Lazy Man and Money

Happy Earth Day!

by 4 Comments

Earth DayI hope everyone is looking forward to a Happy Earth Weekend.

My wife recently decided that Earth Day is her favorite holiday. She runs a local freecycle. People come and drop off things that they don’t want and pick up other things for free. Last year, we donated a ton of stuff, clearing out much of our garage. We picked up a working 42″ television. It was perfect for our new basement.

It would be great if we could sell some of the things, but we list them, and they never seem to find a home. The freecycle works a lot better. Everyone loves free stuff. Hopefully, everything finds a second home.

It’s a lot of work to run the event. At the end of the day, a bunch of volunteers takes anything left over to a place (Goodwill or the Salvation Army) that accepts all sorts of donations. We generally don’t get stuck with stuff like e-waste that’s hard to get rid of.

Reviewing our Solar Power Purchase

Earth Day is also a perfect time to review our solar power journey. We got our panels back in 2015. At first, I was curious about all the sales calls suggesting we lease solar panels. I didn’t like the terms of those leases. They may not have been bad if you didn’t have any savings, but it seems significantly better if you owned the panels.

At the time, there were a number of government subsidies for solar power. We ended up paying about half of the $33,000 our system would cost. So it was $16,000 out of pocket. I don’t know how to report the size of our system or the specifications, but every year we generate around 9.0 MWh of electricity.

In the beginning, it almost always covered all of our energy needs. However, as the years have gone on, we’re using more electricity, and we fall a little short and have to pay a small electric bill. Perhaps I can blame the kids for growing up – LOL.

If you were to list states where solar power makes sense, I’m sure Rhode Island wouldn’t be at the tip of your tongue. It turns out that solar in Rhode Island makes a lot of sense. Our electricity prices are one of the highest in the country. We recently paid $0.33 per kWh, which breaks down to $0.23 for generation and $0.10 for delivery. It used to be cheaper for generation, but in New England, we use a lot of natural gas to make electricity. The price of natural gas has gone up with the Ukraine/Russia war.

At $0.33 kWh, the 9000 kWh (9.0 MWh) we generate this year would cost us nearly $3,000. With it being the 8th year of generating electricity, we’re a little past the breakeven point. When electricity was cheaper, we may have only saved $2,000 a year, but that’s grown over time. Alternatively, we could have invested the $16,000 in the market and perhaps doubled it to $33,000 by now. However, in that scenario, we would have had to cash out some of the investment each year to pay for our electricity use.

As you can tell, the math on whether it’s breakeven now is complicated, but it’s close to breakeven with whatever calculation you want to use. Our solar panels are guaranteed to be 90% as efficient as they are now until year 25. So we have at least another 16 years of free electricity to enjoy. I suspect that the cost of electricity will only go up from here, but let’s assume it averages the price it is now. At $3,000 a year, we’re looking at $48,000 in savings.

I haven’t looked at the costs of solar panels recently. I think some of the government incentives went away during the Trump administration. However, I think Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act may have helped make solar cheaper. I’m sure that the solar panels that you would buy today are more efficient than what I got eight years ago.

If you haven’t looked at solar power in a while, this is a good time to run the numbers.

Happy Earth Day 2022!

by 2 Comments

Earth DayI hope everyone is having a good Earth Day today. It snuck* up on me. As I mentioned in my last article, I’ve been busy boarding dogs while people travel during their April school vacations.

Let’s kick things off with…

Solar Power Update: Seven Years Later

We just completed our seventh year with solar panels and they’ve been great. The only “hassle” was one of the 20+ inverters that failed earlier this year. We were generating 5% less energy for a month while our local company sourced the part and installed it free of charge. I wish all my problems could be solved as easily as typing a few emails like that.

We paid $16,000 for the solar panels back then. Normally they would have twice that – $32,000. There were some energy programs and tax credits, which cut the price in half. Let’s see how it’s paid off so far.

In the 7 years, our panels have generated 64.9MWh of electricity. Don’t worry if you don’t know your energy conversions, I don’t either. That’s 64900 kWh of power. I went to our electric bill to see what the cost of a kWh is and it’s 24.05 cents in Rhode Island. We have expensive energy here. That’s one of the great surprises about solar power – it’s very cost-effective even in states that you wouldn’t think are sunny. If our energy was cheaper it would take longer to make back our investment.

