Do You Have an Emergency Power Source?
February 23, 2010 by Katelyn
Filed under Frugal Mom
All the lights go out and the kids start crying. Where are the candles? Oops. No matches. No lighter. Wasn’t there a flashlight somewhere? Oh, rats. You left it in the basement. Well, you’re not going to hunt for it down there in the dark. Last time you were down there, you saw a spider the size of Goliath skulking around in the corner. You start trying to sing a lullaby to calm down the kids, which starts your spouse crying, too. You know you’re not American Idol material, but was it really that bad? When the lights finally flicker back on, you vow that the next time you have a power outage, you will be prepared. Now, you’ll need to decide on an emergency power source. A generator, a solar panel and a bank of batteries for storing all that energy you collect and a battery backup pack are all emergency power sources.
I put together a lens about one of my favorite emergency power sources, the Duracell battery pack. While it won’t power your whole house for days, a battery pack can run a light and the kids’ portable DVD player for a few hours. I use mine as part of my emergency power source plan. While it wasn’t downright cheap, it was well worth the money to know that if the lights are out, I can still run a light and a few other items without hauling out the generator. It is amazing how relaxed kids feel in a power outage when they know you can turn on your own electricity in seconds. (If you don’t have kids, they are still nice to have. You can keep working on that novel you’ve been plugging away on without worrying about your laptop battery running out in a half hour.)
I like my Duracell 600 battery pack so much that I’m considering upgrading to the bigger size pack and getting a solar panel to charge it up. I want the new, flexible panel, though, and am waiting for costs to come down a bit.
In the meantime, if there are longer power outages, I’m stuck with the big, smelly, noisy generator. And if the power goes out for a whole day, I’m thankful for every gas guzzling rattle!
