As a new member to HomeESP, I checked out the Savings Center to find discounts, both online and for stores where I shop.  Frankly, I always look for a good deal.
And saving money with the HomeESP Savings Center just got faster, easier and even more rewarding. This Product Search, the latest benefit in the Savings Center gives you one place to discover savings on millions of great products. Simply enter the item you want, and enjoy top deals from the world’s best brands.

I needed a couple of things and found the Saving Center's Product Search tab where I could easily compare what was available and at what price.  Maybe there would be some discount coupons as well...

You get what you pay for.  It’s as true today as it’s ever been.  When you buy an inferior product, it will cost less at the outset, but often has a short warranty.  Sometimes a lesser brand will add a long or lifetime warranty to improve its image and ability to sell its products, which can make a purchasing decision a little more complicated.  Buying a product with a lifetime warranty can mean a higher cost at the outset, but provides a measure of comfort and reduced total cost of ownership over time.  Higher quality can mean lower cost, when you take a long view.

Recently we had three product failures that required us to make a claim on lifetime warranties.  Here’s what they were and what we experienced:

Child’s trundle bed frame from Charles P. Rogers.  We have a Marseilles iron trundle bed that is 10 years old.  A weld on the headboard broke as a result of years of kids bouncing on the bed.  The tab that holds the headboard onto the frame rails separated from the headboard.  The people on the phone at Charles P. Rogers were very nice, service-oriented and helpful.  They pledged to honor the warranty and gave me instructions to drop off the frame or ship it (at my cost).  It took me about six weeks to get around to shipping the headboard, and they actually called me to find out if I still needed service.  Finally, I got my tools and took the bed apart, and after  $100 or so in packing and shipping expense and about a week and a half later, the headboard was returned, major (kid inflicted) paint chips touched up and with a bottle of touch up paint.  I feel compelled to give this company an “A” for overall performance and good customer service experience.  http://www.charlesprogers.com/

Down comforter from The Company Store.  Linens manufactured in this catalog merchant’s La Crosse, WI facility are covered by a lifetime warranty.  Our seven-year-old down comforter’s fabric became brittle over the summer and ripped as we made the bed one morning.  A call to The Company Store 800-number (800-323-8000)

If you want to reduce your cost of home heating and cooling, there's no more effective way than with a programmable thermostat.  Our daily deal for the Honeywell RTH6350 can't be beat.  It's an easy-to-install and easy-to-program thermostat for almost any kind of heating and cooling (except electric baseboard).  You'll see it elsewhere for its list price of $59.99 or maybe on Amazon.com for $53, but no one comes close to our daily deal price of just $35.99 including FREE shipping, handling and 90-day trial of HomeESP Premier.

One of the most amazing things that occurred during our kitchen renovation was how quickly we were able to sell our old cabinets, countertops and appliances.  We put an ad on Craig’s List and within a week all was sold, and at good prices totaling more than $2,000.  But for home or apartment remodelers on a budget, there’s a more reliable resource (at least if you live in Connecticut, New Jersey or Pennsylvania): Green Demolitions.

In three warehouse style showrooms, they offer professionally removed kitchens, new and used appliances, furniture and more.  Savings on complete kitchens can be more than 75 percent off the price when new.  Cabinets are selected for condition and style, so you’re sure to find a wide range of possibilities.  And since new stock comes in every day, if what you want isn’t there today, it’s worth checking back a few times a month – especially if you want to save money on your renovation. 

The folks at HomeESP want to encourage you to change to energy efficient light bulbs.  You will begin to save energy and money immediately.  And you can add to your savings $20 that HomeESP will send in the form of a cash rebate.

Check out for yourself how much money you can save by replacing your old bulbs with CFL bulbs by using the GE Energy Smart CFL Savings Calculator. 

A two-story house with 3 bedrooms, 21/2 baths, a finished basement and attic that we recently worked on had nearly '30' 100 watt bulbs, '14' more 60 watt bulbs and '4' 90 watt bulbs in outside lights.  The owners will save over $450 this year and $2,485 over the lifetime of their new CFL bulbs. 

I had mixed emotions when my wife bought the family a Keurig brewer.  I knew that we benefited from each family member being able to choose his or her different flavors of coffee without fighting over the one drip coffee maker.  However, I was not feeling particularly green.  Although, we keep hearing that Keurig, and folks like Green Mountain are working on developing recyclable K-cups, as of yet they are yet eco-friendly.  My wife solved my problem by buying me a re-useable K-cup for the single-cup brewer.

I love my refillable, reuseable K-cup for the ecological reasons and because I am saving money using coffee by the pound vs. coffee by the K-cup  (see an earlier post where we analyze the cost of a cup of coffee).  And, if you cannot find your favorite coffee offered in a K-cup, no worries, the refillable K-cup solves that problem.

However, over time I found a few things about it that bothered me about the reuseable K-cup I was using, a Keurig My K-Cup Reusable Coffee Filter 5048 (currently $14.29 on Amazon).  The most obvious deficiency is how you need to pop out a Keurig brewing K-cup holder and replace it with a reusable K-cup holder.  This is not a big deal until the first time you forget to put the Keurig brewing K-cup holder back in.  Wait for the next person to use the brewer, put their K-cup into what they think is the working holder to find that water goes flying all over the place and you have wasted the anywhere between 40 and 70 cent K-cup of coffee, not to mention made a mess on the kitchen counter. 

Here in the Northeast, we have a lot of homes which rely on heating oil instead of natural gas for heat.  While many of us stay with the same oil company for years, there are sometimes good reasons to change home heating oil companies, including a poor service experience, lower price for oil and differences in the financial products offered to fix or cap the price of oil.

For us, it was a customer service interaction which caused us to look for a new home heating oil provider.  We were unhappy with a service to our boiler, and in the discussion to resolve the issue, decided that this was the last year with our current home heating oil supplier.

Changing home heating oil companies is easy, but there is a lot to consider beyond the lowest delivered price:

A recent decision from the federal government may put an end to one solar energy rebate this year, while another will end in less than five years, according to CNN. 

 The affected benefits, which include ending the 30 percent cash rebate for home energy projects from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as well as the 30 percent federal tax credit, will both be discontinued. The former will end later this year, while the latter has until the end of 2016, the news source reported. These were cut due to shrinking federal budgets, and the 29 states that offered their own incentives may be cutting back as well. 

 "If we'd known that our cost was going to be $33,000 instead of $13,000, that would have been a fairly hard one to sell to ourselves just for the ecological, environmental warm and fuzzies," Michael Hoffman, a Florida resident who was not able to get a state home energy related rebate due to cuts, told the news source.