Product Review Monday

Today's product review will focus on power outages, and what to do about them.

When we moved here about four and a half years ago (in mid-December of 2020), we quickly learned the electrical grid in this area is very fragile. Anything seems to knock out power: a wind, a snowfall, a Tuesday. To that end, and because we were concerned about keeping me available for my online job, we needed a dependable backup to run my laptop in the event the power went out on a workday.

Enter a backup power source called AllPowers:

This gizmo is the size of a car battery and provides 600 watts and almost 300 watt-hours. It will power my laptop for, I kid you not, about four days of continuous use. (Trust me on this.)

Indirectly, it also charged our wireless hotspot backup, which was plugged into the laptop during my workdays.

This battery powers more than my laptop, of course. It will power anything you plug into it (personal electronics, LED lights, etc.). When using it for my laptop, I have not had anything else plugged into it since I wanted to make sure I had sufficient dedicated power for my computer. However the manufacturers say the battery can charge up to eight things at once. The unit has the advantage of being portable and relatively lightweight at about 13 pounds. We keep it fully charged at all times.

The exact model we purchased is no longer available, but a comparable unit by the same company has the same (or better) specs. Highly recommended if you depend on your computer for employment and live in areas prone to power outages.

Buoyed by the success of this battery backup, we went up a step and got a larger version, a VTOMAN. This unit provides 1500 watts and 828 watt-hours. It weighs about 31 lbs. and can be charged a number of different ways (electricity, solar, car charger, etc.). It's large enough to power bigger appliances, such as a refrigerator or chest freezer, for a limited period of time. (Keep in mind a fridge or freezer can keep food suitably cold/frozen, if the doors aren't opened, on as little as an hour of electricity a day if need be.)

The advantage of this unit is its portability. It's not something you want to sling in your backpack and take hiking, of course, but Don and I took it with us on our second honeymoon as an emergency source of power without an issue. Highly recommended.

And finally, we bought yet another battery backup, a spectacular purchase called a Bluetti. This workhorse is much heavier (about 70 lbs.), but it's a giant when it comes to running household appliances during outages.

Again, the exact model we have has been upgraded to a newer type, one that offers a 2400-watt output and over 2000 watt-hours of use.

This Bluetti has saved our fanny any number of times. Last year, during a particularly bad series of storms with a resulting multi-day power outage, we used it to keep our fridge and chest freezer cold.

We also took the opportunity to recharge it using our generator; not because it needed recharging, but because we wanted to test whether charging it with the generator would work. (It did.)

There are multiple types of battery backups on the market, but these are the ones we've used (a lot!) and can attest to their quality and usefulness.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, I earn a small commission.)

Happy charging!

Loud budgeting

Social media trends famously come and go. Some are stupid, some are dangerous ... but once in a while you come across a trend that actually makes sense.

Thanks to social media, the pressure to keep up with the proverbial Joneses and appear more affluent than one really is, it seems, is bigger than ever.

But I just caught wind of something called "loud budgeting."

Apparently in some areas (the articles I read focused on New York City), there is a great deal of social pressure NOT to admit you're on a budget. Therefore if you're invited out for drinks or a meal or a nightclub, you feel compelled to go and must never admit you can't afford it.

"Picture this," begins one such article. "You’re out to dinner with a friend who you know makes a lot more money than you do. When you open the menu, your heart sinks. There’s not an entree in sight that’s less than $35, and even a soup is going to run you $18. Then the waiter comes by with…oh God, is that an in-house sommelier? That's it, you’re dropping $100 tonight, at the very least. If you’ve been in this scenario (and let’s be real, who hasn’t) you probably left the dinner and vowed to subsist on dollar pizzas slices until payday to make up for it. But what if you just turned to your friend, closed the menu, and said, 'Sorry, I have to be honest. I can’t afford this. Let’s go somewhere else?'"

And that defiant act – telling your friend you can't afford something – is now called "loud budgeting." Excuse me while I stand up and cheer and pump my fist in enthusiastic support of this trend.

The trend may have started as something of a joke on TikTok, but those in the financial services industry are getting on board as well. The trend has even been highlighted on Good Morning America.

One financial advisor says she’s seen social media add pressure to her clients to spend beyond their means on luxury items they can’t really afford, and welcomes a movement to mitigate that: "I think [social media] can make a lot of younger people feel like they're behind to some capacity and that they have to keep up with that and they have to be buying luxury and brand named items, whether it's clothing or cars or whatever the case may be, and put it out there."

In short, younger people are learning financial struggles are the norm, not the exception; and that frugality and avoiding debt is freedom, not slavery. This is a very, very good lesson to learn at a young age.

One person said, "Staying quiet about your finances and setting spending limits don't have to be shrouded in shame."

Trends may come and trends may go, but hopefully this one sticks around.