How Rechargeable Batteries Save Me $317.49 a Year
Would you pay $1,000 for something that you could get — of equal quality — for $1? If you use disposable batteries, that’s exactly what you’re doing.
The electricity you get from a disposable battery, according to Eric Giler, is thousands of times more expensive per kilowatt-hour than the electricity you get from the wall. Rechargeable batteries make an enormous amount of economic sense — the cost of electricity from your house to charge them is so small, it might as well be free.
When I bought my first digital camera, I learned just how expensive disposable batteries can be. After discovering, with horror, that my new camera chewed through four AA batteries in a day of active photographing, I knew I couldn’t justify $8.00 a pop for a new clip of batteries anymore.
After researching on the web, I settled on the eneloop brand of rechargeable batteries. Since then, I’ve added many more battery-hungry devices to my life and I became curious as to how much money the rechargeables were saving me.
Here are the main devices I use that require batteries:
- Two digital cameras
- One LED flashlight
- One Bluetooth keyboard
- One Bluetooth mouse
- One GPS tracker
- One timer
According to Amazon.com, the average price for a single AA battery is $0.97 and a AAA battery is $0.86.
I estimated the number of times per year that I change the batteries on each device and multiplied that by the number of batteries per device and the cost per battery. You can see the results in the spreadsheet below:
The total yearly savings is $317.49. According to the everything I own project I bought 14 AA’s, 8 AAA’s and two chargers for a total cost of $90.65.
While $90.65 sounds like a lot, it isn’t when you do the cost saving calculation and see that it pays for itself in three and a half months. Assuming I live for fifty more years, I’m looking at a lifetime saving of $15,000.
If you haven’t switched to using rechargeable batteries already, you should. Your wallet will thank you.
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Header photograph by pasukaru76
Filed in thrift, total cost of ownership 5 Comments so far
Julian on 05 Oct 2009 at 4:50 pm #
I recently changed over to rechargeables and there are a few factors you didn’t consider in your evaluation.
The rechargeable batteries don’t last forever. The number of charges they can handle last depends on the quality of your charger. So replacement battery costs should be factored in.
The total charge of a rechargeable battery is lower than the total charge of a fresh battery, and won’t store in the cupboard for as long without losing that charge. Since changing over, I have had a lot more battery changes and a lot more fiddling around with chargers. You should factor the cost of your time as well (and interruptions when working, being lost, taking photos, walking in the dark, etc.)
I think the rechargeables still win.
Bryan on 10 Oct 2009 at 4:51 pm #
The rechargables don’t last forever. But these newer Nickel-Metal-Hydrides seem to be doing extremely well with my devices. I’m not sure they last longer, but after buying a couple extra ones, I never go without.
Mainly, disposable batteries are just stupid in cost and in enviromental impact. The amount of energy that must go into purifying and sealing these batteries is nearly wasted if you only use the battery once. Not to mention the metal waste in landfills, as in reality people never properly dispose of them at the dump. Since a rechargeable battery can be restored a hundred times, at low cost, it’s a no-brainer.
Michael Kingsford Gray on 10 Oct 2009 at 11:18 pm #
Its “horses for courses”.
Rechargeables are great if one is essentially sedentary, or within reach of a generator or power grid.
But in the Outback, for instance, they are not value for money.
There is a reason that military forces still use primary cells for much of their field-work.
Grey on 11 Oct 2009 at 10:51 am #
When you say military use of batteries, are you talking about things like AA cells, or something more industrial?
Thomas mon on 14 Oct 2009 at 6:27 am #
Uhm, from your chart I would suggest buying a different wireless mouse and keyboard that doesn’t suck up your batteries every month. To replace the batteries in your keyboard at a rate of more than once per month tells you that you should have a wired keyboard. Don’t most cameras these days come with their own rechargeable battery packs these days anyway?