10 Money Saving Gadgets (That Actually Help Save Money)
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With the recession still in full swing, now seems as good a time as any to investigate the potential of money saving gadgets and devices. While the market is flooded with products that claim to save you money, not all of them actually do. Many so-called money-saving gadgets would be more accurately described as convenient or trendy gadgets. Today we’ll roll up our sleeves and examine 10 gadgets that produce bottom line savings for their users, independently of marketing hype or anecdotal hearsay.
Low-flush toilets
Long a favorite of the frugal, low-flow toilets are a must have for anyone truly serious about savings. According to MotherEarthNews.com, low-flow toilets, “…save the average U.S. household (2.64 people) about 25 gallons of water per day, or more than 9,000 gallons per year.” Typically, a low-flush toilet uses about 6 liters (1.6 gallons) per flush as opposed to the 13 liters used by conventional models. In the average home that cycles through ten or twenty flushes per day, it’s not surprising to see a device that uses half the water for each flush amounting to savings by the end of each month.
Filtered water bottles
Americans drink more bottled water today than ever before, with many people purchasing dozens of bottles at a time to consume throughout the week. Those bottles add up awfully fast to a giant sinkhole in the food budget ; one way to drink the same amount of water and spend far less is using a filtered water bottle. Just fill up from any ordinary faucet and the bottle’s internal filter zaps any bacteria lurking inside. The more often you use it, the faster it pays for itself and the more money you save.
Coin sorters
Pocket change hoarders face an inevitable dilemma – devote an entire afternoon to tediously hand-wrapping the change they’ve been dumping into coffee jars for the last year, or let Coinstar do it and lose 10% of the money. Luckily, coin sorting machines offer an appealing third route. Simply buy coin rolls and let the machine wrap your change for you. If it turns out you saved $100 in change, using the coin machine lets you keep the $10 you would’ve paid Coinstar. Over several uses, the machine pays for itself and then some.
Electricity usage monitor
(TristanF)
Contrary to popular belief, your TV, XBox or laptop doesn’t just suck juice when they’re on. Simply having them plugged in pumps current through the wires, and over the course of a year, the extra cost of paying for that is not negligible. For those who need this quantified with exact numbers, the electricity usage monitor is ideal. Just plug any device into it and you’ll discover what that device’s “phantom load” is while off and plugged in. You can even go around the house with it, figuring out the total electricity usage of every gadget and gizmo you own.
High-efficiency power supply
(Audin)
Electricity usage monitors are great for measuring the juice your devices suck down, but it still presses upon you the responsibility for taking corrective action. That’s where the high-efficiency power supply comes in. In addition to protecting your valuable equipment from storm surges, high-efficiency power supplies actually regulate the electricity flowing to your devices so as to ensure that they use the least amount required to run. Laptops, for instance, have energy-saving modes which use less power to function. With a high-efficiency power supply, you can rest assured that every gadget it powers is running with as little juice as possible.
High-efficiency washing machines
One of the biggest energy expenses in the typical home is washing and drying clothes. Powering a big machine that soaks and spins dirty clothes is costly no matter how you slice it, but how efficient your washer is can make a huge difference. That’s why it pays to invest in a high efficiency model rather than the bargain basement clunker that saves a few hundred dollars up front. If the better machine saves even $10 per month by using less water, it should pay for itself twice over inside of five years.
Compact fluorescent light bulbs
(Dano)
Of all the hyped-up money saving inventions out there, compact fluorescent bulbs are truly worthy of acclaim. Said to save $100 or more per year, CFL’s pay for themselves in spades as you substitute them for the old, energy-sucking bulbs you currently have. For those eager to quantify the savings they themselves could receive, free online tools like GE’s Smart CFL Savings Calculator will let you punch in the numbers and see exactly how much money you are leaving on the table without switching.
Programmable thermostats
Gone are the days of simply “turning on the heat” (or air conditioning) and letting it indiscriminately bleed your wallet to make the house comfortable. With programmable thermostats, homeowners can precisely specify the exact times at which heating or air conditioning should run, and at which temperatures. Practically speaking, this allows one to specify that nothing should be running when everyone in the home is away at work or school. Just set it once and forget about it forever.
