Month: February 2019

Training kids to measure smart meters

This thought occurred to me on the way to work the other day, and might be one I develop a bit further in the future. 

In previous articles I wrote about how it was essential to measure one’s own home energy use during day time before going so far as to install a solar power system. Without a comprehensive knowledge of the details of your household power consumption, you really can’t make any intelligent decisions regarding solar power, and in fact, many installations completed without paying close attention to home energy use will fall a long way short of expectations.

The problem is, not everybody has time to go and stand outside the front of their smart meter each hour and record data for several weeks before they decide to install. People have lives, believe it or not, and recording the kWh currently consumed by your household each hour on the hour is not high on their list of priorities.

So, who would be good candidates to collect this data? Not the parents in the household – the children in the household. In fact, one could make a fun family project out of it. 

Need to keep the kids occupied during school holidays? Give them an exercise book and send them out to take readings off the smart meter. 

Of course, it may need some clever packaging to make it happen – but if kids could be convinced to collect this data on behalf of parents, it would then lend credibility to many households when making decisions about their renewable energy generation. 

Not to mention it would be a great way to teach your kids valuable skills in applied mathematics!

Why Kapiti is the perfect location for a sales office

I’ve thought about this many times… located directly on State Highway One, less than an hour from Wellington on the newly built expressway, and practically equidistant between Wellington and Palmerston North, Kapiti (and particularly Otaki) is the ideal location for your next sales office. 

Reach the Lower North Island
Being ideally located close to Wellington along the Kapiti Coast Expressway, Kapiti is an ideal springboard for your sales team to reach the entire Lower North Island in a matter of hours. 

Lower rent costs
Now I’m no expert, but from what I gather, commercial leases in Kapiti often go for two thirds of the cost of Wellington. In other words, it’s a great way to keep your expenses down while you establish.  

Abundant unskilled labour market
Not to knock the people of Kapiti, but there is a huge mix of people in this district (both skilled and unskilled) who are looking for jobs. Setting up your sales office here gives you access to trainable talent, who have often relocated here on account of the affordable housing and flexible lifestyle. So much so, that new listings on Seek or Trade Me often receive an abundance of applications. 

Access to affordable fuel
With Levin just up the road, you have access to some of the lowest fuel prices in the country, let alone the Lower North Island. Perfect for businesses who need to travel a long way to see clients. 

Claim Travel – National as a business expense
Now, I am no accountant, so take this one with a grain of salt. But from what I understand from discussions with accountants in the past, any travel greater than 50 kilometres from your office for business purposes has the potential to be considered a “Travel – National” expense. 

If you think through the implications for a moment, because such a large number of sales calls are likely to be in Palmerston North, Wellington or Wanganui, virtually all of your expenses relating to this travel (whether it’s coffee, accommodation, or entertainment) will be eligible for this expense coding. That, and you will be home in time for tea, if you want. 

Of course, you should always seek the advice of your accountant in regards to such matters. 

Is vegetarianism Pareto efficient?

This occurred to me the other day when I was chowing down on some sausage and black lentil soup.

Sausage and black lentil soup is a variation of the recipe for black lentil soup. In fact, there is only one difference, in that you add sausages to the soup.

The cost of black lentil soup, for two servings, is around $1.40. The cost of sausage and black lentil soup, for two serves, is around $4.90. The difference, of course, is due to the sausages, which add 250% to the cost of the soup.

The carbon emissions will differ depending on the type of meat in the sausage. It’s very likely, however, that the same sort of increase will be reflected in carbon emissions.

Not to mention you don’t have to raise an animal just for the sake of eating it.

Now I’m no vegetarian – not at the moment anyway. But this is driving the point home for me.

Vegetarians have been saying this for years, but I’m only just joining the dots. The question is, how to get this point across to the general public?

An Entrepreneur’s Diet

During the early days of a start up you want to make sure as much capital as possible is kept on the table. At the same time you want to make sure you have enough energy and nutrition to carry out a 14 hour work day.

My question is, what is the best way to do this? I’ve worked with entrepreneurs in the past who in the early days of their business subsisted off tins of beans. While I do think legumes hold the key, tinned beans alone won’t sustain you for long.

Is it possible to feed one person for a week on the equivalent budget of a tin of beans?


Black bean soup
4-5 healthy servings
Celery 90c
Carrots 50c
Onion 50c
1 cup Black lentils 80c
Water
Stock cubes 75c or real stock (free)
Salt and pepper

If you can make it go 5 meals you have a whopping recipe for 69c per serving.

Pumpkin lentil soup
4-5 servingsPumpkin $2
Onion 50c
Celery 90c
Carrot 50c
Yellow Lentils 80c
Stock cubes 75c or real stock (free)

Not a huge fan of pumpkin soup but I’ll eat it if I have to. Not going to lie, this type of diet requires some sacrifices. $1.09 per serving without bread.

I could go on forever, but these are two example recipes that cost less than a $1.20 can of beans.

So the key to a successful enterprise diet, it seems, is having a lot of pre-made stock & legumes up the wazoo.

Needless to say the entrepreneur’s diet is a legume-centric vegetarian diet. The same as baked beans.

If I assume 21 meals in the week, such a diet should get me through at about $19-20 per week and can mostly be made in my slow cooker.

The real challenge with the entrepreneur’s diet would be staying on the diet until the business makes a profit – but boy, would that give you motivation to make a profit.