At today’s cost of electricity (24.05 cents), the 64,900 kWh of energy would have cost us $15,610. That’s very close to breaking even. It’s not entirely fair, because the cost of electricity wasn’t always $0.2504 kWh. For example, when I reviewed our solar energy after four years the cost of a kWh was around 21 cents. In addition, we had to pay for the panels in 2015 dollars. Everyone is thinking about inflation nowadays and 2022 dollars just aren’t the same.

It’s not worth going through and adding up the cost of electricity each year and getting an inflation calculator together. I think it’s safe to say that we’d hit “fake” break-even next year, with “fake” meaning that it wouldn’t account for these factors. We’d theoretically hit real break-even in 2024 – after 9 years of ownership. It looks like we’ll save around $1,750 a year after that. That’s roughly 7,200 kWh produced each year at $0.2405. Of course, energy will continue to go up in price and maybe our efficiency will go down (though it’s guaranteed to be 95% for 25 years or something similar).

Long story short, our solar panel purchase was a great money move and great for the environment.

Moving on from the solar update, there are a couple more things I wanted to cover today:

Encourage Kid Entrepreneurship this Earth Day

Over on Kid Wealth, I wrote about how to inspire a kid entrepreneur this Earth Day. I worked out a business plan where he could make and sell can tab bracelets for a small profit. Recycling and entrepreneurship are a winning combination.

I’ve been working on a new Kid Wealth home page. It’s not perfect, but I think it looks great on desktop browsers. There are a couple of things that I know are broken. For example, I link to content that isn’t published yet. So for now, let’s keep that a secret between us.

Previous Earth Day Articles

Here’s a look back at my Earth Day Articles from the years gone by:

  • Climate Change is like Personal Finance

    Whether it is personal finance or fighting climate change, the little things add up to become big things over time.

  • All At Once

    COVID shut down hit one month when I published this one. The Jack Johnson lyrics written in 2008 about the environment described how many were feeling about COVID.

  • Solar Panels: One Year Later

    My one-year review of solar panels.

  • Solar Panels Completed

    My post after finishing the installation of the solar panels.

  • Four Lazy Ways to Save the Environment

    This is an old article from 2009. I was recommending CFLs – those corkscrew bulbs. We still have and use some, but the technology with LEDs is better and more cost-effective now.

If you’ve finished all that reading… or even if you haven’t, I hope you take some time to get outside and enjoy Earth day today.

* Some people don’t believe that snuck is a word, but I’m sticking to it. Wordle says it is a word. Then again, I’ve gotten away with “gwine” and “comby” too, so…

Climate Change is like Personal Finance

by 2 Comments

Earth DayHappy Earth Day!

It’s amazing to me how long we’ve been talking about the importance of the environment and things rarely seem to change. Last month, I wanted to show my kids an example of great physical comedy, so I found a clip of Fire Marshall Bill (Jim Carrey) from In Living Color. He comments on the kids’ “Save the Planet” artwork. It’s hard to believe this was roughly 30 years ago:



A little more recently, I’ve been writing about Earth Day since 2009. Before that, I was writing about the environment in one-off articles, usually in a push to get people to adopt Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) bulbs because LEDs were new and too expensive. That’s still twelve years ago.

Last year I tricked you by using the song lyrics of Jack Johnson’s environmental anthem of All At Once to make it seem like I was writing about COVID-19. A few years before that I wrote about our four years of solar panels.

We’re up to 6 years of solar panels now. We’ve generated 56.2-megawatt hours. According to our Enphase panel we’ve produced the equivalent of 1016 trees saved.

Since this is a personal finance blog, let’s get to the financials, shall we? The cost of a kWh of energy in Rhode Island is 21.73 cents. Thus the 56,200 kWh we’ve generated would cost us $12,212.26. (This makes the assuredly false assumption that the price was a consistent 21.73 cents over the last 6 years. With that caveat in mind, let’s continue the analysis anyway.) We spent $16,000 on the solar panels. As I predicted when we got them, they’d pay for themselves in about 8 years… after that, we’ll enjoy savings. It is likely that the cost of energy will just continue to go up. It seems like we save around $2000 a year in electricity costs.