Efficient shower heads
Now, we concede that some people are just not willing to use a shower head that doesn’t pummel them with hard jets (a famous Seinfeld episode comes to mind about low-pressure shower heads). For all others, however, efficient shower heads offer the opportunity to save the average American homeowner up to 15,000 gallons of water per year, according to SimpleDollar.com. And it’s not just the water bill savings – 15,000 fewer gallons used means 15,000 fewer gallons you have to heat, which translates to significant energy savings as well. It’s the ultimate two for one.
Space heaters
(Robxtgal)
The truly frugal (and smart) realize that it it is pointless to heat an entire house if there are several rooms you are never or seldom in. Spare bedrooms, third bathrooms, and attics usually fall into this category, and nine times out of ten, money spent heating these rarely occupied spaces constitutes a waste. Instead, pick up an efficient space heater from your local hardware store. It costs far less money to just heat an auxillary area while you are actually in it than round the clock, and if you are looking for a quick way to drop your electric bill, this could be exactly what you need to get it done.
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49 Comments so far
leave a commentYou don’t have to have to sacrifice shower quality with low pressure. A high pressure, low-gpm head, like the Alsons 652 C, is a great way to save water and still enjoy your shower. I’ve been using something like this for 5 years, and wouldn’t want anything else.
You forgot solar panels that could help you recoup electricity costs or to power up small items.
you can also purchase little valves for the pipes that you can install between your shower head and final pipe segment. This allows you to turn the water offer while you soap without having to turn the who shower off and on and readjust the temperature. these valve are normally 2 or 3 dollars at home depot.
Coinstar is free if you just choose an Amazon gift card, which you’ll probably use anyway. It’s much easier than rolling your own coins and taking them to the bank.
Many banks and credit unions also have coin sorters FREE of charge, check your local branch office! =)
Toilets are the #1 water consumers in any household so it makes absolute sense to go for a low flow toilet. Problem is between the cost of the toilet and the plumbing to relace a toilet, you going to be out at least $300.
Another option is to do a retrofit on your toilet e.g. fill valve so less water gets released, and at less then $20 these deliver a very quick ROI.
My favorite is the toilet tank bank – which is the poor man’s solution. At around 1.25
these are a no brainer. Simply fill them with water and stick them in your toilet tank. Instant low flow toilet!
Another technology that shows a lot of promise is the dual flush toilet converter. There are some models that cost $30 and allow you to convert an existing toilet into a dual flush toilet. So press the handle one way and 0.8 gallons of water get release and press it another way – 1.6 gallons get release. Most of the time you’ll only be needing 0.8 gallons per flush so why not stop that extra 0.8 gallons from getting wasted.
Just use the sink and rinse with a cup of water…could be a challenge for women?
you can stick pretty much anything in your toilet to take up space (old shampoo bottles full of water or rocks or bricks). sometimes you can also lower the floaty thing inside the toilet so that the water stops pumping in at a shallower height.
my favorite solution: if it’s yellow, let it mellow. if it’s brown, flush it down. depending on how many people you live with, you can get a lot of pees per flush.
you can also usually lower the floaty thing in your toilet tank so that it stops pumping water at a more shallow levels. or put rocks/bricks/shampoo bottles full of water in the tank.
my favorite toilet water reducing method: if it’s yellow, let it mellow. if it’s brown, flush it down. depending on the number of people you live with, you can get a lot of pees on one flush.
“Instead, pick up an efficient space heater from your local hardware store.”
How can I distinguish an efficient space heater from an inefficient one?
None. Space heaters are a terribly inefficient way to heat a room. Don’t bother with them. I can’t believe this article recommends it. Fix your leaky insulation and weatherization issues first and get a tax credit for making your home more energy efficient overall rather than waste your money on something that likely won’t provide enough heat anyway. Here’s a calculator to show you just how worthless they are: http://demo.apogee.net/homesuite/calcs/specialty/SPCplayer.aspx?fileid=spaceheaters12
John – it’s true, space heaters are an inefficient and wasteful way to heat a _room_. But I what I think you missed, was the article did not say to use one to heat a room. The point was if there are rooms you seldom use, don’t heat them. The space heater would be used on the occasion where you need to do something in those rooms. So it wouldn’t be to heat the whole room or for hours on end.
I beg to differ with John – yes, electric heating is horribly inefficient compared to burning gas, but it can be economical to heat only one room in a house with an electric heater. In that context, there are several ways you can minimize your space heater energy usage. Take a look at the US Dept. of Energy recommendations: http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12600
In particular,
“Choose a thermostatically controlled heaters, since they avoid the energy waste of overheating a room.
