Posted on: May 12, 2009 by Matt
Today I am going a little off topic and touching on another issue that I find increasingly important: saving our planet. Last night my girlfriend and I watched Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth. I had not seen the film before but had always had an interest in watching it due to the critical acclaim and the subject content. What I discovered was that our planet is in much worse shape than I had originally thought (and I had a pretty negative view to begin with).
If you have not seen the film yet please stop reading and head out to get a copy. Order it online, rent it, get it from Netflix, download the audio book from iTunes – just get a copy and try watching it with an open mind. You can also get more information from the web site www.climatecrisis.net in order to take action to reduce your carbon footprint.
Overall – I think it is important for everyone to learn at least a little bit more about our current environmental situation. If we do not take steps to save our planet we could be in for a nasty awakening. In addition – a lot of the steps you can take will also help save you money in the long run as well (hey a little frugal after all). That said here is a short list of my goals to help do my part:
- Replace standard light bulbs in the house with CFL’s: They use 60% less energy than a standard light bulb – enough said.
- Use less hot water: I am going to try to shorten my showers by 5 minutes each day. I am not sure what the current baseline is but I plan to time myself at a normal speed and then see what I can do to reduce that time. We already wash our clothes in cold water.
- Power off electronics when not in use and unplug: This may be a little tricky but I am going to see what we can do to turn off and unplug electronics while they are not in use. I can easily make this change at work without impacting anyone but myself so I will start in the office.
- Walk or bike to work: I live about 1.25 miles from the office I work from. I often am lazy and drive in to work. Follow that with a trip home and back for lunch and the end of day trip home and I am at about 5 miles a day. Walking or biking that would not only help the environment but also help my health!
- Recycle: Our town has a pretty weak recycling program: you actually have to pay to recycle. However my office has a big old dumpster for all-in-one recycling that we can add to. I have set out a paper bag in our kitchen to collect recyclable materials in and will continue to bring them in to be recycled.
- Use the local farmer’s market: I like to support local business and have been pretty bad about practicing lately. However – the local farmer’s market will be starting back up soon and I hope to start picking up some of our produce there. We also have a local grocery store that buys from local farmers as well that I have been shopping at more frequently.
So it is a fairly long list of steps I hope to take and I am sure that I will think of more along the way but I do believe that too often people get caught up in the “but I’m just one person, what can I possibly do?” mindset. For those of you personal finance nuts out there: Think of saving our environment like you think about passive income streams. Each of us can be a “passive income source” for the planet by making just a few changes to our every day habits. Each individual that makes a change adds to the overall total and with enough individuals the change will be massive. Plus – all of the steps suggested should save you some cash as well! I think we have a big win-win situation going here!
Posted on: April 14, 2009 by Matt
While surfing around the web the other day I came across a kind of neat site (www.webhostingchoice.com) that allows you to compare web hosting companies against each other in order to determine what company will best suit your needs. I found the site particularly interesting as my day job is in the IT consulting field and a lot of clients have various questions about web hosting.
In the past I have had to take a list of requirements from the client and review different hosting providers for the services the client requires. I have also had instances in the past where I have wanted to set up web hosting for personal reasons (like this blog) and looked at different companies to find one that suits my needs.
However – webhostingchoice.com now offers a place that you can quickly and easily compare multiple web hosting providers all in one location. There are breakdowns for different service offerings based on categories such as ASP hosting, Blog hosting, ECommerce hosting, dedicated hosting and even green hosting. Each hosting provider that is ranked on webhostingchoice.com has a full review with comments and ratings for the service offering which allows you to easily check out all the major contenders at once.
The format reminds me of comparing credit cards, car insurance or different travel options online and is pretty easy to use. I think I will be browsing around the site a bit more and doing a little bit of research to see if I can find a way to maybe save a few dollars on my web hosting. I am happy with my current provider but am always game to save a few dollars where I can.
Posted on: April 9, 2009 by Matt
The area that I live in is cluttered with small antique shops and many of them offer a range of items from inexpensive to higher priced rare items. I tend to like to find time to browse through the shops and see what kind of deals I can muster up. Most recently on Sunday I was helping my sister move into an apartment over a small antique shop and I took a stroll through.
I was not looking for anything in particular but when I walked by the jewelry case I noticed a decent looking silver ring with multiple colored stones in it. The price tag was set to $9.90. I figured it was probably glass or plastic set into the ring but upon further inspection noted that it was not plastic and was probably a material worth more the $10 they were asking (the silver in the ring was 925 sterling, easily worth more than $10). I asked them to hold it and opted to take the ring as a surprise gift for my girlfriend as she has been looking for a multi gem stoned ring.
She was pretty excited when I gave her the surprise gift and even more surprised at the cost. She is a bit of a jewelry nut (makes her own and such) and immediately began inspecting. She was not certain of the exact make up but noted that the “stones” looked like they were probably crystals of some sort if not the actual gem stones they appeared to be. All said and done – I was pretty happy with my surprise find.
I used to associate antique shops with over priced junk from another era but really enjoy walking through and finding what kind of deals I can find (occasionally leaving pleasantly surprised). Have any of you had any surprising finds at antique shops? What kind of deals have you picked up?
Posted on: April 8, 2009 by Matt
I suppose the title says it all. A few weeks ago I opted to give Kontera a shot and see how it worked out. So far – I am not terribly impressed. It is not so much that the total clicks were low (there were 2 registered) but more that I can not stand the number o f context links they put up.
Something about it just makes me feel like the site is dirty with Kontera running. All the context links with all the little pop-ups on hover. I just do not like it. I suppose it is a personal preference but Kontera is just not for me. So that is that – just a heads up and I am going to head out to remove my plugin now.
Posted on: April 3, 2009 by Matt
Since I moved out of my home office and into a small office space a couple of weeks ago I have noticed that my productivity has increased drastically. This may sound like a no brainer to most of you out there but for some reason my boss was a little hesitant when I approached him with the idea. He cited the economy and that he is hoping to cut expenses not add them at this point in time.
I performed a little market research in the area and found that most office space goes for anywhere from $450 – $650 per month in my area and includes very little. I managed to secure the space I am in now through my girlfriend’s family at $150 per month with all that I need (power, internet, heat, etc) included. I presented this to my boss with the addition that I thought I would increase my productivity enough to cover the difference.
Given that my company bills me out at $125 per hour (I wish I got to keep even half of it but I digress…) I noted that this is less than 1.25 hours of billable time a month and that I believed I could easily increase my billables by this to cover the expense. So he gave me the green light to move forward.
Here’s the fun part: while I was working out of a home office my best month of billables (not including project work) was around 35 hours of billable time. The rest of the time was put into putting out fires and dealing with all sorts of distractions. My boss noted that his goal for me was to reach about 33% utilization per month and last month I had my best month since I have been back billing 58.25 hours. So far this month (in just the first two days) I have billed out 10.5 hours! Needless to say – I am a bit impressed by the difference it has made for me to not have distractions. There is also plenty of other work to be done and billed. So I am going to guess that I will easily exceed my boss’s expectations this month!
Anyway – just rambling now but I am kind of excited because it feels pretty good to work uninterrupted and to feel more successful.
Older Entries
