Don’t Charge It- Recharge it

January 29, 2008 By Debbie Dragon

Do you have children? If you do, chances are you spend a great deal of money on batteries.  It seems almost every toy and game that kids play with require batteries these days.  Not just one or two batteries even, but we have toys that take  four to eight batteries to operate- things that really should have a plug and run off electricity but for some unknown reason, they power up with batteries.

Batteries that only seem to last a few hours before they don’t deliver enough power to make the toy or game work.  If you try to save a few dollars by purchasing the store brand batteries, forget about it! They end up not being strong enough to operate the toy in the first place, or they only work for about half the time the more expensive brands work.

On a typical month, we purchase an average of the following Energizer batteries (because we found buying cheaper batteries resulted in less run-time and we had to buy them more frequently):

1. 12 Pack of Triple A Batteries:   $12
2. 12 Pack of Double A Batteries: $11
3. 8 Pack of D Batteries: $14

For a grand total of around: $37 a month or $444 a year.

I about passed out when I figured this out.

Now, there may be a month that we just let the toys run out of batteries, but this is the average cost to keep them powered up and running properly each month. 

I have rechargeable batteries for my digital camera, and I wondered how much I could save if I invested in enough rechargeable batteries to keep our toys powered up for the kids.  Assuming I didn’t already have chargers (which I do) this is what the price breakdown would be:

1. An Energizer universal charger will charge at one time four triple A batteries, or four double A batteries, or four C or D batteries; or 2 9Volt batteries.  You can buy a universal charger for about $30.  The average recharge time is from three to five hours.
2. An 8 Pack of Double A, rechargeable batteries runs around $18
3. An 8 Pack of Triple A batteries runs around $18
4. A 2 Pack of D batteries is about $9, and we would personally need at least 8. I couldn’t seem to find these sold by Energizer in larger packages, so the initial cost for 4 packs would be $36.

Grand total? $102.  For a little more than what we pay in two months time, we could invest in a battery charger and rechargeable batteries and power all the toys and games all year long.  I’m sure that rechargeable batteries have a limited lifespan but they’d only have to last a few months to get the investment back and make it worth it.

In addition to saving some money for yourself, rechargeable batteries are better for the environment since you throw them away s0 infrequently.

Posted in electornics, family, frugality in motion, getting green, miscellaneous, parenting, saving money, shopping

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