Stop Wasting Your Money On Fancy ‘Experiences’ (and Be Happier Doing It)

Park: Credit Ilya Ilyukhin
August 14, 2017

Today this article came up in my Facebook feed. It echoed a sentiment I’ve seen in many different places. Stop buying stuff, start buying experiences. This is good in that it helps people reduce their waste but bad in that it simply replaces one outlet for excess spending with another. Spending is a big issue with Americans awash in debt and often headed towards bankruptcy. Spending gobs of money on yourself…

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Your Overused Air Conditioner Burns Money

Burning hundred dollar bill
July 26, 2017

It’s summertime and that means most of the United States is turning on our air conditioners. As of 2009 over 87% of all homes in the U.S. had some form of air conditioning, and that number is probably well over 90% now. Cooling accounts for 6% of an average home’s annual energy use. This might sound small, but when you consider that you’re only running your AC for about 25%…

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Springtime for LED Bulbs and America

Bulbs in Bloom
May 10, 2017

Springtime is upon us. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming and our thoughts naturally turn towards light bulbs. Okay, maybe not naturally, but this is the best time of year to think about your lighting. By this point in time we probably all know that LED bulbs are the best, but many of us are still dragging our feet on installing them. Maybe you’re just waiting for your…

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Reusable Bags Crush Disposables

April 12, 2017

Disposable plastic shopping bags are in the news again. This time it’s because the governor and state legislature of New York have overridden a local bag fee law passed by New York City. The politics of this thing are dispiriting (state legislators overriding local laws, moneyed interests pretending to be grassroots groups, etc.), but I’m going to put that aside for now and focus on a scientific claim. Many of the opponents…

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Super Cheap Cloth Diapers

Diapers are expensive. (Image: 20th Century Fox)
February 16, 2017

My favorite line in Raising Arizona is where H.I. walks into the Short Stop and says “I’ll be taking these Huggies and uh whatever cash you got“. It’s hilarious for a lot of reasons, but it also speaks to a real world truth: diapers are expensive! In my last post I went over how much easier reusable diapers are than disposables, but didn’t really cover the cost. Cost is hugely important though,…

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Ridiculously Easy Cloth Diapers

Easy Cloth Diapers - Credit: Matt Herndon
February 14, 2017

I started thinking about diapers over a year ago when my wife was pregnant with our first child. The idea of sending a ton of disposable diapers to landfills had always disturbed me, but I was also afraid of the difficulty of cloth diapers. I was going to be the parent staying home so I’d be doing the majority of diaper changes. Did I really want to sign up for something as hard…

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Explainer: Why Leaving Your Thermostat The Same All Day Wastes Money

Home Alone Furnace (Credit: 20th Century Fox)
January 31, 2017

Keeping Your Thermostat The Same All Day Wastes Money No one likes to waste money, right? Unfortunately, there are still some pernicious myths out there slowly draining our bank accounts. One of these myths is that leaving your thermostat at the same temperature all day somehow saves money. This is untrue for the vast majority of homes, yet the myth won’t die. Many sites on the internet will tell you that…

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Eight Money Saving New Year’s Resolutions That Also Save The Planet

Path
January 3, 2017

It’s 2017 and that means it’s time for some money saving New Year’s resolutions. All of these are free or cheap to do so they’ll save cash quick. Having some more dough won’t hurt your bank account, and the energy they’ll save will help the planet too. Doing everything below could save you thousands of dollars a year, but even if you only do the Good option for a few you’ll still save…

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Car Free Tempe Baby

Father and son biking past the Tempe Center for the Arts
December 20, 2016

Getting started When I first learned that we were moving to Tempe, Arizona I figured we’d take our car along with us. We’d be moving there at the start of August, when temperatures could easily break 120 F. I’d done a fair amount of non-car travel in my past, but we’d have our 8 month old baby with us in this harsh desert, so of course we’d have to have a car,…

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Climate Change Deniers Don’t Want to Be Bad People

November 29, 2016

There’s been plenty written about climate change the past few decades. Ranging from massive IPCC reports with peer reviewed data written collaboratively by thousands of scientists across the world to random blog posts paid for by conservative think tanks. The latter cite figures like “over 31,000 scientists have signed on to a petition saying humans aren’t causing global warming” while conveniently ignoring that less than 1/3 of these people have Ph.D.s and…

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