Now that I’ve covered just about every environmental topic except for the title, let’s get to my main Earth Day thought for 2021:

Climate Change is like Personal Finance

There are a couple of overarching principles in personal finance. One school of thought is that if you do a few of the really big things well, you’ll be fine. Examples of these include getting a high-paying job, not spending too much on house/transportation, and investing early.

Another school of thought is that if you can reduce a lot of the small, often repeated costs, you’ll be fine. Some examples of these include brewing coffee at home vs. the coffee shop and bringing your lunch to work.

Many personal finance bloggers will say that it is one or the other, but I’m a big fan of both. It’s possible to not buy a McMansion and avoid Starbucks. I had no problem bringing my lunch to work in my 10-year old car. Yes, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.

What does this have to do with climate change and the environment?

If you do a lot of the little things to help the environment they add up. This is the famous “reduce, reuse, recycle”:



(You had to have known that I was going to sneak Jack Johnson into this article, right?)

What about the other side, doing a few of the really big things? Unfortunately, many of those things are controlled by governments and big corporations. As individuals we have a vote, at the ballot box or with our wallets, to put leaders in power to create policies that will make big differences. In my town, there was a long, long fight to ban plastic bags at the grocery store, because the plastic bag lobby (who knew this existed?) inserted itself into the town’s politics.

In the end, the winning formula for personal finance or the environment is to do the little things AND the big things. Don’t get discouraged if it seems like the progress is going too slowly. Every little bit helps, neither is all or nothing.

All At Once

by 5 Comments

All at once,
The world can overwhelm me
There’s almost nothin’ that you could tell me
That could ease my mind

Today, I’m going to exercise some poetic licence – in a couple of very different ways. In a literal sense, I’ll be quoting a famous person’s poem. In a less obvious “poetic” sense, I’ll be straying from the topic of personal finance.

That quote above invoked some feelings, right? What about this next verse?

Which way will you run
When it’s always all around you
And the feelin’ lost and found you again
A feelin’ that we have no control

Did that strengthen those thoughts? I know I’ve been feeling all this since the middle of March.

What if I told you that this poem isn’t about what you think it is?

What if I told you that this was written more than a decade ago?

(What if I told you that I’m going to stop asking these rhetorical questions?)

There’s gonna be the new hell
Some say
It’s still too early to tell
Some say
It really ain’t no myth at all

I don’t know if this is a “new hell”, but sometimes it can feel like that, right?

Recently our government has said that this situation was “too early to tell” and it was a myth/hoax.

I wanna take the preconceived
Out from underneath your feet
We could shake it off
Instead we’ll plant some seeds
We’ll watch em’ as they grow
And with each new beat
From your heart the roots grow deeper
The branches will they reach for what
Nobody really knows
But underneath it all
There’s this heart all alone

Did I take the preconceived out from underneath your feet?

This “poem” is not really a poem. These are song lyrics.

The song is “All at Once” and it was written by Jack Johnson in 2008.

It’s about climate change, not COVID-19 (coronavirus).

Today is Earth Day. It’s the best day of the year to write about our solar panels. They are still a great value – one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

A few years ago, I wrote about how Jack Johnson is the champion of environment. He created the All at Once foundation to help with environmental causes.

This may not be the time to focus on the environment. The strange thing is that it’s okay. Physical distancing and closing of businesses is helping the environment more than almost anything we’ve done in the past. For example, Los Angeles has some of the cleanest air of any major city.

We’re learning that we can make a big difference – even if it’s by accident. It certainly isn’t the path that we would have picked if we had a choice. However, the results are stunning. We’re finally making progress for the first time in decades.

It’s very difficult to find silver linings during this time. For one day, or even a few minutes, let’s focus on this one.

Jack Johnson, Earth Day, and the Environment

by 2 Comments

On Monday, I wrote that I am declaring it Jack Johnson Week. It appears that everyone was so floored by the idea that they couldn’t muster the finger energy to compose a single comment. I didn’t realize it was that amazing until my wife said she read and liked the article.

