Useful Tips To Save Your Electricity Bill (Part 1)

After the petrol hike (RM0.78 or 40%), we will be expecting a rise in Electricity Bill from July. I had done some research on this topic and found some interesting and useful tips to save electricity bill.

1) Keep your refrigerator at 37°- 40° F and your freezer at 5°F.

2) Keep your refrigerator filled to capacity

3)Vacuum the condenser coils (underneath or behind the unit) every three months or so.

4)Do not put uncovered liquids in the refrigerator. The liquids give off vapors that add to the compressor workload.

5)Allow hot food to cool off before putting it in the refrigerator.

6)Plan ahead and remove all ingredients for each meal at one time.

7)Reduce your refrigeration electricity usage by 40 percent by replacing a 12-year-old or older unit with a new unit. An Energy Star® unit will lower usage even more.

8)Select a refrigerator or freezer that is just large enough for your needs

9)Look for energy-saving features such as the power-saver switch and improved insulation materials.

10)Use the self-cleaning cycle only for major cleaning jobs. Start the cycle right after cooking while the oven is still hot

11)Use your microwave oven whenever possible, as it draws less than half the power of its conventional oven counterpart and cooks for a much shorter amount of time.

12)Rearrange oven shelves before turning your oven on - and don’t peek at food in the oven! Every time you open the oven door, 25°-50°F is lost.

13)Wash only full loads of dishes - but do not overload dishwasher.

14)Scrape food off dishes and rinse them with cold water before placing them in the dishwasher.

15)Soak or pre-wash only in the cases of burned-on or dried-on foods.
Laundry

16)Follow detergent instructions carefully. Adding too much detergent actually hampers effective washing action and may require more energy in the form of extra rinses.

17)Set the washing machine temperature to cold or warm and the rinse temperature to cold as often as possible.

18)Wash only full loads of clothing- but do not overload machine.

19)Hang your laundry outside when weather permits.

20)Clean the lint filter thoroughly after each use.

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Ways To Save Fuel Consumption

With the lastest fuel hike of as much as RM0.78, which resulted all Malaysian, including myself to resort to ways to save petrol. I had found this "12 Tips to save petrol" in the interenet quite useful.

12 Tips to save petrol

1) Pump up your tires.
Keeping your tires inflated is one of the easiest and most important things
Saving petrol means saving money one can do to improve fuel economy. If a
range is recommended by the manufacturer, the higher pressure should be
used to maximize fuel efficiency. Deflated tires run hot and jeopardize
safety. It will also cause the tires to wear out prematurely, affect the
vehicles adversely, and hurt the fuel economy by increasing the rolling
resistance. Tires lose about 1 psi pressure per month due to air loss
caused by the tire hitting holes, bumps and curbs. Therefore, the tires
should be checked at least once a month. Just 1 tire deflated by 2 psi will
result in a 1% increase in fuel consumption.

2) Drive at moderate speed.
Avoiding high speeds on open roads results in safer driving and better fuel
economy. In highway driving, over 50% of the power produced by the engine
is used to overcome aerodynamic drag. Drag and thus fuel consumption
increases rapidly at speeds above 90km/h. On the average, a car uses about
15% more fuel at 100km/h, and 25% more fuel at 110km/h compared to when it
is doing only 90km/h. However, this should not lead one to conclude that
the lower the speed, the better the fuel economy - because it is not. The
fuel consumption of an average car increases sharply at speeds below
50km/h.

3) Clean the air-filter regularly
Clogged air filters increase fuel consumption by restricting airflow to the
engine, and thus should be cleaned/replaced when necessary. Clogged air
filters can increase fuel consumption by up to 10%.

4) Use thinner tires
Tires with thick width will improve the handling of your car. However, it
will also increase your car's fuel consumption. Thicker tires mean more
rolling resistance! , and thus will consume more fuel.

5) Start up the car properly
With today's cars, it is not necessary to prime the engine first by pumping
the accelerator pedal repeatedly. Do not crank the engine excessively This
only wastes fuel. When starting the engine, idle it no more than 30 seconds
to warm it up. An engine will warm up faster on the road. However, avoid
sudden acceleration before the engine has warmed up sufficiently.

6) Drive in high gear (overdrive)
The engine runs most efficiently between around 1,500 and 2,500 rpm. To
maintain these low revs you should change up through the gears as soon as
practical and before the revs reach 2500 rpm. For automatic transmission
cars, you should always switch on your overdrive to help save fuel.
Overdrive will allow your engine to change gears at lower revs. It also
puts your transmission into an "economy" mode and lets it engage the final
"overdrive" gear when cruising to ! keep the rpms extra low, thereby
increasing fuel economy.

7) Travel light Avoid carrying any unnecessary weight in your car. On the average, every
50kg added load in your car will increase fuel consumption by 2%.