“Select a heater of the proper size for the room you wish to heat. Do not purchase oversized heaters. Most heaters come with a general sizing table.
“For convection (non-radiant) space heaters, the best types incorporate a heat transfer liquid, such as oil, that is heated by the electric element. The heat transfer fluid provides some heat storage, allowing the heater to cycle less and to provide a more constant heat source.”
I’ll add that the oil-filled radiator-style convection heaters never produce surface temperatures higher than about 180F, so assuming the tip-over safety switch works, it’s much, much harder for one of these to start a fire (only a faulty cord really could).
And finally, remember that quite a few readers here are probably RENTERS, in which case it’s unlikely your landlord will see tax credits as sufficient incentive to invest in future savings on someone else’s utilities.
Before rushing out to buy a coin sorting machine, check with your bank first, or you may be committing to a potentially giant waste of money! Working as I do in the armored transportation/cash processing industry, I can assure you that most major banking institutions have their own coin sorters in many of their branches, and will be more than happy to deposit a coffee can full of of loose change into your account for you, free of charge. If you’re not banking with Wells Fargo or B of A or the like already, at least make sure whichever bank or credit union you’re with doesn’t offer the service. You’d be surprised how many do…and you’d be even more surprised to hear that many places without a machine will just take your word for it, deposit whatever change you claim to have, and ship the coin off to be sorted and counted by companies like mine later. Coin is small potatoes to most banks.
While I applaud the effort, I have to take issue with your promotion of high-efficiency washing machines. Using less energy doesn’t make something more efficient. Losing less energy while doing the exact same job makes something more efficient. You pointed out the change in efficiency with the shower heads, although in that case it is too obvious to miss. The high efficiency washing machines still have a few generations to go before they are worthy of their titles.
I have one of those high efficiency washers. In fact, it is both a washer AND a dryer. It uses about 24 gal of water for the entire process (which is a lot less than the bigger machines) AND to do a load of clothes, it uses a half oz (yes, I said 1/2 oz) of Tide Concentrate and the clothes come out just fine.
The rolled coins used to be a good idea. However, no bank will accept them for deposit anymore. You end up unrolling them and running them through their change counters.
I Work for a large bank one of the largest in the US and we take rolled coins…
Love this post! At first I thought it was going to be an article on superfluous gadgetry that would give you the illusion of saving money but just put a dent on your pocket. au contraire! Not only are all the listed gadgets are pretty affordable, but would be useful for people of all income levels. Not to mention will help you be more eco-friendly. Also with the high-efficiency washer you can air dry your clothes. You don’t need a backyard to do it, either. Sure, your apartment may be compromised for a day or so with jeans and shirts hanging over doorways, but almost makes you feel like you’re living in a cotton and nylon jungle. Which could be pretty cool. Am a huge fan of the Mint blog and you guys never fail to deliver.
You should add the Foodsaver, which extends the life of all foods a lot and minimizes garbage waste (all produce, meat, cooked foods, fresh, frozen or dry). The only caveat, use resusalble mason jars, NOT the throway plastic bags that company likes to sell you at huge profits.Based on my experience of the last 5+ years, this gadget repays itself in just a few weeks. http://www.foodsaver.com/Index.aspx
Filtered water bottle…that is a great idea but not to sure about the space heaters. Wouldn’t just closing the vent in the room you aren’t using be easier??
Beautiful article. I actually printed it off and am using it as a checklist around my home. Seriously!
I knew about a few of these, and the others are just common sense things that people do not think about or take for granted. Again, I feel the need to say excellent write up.
I want to know how to power my electronics with a low cost Solar energy solution. I think that would be ideal for someone like me.
Keep up the great work. I will check back frequently to read more.
Jay’s Saving Your Money
Maybe you all know more than I do but I do not agree that space heaters save you money. They guzzle electricity and if you have a moderately energy efficient heating system – turning it off and letting this thing heat an entire room is not cost efficient.
These are all great ideas to save money. We go through tons of bottles of water each week. A water filter might be exactly what we need.
Low flush toilets: good idea, but expensive to replace current toilets. My one friend suggested filling a bottle of water and putting it in your toilet’s tank. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like a good idea to drop your water use. It probably won’t reduce the amount of water use as much as a low flow, unless you put in a couple of water bottles.
