Obblogatory Ramblings About Life

Switching to CFLs or LEDs?

We’ve tried several different brands of CFLs & LEDs over the years. My own conclusion: currently LEDs work well in specific lighting situations such as spots, or places where you only need a lower level of light like corners or lobbies. But for main illumination, the sweet spot has not been reached. True the lumen/watt ratio is improving, but even on the more powerful LEDs, you’re still only getting about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the total lumen output per bulb.

Therefore you need to install additional bulbs at greater expense. The other issue with LEDs is that you really pay for what you get. There is a huge variation in quality of the components: but typically the ICs burn out much faster if there is inadequate airflow.

For CFLs, the only brands we buy now for home & business are Philips & GE. Most of the local brands, esp. the mid2low priced CFLs, and B&Q have poor to terrible life expectancy. I know this because our community replaced all their strips lighting with these (to save money), but ended up having to replace the CFLs frequently. Traditional tubes last for ages, but not the cheap CFLs. I also know that after switching to more expensive bulbs, I don’t have to replace them nearly as often. oh, and the 32-w CFLs are apparently prone to heating issues, too. We spent a bit of money installing 32w, but found half of them burned out fast. So now it’s all 27w units.

Either way, if you are concerned about the amount of light output, and replacing halogen spots or incandescent bulbs, DON’T follow the manufacturers recommendations. 1 8w CFL is not the equivalent of 40w. And one 5w LED isn’t either. Measure the light output, not the energy input. And if necessary, double up the CFLs, you’ll still save money on the electricity, just not as much.

This is our new banner which we have hung up on the local wall near our school to attract attention. It’s quite colorful. I wish I could say that I designed it all, but I nearly did. With a little help from Microsoft, Istockphotos, and myself, we managed to come up with a design that was fairly attractive.

Of course, I hadn’t realized that Publisher wouldn’t create larger publications, so we had to go the vector graphics route to get the scale! But it turned out quite nicely. The most expensive part of the whole process turned out to be hiring the truck to help put it up as you’ll see in the next photo.

Don’t underestimate the benefits of offline advertising. While we spend similar amounts of money doing online advertising, we find that even where we are in one of the more wired countries on earth, traditional advertising methods do seem to get you noticed faster. So if you are looking to advertise, consider a fast yard sign printing service to help you get the signs made & place.

who think money is important:

Those who have money; and those who don’t.

Which are you?

My sisiter-in-law is busy setting up a company that will work with a local funeral services company to provide financial sevices fo funerals. Since the costs for a funeral can be quite high, as anyone who has done their own Funeral planning worksheet will tell you, this project aims to help individuals actually save or invest for their funeral.

Of course the fact that she sells insurance means that she also spots an economic opportunity! Good for her! I will update this post shortly with some useful content…

We got a lot of gold (well, we think it is a LOT!) when we got married but it wasn’t a lot! But with the recent crazy prices, we regret we didn’t buy gold online when it was $300 an ounce! Now it’s more like $1700! Ouch!

The real trick is to decide whether the price is already ridiculous or go even higher! Some pundits have been predicting that it would reach $2000 or more! Seems a nutty price, but it could!

I was listening to a program introducing Geico Insurance, and was wondering how on earth Warren Buffet could amass such a pile of wealth when they began to describe the idea of ‘float’, the money that comes from the members or insured. This money accumulates at such a rate and doesn’t have to be deployed quickly at all.

This means that the money can be invested for a longer period. Now in my business, we have a float of 3 months. This is a wonderful thing to have, we get money from customers and the costs are defrayed slowly over about 12 weeks, until the rebill date. But compared to insurance, such as medical malpractice rates, this is a relatively short period.

For many kinds of insurance, there is negligible risk that a policy will actually be ‘called’ on; and even if it is, you can sell the risk on to a re-insurer to mitigate the costs. While there is inherent investment risk in any investment you make, you can get at least 1% if you put the cash in the bank in the short term, with almost no risk.

