1: or honestly any at all. So much of your monthly
Speaker 1: water bill can go towards watering the grass that's surrounding
Speaker 1: your house, when in reality that's something you can totally forego.
Speaker 1: And that the problem with water in your yard too.
Speaker 1: Is is that a lot of municipalities, the way they
Speaker 1: build water is that you get built a certain rate
Speaker 1: for the water that that you use, but you also
Speaker 1: get built for sewer as well, because they assume water
Speaker 1: that you're using is going down the drain. So obviously
Speaker 1: when you're watering your yard, that water isn't going back
Speaker 1: into the water treatment plant, but you're paying but you're
Speaker 1: paying for it exactly. And so that's why water can
Speaker 1: be so expensive when it comes to watering your lawn.
Speaker 1: I will admit we've we have personal experience with this
Speaker 1: because after renovating our house a little bit here, we
Speaker 1: totally chewed up the backyard and we wanted to get
Speaker 1: some grass, some rye grass, some clover. We wanted to
Speaker 1: get to get all that seated and started and going
Speaker 1: that way, we have a nice quote unquote lawn back there,
Speaker 1: you know, just we wanted to be green for them
Speaker 1: to play on. But that takes some water. And Joel
Speaker 1: I saw our water bell shoot from basically sixty bucks
Speaker 1: a month up to one eight, so basically three times
Speaker 1: what we've normally been paying just to turn the water
Speaker 1: on for five or six minutes. You know, every other
Speaker 1: day in the back, just so that see you can
Speaker 1: get started each Yeah, that's thanks. Yeah, that's where rain
Speaker 1: barrels can come in handy if you kind of attach
Speaker 1: those two a down spout and and then you can water.
Speaker 1: Let's say you give a small garden or you are
Speaker 1: trying to grow some grass in the back, Like a
Speaker 1: rain barrel can be a huge way to to capture
Speaker 1: that water in order to avoid using, you know, a
Speaker 1: spigot or a sprinkler in order to water your lawn.
Speaker 1: Another way to kind of save water, like a couple
Speaker 1: of really big ways are to install low flow toilets
Speaker 1: in your house. And and they make them of all
Speaker 1: different shapes and sizes, and they've gotten a lot better
Speaker 1: than they used to be. I think when low flow
Speaker 1: toilets kind of first came on the market, people were like,
Speaker 1: you have to flush them twice, Yeah, and it totally
Speaker 1: defeated the purpose exactly. They just weren't good that great.
Speaker 1: And now they've gotten actually pretty decent. Yeah, designs a
Speaker 1: lot better on them. Yeah. And so in the same
Speaker 1: way where we talked about power companies offering you rebates
Speaker 1: for doing certain things to make your home more energy efficient. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of local water companies will actually pay for
Speaker 1: the cost of an inexpensive low flow toilet if you'll
Speaker 1: install it, or in an expensive low flow shower head.
Speaker 1: So those are really good ways where you might be
Speaker 1: able to save water every single month and you're not
Speaker 1: even paying for the cost of the toilet or shower
Speaker 1: head that actually helps you get there. Yeah, it just
Speaker 1: takes a little bit of elbow grease, and honestly, once
Speaker 1: you install a toil at once you realize it's not
Speaker 1: that complicated. It's one of those sounds hard, but it's
Speaker 1: really not that bad. Yeah, it really isn't so here
Speaker 1: for us locally. Uh, the rebate was a hunter bucks
Speaker 1: and there were some select toilets that you could get
Speaker 1: for one hundred bucks, So literally they were paying for
Speaker 1: the cost of the toilet and all you had to
Speaker 1: do was just swap it out and you get that rebate,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you've got a brain new toilet,
Speaker 1: white and shiny, and you're also saving a lot of
Speaker 1: money when it comes to your water belt. You didn't
Speaker 1: get the gold toilet, like you know, those are the
Speaker 1: nice ones. That's what you should I prefer biscuit, like
Speaker 1: the whoever gets those right? Like white? But yeah, like
Speaker 1: the super off wide are like the kind of brown
Speaker 1: colored ones. They're like biscuit or biscue. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know what. I'm not a fan personally, but maybe
Speaker 1: folks are. But another approach to if you don't have
Speaker 1: that rebate is to adopt the old saying, if it's yellow,
Speaker 1: let it mellow. People are gonna think we're weird for
Speaker 1: saying that, but no, man, I've got three kids, and
Speaker 1: if they're all flushing the toilet every time the toilet
Speaker 1: is used, that is a lot of water that's getting
Speaker 1: flushed down that we're paying for. And so we we've
Speaker 1: trained our girls to not flush the toilet unless it's
Speaker 1: number two. I worry about my kids, like going to school.
