So much for solar panels

It's been more than five years since I first started toying with the idea of putting solar panels on our roof. The first time I attempted to estimate the cost of a solar array, I found that it would cost something like $10,000, or a little over $7,000 with the 30% tax credit available at the time, and would take about 11 years to pay for itself. Given that we were already able to buy renewable energy through the NJ Clean Power Choice program for only around $5 extra per month on our electric bill, it seemed to make most sense to wait and see if the prices dropped.

A year later, I got some quotes on a solar energy system. The cost was still around $7,000 after credits, but factoring in the rebates we could receive from our utility from putting clean power into the grid, it looked like solar would be a good value anyway; if we paid for the system up front, it could net us around $11,000 over the course of 20 years. But we hesitated to take the plunge, because we knew that our roof was pretty old and would need replacing within a few years. That job would be a much bigger hassle if we had solar panels up there, so it seemed to make sense to wait until after doing the roof before looking seriously into installing a solar power system of our own. The prices were still falling, so it looked like we had nothing to lose by waiting.

Well, this past spring, after a contractor alerted us that our roof was on its last legs, we finally replaced it. (Turns out that job may not be done yet, as we discovered just this week that our brand-new roof is leaking, but that's a story for another post.) So when we ran into a guy in Home Depot last week who was keen to send someone to our house to give us a quote on solar power, we figured, sure, it couldn't hurt to take the meeting.

So, a week or so ago, a guy from Sunrun showed up at our house. After looking at our electricity usage, he warned that we probably wouldn't be able to save that much with solar panels, simply because our current electric usage was so low. (I had already told the guy we met in the store that our average monthly electric bill was less than $40, but I guess he was being paid based on the number of people he signed up.) But then he said, hey, many people did this just for the environmental benefits, and it wouldn't cost any more this way, so he might as well give us a quote. Except when he tried to enter our numbers into his estimator app, it didn't work. He called up headquarters and found out what the problem was: We did not meet the minimum size requirements for a Sunrun system.

Turns out, at least in PSE&G's territory, solar installers are not allowed to give a customer a system that provides more than 100 percent of their power needs, because then PSE&G would have to pay those customers more each year for their contributions to the grid than they could collect from them. (You would think they'd consider that a plus, since it would help them to increase the percentage of the energy in the grid that's renewable, as state law requires, but apparently that's not the way they like to do it.) And since our electric usage was so low, a system meeting 100 percent of our needs would simply be too small a system to be worth installing.

So this seems like a pretty simple and conclusive answer to the whole solar question. Even if a solar power system could save us money in theory, in practice, there's no way for us to get one. So I guess we can stop worrying about it and simply continue paying 12.85 cents per kWh to Ambit Energy, our third-party power provider, for its wind-generated energy. Or, better still, maybe we should go ahead and dump our month-to-month plan for a two-year commitment, which gets us a guaranteed 3 percent off the price per kWh we'd be playing with PSE&G. The only reason we didn't sign up with this plan in the first place is that we thought we might want to dump Ambit for solar panels within the next two years; if that option is off the table, we have nothing to lose.

Money Crashers: 8 Best Browser Extensions to Save Money While Shopping Online

Six years ago, I wrote about my initial suspicions, and later wholehearted embrace, of the PriceBlink add-on for my Web browser. Whenever I shopped online, it automatically searched other sites for the same item at a lower price, making comparison shopping easy. It could even locate coupon codes for me to save me more money at whichever site I was using.

I continued to use this browser extension for several years, but when I installed the latest version of Firefox on my computer, I could no longer get it to work. Every time I tried to install it, I got a "connection failure" message. So, for a while, I gave up and went back to comparing prices and finding coupon codes the (somewhat) old-fashioned way, hunting them out one at a time for each item. It was still a lot easier than comparing prices the genuinely old-fashioned, pre-Internet way, by physically going around to different stores, so it didn't bother me much.

But recently, Money Crashers invited me to write an article about a new browser extension called Honey, which appears to do many of the same things PriceBlink used to do for me. It can't compare prices across different sites, but it can compare prices from different sellers on Amazon, as well as automatically tracking down coupon codes and, on many sites, giving you cash back. After a little discussion with my editor, this proposed piece turned into a roundup of nine browser extensions that save you money online in a variety of ways. They compare prices, find coupon codes, provide cash back, track Amazon prices over time so you can see when you're getting a good deal, and warn you when online reviews of a product appear to be fake.

For me, Honey appeared to be the best of the bunch, so I'm now running that on my browser, and it has already saved me nearly $20 on a pair of winter boots. Check out the article, and you might just find a browser add-on (or several) that will work equally well for you.

