As a child, I remember noticing the utility meter attached to our house. For some time, I observed the smoothly revolving disk inside the glass case. Mom said it moved quickly when we used more energy, and slowly when we used less. With this interesting bit of information, I ran into the house to turn off a lamp, then returned to see if the wheel was spinning more slowly. I thought that it was. I turned off every electrical item I could find--lights, clocks, television, radio, etc.--and returned to find that indeed, the wheel was now barely moving at all . . . but it was still moving. Mom said it was probably the fridge. Sure enough, when the compressor kicked off, the meter halted. "Thank you," said my patient mother, "Now may we turn on the lights?"



The other morning, I remembered that childhood exercise. I was reminded of the commercial in which prices flash onscreen to reflect the price of things people buy (ending with "priceless," for an experience). I began to see a dollar figure flashing above my head: I was the star of my own commercial.

I knew that I was spending pennies even as I lay in bed. A little lamp was on--tick, tick--and I knew the Mac was on standby downstairs--tick, tick--and my friendly fridge "Darth" might be on, too.

In the bathroom, toothbrush in hand, I was playing a little game to see how low I could keep the cost of my day. Every squeeze of toothpaste added pennies to the dollar figure flashing above my head, so I squeezed a tinier dollop than usual. As I waited for warm water to wash my face, the unused cold water bothered me, so I washed with cool water.

I made my children's lunches and as the day's tally flashed in my mind, I chose more carefully than usual. My daughter often leaves about 1/4 of the orange I put into her lunch, so I reserved one quarter.

As I drove to the store, the cumulative total increased before my eyes--pennies expended on gas--pennies for electricity consumed by the house while I wasn't even home.

But what made me stop in my tracks was a quick calculation of the daily cost of owning our house. I parked and jotted what I knew--monthly loan payment, taxes, insurance--to find the cost per day. I divided by 24 hours in the day and 60 minutes in an hour to arrive at a cost of one penny per minute to own our house.

With health insurance included, our cost of living was now at just over $23 per day, or $.016 per minute. Wow. That seems expensive to me. When I walk my dog I am still spending at least one and a half pennies per minute.

And so now I have a task to quell my curiosity: Find our ACTUAL cost of living per minute, taking into account every essential and nonessential expense.

Care to join me?