Speaker 1: I'm like, are the teachers, Uh like, why aren't they
Speaker 1: plushing the toilet? I haven't got any feedback, but we've
Speaker 1: had this discussion before. This is an ongoing discussion that
Speaker 1: you and I have of about our girls. But it
Speaker 1: makes me think about our conversation with Chris and Christie
Speaker 1: from Life opted Out about living in a van, and
Speaker 1: they talked about their experience of traveling to India and
Speaker 1: what it's like to kind of use the bathroom over there,
Speaker 1: and the fact that we have running water, we have
Speaker 1: indoor plumbing, we have toilets at our disposal. Oftentimes we
Speaker 1: have two or three in our house. It's at least
Speaker 1: to quite the sophisticated genteel of life that we have, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so like the idea of letting your p just
Speaker 1: sit there in the toilet and not flushing it down
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous probably to a lot of people, but just
Speaker 1: think about it from a slightly different perspective, uh, and
Speaker 1: think about the way most of the world goes to
Speaker 1: the bathroom and how easy we have it, And then
Speaker 1: think to yourself, like, can I actually just like pe
Speaker 1: a couple of times in the toilet before I hit
Speaker 1: the flush button? It's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: Think about See if you go to a festival or
Speaker 1: a concert, right, like, where do you go? Like it's
Speaker 1: the porter potties and you know, letting it mellow for
Speaker 1: a little bit in your own house, and a clean
Speaker 1: toilet is way way better than a porter potty. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, like, if you can handle that, and if
Speaker 1: you can handle a porta potty or a Johnny on
Speaker 1: the spot or whatever you call them. Wherever you live,
Speaker 1: you can handle just letting it mellow for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Another way that you can save water is to consider
Speaker 1: taking shorter showers. And this is one that's gonna be
Speaker 1: tougher for me, because I do a lot of good
Speaker 1: thinking when I'm in the shower, like something about my mind.
Speaker 1: It like deactivates and disengages from the normal things I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to think about, and I find that I'm honestly
Speaker 1: the most creative and I come up with fun ideas
Speaker 1: and cool stuff when I'm taking a shower. But if
Speaker 1: you can take a shorter shower, you're gonna be able
Speaker 1: to save a lot of money, all right, So what
Speaker 1: about them more expensive upgrades? We kind of talked quickly
Speaker 1: about how you're replacing windows is an expensive endeavor and
Speaker 1: it might make your house, you know, feel a little
Speaker 1: more comfortable, and it will also lower your energy bills,
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things that's really expensive to do,
Speaker 1: and so it's something that you should really only consider
Speaker 1: if you're doing it for you, not if you're doing
Speaker 1: it for the energy and money savings attached to it.
Speaker 1: We'll take solar for instance. Uh, solar can be similar
Speaker 1: to a thought of replacing your windows. It can just
Speaker 1: be a really long payback period. You know, in some
Speaker 1: parts of the country, based on some of the government
Speaker 1: incentives that we have right now. In particular, the federal
Speaker 1: government is offering a thirty percent tax rebate on solar
Speaker 1: installations through the end of the year. Well, if you
Speaker 1: really nerd out on energy usage, then that incentive might
Speaker 1: be the thing that pushes you over the edge to
Speaker 1: actually install solar at your home. But you have to
Speaker 1: realize that even with that incentive, even with that rebate,
Speaker 1: it's still going to be in all likelihood more than
Speaker 1: a decade, potentially close to two decades in order to
Speaker 1: see that investment payback. That's right, Joel. So you gotta
Speaker 1: keep that in mind, right, replacing your perfectly good appliances
Speaker 1: with ones that are more energy efficient. Right, If you
Speaker 1: have a water here that works perfectly fine, or an
Speaker 1: HVAC or windows, and you're doing that just to save
Speaker 1: that money, well it's it's not really gonna work unless
Speaker 1: you're planning to stay there for maybe ten or twenty years. Really,
Speaker 1: the most impactful changes that you can have on your
Speaker 1: monthly utilities is by behavior modification. It's certain the cheapest option.