8 Best Browser Extensions to Save Money While Shopping Online

Dairy-free hits and misses

In our ongoing quest to reduce our use of dairy products, Brian and I are continuing to experiment with new substitutes for the few remaining cow-based products in our diets. In the past month, we've tried two new nondairy alternatives—one successful, one not so much.

The successful one was a coconut whipped topping that we found at Trader Joe's. Back when we first started down the dairy-free path over a year ago, this was the first place I looked for a whipped cream alternative, since I'd seen some very good reviews of their coconut-based whipped cream. But sadly, when we went looking for it, we found it was no longer available. So instead, we tried a bunch of other substitutes, including coconut-based Reddi Wip (which tasted okay but didn't come out of the can very well), various DIY recipes that didn't work at all, and Coco Whip, which was good in a raspberry fool but not ideal for topping pudding or cocoa, since it doesn't keep very long in the fridge.

However, on a recent trip to Trader Joe's, we discovered cans of a new coconut whipped topping in the refrigerator case, bearing the name "Sweet Rose." We snatched up a can, brought it home, and tried it on cocoa and other desserts, and I can report that it works quite well. It does have a very distinct coconut flavor, not a neutral sweet taste like regular whipped cream, so it might not be suitable for every type of dessert, but it was perfectly compatible with chocolate and reasonably good with the apple-raisin bread pudding (made with oat milk). We made a point of handling the can with particular care, always shaking it before use, keeping it vertical while dispensing, and cleaning the nozzle after use, and we seem to have avoided the problems we had with the Reddi-Wip can.

The only real problem I have with this stuff is the cost. A $3.29 can only holds 6.5 ounces, only half as much as the large cans of whipped cream we usually buy for around the same price, so that makes it around twice as expensive. Worse, it seems like the amount we actually got out of the can before it ran dry was less than half as much as we usually get from a can of whipped cream. I didn't actually measure it, but I know it only lasted us about a week. So if we wanted to switch entirely from regular whipped cream to this coconut stuff, we'd have to pick up two or three cans on every trip to Trader Joe's, and we'd also have to go through the work of recycling those cans a lot more often. Still, I suspect the small amount of extra waste produced from those extra whipped cream nozzles is less damaging to the environment than the cow-based emissions from real whipped cream.

Still, if we're willing to put up with these minor inconveniences, it looks like we may finally have a workable solution to the problem of whipped cream. Cheese, however, continues to elude us.

After our success with the vegan mozzarella recipe from It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken, we thought we'd try the same blogger's vegan nacho cheese recipe to see how well it substituted for cheddar in something like our favorite Cheesy Rice Casserole. This recipe calls for cashews, so it's both a bit pricier and harder to make than the mozzarella, but we thought we could at least try it and, if it worked, see if we could come up with a way to combine the seasonings from this recipe with the technique from the faux-zarella.

However, before we got around to acquiring all the ingredients for this experiment, I came across this other recipe on the same blog: Homemade Vegan Mac & Cheese Powder. And we thought, gee, that looks much easier to make, and it doesn't call for any ingredients we don't already have. And if it works as well for macaroni and cheese as she says it does, it should work equally well in our casserole, if we can just figure out how much to use.

So we consulted a standard macaroni and cheese recipe and found that, with half a pound of cheddar cheese—slightly more than we use in our casserole—you can make enough cheese sauce for 1 3/4  cups of dried pasta. And according to the blog, 1/4 cup of the mac & cheese powder was enough for 1 cup of noodles. Hence, we reasoned, half a cup of the powder, or half a recipe's worth, should be plenty for our casserole. We'd just mix it up with some homemade oat milk in the same proportions she used for her mac & cheese sauce (1/2 cup powder to 1 1/2 cups milk), stir it into the spinach and rice, bake it, and see how it came out.

When we pulled the casserole out of the oven, it looked pretty close to the original version. A bit yellower in color, and not as nicely browned on top, since we hadn't added the melted butter the recipe calls for, but reasonably like what we were used to. But the actual taste was nothing at all like the original. It wasn't just that it lacked the cheesy flavor we were used to; it had a distinct flavor of its own that was discordant and off-putting. There was a faint sweet undertone to it that seemed completely wrong, and the lemon pepper and turmeric, though there wasn't a lot of either in the recipe, also struck a discernible, discordant note. Brian wasn't as bothered by it as I was, but he certainly wasn't enthusiastic about it.

So, as far as we're concerned, the It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken blog is now batting .50 on vegan cheese substitutes. The mozzarella was great, the mac & cheese powder awful. Based on this average, we're not in any big hurry to try the nacho cheese recipe, which could come out anywhere on that spectrum.

