Homeowner Items:

There are lot of items that you need to have once you buy a home in USA. I've put them in separate section here as it's not essential for people who aren't homeowners. Renters don't have to take care of things around the house. Landscaping or taking care of your yard is the foremost in this. I've a separate section for landscaping under "Housing". Others are buying Fans, lights, Appliances, Furniture, repairing broken things etc. Labor is very expensive in USA, so most of the time if you have to fix things yourself. It's not as hard as you think, in this age of youtube. 

 


 

Appliances:

Most basic appliances needed in home are washer/dryer, refrigerator, microwave, oven, dishwasher, etc. Costco is a good place to buy appliances as they have sales on these once every few months. All their appliances include free shipping and free setup. Other good places to buy include home Depot and Lowes. They may charge extra for setup (depending on the promotion at that time).

EXTENDED WARRANTY: Buying those extended 4-5 year warranty is useless, as it's rare for new appliances to fail in first 4-5 years. However as of 2023, I've so many appliances fail in first 5 years, so I've changed my thinking. I believe you should buy the cheapest of the appliances, and then get a 5 yr extended warranty, which usually costs 20%-30% of the item price. Since these extended warranties are sold by Lowes/HomeDepot, I've found them very reliable. Most of the times they end up refunding you the appliance price instead of repairing it (especially if it's a cheap model). You can use that money to buy a new one and repeat the process (assuming these cheap ones always fail within 5 years). Another motivation for buying a cheap model with extended warranty is also that the chances of it going bad in 1st 5 years are higher. Since we can get these GC for HD/Lowes at 20% off (see GC section), you are effectively paying nothing for 5 yr protection when you buy everything with a GC, compared to buying it with a credit card (chase credit card provides 1 yr extended warranty, but only the same as manufacturer warranty). This extended warranty that you buy covers almost all malfunctions (even due to wear and tear). So, this warranty is lot more valuable than going with a warranty with credit card.

1. Washer/Dryer: Washer/Dryer are relatively cheap in USA and can be bought for around $1K for a pair. They run for 10 years or more, provided you had bought the basic models. Fancy models will not last as long as the basic models, since fancy models have more electronics that can break. I had bought a very basic Kenmore Washer/Dryer set for $500 total 10 years back in 2012. It still works to date. Washer started making sound due to springs of the tub getting loose after around 10 years. I was able to repair it myself, by buying those spring rods online for $50. Most of the homes have electric connection to Dryer, so you need to buy an electric dryer (NOT a gas dryer, those are usually in older homes). Gas was used in heating as heating is economical with gas compared to electricity. A good price for a pair of washer/dryer as of 2022 is $800+tax (with shipping and setup included in the price).

2. Refrigerator: There are many refrigerators on market now which have water dispensers, TV screens, bluetooth and what not. Again, go with a refrigerator that doesn't have any of these, as that will last longer and cost less. Also, refrigerators with waster dispensors have 2 problems: first, their filters are very expensive to buy (adding $100/year in filter replacement), and secondly, they take up valuable space of your freezer, which could have used to put more stuff inside your freezer. Not having water dispensor also allows you to place your refrigerator anywhere, without worrying about the water line. Other thing to consider when buying a refrigerator is the size. I go for big size refrigerator, since the price goes up only marginally for a bigger size. I bought a 33 cubic feet cpacity refrigerator from Lowes for around $1000 with no tax (during tax holiday during memorial day in Texas). A good price for a refrigerator as of 2022 is $1000+tax (with shipping and setup included in the price). There's usually no setup needed (unless you have water dispensor or ice maker).

3. Microwave: These are pretty cheap. The ones that are installed on walls (and come with the house) are expensive at around $400, but ones that are stand alone can be bought for $50.

4. Dishwasher: This is used for washing dishes and you can easily get one for $400 or so. They both charge you extra for installing it. It costs about $200-$300 for installing + $50 for haul way.  Very easy to install

5. Vacuum Cleaner: Most of the Vacuum cleaners can be had for about $50. Robot Vacuum cleaners are the new rage. They do clean, but the battery will die in 2-3 years. You could get a good quality Robo Vacuum for < $80 on sale (as of 2023).

 


 

Fans (Portable and Ceiling):

Fans are cheap when you buy them after summer ends. They go on clearance for 75% off at Home stores (Lowes, Home Depot), Super stores (Walmart, target), and other grocery chains. Most important thing to note in a fan is wattage. IF wattage of fan is low, no matter what it says, it won't give out much air. Ceiling fans are usually 75W or more while portable fans are 25W and more.

