If you were listening to Stephanie Penn Spear give a presentation about saving power right now, she would ask you this question: “How many kilowatt hours of electricity do you use in your home each month?” Typically, Stephanie says, she sees only one or two hands. (That’s okay. Mine wasn’t one of them, either.)

What Stephanie instructs during her talks at schools and organizations throughout Ohio is, basically, don’t just pay your electric bill, read it.

“What you’re going to find is that your electricity bill is extremely easy to read and very informative,” says Stephanie.

Last year, she launched an alternative energy consulting firm, Expedite Renewable Energy, which assists companies who want to explore solar or wind turbine energy sources. Her newsletter, EcoWatch Journal, has a readership of more than 100,000 including online.

Three years ago, Stephanie decided to see how much power she was using.

A quick scan of her electric bill revealed her average monthly usage of 750 kW per hour per month. (She dug the dandy little bar chart that provided a graphic depiction of the year’s usage, too.) Researching the monthly numbers for a 2,000-square-foot home such as hers, she found the average was between 850 and 1200 kW hours. Stephanie, being Stephanie, wanted to do even better.

A quick assessment led to several changes: She plugged her television and office equipment into power strips that turn on or off as necessary, instead of leaving everything in standby mode, which still draws power from the grid. When at her computer, she only turned on her printer or speakers when she was actually using them. Same with lights. She bought an Energy Saver washer and dryer set. She converted her incandescent bulbs into contact fluorescent bulbs.

Stephanie looked forward to getting her bill to see the reductions. She ended up cutting her total usage by more than half to 320 kW hours, which resulted in a $40 monthly savings.

She also figured out an ingenious way to get kids to buy in. She tells students to assure their parents that they can save them a lot of money every month on one condition: they have to commit the first money saved to buying an iPod or video game or tickets to see a Paramore concert (or whatev) within reason. After enough money is saved to pay the child’s “consulting fee,” the parents fully enjoy the savings for themselves.

Now the valiant among you will volunteer to teach this lesson. In return, you will receive a fourfold reward: Save power. Shorten your carbon footprint. Save money. Surprise (and edify) your kids.

Christopher Johnston has written for American Theatre, Cleveland, Continental, Crain’s Cleveland Business, Editor & Publisher, The Plain Dealer, Progressive Architecture and Urban Design, and Scientific American, among other publications. He is currently writing a biography of Frederick C. Crawford, founding chairman of TRW Inc. As an avocation, he is a playwright and director, and this December, his play APORKALYPSE! will premier at convergence-continuum theatre in Cleveland.

Negotiating is an art, and a great way to save money. And as a nation, we’re getting good at it. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports surveyed more than 2,000 adults and found that more than 60% have bargained or asked for a discount at least once during the past three years.

We know negotiating works at stores and flea markets, but what about banks? Despite the credit squeeze, you can still make a good argument for getting what you want these days – and be successful. The survey found that those who negotiated with their banks over fees were successful at least once 87% of the time. And the majority of those negotiators saved anywhere from $50 to $100 as a result.

I, too, have had success getting a lower interest rate or eliminating some overdraft fees. Most recently I hit the jackpot and managed to get a costly bank “requirement” waived.

Here’s the story: I am almost done refinancing a second home. At the last minute, my broker told me I needed to get “six months of gross rent loss insurance” to compensate for potential loss of rental income in the event that property damage made the apartment uninhabitable. It’s currently a Fannie Mae prerequisite for all second home refinancing applicants. (Note: Despite my clean bill of credit and savings, it’s taken more than three months to get this deal sealed.) So I called my insurance company, AllState, for a quote.

My AllState agent had never heard of it. My mortgage broker quickly assured me he could “find me another insurer who could help me.”

Days later – and one week from closing – I learned that rental loss insurance is only available as a rider to your existing homeowner’s insurance policy. I’d have to ditch AllState altogether and work with some other company and lose the ability to shop around for the best deal since I’d probably be choosing between Joe Shmo and WhatsHisName Insurance Agencies, the only places on earth that offer this unknown insurance contract. Can you tell I was getting angry?

Here’s the exact e-mail response I sent my broker:

“What an inconvenience...I just renewed my insurance policy (paid in full) and don't know if I can easily make this switch...If there is ANY way around this, please let me know. I have no financial need to rent out the home. I am fine making the payments based on my income and savings.

The fact that AllState insurance, one of the largest insurance agencies in the country, does not provide this speaks volumes about the obscurity of this insurance.”

Minutes later, my broker replied, agreeing to follow up with underwriting. Two days later, success. The insurance was waived.

Active time to negotiate: 45 seconds. Potential savings: at least hundreds of dollars.

While I think my stern e-mail helped, I probably couldn’t have done it without a few other supporting factors. Here are a few takeaways to help anyone looking to cut a deal with a bank.

