Amazon Subscribe and Save FIller Items Under $2.00 for May 2015

Updated list of items under $2 eligible for Amazon Subscribe & Save :



BC Analgesic Powder, 6 Count  (aspirin) = $1.26

DEWALT DW4518 4-1/2-Inch by 1/8-Inch by 7/8-Inch General Purpose Metal Cutting Wheel = $1.29

Pac-Kit 1-009 Fabric Adhesive Light Woven Flexible Knuckle Bandage, 3" Length x 1-1/2" Width (Box of 8) = $1.33

Curad Rolled Gauze, 4 Inches X 4.1 Yards = $1.46


Barilla Protein Plus Spaghetti Pasta, 14.5 Ounce = $1.65

Keebler Fudge Shoppe Grasshopper Cookies, Mint, 10 Ounce = $1.68



PureBites Beef Liver Cat Treats, 0.85-Ounce = $1.69


Wilton Red Sprinkles = $1.69

Lipton Pyramids, Bavarian Wild Berry 20 ct = $1.80

Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Naturals Popcorn, Classic Butter and Sea Salt, 76.3g Bags, 3 Count = $1.85

Palmolive Tropical Tango Dish Liquid, 12.6 Ounce = $1.89

I'm citing the price for each item including the 15% discount that you'd get with 5 items which is the point here.

I try to list a variety of items so you'll have a better chance of seeing something on this list that you'd actually get use out of so its not just bought and wasted.

Warning :  If you use items off this list then make sure to watch them and cancel your subscription if you no longer want them or if the prices go up.   The cheap items I find seem to change pretty quickly so they may have large price hikes or be removed from the subscribe and save program. 

Note the list will get out of date within months or days.   I'll probably post a newer list before all of the above items are gone or have price increases.  But if you can't find something good here you can always go to Amazon and search for Subscribe & Save and sort based on prices and poke around to find something cheap to use as a filler.

I've discussed before how you can get a  better discount on Amazon Subscribe and Save purchases if you order 5 items at once.  However if you don't buy a lot of stuff then it can be hard to come up with a 5 item order.   However if your products are worth enough then it can be worth it to add some filler items to get up to 5 items to get the 15% discount. 

Say for example, you want to buy a couple cases of Pampers Swaddlers Diapers  that run $45.97 each with a normal purchase.   With Subscribe and save you'd get a 5% discount.to get the price down to $43.67.    But if you have 5 items in your S&S order then it is only $36.78 or a $6.89 savings.   And if you're buying two of those then thats double or $13.78.    Adding the 4 cheapest items listed here to the S&S order would only cost you $4.99 total with the 5 item discount so its worth buying those items to get you a net savings of $8.79.

Note if you don't want the filler items and only use them to get a 5 item discount then you can of course always give away the food items to someone you know or donate them to the local food bank.


--This article may contain referral links which pay this site a commission for purchases made at the sites.
 

I've Paid About 48¢ Per Mile to Drive My Car

I've owned my car now for over 8 years.    In that time I've just now hit 70,000 miles total.   I paid a little over $14,000 for it in 2007 and its worth around $4000 today.

I'm estimating my expenses but I'm probably pretty close in my estimates.    I figure this is likely correct within 10%.    I just don't have detailed accurate records of everything I've spent for 8 years, so I'll have to estimate.

The depreciation I figured using the current private party sales estimate value from Edmunds versus what I paid originally 8 years ago.

I figured gasoline costs based on using historical numbers for our city off of Gasbuddy.com     Those numbers are going to be a bit inflated since they're using the city average value and I pay below average prices for my gas.    For example right now the city average is about $2.90 and the station I go to has gas for $2.71.   

The costs for insurance, oil changes, tires, repairs & maintenance and taxes are all estimates based on my memory and there is more margin for error in these categories.  

Lastly I added a figure for the opportunity cost which is based on figuring 4% interest on the original ~$14,000 purchase price over 8 years.  I'm pretty sure I could have made 4% with that money.

