Living on a Budget

[McTahr]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

I know an electrician who says switching things on does too make a power surge. If you're going to leave a light off for less than 15 minutes before turning it on again you'll apparently save money by leaving it on. Which may be so little it's not worth mentioning, but I'm still going to. Cause that's all I've got.

Experience in physics and electrostatics tells me that your electrician is wrong. A circuit running is a circuit running. (Barring certain circuits involving components such as inductors, capacitors, and resistors, in which case there is a brief "charge time", typically to the value of the capacitor, which is extremely, extremely small. Most capacitors are rated in the micro or nano ranges.)

Assume a 60W bulb. Power usage for 15m is 60W/1000*.25 = 0.015kWh.
Let's say that the surge only happens over the course of two minutes. (This is a very generous assumption. Notice the bulb is pretty much full brightness from the very beginning.) 0.015kWh*1000/0.0333 = 450W pushed through in that two minutes to make this true. That's nearly four full amps of current running through your average light bulb at 120V. (Average american A/C wall outlet.) Increasing the wattage beyond a certain point heats the filament to unnecessarily high temperatures due to the extreme current, so even spread out over two minutes or more, the filament would pretty much roast if a significant surge existed.

Assume 400W computer (Roughly average non-gaming PSU running nearly full capacity last I checked). Let's say we assume that fifteen minutes of "off" time is equivalent to the power lost in the "surge". 400W/1000*.25 = 0.1kWh.
With a boot time of one minute (assumed to be when the "surge" happens) 0.1kWh*1000/0.01667 = ~6000W. I don't often see power supply units rated beyond 1kW, or 1000W. To look at this from the perspective of my 850W power supply, if it ran full blast all of the time for 15m (It does not.) then 850W/1000*0.15 = 0.2125kWh, I take a little under a minute to boot completely, to fully (relatively) finished loading, sitting at the desktop with no significant processor usage. So, 0.2125kWh*1000/0.01667 = ~12750W over the course of that minute to make this true. The wiring in the power supply would pretty much incinerate itself if it ran at that pace.

Even if we only assume that my computer ran at 300W (It most definitely runs higher than this.) for those fifteen minutes, the resulting surge wattage becomes ~4500W. Still enough to blow the PSU in a heartbeat.

tl;dr Your electrician believes false rumors. (That is not to say surges themselves don't exist, just that as evidenced by things not exploding, they are extremely small, on the scale of seconds or less of equivalent run-time.)

Not to call out you or your electrician obviously, but in a thread for saving money, may the least expensive theory prevail.

[Amake]

Yeah it seems like you know what you're talking about. I'd assumed this surge was pretty much instant, though now that I think about it going through 15 minutes worth of power in a split second would probably make any electric device explode.

[rpgdemon]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

I know an electrician who says switching things on does too make a power surge. If you're going to leave a light off for less than 15 minutes before turning it on again you'll apparently save money by leaving it on. Which may be so little it's not worth mentioning, but I'm still going to. Cause that's all I've got.

Also, Mythbusters totally debunked that with lights, at least. The longest charge time was like 20 seconds, on a florescent tube light.

[Aldurin]

1. Perfect cold fusion, patent it and make enough money that you never even think about budgets again.
2. Mug the guy perfecting cold fusion, steal his secrets and research and kill him (recommended for the not so sciency).
3. Get a fucking job. This will get easier as you get closer to being broke and homeless as you will search more frantically.
4. Make the ultimate sacrifice and cancel your gaming subscriptions until things pick up.
5. Find a rich family member who you don't like but will inherit his/her fortune anyway and kill him descreetly.
6. Invent time travel and beat your past self into a senseless pulp so that he understands financial responsibility.

[McTahr]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Also, Mythbusters totally debunked that with lights, at least. The longest charge time was like 20 seconds, on a florescent tube light.

God, why couldn't I have just found this when I was posting and linked it instead of spamming google trying to find max current ratings for various appliances and running the numbers on this at 4AM?

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Satan's Onion

While we're talking about free things...

You might try nosing around on the Internet to see if there's a local chapter of Freecycle (or a similar group) where you live. It's basically a group or mailing list or similar where people post stuff they don't want or need anymore but which still has plenty of use left, or post in search of certain items to see if anyone has any lying around that they'd like to give away. And the kicker is, it's all for free--getting and giving.

I'm a moderator for my local group, and it can be pretty neat. Your useless crap becomes someone else's great stuff, and you can end up with some awesome things for yourself.

Freecycle owns, everyone should get on it, this probably deserves its own thread.

Like pretty much what you should ask yourself is "do I like, or dislike, the idea of someone giving me a free George Foreman grill / hi-fi stereo system / sofa?"

If the answer is yes: you should be on Freecycle.

[Hanuman]

Freecycle if your area is good for it, there is about 6kilos of bread left out a day blocks from me due to it being day old and they don't sell that. Good tip, funny too: Less processed foods = cheaper than processed, since processes generally take energy and energy is money. This only really applies strictly to things made up of long shelf-life ingredients, ect.