To be a successful negotiator…

• Have Great Credit. Not just OK credit, but great credit. A score well in the 700s and a spotless credit report are facts that can give you, well, credibility. My broker knew about my credit score and I reminded him that I have enough savings and income, as well, to cover the mortgage on the property. I had no need to rent the unit, therefore 6 months of rent loss insurance was unnecessary. 

• Stand Firm and Take Advantage of Timing. I was frustrated and my broker knew that well. While I never made threats to ditch the application process, I did express that I was not going to bend over backwards to fulfill this “requirement.” I also knew the bank and broker were knee-deep in the deal, just as I was. It was in everybody’s interest to make it work at that point, which is why negotiating then was a perfect time.

• Get a Second Opinion. Throughout this refi process I was also speaking with another mortgage broker, a friend of a friend, who was making sure my existing broker (who came highly recommended) was playing by the rules. When I had concerns about the good faith estimate and other details, I’d run them by him for a second opinion. Then I would mention this to my existing broker, so he knew I was on top of things. It wasn’t a threat, just a friendly and occasional, “That’s what my friend, a mortgage broker, told me, as well. I asked him for his opinion.” Meantime, in my broker’s mind this likely translated as, “I'd better keep her happy.”

In the end, he did.

Farnoosh Torabi – Credit.com Personal Finance Contributor, nationally recognized author, expert and television host. Her first book, You're So Money, is an acclaimed tell-all for young adults searching for financial independence. Her new book Psych Yourself Rich, gives readers the mindset and discipline to build their financial life.

Negotiating is an art, and a great way to save money. And as a nation, we’re getting good at it. Earlier this year, Consumer Reports surveyed more than 2,000 adults and found that more than 60% have bargained or asked for a discount at least once during the past three years.

We know negotiating works at stores and flea markets, but what about banks? Despite the credit squeeze, you can still make a good argument for getting what you want these days – and be successful. The survey found that those who negotiated with their banks over fees were successful at least once 87% of the time. And the majority of those negotiators saved anywhere from $50 to $100 as a result.

I, too, have had success getting a lower interest rate or eliminating some overdraft fees. Most recently I hit the jackpot and managed to get a costly bank “requirement” waived.

Here’s the story: I am almost done refinancing a second home. At the last minute, my broker told me I needed to get “six months of gross rent loss insurance” to compensate for potential loss of rental income in the event that property damage made the apartment uninhabitable. It’s currently a Fannie Mae prerequisite for all second home refinancing applicants. (Note: Despite my clean bill of credit and savings, it’s taken more than three months to get this deal sealed.) So I called my insurance company, Allstate, for a quote.

My Allstate agent had never heard of it. My mortgage broker quickly assured me he could “find me another insurer who could help me.”

Days later – and one week from closing – I learned that rental loss insurance is only available as a rider to your existing homeowner’s insurance policy. I’d have to ditch Allstate altogether and work with some other company and lose the ability to shop around for the best deal since I’d probably be choosing between Joe Shmo and WhatsHisName Insurance Agencies, the only places on earth that offer this unknown insurance contract. Can you tell I was getting angry?

Here’s the exact e-mail response I sent my broker:

“What an inconvenience...I just renewed my insurance policy (paid in full) and don't know if I can easily make this switch...If there is ANY way around this, please let me know. I have no financial need to rent out the home. I am fine making the payments based on my income and savings.

The fact that Allstate insurance, one of the largest insurance agencies in the country, does not provide this speaks volumes about the obscurity of this insurance.”

Minutes later, my broker replied, agreeing to follow up with underwriting. Two days later, success. The insurance was waived.

Active time to negotiate: 45 seconds. Potential savings: at least hundreds of dollars.

While I think my stern e-mail helped, I probably couldn’t have done it without a few other supporting factors. Here are a few takeaways to help anyone looking to cut a deal with a bank.

To be a successful negotiator…

• Have Great Credit. Not just OK credit, but great credit. A score well in the 700s and a spotless credit report are facts that can give you, well, credibility. My broker knew about my credit score and I reminded him that I have enough savings and income, as well, to cover the mortgage on the property. I had no need to rent the unit, therefore 6 months of rent loss insurance was unnecessary. 

• Stand Firm and Take Advantage of Timing. I was frustrated and my broker knew that well. While I never made threats to ditch the application process, I did express that I was not going to bend over backwards to fulfill this “requirement.” I also knew the bank and broker were knee-deep in the deal, just as I was. It was in everybody’s interest to make it work at that point, which is why negotiating then was a perfect time.

• Get a Second Opinion. Throughout this refi process I was also speaking with another mortgage broker, a friend of a friend, who was making sure my existing broker (who came highly recommended) was playing by the rules. When I had concerns about the good faith estimate and other details, I’d run them by him for a second opinion. Then I would mention this to my existing broker, so he knew I was on top of things. It wasn’t a threat, just a friendly and occasional, “That’s what my friend, a mortgage broker, told me, as well. I asked him for his opinion.” Meantime, in my broker’s mind this likely translated as, “I'd better keep her happy.”

