Tax Credits for Taking Energy Efficiency into Your Own Hands!

Take a peak at the energy star website to see what kinds of purchases you can receive tax credits on!

It's not like a deduction- it doesn't reduce your tax burden by just minimizing the amount of income that you must pay taxes on. If you have a deduction, say $100, that means that you'll not have to pay your normal (highest) tax rate for that $100.

Tax credits are a direct write-off of your tax burden. What this means: If you have a tax credit of $100 then whatever tax you may owe is decreased by $100. If you are all paid up and are owed a refund, then your refund will increase by $100!

So, what can you take tax credits on?! Well, a number of things, each to which a number of caveats apply:

Energy efficient/Energy-Star rated:

"Doors and Windows
Roofing
Insulation
HVAC units
Water Heaters
Cars
Solar Energy Systems, and
Fuel Cells"

You can read all about the applicable credits on this page:

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits#s1

I am not a professional tax advisor, nor am I qualified to offer tax advice. Anything written on this page or this blog should not be taken as qualified advice. Consult a tax or investing professional for any assistance you need.

A Thought...

I'm wondering if the color of one's dryer lint can tell something about their personality. When your clothes dry, the color of the lint is most like the average color of the clothes dried during that session. If your lint is all white or gray, it might mean that you're just doing a load of whites, and nothing more. On the other hand, if your lint is all black, then maybe something can be said about your personality. People with yellow and pink dryer lint might be more ditsy, or people with darker lint might be less outgoing. Etc. What do you think? Or, has there been any scientific research performed, to date, that can answer this question?

Blackle Disproven

Tah-daaah!

Thank you:

"1 comments:
Sustainable Search said...
Blackle is a good idea, but... it doesn't work :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Syp4uzvcSoI prefer using Greenle
November 14, 2007 11:34 PM "

Thank you to Sustainable Search for leaving this comment. The link left here leads to a short video in which a man attempts to dispel the blackle energy-saving phenomenon with an energy-measuring device. He measures the amount of power a flat-panel monitor uses to display the black vs. white googles. Check it out!

If I had to guess, I'd say he's correct.

Linky Links

While reading through blogs, I encountered a truly phenomenal post on yoga39551 where the postee has managed to link up a few dozen times in one short post. Check it out.

That must be at least 40-50 links. I've never so much linking before. It's great that this blogger can provide so many resources to those reading the blog, but is there a point where you've crossed a line?

Does it become difficult to read a blog post that has more than... 1 link per sentence? I'm seeing sentences in this post with 5 links a piece. Where do you draw the line? Is there a line?

Share with me your thoughts about when being linky becomes too linky.

This blog here considers this particular post to be especially linky... but I don't think it can compare to yoga39551.

Traffic Jam

I've long felt that there are too many cars in this world, and as a result traffic is becoming so much more horendous every day that some drastic steps need to be taken to alleviate some of the pain.

**
Well, I came across this blog entry where someone has posted pictures of billboards (in Australia, apparently) that say "Traffic slow enough to solve this?" and feature a crossword puzzle, sudoku puzzle, or a maze. Seriously... you know traffic is bad when you can solve a billboard crossword puzzle. Think about the time and money you're wasting on gasoline and in lost productivity time at work? It's just going to be longer before you get home to your family... or computer. :S
******

I can see a lot of people being distracted by this while driving... posing a safety hazard, but I've gotta give BIG props to the train company who's responsible for this advertising. Good job!

Intro to Communications - ~ Zombie Walk ~

I ran across this blog today, and it's associated image page. This has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Mad props to the guy who posted it though!

Apparently, this student forgot to study for his Communications final exam, and as a result decided to get drunk with his friends the night before the exam, rather than attempt some last minute studying.

The professor wrote him back a message... The student marked "C" on every question of the exam, hoping to get at least 25% of the questions correct. As it turns out, the test was True/False, with only A or B as options for questions. As a result, the student scored a complete 0 out of 100.

