So my solar powered slow cooker diet is going well, with loads and loads of stress free and delicious food experiments under way, utilising great local organic Kapiti produce. I wanted to take a further step in the sustainability direction, so I bought myself a rice cooker to work along with the solar panels.
Continue reading “What is the ROI of a rice cooker (solar powered) with calculators”
Tag: Investment
Where I went wrong with my first ebike
A few months ago I posted a bunch of blogs covering ebikes, even equipped with calculators to help people to figure out their fuel and carbon savings.
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Cliff Notes on Company Failure: Ebert Construction
This is my bullet point summary on the failure of Ebert Construction, based on the news articles I have read.
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Let’s have a look at Z’s annual report
I’ve heard our Prime Minister is preparing law to enable the Commerce Commission to have a sweeping set of powers to investigate fuel businesses and collect information on their profit margins. Did you know that this information is already freely available in the company’s annual report? You can access this information without the need for law changes that will force new compliance costs and ultimately the cost of doing business in New Zealand up higher than it has been recently. More importantly, you are guaranteed the information is accurate, since if a public company lies to its shareholders it gets sued.
Why I’ve ‘bonded up’
My review of Kiwisaver has prompted me to seek out the most cost-efficient group of funds on the market – namely, Simplicity Kiwisaver. While the rates of return on Simplicity funds are lower than the previous bank-based fund I was with, the fees are significantly lower, particularly as the fund grows in size.
Price elasticity of demand, inflation, and the business confidence crisis
I’ve been down at the local cafe since it opened this morning trying to figure out a way that I’m going to run this motel over the next six months.
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Otaki Motel has consumed one colour ink cartridge in 12 months
I’m very pleased to report that we have not had to change colour cartridges in over a year. This is a result of some sound planning that I undertook regarding printer cartridge consumption in September last year.
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My Biggest Mistake With Solar Panels
Installing solar isn’t all plain sailing. In addition to the complexities of matching energy production to energy use, and the huge amount of math that goes into crunching whether you will or won’t break even, there are other obstacles. This article is about the biggest ‘trap for young players’ that I fell into when installing solar.
Our plan to cut winter heating costs by 67%
I like to think of a motel as one big eternal cost-cutting operation. The way we can afford to pay our staff more is by keeping overheads as low as possible.
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Winter energy consumption planning
Last year, because of the dry winter and its concomitant effect on hydroelectric energy generation, New Zealand burned its way through a significant portion of its coal reserves, resulting in the release of significant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. At the household level, because of massive pressure on household winter energy consumption, winter energy bills shot through the roof, leaving families across the country out of pocket if they didn’t plan ahead and budget.