However, we did learn one thing from this experiment with the casserole: it doesn't necessarily need to have cheese in it to taste good. What we disliked about this dairy-free version wasn't the lack of cheese, but the added flavors that didn't work with it. So now we think the next time we try it, we'll just leave out the cheese entirely and instead stir in a spoonful of Penzeys Mural of Flavor, which should be compatible with all the other ingredients. With the eggs (which we currently have no plans to give up) to hold the casserole together, it will probably work fine, and it will actually be easier and cheaper than the original.

As for the other cheddar-based recipes we enjoy, such as quesadillas this Easy Vegan Cheese sauce from ElaVegan looks like it might do the trick. It appears genuinely easy and quick to make—even easier than the vegan mozzarella—and all the ingredients in it are already in our kitchen. So this will probably be our next dairy-free experiment, and I'll post you on the results.

Money Crashers: 3 new articles

Money Crashers has just popped up three new articles of mine all in a row: pop, pop, pop. Actually, two of them aren't completely new, because the editors decided to split this old article of mine into two. So now you've got one article on the pros and cons of paid credit monitoring and how it compares to other ways of protecting your information for free, and a separate article on how the top credit monitoring services—both free and paid—compare in terms of their features and performance. (I was not able to compare them in terms of cost, sadly, because it's a new policy at Money Crashers never to mention the actual price of anything. The theory is that prices change so fast, our articles would quickly go out of date if we did this. Which is true, but I still think it's not very useful to tell people "X is a better buy than Y" if we can't say what X and Y actually cost.)

The other new article is on a different topic: how long you actually need to keep all those documents that mark every moment of our modern lives. Store receipts, junk mail, bills, bank statements, tax returns, pay stubs—do we actually need to keep all this stuff? If so, for how long? And if we do, how are we supposed to keep it organized so we can actually find it when we need it? And if we don't, can we just toss it in the bin, or does we have to shred it so identity thieves won't get their hands on it?

My article answers all these questions. It outlines what all those documents are actually good for, how long to keep them, several ways to organize them in both paper and electronic form, and how to dispose of them safely. (One tidbit I learned while researching this document: If you use a crosscut shredder, the kind that's recommended for optimal security, you can't just throw the resulting fragments into your curbside recycling bin, because they would blow away and make a mess. It can still be recycled, but it needs to be packaged differently to make it work. You can, however, toss them into your compost bin if you have one.)

How Long to Keep Important Documents (and What You Can Shred)

Recipe of the Month: Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash

Last summer, Brian and I discovered a great vegan mozzarella recipe on the blog "It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken." It was so much better than any of the more expensive nondairy cheeses we'd bought at the store, and so easy to make (much easier than real homemade mozzarella, which we've also attempted), that I decided to sign up for her weekly recipe mailings. And last week, my email brought me one that looked so tasty and interesting, I just had to try it: Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash.

You can get the full recipe on her site, but the gist of it is, first you cut acorn squash in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake them. Then you stuff them with a filling made from quinoa cooked in veggie broth with onion, garlic, chopped nuts, dried cranberries, thyme, sage, salt, pepper, and cinnamon. There was nothing in that description that didn't sound good to me. Plenty of healthy fresh veggies, quinoa to supply carbs and protein, and an interesting combination of flavors and textures. How could it miss?

We already had most of the ingredients needed for this recipe on hand, but we needed to buy the dried cranberries and, of course, the acorn squash. Since the recipe said two squash would make four servings, we decided to buy just one for the two of us. On a trip to Shop-Rite, we spotted acorn squash for just $1 a pound, but we decided to hold off and see if it was available at the farmers' market, figuring we were willing to pay a little more for the sake of supporting local farmers. That turned out to be a smart move. Although it was a very chilly trek out to the farmers' market on Friday, with the temperature at around 43 and a stiff wind blowing right in our faces, the butternut squash there were only 75 cents a pound—so buying local actually saved us money. One good-sized squash cost us $1.80. As for the cranberries, we needed only a quarter-cup of them for the halved recipe—which was fortunate, since these suckers are really expensive even when bought in bulk. That one scoop of them cost us $1.55, nearly as much as the squash.

Since we had other activities going on Friday and Saturday nights that cut into our cooking time, Brian waited until tonight to make the dish. It wasn't all that difficult, just a bit time-consuming, since the squash halves took about 40 minutes to bake (5-15 minutes longer than the recipe's estimate). However, there were no such complications with the quinoa filling, which went pretty much according to the instructions. The recipe offered a choice of different nuts to include in the filling, so Brian used walnuts, which we had on hand; salting it "to taste" came to about 1/4 teaspoon for the half batch. The only thing he admits he may have fudged a bit is that he didn't quite halve the amounts of fresh herbs he used when halving the recipe.

The finished dish was certainly pretty to look at. The baked squash halves, with their golden color and scalloped shape, looked quite appetizing with the filling mounded up over their tops. Appearance-wise, at least, it was a dish you wouldn't hesitate to serve at a fancy dinner party.