Filtered water bottles: I like this idea as well! I’ve never heard about it before.
Coin sorters: This isn’t exactly a money saver unless you’re speaking to the lazy.
Compact florescent lightbulbs: Although a good idea, there are companies putting out led light bulbs in the next year or so that are supposed to be even better.
Space heater: This is mostly for apartments. In college I used one to keep me warm, but it wasn’t much of a help. I really needed 2 of them, but didn’t have enough space for both. Also, you aren’t supposed to put them near carpets or curtains or anything else that can burn.
What about Smart power strips that reduce vampire power? Check out http://www.vampirepowersucks.com for information and ways to reduce the spend. I calculated my vampire power usage at almost $43 a year, and that’s a 2 room apartment with no kids and 1 entertainment center. Ridiculous!
I’m really disappointed with the amount of quantitative data in this article. One of the sites that you link to at least gave you the payback time, even though they didn’t give their methodology. How do we know this is really true for us. For example, CFL’s cost a lot more than $1.25 per bulb where I live… The last time I bought them they were $8/ea. If I’m to truly save money, I need to know that your suggestion will work for my situation and not just for an “average American.”
Also, the “high efficiency power supply” recommendation is REALLY weak. Seriously. Your picture is of a power supply for stepper motors. While I have some in my basement, I doubt highly that many people actually know what they are, much less have or use them (I haven’t used mine since I graduated from Engineering school). You briefly mention power saving modes on some laptops, but don’t give any detail. If you’re referring to swapping out for a new higher efficiency power supplie in your computer, well, you’re not likely to break even before you upgrade the computer… so it’s a loser for now.
Without a lot of research, this article does nothing for me.
Chuck:
Without a lot of research, this comment does nothing for me.
n:vision 14 Watt Soft White Compact Fluorescent Bulb (CFL), 4 Pack
$5.85
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xh7/R-100527355/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
I’m with Chuck! JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY CHECK PLEASE! Mint, pay your researchers just a little more, if they branched out from Flickr to maybe Wikipedia then you’d have some content here. The sum total useful information could be summarized as ‘buy a space heater, a couple CFLs for lights you leave on all the time, and put a couple bricks in your toilet’. NOTHING ELSE here is guaranteed to be worthwhile without doing some number crunching.
I’m a PhD student in electrical engineering, and as Chuck said, the power supply in the picture has absolutely nothing to do with reducing the electricity used by your ‘gadgets’ – it’s a custom piece of equipment most likely used to power a mini computer-controlled machining system.
Laptops do or don’t come with energy saving rules in the software. I’ve never seen an AC adapter replacement that saves energy, although it would be easy to design one. Major manufacturers, especially Apple, don’t, because the tradeoff is that they’d be a little bulkier and slightly more expensive to manufacture.
As for a ‘high-efficiency power supply’ for anything else, just what the heck are you talking about, Mint?
If you break a CFL in your house, the EPA recommends calling in a HAZMAT team to clean up the mercury…no I am not kidding. Also, I’m willing to spend a little extra $$$ for the warm inviting glow of an incandescent bulb.
I’ll be stocking up on them since the Storm Troopers have outlawed them in 2011?
After the next predictable, almost inevitable down cycle coming in our capitalist, corporate driven economy hiding quite likely, the greater depression in its trough, and the demise of the American dollar on the international scene, and untold wealth generated in Asia as they swoop down and scoop up our former clients, in our most crippled moments, the total rejection of the “American Dream” lifestyle by Americans en masse, and the adoption in the remaining Shanty Towns, and ruins(See:http://uprooted.jessicareeder.com/2009/09/detroit-and-the-100-dollar-house/comment-page-1/#comment-3003 already started here in our land, don’t take my word for it!) of a new practicality, a “Post-Materialist” society and the reinstatement of Meritocracy among the surviving peons, Solar, Wind, Wave. Hydro, Tidal, and Geo-thermal power in many scales will come into play! Super insulations and technologies to apply them will be force-released by governments anxious to have survivors to govern, The EV-1’s batteries freed from the patent Shylocks and corporate interests for the benefit of the proletariat, by government decree for example, and pressure canners, seeds, fertilizers gardening tools distributed for nominal cost if not free to anyone who wants them! Post Crash era will see Military uniforms with pitch forks, water hoses, and drill seeders on highway medians growing food for the starving urban masses as Great Factory Farms bankrupt and slip away in the night with capital bound for higher ROI’s on Asian soil and a more stable “Yuan”. Americans are about to see the down side of rampant corporatism, be forced, finally to read the fine print, that was there all along! And realize great risk sometimes involves great losses! Bless Obama for trying to cover American asses with Universal Health care before that capital too, runs to the safety of a very solid, stable Yuan, and a booming economic situation in Asia, and forsakes Americans to their own dilemmas as GM(America) so skillfully did!