8 ) Anticipate traffic ahead
A driver can reduce fuel consumption by up to 10% by anticipating traffic
conditions ahead and adjusting the speed accordingly, and avoiding
tailgating and thus unnecessary braking and acceleration. Accelerations and
decelerations waste fuel. Braking and abrupt stops can be minimized by not
following too closely and slowing down gradually when approaching a red
light. It takes up to six times as much fuel to move a car from a dead stop
than it does for one moving at just a few km/h.

9) Avoid strong acceleration
The fuel consumption remains at a minimum during steady driving at a
moderate speed of about 90km/h. Keep in mind that every time the
accelerator is hard pressed, the engine goes into a "fuel-enrichment" mode
of operation that wastes fuel. The vehicle should always be gradually and
smoothly accelerated. Using cruise control on highways can help maintain a
constant speed and reduce fuel consumption.

10) Minimizes aerodynamic drag
Additional parts on the exterior of a vehicle such as roof racks and
spoilers, or having the window open, Roof racks are bad for fuel economy
increases air resistance and fuel consumption, in some cases by over 20%.

11) Don't let your engine idle Minimize fuel wasted in idling by stopping the engine whenever your car is
stopped or held up for an extended period of time. Idling more than a
minute consumes much more fuel than restarting the engine. By having the
engine switched off, you will save more fuel than is lost from the burst of
fuel involved in restarting the engine. The net increased wear and tear
from this practice is negligible.

12) Use the air-con sparingly Air conditioners can use about 10 per cent extra fuel when operating.
However, at speeds of over 80 km/h, use of air conditioning is better for
fuel economy than an open window.

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Marketing - Taking Advantage of Consumer's Weaknesses

Recently, or actually since last year. I had come across a forum which post numerous complains and voices plenty of frustrations with a company (actually it had since changed and formed a few other companies with similar business model) that initially promotes business opportunity through Water Vending Machine (AirXX). At the first glance, I saw some posting of people (investors) voicing their complains and frustration and suspect that this is actually a scam. As I follow the forum, I actually saw new posting from investor that had invested in the company then only the start to search for more information in the website, when they saw the earlier posting then only they start to feel that they had been scammed. (They should had conducted some research before decide to invest.)

In actual live, there are plenty of such companies out there, with different sales and marketing tactics to induce potential customers to take up their offering. Some would provide discounts, free gifts, a chance to participate in a contest with huge value gifts like car, house and travel package.

In Marketing, it is actually very easy to capture the market place if you understand the 2 basic consumer psychology, this is "Old School" it had been practised for many years, and it still works if you target it correctly.

The perfect marketing tactics will target consumer psychology and the weakness is 2 area :

1. The Fear Of Loosing Out - As many Singaporean puts it as "Gia Shu"
2. Greedy

Take a look around you, or just flip through your daily newspapers, how many advertisement that you could easily identify with any one (sometime even both) of the above tactics, whether it is just a time limited discounts or free gifts.

OK, lets go back to the original topic. The so call Water Vending Machine Business Opportunity. I had first encounter this company, a few years back, I still remember at that time they just started the scheme. I was invited to a business preview with my partner. We went to a virtual office some where in KL. At that time, they just started to operate with the 1st Water Vending Machine in Taipan. The PIC, (Young guy) show us some photos of the opening and people lining up to purchase water. Then he start to talk about their brilliant business plan with "Multiple Source of Income". As I am from a MLM (as a top management staff) company, I knows immediately that this sound fishy. We play along, and he starts to explain the many ways that you can earn from investing in a water vending machine.

1. Passive income from the profit of selling chilled filtered water.
2. Income from selling plastic bottles
3. Advertising income, where surrounding businesses will pay to place advertisement on the vending machine.
4. (can't remember)
5. Referral income. This is the main part that I would explain further. As through out his explanation, we are both not convinced with the potential income. At last, he told us that their company has the perfect plan to pay us, so called marketing commission RM6,000 per machine it we help them to introduce this "Wonderful" business opportunity to relatives and friends. He told us, (at that time the investment is only RM28,888) if we could refer to him 5 investors which invest in their water vending machine, they will pay us RM6,000 X 5 = RM30,000. This means that we get our water vending machine for FREE and the water vending machine will there after help us to generate profits from selling filtered water.

This company actually uses both the marketing tactics which I had mentioned above, in fact they executed it quite perfectly. Those that took the bate (please be honest) are all, 1st, Fear of Loosing out with this so called Once in a Lifetime chance to be rich and don't have to work for it. 2nd, Greedy.

Remember this, as marketers will continue to use these tactics for many years to come. Never be greedy, there is NO FREE LUNCH. If there is, I and many people are already a rich man.