Posts for Tag : stimulus package

It seems to me that traditional investment planning is getting some serious scrutiny today. Many of us grew up believing that you put money in the bank to make interest, that a home was a really good investment, and that the stock market would always have its ups and downs in the short term, but in the long term it was heading up.

At the same time we are also learning more about what fossil fuels do to our ozone, what a “finite resource” really means, and that we need to be prepared for extreme weather including deadly tornandos, hurricanes, and sunamis.

One solution (and not just mine) — an investment in a renewable energy system for your home. A renewable system can provide some self-sustainability for your family if a local disaster hits; the value of renewable energy will increase over time as governments and economies invest in it; the value of your home will increase if it relies less on fossil fuels.

A solar hot water or electric system today can provide at least a 5%-10% return on your investment. Depending on state rebate program, it can be significantly higher than that.

What is your investment strategy for the new millennium?

This blog entry is a reminder of the incentives and rebates brought to us by our federal, state, and local stimulus package – our tax dollars hard at work. Click on the links for details and fine print.

Federal, residential: All solar hot water, solar electric, wind turbines, and geo-thermal systems qualify for the federal tax credit of 30%. This is a tax credit — direct deduction of the taxes you owe. No maximum. Details can be found here: Federal Incentives.
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I officially became a member of our town’s energy committee this week! Well… an alternate member, but that’s a good start.

This was the same week as the yearly meeting for the region’s energy committees to get together and share ideas on how to help our towns set goals and raise awareness of energy usage, conservation and sustainability issues.

About 15 or 16 towns were represented at this meeting and each had a chance to describe the kinds of things they are working on or have accomplished. Then we broke out into 5 groups to spend a little more time in discussion. It was a fun brainstorming session and a good way for a newcomers to begin to understand the policy side of energy issues.
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