(Sometimes I wonder if my wife reads 10% of my writing. If I sneak some kind of mention in future articles that I had an affair with Scarlett Johansson you now know why.)

I won’t rehash all the details of the previous article because this is likely to be a long article. Quickly, Jack Johnson is a musician, mostly known for a song or two in the early 2000s. That article tried to explain why I think he deserves a lot more attention than what he’s received.

What would you say if I told you that Blossom was a neuroscientist? (She is!) Or what if I told you that Winnie Cooper was a noted mathematician? (She is!)

When I became a fan of Jack Johnson’s music, I didn’t realize how much work he’s done as an environmentalist. It feels like being a fan of Michael Jordan’s baseball skills only to find out he also played basketball.

Side thought: Bialik, McKellar, and Johnson were born in 1975. What a magical year, right? (Wife, are you reading this?)

The environment isn’t a typical focus for this blog, but it is something I cover a few times a year. What better time than the week around Earth Day to cover it? Saving the environment is a cause that I deeply believe in. You can read about our solar panels here. Or you can read my article in 2008 about how the Enviromoms limit their garbage to a one can a year. I’m not nearly an extremist like them. Heck, we have two SUVs. I think it’s all about balance and mindfulness.

On Monday, I was driving my 4-year old to school and he saw the ocean. He asked me if Jack Johnson cleaned it up. He said that it was his job along with singing Curious George songs. (He also thinks Tom Brady is my boss because of this alarm I wake up to). He’s so much more intelligent than I am.

I tried to explain that cleaning the ocean isn’t Jack Johnson’s job, it’s all of our jobs.

Jack Johnson and the Environment

Where did my son get the idea Jack Johnson cleans up oceans? I must have told him about the Smog of the Sea documentary. The 30-minute film has Jack Johnson, scientists and environmentalists showing that there’s bits of plastic in the middle of the ocean. It’s everywhere… and hence the smog of the sea name. It’s eye opening, because I thought there was a plastic island where all the garbage goes.

How did I learn about the documentary? I just went to his official website looking for tour information.

That’s when I fell down the Jack Johnson environmentalist rabbit hole. For example, he created a charity, All at Once with the idea of creating global change one person at a time. That seems secondary to his Johnson Ohana charity which focuses on the environment, art, and music education. It appears that they are related in some way.

It’s one thing for a celebrity to create a charity. It’s another to see them put their career into it. Jack Johnson rarely tours. I couldn’t find the last time he came to the Boston area. However, 100% of his 2008 tour went to the Johnson Ohana charity. As All-at-Once explains 100% of Jack Johnson’s tour profits from 2010-2013 went to charity as well. Maybe he decided he needed to eat in 2009, but I’m inclined to think that only 99% of the profits were donated to charity. Or maybe he didn’t tour in 2009. Since 2013, it seems his money has gone to matching contributions to All at Once non-profit partners.

Of course his albums were produced at his Brushfire Records studio that is 100% solar with walls made up of 100% post-consumer waste (Source). Some musicians demand special colored M&Ms (or a story) before they play. Johnson demands that the concert venue adhere to strict environmental guidelines such as purchasing carbon offsets and LED light bulbs. Because of these “demands” all LiveNation venues have a Resusable Pint Program.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

I’m going to one of his concerts this summer and I’m considering wearing a burlap sack… just to play it safe. Hmmm… check that… does anyone know if burlap is sustainable? I presume the only food available will be organic golden rice. Organic golden rice may be impossible (by definition), but Jack Johnson will find a way.

I originally thought I’d share lyrics from various Jack Johnson songs about the environment. Instead, I’ll share this video:

Yes, 3 is a magic number… especially when you are referring to kid songs.

I apologize for the lack of personal finance in this article. My next article will be more topical. I also realize I let my fanboi come out. I hope this inspires you to do something meaningful outside of your core career.

Finally, I wanted to highlight some good news in the world. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like there’s a lot of negative news out there. Celebrities shouldn’t be role models, but sometimes there’s an overlapping of two in the Venn diagram. Jack Johnson is a rare individual in that overlap.

Not all heroes wear capes, but some wear sandals and guitar straps.