I’m normally not excited by water heaters, but I do love the idea of investing small money upfront to lower my expenses and save big money in the future. We currently have a 10-year old electric water heater which I’d like to replace soon due to age and inadequate size. We live in a warmer climate and thus considered a solar hot water heater, but the combination of cost and having to cut and install water pipes through our roof didn’t sound especially fun. I just saw that until October 5th, Lowe’s is selling the GE GeoSpring 50-Gallon Hybrid Electric Water Heater for $999. Currently, both GEAppliances.com and Sears also have it at $999. If you can get free delivery in your area, one may be cheaper than the other. Both Lowe’s and Sears offer another 5% off if you have their store credit card.

Tax credits. There is a Federal tax credit of $300 available on electric heat pump water heaters. In addition, check for state energy rebates here, and you may get even more back (look carefully, as many states have already exhausted their rebate funding). Without anything local available for me, this makes the net cost $700. A conventional 50 gallon electric heater with a shorter warranty can be found for about $300, with a 9+ year warranty runs about $400. This makes the cost difference with no state credits to be no more than $400. Both could be installed yourself if you’re handy, otherwise installation is extra.

Potential $2,400 in savings. With average electric cost assumptions, this heater is supposed to save about $25 a month, or $320 a year in electricity costs. If you have your electric bill handy, you can do the math yourself as a 50-gallon standard electric tank water heater uses about 4881 kWh per year vs. the GE Hybrid water heater at 1856 kWh per year. Using their standard numbers, this hybrid system would pay for itself less than two years. Assuming a 10-year usage, you would then have 8 years x $300 a year = $2,400 of potential total savings.

What’s a hybrid water heater? It’s called a hybrid because it can heat up your water using a heat pump as well as the conventional electric resistance coil. I was having flashbacks to my thermodynamics college courses while learning about it, but essentially a heat pump takes the heat from ambient air and transfers it into the water. This is kind of like an air conditioner in reverse, which takes the heat in the air and moves it outside with the aid of a refrigerant like Freon. The heat pump is more energy efficient than the electric coil, but slower, so the coil is still there as a backup during times of high demand. A heat pump works better in warmer climates, as there is more heat in the air. You’ll also end up with condensation which will need a drain unless you want to empty out a water pan every few days.

The added complexity of the heat pump does make for more things to go wrong, which is why I suppose it comes with a rather long warranty. It is worth the upfront investment? I think so for us, but I’ll haven’t fully run the numbers on a similar whole-house tankless system. Thoughts?

An article this week on GetRichSlowly about frequent flier program basics mentioned a WSJ article that I’ve never seen about which airlines make it easiest for you to redeem your miles. The research was done by a consulting firm IdeaWorks Co, which looked for awards equivalent to a domestic roundtrip flight using 25,000 miles “saver” award level. Here are the results:

JetBlue (79%) and Southwest (99%) are tops for domestic carriers. Alaska, American, Continental, and United all had seats available at least 60% of the time or better. Delta and US Airways were at the bottom of the list, with flights up for grabs only 1 out of 4 tries. I’ve mentioned that my parents are served by Delta and I’ve definitely wrestled with them over award flights, and only by booking well ahead of time and being flexible we’ve still managed to get by.

I have no real loyalty towards any airline, which is why I still prefer the flexibility of the Starwood American Express card for racking up my miles and hotel points. I use it for hotels whenever I can, but also to top off my accounts when I finally reach an award I want to redeem. I’m glad there are articles like these to publicly shame airlines like Delta into improving their awards availability.

I haven’t mentioned these in a while. Restaurant.com is running one of their temporary 80% off sales on their $25 certificates (Regular price $10) with coupon code TASTY. Offer valid through 8/31 at 11:59PM PST.

Despite my initial skepticism about these things, many readers responded that they indeed found these certificates very useful for saving money. Always note the restrictions (dine-in only, not valid Friday night, etc.) which can vary for each place.

Here’s an example of how the savings math might work out. You find a restaurant on the list that you like that usually runs around $20 + tip per person (~$48 for a couple). You buy a $25 certificate for $1, which usually comes with a $35 minimum purchase + 18% required gratuity on full price.

If you haven’t searched them in a while, they’ve been adding more restaurants to the list. I use these when I travel as well, so if you know of a good restaurant value in a big city, please share the name and location in the comments.

If you are under a Sprint cell phone contract and want to get out of it without paying the steep Early Termination Fee (ETF), check your statements with a billing date in August. Look for the following text:

Administrative Charge Increase & Terms & Conditions Changes for Consumers
Effective 9/9/11, the Administrative Charge will increase to $1.50 per line for customers that receive the charge. For details, visit Sprint.com/taxesandfees. In addition, the Sprint consumer Terms (Ts&Cs) are changing. Please review them carefully at your local Sprint store or Sprint.com/termsandconditions.