In the end, he did.

Farnoosh Torabi – Credit.com Personal Finance Contributor, nationally recognized author, expert and television host. Her first book, You're So Money, is an acclaimed tell-all for young adults searching for financial independence. Her new book Psych Yourself Rich, gives readers the mindset and discipline to build their financial life.

Is it me or is it impossible to go one day without seeing a bottle of water? Makes sense, since Americans now buy more than 500 million bottles each week.

Half a billion bottles are purchased at a time when nearly 1 billion Earthlings can’t find safe drinking water. Only 15 percent of those bottles ever make it into the recycling system, and each bottle that is tossed by the side of the road or into a landfill takes 1,000 years to dissolve.

Being the nice guy that I am, I’ll spare you most of the factoids, processes and protestations about bottled aqua are exquisitely articulated in Elizabeth Royte’s book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It. She conceived the book while writing Garbage Land, when she learned that packaging comprises one-third of the solid waste in landfills.

Let’s face it, in searching for the latest, hottest new drink, the beverage companies leveraged the marketing of fear, told us tap water was dangerous, then repackaged water and sold it to us in pretty plastic bottles. The annual market now exceeds $15 billion in the US and $60 billion worldwide.

I won’t even drag you into Barrelmania; that it takes 17 million barrels of oil to produce one year’s worth of bottled water, all of the oil required to keep it refrigerated, then transport the empty bottles to waste or recycling centers … Oops.

“If I had to buy water, I would probably try to buy water that was not coming long distance,” she says. “I certainly wouldn’t buy Fiji Water or something from France. I’d try to support a local company.”

Elizabeth is a realist. She knows that the genie, so to speak, is already out of the bottle. There’s no turning back from the liquid gold mine it’s become. But $4 for a bottle of water you can get from your tap?

Here’s the most salient information Elizabeth conveyed: “Most tap water in this country is perfectly safe to drink, especially water in big cities.” she says. “The bigger the system, the more frequently it’s tested, and the more money they have to protect their watershed and keep their treatment plants running properly.”

It’s okay to buy bottled water for emergencies such as power outages or boiling alerts. Otherwise, you can rid tap water of its chemical taste by leaving it out overnight so that the chlorine evaporates. You can also buy a permanent, refillable bottle and refill it at your nearest sink.

Christopher Johnston has written for American Theatre, Cleveland, Continental, Crain’s Cleveland Business, Editor & Publisher, The Plain Dealer, Progressive Architecture and Urban Design, and Scientific American, among other publications. He is currently writing a biography of Frederick C. Crawford, founding chairman of TRW Inc. As an avocation, he is a playwright and director, and this December, his play APORKALYPSE! will premier at convergence-continuum theatre in Cleveland.

LucyPhone from Decogram Corporation on Vimeo.

I'm not much of a phone person; I much prefer communicating either face-to-face or via email. So, any kind of service that reduces the amount of time I'm on the phone is a godsend. I am an occasional user of Slydial.com, which lets me place calls straight to a person's voicemail, so I can leave a message without wasting my time having an unnecessary conversation. And I'm a constant user of Google Voice, which allows me to screen incoming calls so I don't have to chat with chatty people during office hours.

And now there's a third tool in my phone-time-reduction-arsenal: LucyPhone, a free service that makes being put on hold a little less intolerable.

The best way to describe how LucyPhone works is to describe a recent example of how I used it. I needed to call Sirius Satellite Radio to complain about a billing issue (they stuck me with an autorenew plan without my knowledge, and kept billing me for months after I had returned my leased car). So I went to LucyPhone.com and entered "Sirius" in the search field (If you have an iPhone, the free LucyPhone app is handy, because it eliminates the need to have a computer to set up the call). Lucy found Sirius' phone number. Next, it asked me for my phone number, which I entered. Then Lucy called me and set up the call between me and Sirius. Once I was connected to Sirius's voice mail system, I pressed the keys to reach the customer service department. Of course, I was put on hold. At that point, I pressed ** and hung up the phone. Then I went back to work, pretty much forgetting the fact that Lucy was waiting on hold on my behalf.

Twenty minutes later, my phone rang. I picked it up, and was connected to a customer service representative at Sirius. I explained the situation to her, and she told me she'd need to put me on hold again while she did some research. So I pressed ** again and hung up the phone. This time, Lucy called me back in 10 minutes and I resumed the call with the customer service rep. That means Lucy saved me a half hour of waiting on just a single call. I imagine the service will save me many hours of waiting over the course of a year. That's time I can spend with my family, or working, or doing almost anything other than waiting with a phone pressed against my ear. Lucy is a winner.

Mark Frauenfelder – Editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog, Mark was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and is the founding editor of Wired Online.