Ceiling fans: They come in different size. $20-$40 on clearance is a good price for the fan 52 inch or more. Look for wattage of > 200W.

Table Fans: Most of the fans here give very little air. Tower fans are equally bad. Vornado branded fans are the only ones that gives out good air. Look for wattage of > 100W. All low rated fans have current < 1A, which pushes very little air around.

 


 

Home decor:

These includes all items for decorating your home on any occasion, as well as decor for holidays as Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc. Halloween is the one most popular with kids. Halloween costumes, inflatables, etc are very expensive. However, you can buy stuff for 75% off right on the day of Halloween or a day after that.  Store it to use next year. Same applies for any decor you buy for other occasions. Best places to buy on clearance are walmart, local grocery stores, pharmacy stores as walgreens, home stores as Home depot and Lowes.

 


 

Furniture:

These includes all furniture. Some of the places to buy furniture with free shipping is wayfair, overstock, Kohls, Macys, JCPenney, Costco, Walmart and Home depot. They all have generous return policy where you don't pay anything for return shipping if you return the item within 30 days. If the item is very heavy and requires special delivery, some of these stores may charge you an "oversized delivery fee". I usually avoid buying from anywhere that charges you a shipping fee. Home Depot has been one of the best places to buy furniture during and after the pandemic as they had lots of furniture on 50%-75% off. Their furniture is usually very heavy and high quality.

 

 


 

Tools/Accessories:

These includes all tools/accessories etc that you use to work on repairs inside or outside your home. The best place to buy is Lowes, HomeDepot. If you live in an area where you have Harbor Frieght (HB) stores, then you are in luck. HB has similar items as Lowes/HomeDepot, but at a much lower price. They also give out free items almost every month. They are good quality items, though many comments still consider them trashy. Ace Hardware is another store where you may find some deals once or twice a year. You can find more about these stores in "stores" section.

Deals:

 

 


 

DEALS:

 

 

 

2023:

 


 

05/26/2023: ebay - Refurbished Eufy RoboVac G32 Pro for $60 (with 2 yr warranty)

https://slickdeals.net/f/16674575-eufy-robovac-g32-pro-robot-vacuum-refurbished-60-free-shipping?src=frontpage

This is the best price for this highly rated Robo Vacuum cleaner. It also comes with a 2 yr warranty provided by Allstate, so no worries about battery. I bought it for $100 at Walmart in Dec 2022, and it's running great so far. If you need one now or in future, get it now.

 


 

2022:

 


 

10/31/2022: Amazon - Halloween 5 feet inflatables for 75% off - few for around $10

https://slickdeals.net/f/16106449-goosh-halloween-inflatable-yard-decorations-w-built-in-led-lights-various-from-15?src=frontpage

Few links to amazon:

Very good price for inflatables for next year's halloween. You can always return it by January 31st, 2022 if you don't like it. Definitely open it, blow it and check it before you store it for next year.

 


 

10/25/2022: Amazon - Good sectional sofa for $350 - Grey weave color only

https://slickdeals.net/f/16125928-rivet-revolve-modern-upholstered-sofa-w-reversible-sectional-chaise-grey-weave-368-50-free-shipping

This won't last long, as it's hard to get this sized sofa for $400 or less. Reviews seem good, and it has 1 year warranty. It's Amazon brand, which is usually good quality. It's regular price is $800, so it's very good price. Buy 2 of these and put them side by side to make a big sectional sofa. My price was $355+tax, though price has been bouncing around.

 


 

10/07/2022: Whirlpool washer/dryer for $700 at Costco (after $300 GC):

Finally Washer/dryer set for $700 with 2 year warranty. Can't find anything cheaper. Last time, I bought a washer/dryer set for ~$500 was in 2012. This will expire fast.

https://slickdeals.net/f/16086004-costco-members-300-shop-card-plus-whirlpool-impeller-washer-electric-dryer-laundry-990?src=frontpage

 


 

09/22/2022: Multiple portable fans on sale at Target

Finally Multiple portable fans on sale at Target at more than 50% off. Don't expect much from these fans, as all table fans push out little air.

