CalorieCents

So I tried to be clever about a few things and it ended up costing me (sort of).  I guess I should back up first though.  I’m a big supporter of the New York Public Library.  Ever since someone had told me you could borrow books online and deliver them to the library of your choice, I’ve cut down significantly on buying books.  I’m going to keep a tally of books that I borrow versus books that I buy and compute how much I’ve saved by borrowing the book.  I usually buy my books from half.com so I’ll use those prices for the books that I borrow.  Maybe I’ll even review the books that I read.  I’m interested to see the results.

On to the semi-smart move.  I recently used Amex points to get a $100 gift card to Home Depot.  I was going to use the card to buy CFL bulbs to replace for most of our conventional bulbs and then buy a timer for our heating/AC unit.  The bulbs are an obvious move as we need to cut down on our energy usage.  We use a “green” provider and their rates are higher than conventional electricity providers.  Most of the lights used 60W bulbs but I decided to switch to 100W equivalent CFLs.  Four of the bulbs were used in the kitchen but when I tried to install them in the hallway fixtures, they didn’t fit.  So I went back and I exchanged them for the 60W equivalent CFLs which are working great.

Also, on the second trip, I purchased a heavy duty on/off timer for our heating unit.  I have gotten sick more frequently this year than any other year and it’s been mostly related to one thing.  Our baby.  My wife kicks on the heater when our baby goes to bed and it doesn’t shut down until one of us wakes up at around 5 or 6am.  Normally this would be fine but I usually wake up at around 2am in a pool of my own sweat.  I will go sleep in the living room to cool down and then wake up again at around 5 or 6am to go back into the room.  Add any kind of abnormal night behavior from our baby and I think I have the perfect recipe to contract colds.

So the timer would function two fold 1) make sure that I stay in bed without needing a towel and 2) help us cut down on the heating bill.  Unfortunately, instead of a normal grounded 3 prong plug, this heater uses a strange 3 prong that I have never seen before.  Usually the top two prongs are parallel to each other but these are perpendicular to each other.  I have never seen that before and my attempt at saving money is shot.  I’ve already opened up the timer and highly doubt that I can return it.

Argh.