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I have had a Kill-A-Watt Power Meter for a while now. It is definitely handy to have around to see how much power something uses. Most things are not too surprising, but I was shocked when I found out how much my DVR was using.

I live in Georgia where the local cable company is Charter. When my cable was installed in September, 2008, their DVR box was developed by Moxi. I have always had Comcast before, so the Charter Moxi DVR was a bit strange to me. I still don’t like it as much as Comcast’s, but I’ve learned to live with it. Of particular concern was that there is no way to turn it off. The remote has a power button that only turns the TV off, and the box itself has no power button either.

I dug out my Kill-A-Watt the other day and plugged it in to see how much power this thing uses. The DVR is essentially a small computer, so I was expecting it to use around 40-50 Watts, which is comparable to a small computer that I have. It turns out that the Moxi uses as much power as a full-fledged computer, coming in at 160 Watts. It runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is 3.84 KW/H per day or 115 KW/H per month.

At 7 Cents per KW/H, the DVR costs about $0.27/day, $8/month, or about $100/year to operate. I’m estimating that about 7-10% of my annual electricity usage is due just to this DVR.

I’m going to be calling Charter today to see if they offer a DVR that can actually be turned off. I won’t be terribly sad if they don’t have anything else available and I end up switching to Uverse, which I’ve been wanting to try out anyway.

In my last post, I mentioned cutting up a bunch of credit cards. In a move very unlike me, I had some desire to turn it into an art project. I figured that a bunch of small plastic pieces could be arranged into some interesting shapes.

These are the photos that I came up with. I think they are kindof clever. They are available for anybody to re-use so long as a link to this website is included with it.

I was unpacking some boxes today and came across a small stack of credit cards that have all expired. I went about my normal routine of destroying them and though that it might be interesting to somebody.

• First, cut horizontally through the numbers on the front of the card. You might be able to cut the numbers into a couple thin strips.
• Next, do the same with the magnetic strip on the back of the card.
• Some cards have the full card number on the back of the card, in the signature strip as well. Cut those in half too
• I then cut all of those long strips into about 1/4 inch pieces.
• Mix all of those small pieces up and divide into two trash cans. If possible, put half out with the trash one week and the second half out the next week.

That will make it pretty much impossible for somebody to recreate your card

In short, none of the changes from the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package apply to homes purchased in 2008. Section (f) of the bill states:

(f) EFFECTIVE DATE.-The amendments made by this section shall apply to residences purchased after December 31, 2008.

Basically, for homes purchased in 2008, the credit is still $7,500 and you still have to pay it back over 15 years. The IRS has updated their Form 5405 (PDF) to reflect the changes from the stimulus package that applies to homes purchased in 2009.

A couple weeks ago, I bought some 1-oz Silver Buffalo coins on ebay. They were for a relatively good price, and I researched the seller as much as possible to verify that they looked reputable, and everything seemed in order. A day or two after I had bought them, I got an email from eBay stating that the auction had been canceled and it no longer showed up anywhere in my eBay account. That was a little worrying to me, so I immediately started a PayPal dispute in hopes that if it had been a scam, that my money could still be refunded.

The seller had already sent me an email stating why the auction had been canceled (evidently some poor wording on their payment terms that eBay didn’t like). I was still uncomfortable, so I replied and asked that the transaction be refunded. Shortly afterward, the seller sent the refund via PayPal, so everything worked out fine.

At this point, it was evident that the seller was legitimate (no scammer would have ever refunded my money), They still had a good deal on the coins, so I went directly to their website and re-ordered the same thing. It mentioned that delivery could take a couple of weeks, which is fairly normal, so I expected them soon.

This weekend I received the package via FedEx (earlier than I expected) and found that it actually contained more than I expected. Some mix-up had occurred and even though they had refunded my initial eBay transaction, the coins still got shipped.

So I now had some extra coins valued at about $300. I was pretty tempted to just keep the coins and figure that I was fortunate – something that I think many people would probably do. Maybe the seller would go through their books and eventually figure out the problem. If they asked me directly about it, then I wouldn’t lie, but maybe they wouldn’t ever discover it.

Despite that temptation, I emailed them this morning and explained that they had shipped me extra. I offered to pay for them at the same price that I had paid for the others. Their reply thanked me for my honesty, saying that it was ‘refreshing’, and that I could pay them for the coins as I suggested, and without shipping. I just finished paying for them and can’t describe how good that it feels to be honest.

Since is appears the stimulus package will now pass, I’m looking at how it will change the first time home buyer credit. At one point, it was supposed to be increased to a $15,000 credit that didn’t require repayment.

With a little bit of searching, I was able to find the Final version of the bill (PDF) that contains the actual changes that will signed into law. There is too much speculation and too many summaries floating around online, so I thought it best to read the bill myself. The text for the homebuyer credit starts on page 24.