Buy a rice cooker, buy a costco sack of brown rice. Go to a superstore, buy a lot of beans, there you go, complete protein shell. Different veggies every day, tofu, meat 2-3 times a week if you want to build muscle, fruits post-exercise, gg.

Funny thing is, rice, beans, tofu and broccoli can do you on 3-5$/day, add meat for an extra 5-10/week (ground bulk meat, freeze it). Water is free. Alternatively, for around 6-8/day you could go for big batches of chili with brown rice, tofu, meat and beans in it, add veggies (long cooking will degrade veg goodness unfortunately) and garlic and you got yourself a fairly fatty healthfood, delicious too. Stew works equally well, with both you can batch and freeze em for a weekly cook, zap em, no hassle cooking!

Either way, chinese cooking came out of the roots of poverty with the goal of health, real chinese cooking is your best bet, start growing food, or start earning more money.

[Satan's Onion]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

Freecycle owns, everyone should get on it, this probably deserves its own thread.

Like pretty much what you should ask yourself is "do I like, or dislike, the idea of someone giving me a free George Foreman grill / hi-fi stereo system / sofa?"

If the answer is yes: you should be on Freecycle.

In fairness, you shouldn't join up expecting to be showered with awesome luxuries. But if you keep an eye open for good stuff you can seriously luck out.

Also, as I've mentioned, stuff that's useless to you can become treasure for someone else. Like one day a couple of years ago somebody on my local list apparently said to themselves "Man, why am I keeping all these shows I taped years ago when I could have space in my garage" or whatever--and a couple of days later, I end up with the entire run of Doctor Who between Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy and what appears to be most of The Avengers .

[Eltargrim]

Originally Posted by McTahr

Not so much a budget guy myself, but I am horribly, horribly poor. (Not making rent this month poor!)

I wish you well!

One trick I've heard good things about is not using cards. Seriously just draw out how much you should need for the week in cash, and don't let yourself spend any more than that. It's easy to get a soda or a snack or some fast food or something at the swipe of a card, but when you know you've gotta make it through the week on X amount of cash, you suddenly fuck around a lot less.

My problem is the opposite; I rapidly lose track of how much I've spent with cash. I have sufficient self-control to not splurge using cards.

Small cost-cutting randomness:

All good ideas now integrated into my plans!

Originally Posted by Specterbane

Same with buying the store brand. Also plan what you need before you go to the grocery store and only bring as much as you need for that. It saves to money and time cause you don't screw around thinking "Do I need this?" NO! Make a list, stick to it, always remember toilet paper.

Always remember toilet paper.

<Job search advice>

Final thing I've learned so far, find things that are free or VERY low cost to spend your free time on. I'm usually a lurker on here, but I've been a lot more active cause I'm not working all day and doing other stuff with my evening. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to get back on these forums, and it's FREE (aside from the cost of internet). But yeah, replay old games, reread old books, get a library card, learn the basics of a new language from a $20 book from Barns & Nobel. The key is to spend your time well and to enjoy it while you can, cause you'll probably have a lot of it soon.

I'm a relentless pirate. Entertaining myself will not be difficult

Originally Posted by Nikose Tyris

It is possible to live in a dollar a day (or better) for food. It's also an effective time to lose weight.

I reccommend both.

Luckily, I am in good health, and intend to stay that way.

Originally Posted by Krylo

'Borrowing' wifi.

Neighbours have an unencrypted wifi network. I've thought about warning them about it in the past; glad I didn't make that mistake!

Also: Mooch. Mooching is the unemployed man's best friend.

Mooch like nothing else!

Originally Posted by McTahr

This. But for a lot of things. If you have to use coin-ops for laundry, and live near your folks, abuse their laundry facilities, even if you have your own set. (Saves on electric bills if nothing else.)

Having done the laundromat thing for long enough, I know the extreme value of friends and family with washing machines.

Make friends with people who grow their own produce. I have a friend who practically throws fresh fruits and vegetables at me and my family because his family's garden just makes too much for them to use.

I have just the person in mind

Originally Posted by pocheros

However, I find simply saving your receipts and writing down how much you spend in each category (grocery/transportation/etc.) on a daily basis is the best way to stick to a budget. The information itself isn't terribly useful, but reminding yourself how much money you've spent every day keeps you accountable. It's old fashioned but it's worked for me- I make just under $15,000 a year but I've never missed a bill and have kept myself clothed and fed with some leftover money. It's important to do it every day because it's easy to lose your receipts and forget how much you've spent.

I've acquired an iPod app to take care of such. And it exports information to a spreadsheet!

Oh, and don't use your credit card unless it's something you can only purchase with one (online transactions.) Personally, I use my credit card because I get a 1% rebate on my spending at the end of the year, but I never spend money I don't have and I pay off the balance in full every month.

My credit card gives me Air Miles, and my debit has a ridiculously low number of free monthly transactions. I've never carried a balance on it, and I don't intend to start.

In short, the biggest change I need to make is my eating habits; I've been eating fairly well up until now, but too much processed food, and too much eating out. That's going to change. More mooching, and more cost-cutting.

Thank you all for your advice; I feel fairly confident at this point in my finances for the next while. I'll keep you posted as to major changes.