Honeywell Turbo Force 35W ($8.50) => https://slickdeals.net/f/16045540-honeywell-turboforce-table-air-circulator-fan-black-8-50-free-store-pickup?src=frontpage

Lasko Box Fan ($14) => https://slickdeals.net/f/16045786-lasko-box-fan-black-14-white-13-50-at-target-w-free-store-pickup

Many more on target.com for 50% off regular price => https://www.target.com/s?searchTerm=fans&category=0%7CAll%7Cmatchallpartial%7Call+categories&tref=typeahead%7Cterm%7C4%7Cfans%7Cfans%7C%7C%7Cservice%7C10%7C%7C%7C&searchTermRaw=fan&facetedValue=5tdv0Zdq4mnZvmjfhZur73zZesf2xZa154r&moveTo=product-list-grid

 


 

Inflation:

Inflation is the other major component of economy, the first one being GDP that we discussed in the other section. It refers to the price of everyday items going up on a yearly basis. If Apples cost $1/kg this year, and next year the same apples cost $1.10/kg, then inflation is 10% (as prices went up by 10%). Inflation is hard to measure as the same item may have changed or improved when compared from one year to other, so just using price differential as infltion gauge may not be fair. Also, the price of items may flutuate from store to store on a daily basis based on sales, coupons, etc. Some items may even disappear since sales may decline for that particular item due to change in customer's taste.

At it's core, inflation is devaluation of local currency. We measure inflation in terms of local currency. If you are able to buy fewer items this year than last year with a fixed amount of money, then your currency has devalued that much. Al the governments of the world want moderate inflation. They print new money every year, resulting in automatic devaluation of their currency.

 

Causes of Inflation:

Inflation may happen due to 2 reasons

  1. Money supply: More the money supply in the system, more will be the money (in local currency) chasing those goods. As an example, let's say there were $100 in the system, and there were 10 apples that were selling. Then each apple would sell for $10. However, if the money supply went to $150 due to the more printing of money, then now there's $150 available to buy those 10 apples. So, each apple will sell for $15, resulting in 50% inflation.
  2. Supply and demand: Lower the supply and higher the demand, more will be the price of that particular item. Conversely, higher the supply and lower the demand, lower will be the price. This supply and demand may apply to different items differntly, raising prices for some items, while lowering prices for other items. However, in aggregate, total price of all the items in the economy will still be bound by the amount of money in the system. As an ex, if prices of apple go up due to high demand/low supply, while price of oranges go down due to low demand/high supply, the total price of apple + oranges cannot exceed the amount of money in the system. If there's $100 in the system, and there were 5 apples and 5 oranges selling for $10 each, then if apples go up by 10% in price, then oranges have to come down by ~10%, as combined price of apples + oranges can't exceed $100 (i.e apples may cost $12 each, while oranges may cost $8 each).
  3. Growth (i.e GDP): This is another reason cited by most developing countries of the world as the cause for inflation. It says that an inevitable by product of strong growth is high inflation. This circles back to bullet 2 about demand/supply. With strong growth comes high demand. However supply should also get higher as there's growth in producing these items too. In a nutshell, correlation b/w growth and inflation is tenuous at best. Inflation is almost always due to Money supply. 
    • In an interview with CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on 29th Aug, 2022, Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, said that throughout world history, there had never been sustained inflation—inflation above 4% for more than two years—that had not been caused by excessive growth in the supply of money. He was referring to M2 money supply, the most accepted indicator of money supply in the economy.

 

Inflation in USA:

 

Now we'll look at inflation in USA and how it's measured.

Here's a link that shows the price rise of various items from 1925 to 2025, a span of 100 years => https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/saving-and-budgeting/articles/how-much-household-staples-cost-in-1925-vs-2025

 

 


 

Display Port (DP):

Display port is a very popular display interface. It's primarily used to connect a video source (i.e a cpu or graphics card) to a display device such as a monitor. You will see these interface on high end desktop, laptop or gaming consoles, where you can connect your monitors to these. DP is also used to carry other signals besides video as audio, other data, etc. DP was designed to replace VGA and DVI which are older tech. HDMI is a similar display interface as DP, which is equally popular, and is more commonly found in mostly non gaming electronics as or PC, TV, etc. We'll talk about HDMI in a separate section.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort

Generations of DP:

DP is standardized by VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association). There are various generations of DP starting with version 1.0 introduced in 2006.

  • DP 1.0: Introduced in 2006. It had very low data transmission rate of 1.62Gbit/s per lane.
  • DP 1.1- DP 1.4: Then came version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 from 2007 to 2018.These increased transmission rates varying from 2.20 Gbit/s per lane to 8.1Gbit/s bandwidth per lane.
  • DP 2.0: Latest version is DP 2.0 introduced in 2022, which provided huge leap in transmission rates. DP1.4 and prior used 8B/10B encoding, while DP2.0 uses 128B/132B encoding, which has better efficiency.