And taste-wise? Well, it certainly wasn't bad; it just wasn't quite as good as I expected based on the ingredient list. Part of the problem may have been that Brian used a rather generous hand with the herbs, so the filling was a bit too wibbly-wobbly thymey-wimey for my taste. But mostly, I just didn't like the baked acorn squash quite as much as the butternut squash we usually make. Although it was certainly cooked through and tender, it seemed a bit stringier than the butternut squash, and it didn't have the same sweet, full flavor. As I said, it wasn't exactly bad, just a little tasteless. However, I found that sprinkling on some of the squash seeds, which Brian had roasted without cleaning them first, as Martha Stewart recommends, helped quite a bit. And while the dish wasn't exactly bursting with flavor, it certainly was filling; although Brian finished his whole squash half, I only got through half of mine before hitting the full mark on my internal gauge.

So would we make this recipe again? Well, probably not. Though it wasn't that hard to make, I wasn't exactly crazy about it, and the dried cranberries make it a little pricey for a dish that we don't both love. Instead, I might be inclined to try a different squash recipe from the same website, Stuffed Roasted Butternut Squash. This one uses butternut, a squash I know I like, and mixes the flesh of the squash in with the stuffing, which would probably help distribute the flavor better. So keep an eye out for that dish in a future blog post.

Gardeners' Holidays 2019: Late Harvest

When I checked the weather report this morning, I discovered a warning from the National Weather Service about the first frost of the year hitting in the wee hours of last night. (Why the NWS didn't warn me about this when I checked my phone last night, instead of warning me about tornadoes that had already hit the area the night before, I'm not quite sure.) Fortunately, it seems to have mostly spared our immediate area; one of our peppers looks a bit frostbitten, but the rest of the peppers and tomatoes still on the vines, and what's left of the basil and beans, look unharmed.

Still, this was a timely reminder to us that it's about time to start getting our nest ready for winter. So today, we've been taking care of various little errands like replacing the windshield wipers on the car (including the rear one, which was long overdue), stocking it with an ice scraper and mini shovel, checking the condition of our roof gutters, and draining the rain barrel. Brian also went through the garlic we'd harvested this summer (and already eaten some of) to see how much we had left to plant. Unfortunately, the answer turned out to be less than he thought, as some of the heads had rotted, despite being cured with their stalks on in the approved manner. So even though he planted everything we had left, it looks like our garlic crop next year will be no bigger than this year's. Next year, perhaps we'll try picking them a little earlier and making sure we get all the dirt off before curing them.

He then decided, since frost is apparently a potential threat at this point, to go ahead and pick all the remaining peppers and squash. (There are only three squash here, but he'd already brought in about nine others.) He also harvested what was left of the basil, which he will grind up and freeze (the best method we've found for preserving home-grown basil). However, he didn't touch the green tomatoes left on the plants, since none of them were beginning to blush yet. We figure we have a better chance of gleaning a few more ripe tomatoes by leaving them on the vines a bit longer, taking our chances with future frosts, than we do by picking them now and trying to ripen them in a box, which hasn't worked altogether successfully for us in the past.

One other crop he harvested is most of our remaining Climbing French beans. He made a point of letting some of these beans go dry on the vine so that he would have a supply of seed for next year, since we can't buy these at Fedco. As a result, we didn't get as many of these beans for eating this year as I'd hoped for, but we have a whole bunch for planting. So he picked and shelled most of those, and we'll set them aside for next year's garden.

Now the only question is, what shall we do with all this lovely produce? Since this is the last harvest of our 2019 garden (unless we manage to get a few more tomatoes), it deserves a little something special to commemorate it. I would have liked to make the stuffed acorn squash that my new favorite vegan blog (the one where I found the vegan mozzarella recipe we've been using for the past couple of months) served up a recipe for today, but I didn't know how well it would work with butternut squash. And we'd need to acquire some dried cranberries for it, anyway. So we'll have to try that one some other time, possibly as our Recipe of the Month for November.

For tonight, the plan is to make a simple fried rice using some of our freshly harvested Carmen peppers and Thai basil. It'll be a last taste of summer to bid farewell to the warmer days and welcome the cold winter in. And we'll most likely follow that up with a batch of chocolate pudding and a bit of the vegan coconut whipped cream that we were delighted to discover is back in stock at Trader Joe's. We're hoping this will work for us better than the coconut-based Reddi Wip we tried, which got stuck in the bottle and wouldn't dispense. If it's good, it might be the final piece of the puzzle—or at least the biggest remaining piece—in our attempts to go dairy-free.

Then it's off to snuggle up on the couch with a blanket, some Critical Role, and the cats (if they cooperate), before turning back the clocks and tucking ourselves in for a long winter's nap.