You've got to read this! Allow me to warn you, though, that this blog contains mature content beyond the "When in doubt choose C" post.

Also, check out the Toronto Zombie Walk!!! These pictures of people dressed like zombies are incredible. My favorite, by far is this one here. People in suits.... this one's also a star!

Blackle - The Black Google

In a creative or nonchalant manner, blackle.com has given a creative update to Google search! I was very impressed to see a site put a nice spin on something so mainstream as Google. Many of us like the black better than the white, and the results produced by this engine are the same as the white Google. You may find this hard to read, but.... consider what blackle has to say on it's about page:

"Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002"

Is that ridiculous or what?! If you load up blackle.com, it will actually show you the number of Watt hours of electricity people have saved by using the black google instead of the normal, white google. At the time I am writing this post, Blackle claims to have saved "295,885.802 Watt hours." Amazing!

If you want to learn some more about ways you can save energy in your everyday life, head over to "Energy Saving - Reduce Reuse Recycle."

The Eight-Thirty

To All My Loyal Readers,

I have another blog at http://eight-thirty.blogspot.com/ in which I talk about the juxtaposition of social networking and business. I talk about a lot of emerging trends in social networking, and my feelings toward them. You can also find a lot of great links, references to printed materials, and interesting commentary having to do with social networking and business.

Getmo!

Get Mocial! Check out my post on the eight-thirty to learn about getting mocial!

F.Y.I. Mocial Networking = Mobile Social Networking

Emerging Markets: Time to Cave

Many people invest in an emerging markets fund as a way to diversify their portfolios and/or to play risky with a small amount of money in hopes of striking a large percentage return.

The US stock market can be a bit of a roller coaster sometimes, but from what I've experienced, emerging markets funds exaggerate the ride. With recent volatility boosting and shaving whole percentage points off indexes left and right, it can be a scary time for anyone's portfolio. So, when the Nasdaq plummets 2.6%, look at the charts of emerging market (EM) funds and see how they react. Because they tend to be more risky investments, EM's should play a smaller part in one's portfolio than, say, a blue-chip traditional growth fund. I think 3-5% is a good benchmark for EM funds in one's portfolio, given the current financial climate, however this is just my opinion, and it shouldn't be substituted for the advice of a financial professional. Depending on your portfolio size, your options can sometimes be limited in terms of mutual funds to invest in. Making judgement on where to invest can be a little more difficult, as a result. Of course, you don't have to invest anything at all if you don't want to... there are several banks that offer inflation-beating 5% APY savings accounts that come standard with absolutely NO risk and FDIC insurance. This is one of my favorite choices!

Emerging markets have skyrocketed in recent years, providing EM investors with sky-high returns. These investors need to take a step back and reevaluate their funds' portfolios. True it is difficult sometimes to perform market research on foreign markets, but one must find a way (Google, etc.) to get the information needed to assess one's holdings.

Remember! I'm not a professional and the opinions contained herein should not be substituted for the advice of a professional financial services representative.

Credit vs. Debit

I've always contemplated the benefits of credit vs. debit, but I remain torn as to which to use. I am learning to settle with... Both.

Debit:

It's like having cash, so purchase amounts are instantly deducted from your checking account value. There's no remembering to pay your credit card bill. Nice!

You'll never pay a penny in interest therefore, and odds are your checking account doesn't pay interest, so you're not missing any extra interest revenue. It's a win-win!

Technically, you're never indebted to anyone at any time (unless you overdraw your account). Talk about easing your conscience...


Credit:

You have the ability to dispute a charge that you believe stems from fraudulent roots. For example, the product you receive is worth much less than you what you anticipated, or perhaps you accidentally got double charged.

You have the ability to charge purchases all the way up to your credit limit. Essentially, you don't really have to worry about not being able to pay for something. Debit cards limit your purchases to the amount of money in your checking account at the time, and banks sometimes even charge for each debit card transaction.

