Balance Transfers – A Kiwi Microfinance Blog
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This tag is for ideas that have the effect of reducing your long term cost base and exposure to inflation.
I’ve recently adopted the habit of paying cash for just about everything in my everyday personal expenses. This came on the back of a conversation with a work colleague who swears by it.
Continue reading “The brilliance of paying cash for (just about) everything”
New Zealand is nearing full employment. The government has just announced a series of increases not only to the minimum wage, but to allowances and pensions as well. Fuel has jumped above $2 per litre for most parts of New Zealand, with a clear plan to increase the excise by 3c per litre per year. So why is now a good time, with all the money going around, to start to adopt some inflation-smart practices?
Continue reading “Why it’s a good idea now to start using inflation smart strategies”
This is a calculator to figure out how much you can save from incidental travel – ie all the short distance travel you make during the week, such as to the supermarket, to the beach, to the movies and to town.
You’re thinking about buying an electric car and toting up all the various cost savings and lifestyle change pros and cons. But wait – before you make such a large financial commitment, have you stopped to consider whether a car is even necessary?
Continue reading “Ebikes versus electric cars – pros and cons”
Here is a nice and simple calculator to help you figure out how much you will save in parking fees and fines by travelling to work and parking an ebike instead of a motorcar.
As part of my preparation for travelling to work each day, I hired a mountain bike to test out the voyage from Paraparaumu (where my new office is) to Otaki and back again. This was stage one in committing to an ebike to travel into work – I needed to check that the coast was clear and that there were no major obstacles on the route. I also wanted to get a sense of what it would be like to go there and back if my bike battery ran out, so I would know how it would be under the worst circumstances. And this is what I learnt…
Continue reading “Is the coast clear? Ebiking from Otaki to Paraparaumu Beach for work”
I’ve finally figured out how to create calculators on this blog – so here is my first calculator, hopefully first of many! Just a simple way to roughly calculate the amount of money you save in fuel by transiting to work on an ebike.
Continue reading “Fuel savings calculator – how much do you save by travelling to work on an ebike?”
I got in the habit of riding my bike to work every day while visiting my mum up in the Coromandel and I’m finding it a rather hard habit to shake. The problem is, now my work is 25 km away instead of 5 km away. Could an ebike help with this situation?
Our solar power installation is now set up and in recent articles I’ve addressed how our solar installation is currently generating more than 50% more power than was initially forecasted based on NIWA data. The savings we’ve achieved have also been on the high side, cutting our bill down by around $93 during our first month and by around $150 during our second month. In fact, our monthly daytime consumption for last month, at 170 kWh, was the lowest number we have ever consumed during any month in recent memory.
Continue reading “Geographical features that make Otaki Motel a good location for solar panels”
One of the unexpected side advantages of solar power is it gives you the opportunity to keep a careful watch on your whole family’s energy consumption. At least insofar as it makes their energy consumption habits a bit more conspicuous.