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Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Bulbs Save Money

Compact fluorescent bulbs or “CFL’s” are becoming more and more popular daily as the average consumer realises that using the older standard light bulb is not very cost effective and can be a little irritating.

Before the last 5 years or so, standard light bulbs were all that was available and were seen as a part of your everyday life and budget. Sure you had to replace it every year and sure it technically burned a lot of energy, but with no alternative, no one knew the difference.

But when the first compact fluorescent bulbs were introduced onto the market, they were both very expensive, hard to find and gave off a type of light that was not very comfortable for your eyes.  But through time and as they gained popularity, these disadvantages were ironed out. What also helped is some governments banning the sale of the standard lightbulb after a certain date.

Sure the compact fluorescent bulb was still more expensive than your average everyday 50 cent incandescent bulb, but it also consumed only 13watts of power when compared to the 60watts consumed by the older bulb. If you have a house with 20 bulbs as an example, you will be saving 940watts per hour. Say you use them for 6 hours a day for a year and you will save 61758000 watts/hours  per year! Now I know that people will not be having 20 bulbs blazing for 6 hours, but you can certainly see how it will add up over time.

Also you need to realize that compact fluorescent bulbs have an average lifespan of 50,000 hours whereas the standard long life incandescent bulb is only 2000 hours. So, you will be changing a incandescent bulb 25 times before you change a compact fluorescent.

With compact fluorescent bulbs being priced at about $2 now for 50000 hours use, it is a far better deal that replacing a 50 cent bulb 25 times which results in an approximate cost of $12.50.

So with operating costs and energy savings, the bulb pays for itself on average in SIX MONTHS! Then everything from there is cash back in your pocket.

Forget the initial cost and start saving huge money by switching your house over to compact fluorescent today! Every hour you don’t you are throwing away money.

Tags: Compact fluorescent, energy saving, home, household, light bulb, save money

Synthetic Motor Oil will Save You Money

When it comes to conversation about changing your engine oil to synthetic, the most often thing commented on is that changing to synthetic will make your engine leak and it costs too much money. Both of these comments are untrue.

To start off about the engine leaking myth, if your engine is poorly taken care of and not maintained, a leak might occur when synthetic oil cleans the sludge plugging a leak in a poorly conditioned seal which was destroyed by poor engine oil maintenance. This is not the fault of the synthetic oil seeing it is doing what it was supposed to do and keep your engine clean. But mind you, people that don’t take care of their engines in most cases don’t bother with the change to synthetic seeing they are too cheap to take care of their vehicle right from the beginning. The people that have to be warned is a person buying a used vehicle without knowing the previous maintenance history.

With that being said, any well maintained engine can be changed over to synthetic at practically any mileage if properly maintained. The leak myth came from the 70s when the first synthetic oils tended to shrink engine seals due to improper formulation. But remember, that was 30 YEARS AGO! The myth has lived on through pure ignorance and propagated by people that in the first place don’t know a damn thing about motor oil and was just passing on a complete lie. So now you know the truth. If you have taken care of your engine, you shouldn’t have any problems. But remember, if you haven’t taken care of your engine in the first place, you might think twice about synthetic.

The second point people need to realise is that when synthetic oil is properly utilized, it is actually a cheaper oil change. Take for instance a standard conventional oil change. Say you change your oil every 5000 miles and it costs you $30. With a synthetic oil change, you can easily double the amount of miles you put on that one oil change seeing synthetic is made to go for longer change intervals without losing proper lubrication. And seeing synthetic will always help you fuel economy, when adding that together with the money you save from doing one oil change for double or more mileage, you see in the end you will save money. Synthetic oil changes are never double the price of a conventional change and if they are, then go to a different oil change place seeing they are lying to you.

So you add it up that you get better protection, better fuel economy, longer oil change intervals that save your time and you can see that a synthetic oil change does save you money and results in a better overall running engine.

You can’t beat that deal.

Tags: oil

Saving Money on your Oil Changes: Part 2

If you haven’t read the first part of this article, please do so now before reading this section.

Now that you have realised that most oil change places will rip you off by telling you to change your oil too often, the best way to get good information is to read your car’s owner’s manual. In there you will find the true information needed to see how often you should change it.

Most car companies will know a lot more than any oil change place filled with under paid workers all managed by a commissioned shop manager than get a cut based on how many oil changes and extras he can get from the population in total over a year. The more the store makes, the more he makes. This is how you see why he won’t be an unbiased source for information.

Read your manual, follow their guildlines and save money. some cars have an oil life monitor and in most cases, it is ideal and works great. If you have this features, use it and don’t think you know better than it seeing you don’t.

Now an additional bit of misinformation is the life of your oil based on time and not mileage. When it comes to this, use common sense. If you have only driven 1000 miles and it has been 3 months and a guideline states you should change your oil……don’t! There is no way your oil is depleted, dirty or need of a change and all you are doing is dumping money and good oil down the drain. If you put less than 5000miles a year on your engine due to it being a seasonal car/truck or you just don’t drive much, changing the oil every year or in the worst cases every 6 months will be more than sufficient. If it is a seasonal car, change the oil at the end of the season before storage, then drive it for the whole next season and repeat.

To boil things down, oil will not change in 3 months if it is lightly driven and remember, the oil has more than likely been on the shelf for a year and you don’t see oil on the shelf going bad. Now I know in the crankcase it is a slightly different story but you get the picture.

Tags: automotive