Speaker 1: And that's because you can't always buy or purchase your
Speaker 1: way to fix a problem, right like you can't spend
Speaker 1: money to become more efficient a lot of the times.
Speaker 1: Often it takes being a little more diligent, being maybe
Speaker 1: a little more discipline, or changing your behavior to truly
Speaker 1: save money. Yeah, I think it's important to make sure
Speaker 1: that we mentioned that some of these things you need
Speaker 1: to do on a regular cycle, like changing your filters
Speaker 1: or like that maintenance, right, cleaning those refrigerator coils, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, And so putting those things actually on your calendar, uh,
Speaker 1: in repeat fashion, so that you remember to do them,
Speaker 1: Because if I don't associate changing my filters with a
Speaker 1: specific date on my calendar, then the chances of it
Speaker 1: getting done are pretty much not exists, not going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so yeah, any way that you can kind of
Speaker 1: put it in front of your face, any way that
Speaker 1: you can help remind yourself that it needs to be
Speaker 1: done and to put it on a schedule, that's gonna
Speaker 1: help you actually take these steps, as opposed to just
Speaker 1: kind of hearing them in one ear and letting it
Speaker 1: go out the other That's right, Chel, I couldn't agree more. Man,
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead now and get back to this Beer
Speaker 1: Challenge Series number eleven. This is a double Brutes I
Speaker 1: p A donated to us by Bear Republic. So thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much out there in California. Joel, let
Speaker 1: me hear your thoughts on this one. Yeah. Bear Republic
Speaker 1: has been making beers for quite a long time and
Speaker 1: they make some really good ones out there, and this
Speaker 1: one in particular was man fascinating because, like you said
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the show, I think I've only
Speaker 1: had one brute I p A before, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of a newer style of I p A that, in
Speaker 1: essence tries to capture a little bit of what's going
Speaker 1: on in a champagne and a brute champagne. And it
Speaker 1: really does have this really interesting for hot sweetness on
Speaker 1: the beginning that transitions into this dryness on the back
Speaker 1: end that you would get when drinking some sort of
Speaker 1: a brute champagne. And I love how beers can just
Speaker 1: taste completely different than anything you've ever tasted before. And
Speaker 1: this is an I p A like I've never had
Speaker 1: so it was, yeah, fun to drink this one today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping some breweries around us start making like the
Speaker 1: style because I could totally see this working out well
Speaker 1: here in the South when it gets crazy hot in
Speaker 1: the summer. Like, what do you want? You want something
Speaker 1: that really hits you with a lot of flavor a
Speaker 1: lot of times? Or are you looking for something that's
Speaker 1: really clean? And to me, this drink is really clean,
Speaker 1: really dry. It reminds me a lot of sort of
Speaker 1: a dry jin martini. You sort of got those floral
Speaker 1: maybe even like juniper notes, but there's not that sweetness
Speaker 1: there on the back end. It does finish kind of dry,
Speaker 1: all right, James Bond, extra fancy, nicely done. Well, that's
Speaker 1: gonna be it for this show, my friend. So hopefully
Speaker 1: this episode, Matt challenges all of us to be a
Speaker 1: little more thoughtful in in how we look to conserve
Speaker 1: energy in our houses. I think there are some easy
Speaker 1: winds that we can get and I think it's helpful
Speaker 1: for us to think through these things. Not all of
Speaker 1: these things are gonna apply to you. Not all these
Speaker 1: things are gonna apply to everyone, and especially if you're
Speaker 1: living in an apartment, right you're not gonna install solar panels,
Speaker 1: you're not going to change out windows, but there are
Speaker 1: these little things that you can do, even if you
Speaker 1: don't own the house, in order to make these changes
Speaker 1: to save yourself some money when it comes to your
Speaker 1: energy bills. So, Joel, I think that's gonna be it
Speaker 1: for this episode. Uh, you can check out our show
Speaker 1: notes over at how its money dot com and we'll
Speaker 1: have some links over there with some of the things
Speaker 1: that we talk it's about on this episode. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you have found this podcast helpful, man, we'd appreciate
Speaker 1: a review from you on Apple Podcasts. And you know what,
Speaker 1: if you think that we've got room to grow and
Speaker 1: get better, send us an email at how to money
Speaker 1: dot com slash do Better. That's right, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you, said Joel. Until next time, Buddy, best
Speaker 1: Friends Out, Best Friends Out,