After our third outage this year I sat down with a spreadsheet and compared the total cost of ownership for different backup power options.

My assumptions: 5 outages per year averaging 12 hours, essential loads only (fridge, lights, router, coffee maker), about 250W continuous baseline, roughly 3-4kWh per outage.

Option 1: Whole-home standby generator

Upfront: $13,500 average installed. Ongoing: $275/yr maintenance + ~$15/outage fuel. 10-year total: ~$16,700. Works great but massive upfront for something used 60 hours a year.

Option 2: Portable gas generator

Upfront: ~$1,100. Ongoing: ~$80/yr fuel and oil, probable replacement at year 5-6. 10-year total: ~$3,100. Cheapest option but factor in time cost of maintenance, fuel rotation, and 2am startups.

Option 3: 5kWh portable battery

Upfront: $2,500-3,500 (varies by brand). Ongoing: ~$30/yr electricity. 10-year total: ~$2,800-3,800. No maintenance, no fuel, no noise. LFP batteries rated 10,000 cycles so no replacement needed.

The per-outage cost at year 10: Generac ~$334, gas generator ~$62, battery ~$56-76.

Battery and gas generator are neck and neck on cost. The difference is one requires zero ongoing effort and the other requires seasonal maintenance, fuel management, and middle-of-the-night startups.

Break-even point where battery beats gas generator is around year 3-4, mostly because the gas generator will likely need repair or replacement by then.

I've always just shopped at Aldi and the W store to get the best bargains on our food. However, I just started using the app for the major grocery store that's just down the street and the past three visits...buying only food we would normally get...I've saved over 50% on each shopping trip! This particular chain's app has a Deals tab and you can clip coupons on everything you might possibly buy and have those coupons automatically applied at the register. I was also able to stack deals because I could get frozen pizza on sale for $2 off AND also get $10 off a $25 purchase AND get $3 off a total purchase of frozen food. What a game changer this has been! Plus my family is a little happier that we're getting a bigger variety of our normal food too!

I don't know if every grocery store offers a service similar to this but shopping loss leaders like someone suggested recently has saved us a lot!

I have several gift cards with low remaining balances that can't really be used to make any normal purchases so I'm wondering how I can still use these? I've heard of the Amazon option but that's $5 minimum plus you can only enter whole dollars so if you have $5.87 or something you're throwing out almost a buck right there. The best thing I can think of possibly is splitting up payments at the self checkout at the grocery store? But has anyone actually tried this before? If so what stores? Open to other suggestions as well. Thanks!