Here's the summary of costs over the years and the totals :

depreciation	$     10,000
insurance	$       5,600
gas	$     10,182
oil changes	$          560
tires	$          500
repairs/maint	$       1,500
tax	$          400
opportunity cost	$       4,544
TOTAL	$33,286
per mile	$0.476

So the total cost there is $0.476 per mile or roughly 48¢.

Thats more than I'd have guessed.      

If I'd done a very quick almost off the top of my head calculation I think I'd have come up with about 30¢ per mile cost.   That would have been based on the $10,000 in depreciation, figuring "a couple thousand more for other stuff" and then guessing a price of $2.70 for gasoline.      I would have underestimated the cost of insurance and the opportunity cost.   And I apparently remembered the price of gas wrong over the past eight years, most likely because my memory is biased towards what I paid last week for gas more than 7 years ago.

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Is a Tesla Powerwall Worth Buying Just To Avoid Paying Peak Electricity Rates?

Tesla recently announced a home battery system called Powerwall.       One of the selling points they made was :

"Avoid Paying Peak Rates Power companies often charge a higher price for electricity during peak evening hours than overnight when demand is low. Powerwall can reduce your power bill by storing electricity when rates are low and powering your home when rates are high"

That intgrigued me.     If you're not familiar with the idea of peak rates, this is how it works.   Electric companies may have a rate system setup that charges you a higher cost during peak rates and a lower cost during off peak rates.   They may do this to try and shift usage off peak and even out their loads better.   For example a utility might have a normal base rate of 10¢ per kWh but if you have the peak rate system then they charge you 15¢ during peak and 5¢ in off peak.      If you had a battery you could charge the battery at night for 5¢ and then use the power during the day and basically save yourself 5¢ per kWh versus the normal rates.


Would a Tesla Powerwall pay for itself simply by shifting your electricity usage to off peak times? 

The Powerwall comes in 2 models a 10kWH unit and a 7.7 kWh model.    The 10kWh version is for weekly cycle and apparently more for emergency backup.   The 7.7kWh model has a daily cycle.    They run $3000 for the daily 7.7 and $3500 for the weekly 10.    We'd be looking at he 7.7kWh model for daily use at $3000.    These costs do not include an inverter or installation.   I'll ignore those costs for now and get back to that later.

The 7.7 kWh daily cycle Powerwall costs $3000.    It has a 10 year warranty.   They also mention a 10 year extension.   If I used 7.7 kWh every day for 10 years then that would be a total of 28,105 kWh.      With a $3000 cost that comes to about 10.7¢ per kWh based on a 10 year life.   Lets assume a 20 year life to be generous for the battery.   That gets us down to 5.3¢ per kWh cost for the battery alone. 

If your off peak energy costs more than 5¢ kWh more than on peak then this is getting close to feasible.    However you'd also have the costs of the installation and possibly a AC-DC inverter too.    I don't know what those cost.     I believe that home PV solar systems will have a AC-DC inverter in them but I"m not sure if that is what you need for the Power wall exactly.    I'd take a wild guess that installation will run you $500-$1000.   But thats really just a wild guess.

I'm going to conclude that a Powerwall isn't financially practical for most people just to avoid paying off peak power rates.      I suppose if you have particularly high difference between peak and off peak rates it might make sense but from what I see a max 5¢ difference between normal charges and off peak seems typical.   But my numbers still assume a 20 year life for the battery and I haven't calculated in the installation costs.    You might need to see more like 10-15¢ per kWh between peak and normal to make these practical just to save off peak electricity charges.

Bottom Line : NO I really don't think that a Powerwall is worth it financially just to take advantage of low off peak electricity rates.

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Best of Blogs for Week of May 1st

Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week


MyMoneyBlog says that Your Homeowner’s Insurance Deductible Should Be Catastrophically High



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