Of course, when you sell insurance, commissions and costs come straight out the pot up front. But it has made Warren Buffett one of the richest in the world, simply leveraging OPM. Brilliant!

Our business is fortunate becase we don’t need a lot of equipment, and most of what we need can be acquired easily, affordably, and quickly.

But if we were a larger endeavor, like a restaurant, can you imagine how much money the kitchen equipment alone costs? So, if you’re a small business, you have to find the capital to buy the equipment. And that’s a retail business, manufacturing or small to medium enterprises face really large capital purchase requirements when they start up or want to expand.

And with the ongoing credit crunch making small business equipment financing a tricky affair, small businesses are needing a lot of help getting started or expanding their operations. This is a very big obstacle that politicians don’t or can’t seem to solve.

Suggestions? Well, there aren’t many at the moment, but like a friend of mine, don’t be tempted to go to underground lending! They’ll eat you alive with their usurious interest rates, rates that make instore credit lines look like bargains!

Learning to play guitar can be worth your while. When you first start, it may seem difficult, but with enough practice, you’ll become very good at playing.

If you do not have the money or time to take private lessons, you can always look at websites to help you learn how to play. There are many guitar tabs online that you can use to practice and get better at playing.

If you have a true passion for playing the guitar, then learning how to play will be more fun than it will be work! Just remember, keep playing everyday and don’t stop if it seems too difficult, you’ll get it!

But remember it’s tough on the pads of your fingers at the beginning!

I’m afraid that any steak for less than $300 is likely just to be terrible! I say that, because I’m blessed by a truly amazing restaurant that is not a stone’s throw from my own place.

The owners (no English but English menu!) make the finest steak that I have ever had in Taipei. Ever. While the price isn’t cheap, it should certainly meet your $1000 a budget, and you’ll have almost enough money for a taxi home! But after you eat the steak there, you will be hard pressed to even look at a piece of meat the same way. I cannot eat cheap steak any more. It tastes too much like cardboard.

But, it’s in Danshui… near the Mackay Hospital, and you just turn up. In fact, it’s right opposite this place: but they are not on Google Maps … because they are so good! They don’t need to be. It’s about the fifth shop down on the right after you turn into the lane!

If you read Chinese even a little, you’ll see the characters for steak. They are open most days, but I think they are closed on Wednesdays! And if you go there, mention my name "Ken LaoShr"! She should remember me! Tell her I sent you!

Home made soup for starter served with a Taiwanese bread -nothing weird; Mixed Fruit Salad with home made dressing; Your steak served with a vegetable or two, nicely presented; and a cup of coffee, too! Soup, salad and coffee are included, but there’s no choice for those, really. No desserts, but after that steak, I can’t see why you’d want one!

Kenneth

There’s really a lot of variables that you need to test, so I doubt you can run a successful test over just one summer!

Weather
Wind
Humidity
Machine Efficiency (power, clean, age…)
Temps vary, too: machine temp, ambient temp, apparent temp,

Not suggesting that you don’t try, but suggesting that you try to isolate one or two obvious variables and then test them exclusively over a longer period. With day to day fluctuations in humidity/temperature/wind, it’s hard to see what might just be an occasional blip.

Other factors you may want to look at: eliminating or reducing unnecessary heat sources within the apartment from: sun-exposed windows or walls, cooking, hot light bulbs (esp. spotlights with 50 watts or more), keeping doors closed, eliminating draughts, etc.

Ultimately, though we just replaced an older pair of a/c machines with Daikin machines and that cut our bills considerably! Cleaning the machines also helps, not just cosmetic cleans, getting rid of the gunk from inside them! Our school bills went from $44K for 1 year to just over $27K, and we are NOT shy about running our a/c. That alone was worth the money we saved. The machines (approx. 110K) will probably pay for themselves in additional savings in just 6.5 years!

But also don’t overlook other electricity savings from non-AC sources, as well. Lights that are on for extended periods can really push electricity bills into higher tariffs…