I think you’ve watched/read Fight Club too many times. Try an Ayn Rand novel for balance, maybe?
It works!
Not sure about those lightbulbs. I fitted one in the office loo last week, and it’s blown already, doesn’t seem very green to me, and as for low flush toilets, just stick a brick in the cistern, & voila! less water used.
Make sure you aren’t installing it on a circuit with a dimmer switch, they’re not compatible. The CFL will make extra noise and die within about a week – and I think that’s the *only* reason you’d see a CFL die within a week unless it was a very rare manufacturing defect.
My concern with CFLs is why aren’t the manufacturers being responsible for disposing of them, like with toner cartridges? They’re full of mercury…
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My rent pays for all utilities (gas, electricy & water)…one whole price for $995 per month. When I get home, I usually turn on everything…
Would that be bad of me to do that?
TD Bank offers free coin counting. Beats paying a commission to coinstar. No account necessary.
Most credit unions have a free coin counting machine located in the lobby and available for use by its members. We dump the coins in, a receipt is printed and we depositthe receipt in our daughter’s savings account.
Great ideas, Joshua! Mattwi, displacing water with a brick in the toilet tank can cause problems, because over time the brick will break down and the residue can clog the flushing mechanism.
Here’s a simple tutorial to spend 20 minutes retrofitting your toilet with a recycled pop bottle and save up to 3000 gallons of water a year: http://bit.ly/25vibC .
Why not turn the tap off when the cistern is half filled, instead of waiting for it to fully fill, that way when you flush you can measure what the minimum required is and mark it insider your cistern with a permanent marker. This is the cheapest option and easiest method.
But then in reality how many of us would actually go out and buy a brand new toilet just to save water. The next option is filling a bucket of water with 1.6 gallons and tipping it into the cistern. Now that’s if you’re seriously into saving water without breaking your budget.
I soak my whites in bleach until I get a bucket full, takes about 2-3 days but it saves power, water and money. I also separate heavy clothes from light if I need to use the dryer and then dry the light clothes only. If it’s fine the next day I hang the heavy load out on the line. If it’s raining I hang the heavy load on clothes hangers and place them around the house near windows. I reduce usage of the dryer as much as possible. The best heaters are gas.
My bank (a local credit union) has a coin machine with no fee for members, booyah
You guys lost me at filtered water. Popular water filters like Brita and Pur do not “zap bacteria”. They filter out minerals or chemicals in the water, bacteria passes right through.
The lack of practical scientific understanding is so prevalent in our society despite relying on science everyday.
The Mint blog should stick to what they know… whatever that is.
Really to be given a thought… apart from the CFL thing… Frankly speaking… i didn’t know much…
I did pretty much all of the above and my bill hasn’t budged. I even went further by not flushing as often, turning all lights off most of the time, replacing all bulbs with LED, you name it. My bill went up $5 last month. You’ll find out sooner or later that the more energy you save, the more the energy companies jack your bills up. Do you really think that these government cronies will pass the savings to you, at the peril of their stock value? Oh yeah, the power companies will just make less money with you cutting into their profits, because they’re so concerned about you and with the environment..just like Al Gore. That reminds me, time to wake up and see that cap-and-trade is nothing but a scam, which BTW was first conceptualized by the thieves at Enron. Snap out of that indoctrination.
Good luck drinking that tap water full of fluoride. Do you know the damage that fluoride does to you or your kids? You must be the same people lining up to get the Flu vaccine. Go to the CDC site to read the fine print about what’s inside the vaccine. Not the rosy info they post on front page, dig deep on the PDF file there. Don’t believe me, go do your own research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_water_fluoridation
Screw Coinstar. The TD Bank by me has a coin machine that is free to use. It prints out a slip with the amount and you just take it to the counter and get paid.