How to convince the wife and kids?

Someone help -- We are at the end of our Comcast promotion.  How do I convince the wife and kids to turn off the cable - and watch everything through Hulu, iTunes, Xbox360, Netflix??

You can do it!

This weekend do this -- maybe you will save some $$ this year.

1. Change the 6 - lights bulbs you use most -- to Compact Flourescent (CFL).   
2. Buy this - and stop buying bottled water. 
3. Drop to 120 - on the Hot Water Heater...  (free)
4. Stay home tomorrow - and eat all the food in the Frig that's getting ready to spoil... (free)
5. Cancel - the RTD, and this Crap - you read it online anyway...
6. Don't water your grass, wash your car, or take a shower tonight - it's going to rain tomorrow. (just kidding on the shower part...)

Were wrapping the hot water heater tomorrow..  I'm not sure I totally get it -- I would understand if the thing was sitting outside -- but it's inside and isn't this thing already insulated? Am I really go to improve the heater by wrapping it in insulation???  

STOP THE STAR WATCH

Anyone out their -- tired as I am with this worthless paper each week??

I hate it -- always have -- I finally took the time to find out how to STOP IT.  

Guess what -- It comes from the Richmond Times Dispatch / Media General.

Call this number and you too can be free of this paper from filling up your mailbox each week.  (and doing so you just saved 3 polar bears, 2 woodpeckers and a dozen feral cats)

644-4181

Another Great Tip!! 

You can stop all of your 3rd class mail from even coming to you by calling your post office.

You call the Post Office - they send you a form -- and poof -- No more 3rd Class mail. (which is all that stuff addressed "to current resident".)

Almost Done!

We knocked out a few more light bulbs with CFL's over the weekend. (If you are doing the same - i'm finding them cheaper at HomeDepot - at the store - not online.)

 Anyway, when we added it up again all of our old bulbs equaled about 1800 watts. Now by replacing them all to cfl's it's about 720 watts. 

That's a big difference.

If doing the entire house is too much for you at one time.  I would recommend at least replacing the most used lights - such as the kitchen and porch lights.  We even did the closets, and the light above the stove. 

The news is out!!

What ever was in the water in Richmond seems to have trickled its way to the southside.  We caught the bug and our little family will grow from 4 to 5...  I'm thinking 3 kids is going to be awesome - but probably won't be getting our own reality show for it. 

We have been prepping the 7yr and the 5yr for months about it.  Asking them if they would like to be a big brother one day, how cool would it be to change diapers (that didn't work).  But when we did share with them the good news.  We  didn't quite get the response we were looking for from the 5yr.

He immediately got upset --  He knows that you have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days when you are having a baby -- so he was very upset that mommy would have to go the hospital.

He then said "Mommy if you're in the hospital, How am I going to get to the Bus Stop".

From a 5yr olds perspective that's pretty important...

Bailing Water!

I showed you our electric bill.  and since then we have made some easy changes that anyone can and many of you  probably already do. Like turning off lights when you leave the room, turn the TV off when its time to eat (I'm referring to the 5 year old), and not forgetting to turn the Wii off (7 year old).  We have also changed many of our high wattage bulbs to CFL's.  Which turns out is not that easy.  The 60watt equivalent CFL bulb will not necessarily produce the same amount of light the original 60 watt produced.

Anyway, here is our water bill.  and this is going to be tough.  We water our GRASS and I take a 30 minute shower.  Enough said.. Goodnight!!!

This bill however, covers 7/21/08 - 9/23/08 - 63 days.  and shows that we used 15 CCF.  Which means we:

(15 ccf)748 = 11220 gallons

11220 / 63 = 178 gallons per day.  (wow)

178 / 4 = 44.5 gallons per day per person.

Now the 5yr, 7yr old probably didn't use 44.5 gallons of water and we were not watering our grass during this period.  But you get the point.  We use up a lot of water....  

Quick fixes --  shorter showers, fix some leaks, water grass less.  

HOW MANY CCF DOES YOUR HOUSEHOLD USE??

Bottled Water - Stops with Kaine

Yesterday, Govenor Kaine announced more budget cuts.  It may or may not be a significant cut but he has ended the purchase of bottled water.  Well, if Kaine can do it.  So can we.  Now in our house that's not really going to be a great deal of savings.  We only buy a 1-2 packs of bottled water a month.  For us that would be about $96 per year.  

I liked that Kaine announced that he would send more invitations to functions by e-mail instead of U.S. mail.  I think he could go a step further and get rid of some of the fax machines and go to an online fax service - such as myfax.com.  Which I have used for about 3 years and have no complaints!!

Kaine has also reduced newspaper subcriptions -- Kaine - Just end them all together - everything is online!!