Many credit cards have no annual fee, and even offer rewards for using them! Assuming you remember to/can afford to pay your fill in full, on time, you can actually become better off by using the credit card.

If you have a checking account that pays interest, and you pay your credit card bill from that checking account, then delaying payment for purchases by using credit can improve your interest income.

Using a credit card appropriately almost always improves your credit, which is important for when you go to attain a mortgage or lease later on for something that costs much more (i.e. a house or car for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars).

What to Use When/Where:

What I recommend:

Items that are unlikely to need returning, like groceries or gasoline, should be purchased on debit. In doing so, you've paid upfront, and never have to worry about paying your bill or having interest accumulate on those purchases. Use debit on things that will be consumed right away or in a short amount of time.

Use credit to purchase items that have the possibility of being defective (i.e. electronics equipment), or for larger purchases that your bank may restrict your debit account from paying. With credit, if you're ripped off then you have legal rights and the support of your card company in returning the item and/or not paying for the defective item.

It would appear as though there are more benefits to using credit than debit, but I feel that the reasons for using debit hold a fair amount of weight in themselves.

Dispute that Charge!

In reading an article and its associated line of comments today my debate over credit vs. debit was made tougher (look forward to a post about this).

Apparently, a guy purchased a Western Digital hard drive at a Best Buy in New York City, and when he got home and opened the box, it contained six heavy bathroom tiles wrapped in newspaper. Oddly enough, the Best Buy apparently told him that he was SoL on the matter, and that he should absorb the loss for this scam.

One of the first things he said he did after being told this, was contact his credit card company, American Express (Amex), and tell them to withold payment on his card. This is called "Disputing the Charge."

According to MSN Money, "Credit card purchases are protected under the Fair Credit Billing Act."

According to this article, some stipulations that apply are:

1) You must make a concerted effort to resolve the dispute with the merchant involved.
2) The payment amount must be greater than $50 and have taken place in your home state, or within 100 miles of your home.

If these both apply, then you can make a dispute... although some card companies will provide you assistance anyways, generally because they value your business.

What to do to make your claim: argumentation, stipulation, documentation, registration, evaluation. What I means is that first you must argue the claim with the vendor or merchant, then see if you qualify under the stipulations above, or per your credit card company's rules, then create your claim on paper and submit it with any and all supporting documents, like complaint letters to the vendor, to your credit card company. At that point, your claim is registered and finally after the credit card company has performed its job/research, it makes an evaluation on your claim, choosing either to award the claim in your favor and credit your account (if they haven't done so already), or deny your disputed charge. *Shwew!* Again, MSN Money lays this all out very nicely.

Everex Meets Walmart: $199 PC

In tooling around the web I came across this Engadget article that explores the not-so-green side of Walmart's new cheap PC lineup.

The idea behind a line of "green-machines," essentially, is to reduce power usage and create a more world and electric-bill friendly computer. This particular PC sports a mini-ITX mobo, an appropriate sized hard drive, a relatively low-power processor, and adequate RAM. Sounds good, right? Sounds like a Mac-mini, right? Something with so few components (from the picture, not even an optical drive) can fit into such a small space, making a fantastically compact and portable PC. Not so fast though! In saving valuable resources (i.e. conserving energy), it appears as though marketing research has labeled America not smart enough for its own good. Apparently, customers are more inclined to buy an inexpensive computer, if it looks comparable in size to other systems. What this means: You've got to have a HUGE case for, really, a tiny computer.

What's better, the computer doesn't run Windows, but rather Linux! Anyone tech-oriented enough to understand even the difference between Windows and Linux, would not buy this system. And, the people who will be buying it won't have a clue why their start bar doesn't actually say "start."

Now, check out the comments attached to the article, specifically this line of comments here. Not only is the "Hotcakes" line of commenting hilarious, but someone even provides the link for the Newegg page where you can buy a near-comparable bare-bones kit to build this system yourself... for $125 after mail-in rebate!