You may be “stuck” in a contract, but a contract runs both ways. Sprint is also “stuck” and can’t go increasing your monthly bill whenever they want. The law states that if a company makes a material change to the contract, then the consumer has the ability to exit the contract without an ETF if they notify Sprint within 30 days of the notice. As stated on their own fees page: “The Administrative Charge is not a tax and is not an amount we are required to collect from you by law.” From the Sprint contract:

You may terminate each line of Service materially affected without incurring an Early Termination Fee only if you: (a) call us within 30 days after the effective date of the change; and (b) specifically advise us that you wish to cancel Services because of a material change to the Agreement that we have made. If you do not cancel Service within 30 days of the change, an Early Termination Fee will apply if you terminate Services before the end of any applicable Term Commitment.

I believe this admin charge used to be 99 cents per line. However they rephrase it, this is a price hike and thus a “material change”, pure and simple. If it wasn’t material, they wouldn’t be raising the prices on their 50 million customers x $0.50 extra = $25 million per month in additional revenue!

Many users on this Slickdeals post as well as some MyMoneyBlog readers have already reported success. You may need to ask for the Retentions Department or a supervisor, but don’t them talk you out of it. Sprint knows what they are doing, they just wanted to minimize the publicity, this already happened back in January 2010. One additional tip for some folks who want it is to ask for your line to be marked “out of contract”. This will allow you to simply exit your contract, but continue your service on a month-to-month basis. If not, you can ask to cancel at the end of the month to allow time to port your phone number to another carrier. Finally, they may offer you some sort of cash credit or other incentive to stay in contract.

Self-storage unit auctions have been getting increased attention to two new reality TV shows, Storage Wars and Auction Hunters. The premise is simple. If someone pays to have their stuff stored there, but stops paying the rent, the storage company won’t let you pick up your stuff until you pay up. If you still don’t pay your bills, they’ll auction off all your stuff in order to make the unit available again. I’ve always tried to avoid such places because I figured that just meant I had too much stuff!

The auction itself is quite a gamble. Bidders usually only get to see what is visible while standing outside the unit, and that’s it. So you could end up with valuable antiques, or a carefully-folded collection of used underwear. Want to participate in a live auction to see what it’s all about? Traditionally, you would be looking for the legally-required notices in your local newspaper. These days, the best site I could find for looking up self storage listings in your area is Sparefoot.com, a start-up that primarily does self-storage price comparisons. Bring cash, and verify the time and place by phone on the day of the auction.

A few added warnings. First, the new popularity means winning bids have doubled in some areas. Second, some shady places now actually scam people by making the unit look artificially valuable with things like (empty) brand-name boxes. Almost sounds like a Freakonomics topic.

Now that there is a secondary market for gift cards, you can also buy gift cards at a discount to face value and use them at your preferred retailer. Better yet, you can combine them with whatever coupon or sale is already going on. A good use is for larger purchases at stores like Home Depot or Lowe’s, where an additional 7% off means $35 savings on a $500 appliance. These guys often also have 10% off coupons floating around, for example in US Postal Service moving kits or in exchange for signing up for 0% financing.

The downside to this is that for physical gift cards and brick-and-mortar stores, this takes advance planning. You have to buy it, wait for it to come in the mail, and then use it in a store on a future purchase while hoping the sale/promotion is still going on and the item is still in stock. It would be great if you could simply go a store, pick up your items, and then buy some discounted gift cards right before reaching the cash register. This turns out to be possible, but it was a bit clunky. This will only work with retailers that accept online gift certificates in their physical stores.

1. Find it. You need to find a website that sells discounted Home Depot “eCodes”, which are electronic gift certificates. I used Plastic Jungle (PJ), which currently offers a good selection of Home Depot codes at 7% off. Now, the PJ site says that these codes are for online-use only, but but both the HomeDepot.com website and my actual conversation with an HD employee confirm that you can use them in-store.
   

   Where can I use my eGift Card? You can use your eGift Card at any The Home Depot store in the United States, its territories or possessions, and in Canada. You may also redeem your eGift Card online at homedepot.com.

2. Buy it. Browse the website on your mobile device, and purchase the required amount. You’ll have to decide whether to buy a little less than you need, or a little more and use the rest later. I prefer just buying a little less if I can, like $100 worth for $110 of stuff. PJ uses Paypal, but you can still use a rewards credit card to get extra savings.
3. Hope it comes instantly, and use it. Now, the extra-clunky part is that most websites don’t promise instant delivery. For example, at Plastic Jungle this was in their purchase confirmation e-mail:
   

   The PayPal payment you authorized is pending, your order will be processed within 1 business day. You will receive a notification when your payment has been approved. Please note eCODEs purchased after 1PM PST will be delivered via email the next business day.

   However, my gift code did indeed come immediately, literally 30 seconds after the purchase confirmation. Perhaps this is how it goes with Home Depot cards, as I even bought after 1pm PST. I checked the balance and it was legit. You may get a cashier that doesn’t know how to enter the code, in that case ask for a supervisor.

So here is my suggestion for gift card reseller websites. Create an iPhone/Android app or mobile website that allows quick and easy purchases of gift certificate codes that can be delivered and used immediately. Let me save “favorite stores” and secure payment information to make things even faster. As consumers, we should encourage stores to allow online codes to work both online and in-store.