Yesterday I posted about my financial strategy for keeping up with inflation. After I posted it I realized that there were other things that I have done over my lifetime that also worked but were not direct investments. There are investments in time and things that you can change in your lifestyle that will also work to mitigate inflation. Reduce your energy consumption!
Now, don't misunderstand me, I am no "Greenie". Personally, I feel that the human race is King and we should live like we are on the top of the food chain. After all, our ancestors didn't claw their way to the top of the food chain so that we could eat grass. We don't owe any other species any more than to treat them with respect, but not to degrade our lifestyle for their benefit. After all, a simple food chain that would work is Plankton, Whales and Humans. We eat whales, defecate in the sea to feed the plankton and the plankton produce oxygen to breathe and feed the whales. Simple, effective, but probably we would get tired of the blubber diet. But the green lifestyle has some advantages over and above not destroying the environment.
If you don't waste energy, you don't have to pay for as much of it. With inflation and scarcity driving up the cost. Not having to pay for what you waste is "income" that you can allocate to better use.
From 2007 to date I have been working on reducing the energy that I have to buy while STILL MAINTAINING the same lifestyle. I dont intend to give up anything but still reduce my expenses.
In that time period I have been able to reduce my electric consumption from 13,600 Kilowatt hours a year to only 10,850 Kilowatt hours a year. That is a reduction of 20%. With the current price of electricity here, thats an income to me of $357.50 a year. I did that by converting almost exclusively to CFLs and Florescent tube illumination, and replacing an aging 10 SEER AC unit with a "newer" not new, AC unit of 12 SEER. By using a good, but used unit that I got for free and paying someone $350 to install it the cost will be amortized very quickly. The cost of the changes were easily paid for with the savings of the FIRST TWO YEARS. After that its gravy...and because of inflation the savings is even more dollars.
I have reduced my natural gas consumption from 26,500cf to 24,000cf, a savings of $46 a year. This was accomplished with the AC replacement.
The big change was reducing my gasoline consumption from 1180 gallons a year to only 300 gallons a year AND I drive more miles and enjoy it more in my 2000 Honda Insight Hybrid that gets 65MPG (around town)to 118MPG (best highway) and I bought it used. At todays price for gasoline that is a savings of $2400 a year. The payment on the car loan is only $2400 a year so I got the car for free!!! The car has a better AC than my Jaguar sedan, and more room in the seats than the Jag and gets 4 times the mileage!
I just realized that I am not near done with my attack plan on inflation so I guess there will be a Part 3 tomorrow.
Jim Isbell
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