Ways to save money during everday life - work this out.

[TUS 373]

OK - I am looking at unserious ways of saving money from day to day and have one of those jobbies at home that tells you how much eleccy you are consuming around the house at a given moment.

An inspired move by my wife yesterday, was to take her mobile phone charger to work - to charge her phone using the firm's electricity. This got me thinking in a typical PH style.

I have a laptop computer. In the grand scheme of things, would it be:

a. Most economical to charge laptop up at home at my expense OR
b. Do the 15 mile drive to work in my 3.5 litre V6 carrying the weight of the laptop computer (say 2.5Kg) and charge it up there, and then drive it back home again

Which uses the least energy and will save me the most money? I want to see the calculations and I am only interested in how much money I can save, and not anything fancy like CO2 production!

[patmahe]

What make and model is the car?

[TUS 373]

Lexus RX 350. Get around 22.5 mpg average driving through hilly Yorkshire, when its dry.

Edited to say - run unleaded at £109.9/litre from Sainsburys, but let's not include the Nectar points at this stage.

Home leccy is 10.2p/kWh

Edited by TUS 373 on Tuesday 2nd September 11:47

[xiphias]

So a 30 mile round trip to work is about 6 litres at 22.5mpg, or say £6.60 depending on your local station. That is about 33units of electricity, or enough to leave a high powered kettle on for 11 hours. How much juice does your laptop need...

[mechsympathy]

TUS 373 said:

Do the 15 mile drive to work in my 3.5 litre V6 carrying the weight of the laptop computer (say 2.5Kg) and charge it up there, and then drive it back home again

Assuming your car weighs 1500kg, the 2.5kg laptop increases the weight by 0.166%. You'd save more fuel to offset the addition laptop load by losing weight yourself, leaving the spare tyre at home, not keeping the fuel tank brimmed, and short shifting.

[TUS 373]

xiphias said:

So a 30 mile round trip to work is about 6 litres at 22.5mpg, or say £6.60 depending on your local station. That is about 33units of electricity, or enough to leave a high powered kettle on for 11 hours. How much juice does your laptop need...

But that is the cost of moving the car from A to B to A. Really should be calculating the energy and therefore added cost required to move 2.5Kg of laptop through 30 miles.

[illmonkey]

We had the same idea as you, but took it a step furthur.

My kettle, toaster, radio, tv and alarm clock are all on my desk. This has brought on some issues with being at home and unable to use the items.

So to save time, i sleep on my desk.

[andyquantum]

You could buy a power converter and charge the laptop on the drive to work from the cigar lighter, but then you'd have to work out how much buying all the adapters would cost as well

[xiphias]

Re reading and assuming you mean take it in on your normal trip, the amount of extra energy expended by carrying a laptop is negligible when compared to the consistency of mpg you can get, it is probably about a 0.2% increase in weight, and I doubt you can get your mpg that consistent.

[minimax]

TUS 373 said:

Lexus RX 350. Get around 22.5 mpg average driving through hilly Yorkshire, when its dry.

Edited to say - run unleaded at £109.9/litre from Sainsburys, but let's not include the Nectar points at this stage.

Home leccy is 10.2p/kWh

Edited by TUS 373 on Tuesday 2nd September 11:47

how did I know you'd be from yorkshire

do you unscrew lightbulbs as you leave the room, in order to screw them in to rooms you're about to use, by any chance?

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

What's your average speed on the journey? At speed a good amount of the fuel is due to aero load, so the extra weight will do little. It'll always be cheaper to charge at work....

[TUS 373]

RX 350 kerb weight is 1950 Kg, so 2.5 Kg laptop adds 0.128% to the mass moved.

[littleandy0410]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

What's your average speed on the journey? At speed a good amount of the fuel is due to aero load, so the extra weight will do little. It'll always be cheaper to charge at work....

...until you get fired for being tight! (Or theft of your employer's electricity!)

Edited by littleandy0410 on Tuesday 2nd September 11:54

[mat205125]

Don't eat toast! Bread is already cooked. It doesn't need cooking again!

[TUS 373]

minimax said:

TUS 373 said:

Lexus RX 350. Get around 22.5 mpg average driving through hilly Yorkshire, when its dry.

Edited to say - run unleaded at £109.9/litre from Sainsburys, but let's not include the Nectar points at this stage.

Home leccy is 10.2p/kWh

Edited by TUS 373 on Tuesday 2nd September 11:47

how did I know you'd be from yorkshire

do you unscrew lightbulbs as you leave the room, in order to screw them in to rooms you're about to use, by any chance?

How did you know. We eek out the residual heat enery from the bulbs - we do not switch them on. I am not originally from Yorkshire, but am starting to practice their sense of economics!

[TUS 373]

ThatPhilBrettGuy said:

What's your average speed on the journey? At speed a good amount of the fuel is due to aero load, so the extra weight will do little. It'll always be cheaper to charge at work....

22 miles per hour overall. I get stuck in bloody Bradford everynight.

[walm]

Take a 3.5kg dump before you go and actually make money.

[Famous Graham]

mechsympathy said:

TUS 373 said:

Do the 15 mile drive to work in my 3.5 litre V6 carrying the weight of the laptop computer (say 2.5Kg) and charge it up there, and then drive it back home again

Assuming your car weighs 1500kg, the 2.5kg laptop increases the weight by 0.166%. You'd save more fuel to offset the addition laptop load by losing weight yourself, leaving the spare tyre at home, not keeping the fuel tank brimmed, and short shifting.

And folding the seats flat.

[TUS 373]

walm said:

Take a 3.5kg dump before you go and actually make money.

Do that already.

Especially if stuck in Bradford night before and stop off for curry on way home.

I could wait until I get to work, then deduct time on loo plus cost of loo roll paper - but that's a whole new equation to solve.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

All of this will be completely outweighed by the pain of you leaving the charger at work one night and the laptop going flat at home.... Or knowing the laptop will do an evening of PH and getting to work the next day to find the cleaners have had the charger.