These are the significant changes that I believe apply (at least the ones that I’m concerned about)

• $7500 credit is changed to $8000
• Home must be purchased before Dec 31, 2009 (instead of July 1, 2009)
• For homes purchased during 2009, you don’t have to repay the credit (Under the original deal, and still for home sold during 2008, you have to pay back $500 a year for 15 years – starting 2 years after you take the credit)
• The credit now applies to those who finance their home with mortgage revenue bonds (although I have no idea what this means)

The IRS hasn’t made any changes on their site yet. They have a note saying that there will likely be changes, but haven’t changed anything yet. I suspect that they will modify form 5405 (PDF) to compensate for the new amounts. For now, I’m doing my taxes and replacing the $7,500 with $8,000.

I just heard this short news story on the radio:

It pays to get a good eduction.

Studies show that as the education level of a worker goes up, the more likely they worker is to participate in a retirement savings plan

One, as your education goes up, your more likely to earn more, and second of all, it looks like people wo have a higher education are more likely to make smart decisions about saving for their future by using a 401k or similar type plan.

Thats according to Craig Copeland, a senior research associate with Washington-based Employment Benefit Research

Well Duh! This is news? I wonder how much that study cost.

Line 26 on IRS form 1040 is for an income deduction for moving expenses.   According to IRS Form 3903, it is not clear how moving applies to telecommuting jobs. The instructions say:

If you move to a new home because of a new principal
workplace, you may be able to deduct your moving expenses
whether you are self employed or an employee.

I telecommute full-time for my job and last year moved from Maryland to Georgia. The main reason for moving was just that we needed a bigger place and were ready to own our own home. I used to work at a desk in our bedroom, and now have a nice sized office in the new house where I can work comfortably. So I think I can make a case for moving to a new ‘principal workplace’ and claiming the expense. The moving expenses were significant and will be be nice to be able to deduct them.

One of the companies that I work with sent me a $100 gift card for DonorsChoose.org as a Christmas gift.   I had not heard of the website before, but the concept seemed simple enough.  Teachers submit projects and then people can donate money to fund them.   The company does some validation to ensure that the projects are legitimate.  When it is funded they then order the supplies and ship it to the teacher.

The process sounds good and it actually works quite well.   I chose to donate the whole $100 to a teacher from a low-income school (most of them are) who wanted to buy flash cards for her fourth grade students.   There was only a couple of projects from my city, so I didn’t pay much attention to the details.

As a donor, I was impressed by the process.  I received an update after the project was fully funded and a thank you email from the teacher.  I also received access to a report of where the money went.  And that is where I am less impressed.

The teacher requested 50 sets of multiplication flash cards so that her students could take them home and practice, etc.  The  company priced those at $6.99 per set  for a total of almost $350 worth of flash cards.    They then add 10% for shipping, 4% for sales tax, 2.5% for payment processing, about 5% for a thank you package, and 15% for optional fulfilment labor.   A total of $500 for 50 sets of flash cards seems a bit steep.

I then looked on Amazon and found the same basic flash cards brand new for $1.63 each with free shipping -a total of $81.50 or less than one sixth off the $500 that DonorsChoose needed for it.   I understand that they have some overhead, but that seems pretty ridiculous.

My family just moved into our first house, and the lawn is getting pretty overgrown.   I don’t think the Realtor had it mowed after we looked at the house about 3 weeks ago, so the grass was well over two feet tall in some places.  Unfortunately, the lawn is not in very good shape, so we will have to put a fair amount of work into getting it into a good condition over the next year or so.

Sine we hadn’t owned a home before, I’ve never owned a lawn mower.   With all of the moving expenses, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of buying a new lawn mower.    I did some initial research online and had decided one some featured that I needed.   Mainly, I need a mower that mulches and bags (and the side-discharge option wouldn’t hurt).   I looked at electric mowers, but the battery operated ones don’t last long enough to do our yard, and I don’t want to have to drag an electric cord around.

The mower I was looking at was $299 from Home Depot, with a $20 rebate.   I still wasn’t prepared to spend that much on a mower, so I scoured craigslist to try and find a deal.  I spent an evening calling various ones that looked promising, but the most affordable ones were all pretty old or didn’t do mulching like I need.

Eventually  my wife talked me into going to Wal-Mart to see what options they had.  They had about what I would expect with various options in varying price points.   I settled on one for $184 that was the cheapest option that did everything that I wanted.  However, I wasn’t able to find a box for the particular model that I was looking for.  I asked a sales associate who couldn’t find any either, but pointed me to a few mowers outside that were returns.

Essentially, these were mowers that somebody had bought, used a few times, and then returned for whatever reason.  Wal-Mart had sent them to a small engine repair shop who verified that they all worked and then put them back out for sale at half of their original price.   There was only three mowers available, but one of them had everything that I was looking for.  I could tell that it had been used because there was some obvious signs of grass stuck to the  underside.  But all of the original stickers were still on the outside, and they all looked brand new.  The bag showed no signs of usage, and it generally appeared in good shape.   The mower was originall $220, but they had it for $110, and I bought it right up, very excited to find what I was looking for at such a bargain.

I also picked up a gas container, and got a couple of gallons of gas on the way home.   The mower worked perfectly for the entire 2+ hours it took to mow the lawn.  It got a little clogged up at times, but that was expected with 2+ foot tall grass.   I was also glad to have the side-discharge option, as the mulcher needs the gras to be fairly short, and I didn’t want to catch the grass and have to empty it every 10 feet.