In case you didn't catch the link to this article: http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/31/everexs-199-green-pc-attention-ignorant-wal-mart-shoppers/.

Hydrogen Powered Cars: The Solution to our Problems.....

I was looking for some history on gas prices, to see where we've gone in the last several years. I came across this site, zfacts.com, which put some things into a very interesting perspective for me.

I have for along thought that America's dependency on foreign oil is quite ridiculous. I think that commercial, international trade between countries is good, and that exchange, for economic purposes is a good thing. It helps create efficiencies. My only issue, however, is that I'm not sure that all the money we pay goes to all the right places. So, Hydrogen has long appealed to me as the answer to our oil woes. It's non-polluting! This is the most important part about using hydrogen fuel in cars. Well, there is a huge caveat to using hydrogen power for automobiles. Most people don't realize that it actually takes fossil fuels (petroleum) to create hydrogen power.

According to the same site, http://zfacts.com/p/35.html, it actually takes '1.15 units of fossil energy energy to create just one unit of hydrogen energy.' This is so profounding! So what good then, is making Hydrogen fuels? Well, I suppose just that they don't pollute.

Here is my thinking... even though the above ratio seems inefficient, maybe a car can go further on 1 unit of Hydrogen energy than 1.15 units of fossil fuel. Also, I imagine that as time progresses this ratio will improve as research widens and as Hydrogen producing methods become more efficient.

For a more in depth article about the site I mentioned above, check out http://zfacts.com/p/285.html.

China's Moderation of Online Content

I am reminded of George Orwell's 1984 as I read this article. With the government moderating everything, it's tough to say what you want, or even view what you want. I am indifferent in how I feel about this, however. I can see both the negatives and the positives of implementing a measure such as this. It is what it is, I suppose.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-11/ff_chinafirewall

DC Road Rage

There is a really awesome, relatively new, blog that I started a while back. You can find it here or by navigating to http://dcroadrage.blogspot.com.

What I do is chronicle many of the random things that I see up in the District of Columbia. A lot happens that I see whilst walking. Check it out!!!

Speedtest.net

This is an amazing website! Finally a way to find out for sure what kind of bandwidth you're really paying for.

http://speedtest.net/

This website allows you to test your own upload and download bandwidth/ping speeds for a number of servers across the country! I would think that this would help online gamers a lot because you can find where you get the best ping/latency from servers, and as a result, connect only to servers that are based in those regions. This leads to a much better game experience, in most cases.

Definitely check it out.

Microblogging

So I have been wondering about microblogging. I have heard the term a few times, but never really understood what it is all about.

I suppose the Wikipedia page definition is best, which basically says that microblogging is the act of writing down a small news snippet and publishing it either for public or private view.

This is something that baffles me! In my mind, it would seem as though this system would be a great way to learn a lot of things in very little time. However, citizen journalism doesn't always contain useful, or accurate, information. As such, I don't think that I'd find such a service anything other than time consuming, and, while it would be thought-provoking, it most likely wouldn't be as educational as I'd like it to be.

Google just bought Jaiku, which is a rival of Twitter. I think this site covers the story well: http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9793722-7.html.

I supposed there is entertainment value included in a site like Jaiku or Twitter, however I don't believe I receive as much social utility from it as others do.

The First Post

The purpose of this blog is to catalog all of the things that I find myself wondering. Most of what I will include is just things that I find myself scowering the globe for answers for. I will include what I am thinking, and also the result (i.e. me finding the answer to my question). For example, I have always wondered why the sky is blue. I know the reason now, but if I didn't, I would like up to someplace that I was able to find the answer. If you would like to reproduce anything in this or any of my other blogs, in part or in whole, then you must obtain my express, written permission. E-mail me at jw6537a@american.edu if you have any questions, concerns, comments, or otherwise. Reproduction of part(s) of this blog, in part or in whole, constitutes a breech of copywright law, where applicable. Feel free to tag, digg, link, etc. I hope you enjoy what I've written.