DP interface:

Below is the picture of DP. DP has 20 pins. We'll look at the 20 pins below. There are 2 sets of data transmission pins (15 pins in total), and other misc pins:

  1. Main Link (ML) = 12 pins: ML is used for transmission of video and audio. The video signal path can range from six to sixteen bits per color channel, and the audio path can have up to eight channels of 24-bit, 192 kHz uncompressed PCM audio. The main link consists of a number of unidirectional serial data channels from source to display which operate concurrently, called lanes. There are 4 lanes ML0 to ML3. Each lane has + (positive) and - (negative) signals, known as differential signaling, tranmistted across 4 dedicated sets of twisted-pair wires.. Diff signals allow for better noise immunity. The other 4 pins are gnd pins. These gnd pins go around as shield with each twisted pair. There gnd pins provide isolation between lanes and hence reduce interference. This is self clocking as clk is embedded in data signal. We use 8B/10B or 128B/132B data encoding system.  The following transmission modes are defined. The mode chosen is negotiated by the source and sink device when a connection is made, through a process called Link Training. This process determines the maximum possible speed of the connection. If the higher bit rate can't be supported, then the device detects this and switches to a lower bit rate mode.
    1. RBR (Reduced Bit Rate): 1.62 Gbit/s bandwidth per lane (162 MHz link symbol rate). Total BW for 4 lanes is 4*1.62=6.48Gbit/s.
    2. HBR (High Bit Rate): 2.70 Gbit/s bandwidth per lane (270 MHz link symbol rate). HBR2 and HB3 were introduced in DP1.2 and DP1.3, which provided 5.40 Gbit/s and 8.1Gbit/s bandwidth per lane.
    3. UHBR (Ultra High Bit Rate): This was introduced in DP2.0, and has different versions. UHBR 10 has 10 Gbit/s bandwidth per lane, while UHBR20 has 20 Gbit/s bandwidth per lane.
  2. Auxiliary channel (AUX) = 3 pins: The DP AUX channel is a half duplex (bidirectional) data channel used for miscellaneous additional data beyond video and audio (i.e device management and device control data for the Main Link), such as EDID or CEC commands. This bidirectional data channel is required, since control communication needs to happen both ways for handshake, ack, etc. AUX signals are transmitted as diff signals (+ and - similar to ML) across a dedicated set of twisted-pair wires, with 3rd gnd pin providing a shield . The data rate of these AUX channels is pretty low at 1MBit/sec.
  3. DP_PWR_PIN, Return_for_power = 2 pins: Pin 20 is DP_PWR_PIN which is supposed to provide 3.3V (+/- 10% tolerance) power supply at max current of 0.5A (power=3V*0.5=1.5W). Pin 19 is Return_for_power which provides the return path for the power supply provided on pin 20. This power pin is provided so that separate power supply is not required for consuming devices and they can just be powered using this pin. However, since both src side and sink side have this pwr pin supplying power, connecting them may cause short circuit (since voltage on 2 pins may not be exactly the same at 3.3V). so, it's recommended in DP 1.1 and beyond specs to leave this power pin unconnected.
  4. Hot Plug Detect (HPD): This is pin 18 and is used to detect the presence of anything connected to this DP interface. 
  5. CONFIG1, CONFIG2: These are pins 13, 14 and are connected to gnd (as per DP spec). Not sure why?

Resolution and Refresh limits for DP: The resolution and refresh rate of display with DP protocol depends on the bit rate. RBR with it's lower bit rate can support 1080P @80Hz, while UHBR 20 can support 8K @80Hz. 

DP over USB-C: In 2014, VESA published the DisplayPort Alternate Mode on USB Type-C Connector Standard, a specification on how to send DisplayPort signals over the newly released USB-C connector. One, two or all four of the differential pairs that USB uses for the SuperSpeed bus can be configured dynamically to be used for DisplayPort lanes. The DisplayPort AUX channel is also supported over the two sideband signals over the same connection. Look in USB section for more details.

 

 

World languages:

I've added this section to explore different languages in world, and how to learn them.

These are the 10 most spoken languages: https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world
 

  1. English: There are only 0.4B native speaking people, but it's spoken and understood by about 1.5B people worldwide. If you are on this website, you already know English. This is the most spoken and used language, so some form of English is a must to survive anywhere.
  2. Chinese: Spoken by 1.3B people, it's the most spoken language after English. But it's also the hardest language to learn. It is the most spoken native language. It has 10 variants but most of them are just dialects with some differences. Of the 10, bottom 2 are spoken by < 1% of the population, so they are often dropped from the list. We'll look at the top 8 variants which are the more popular:
    1. Mandarin: This is the official Chinese language that is used by 2/3rd of the country. This is the one that people learn, when they say the are learning Chinese.
    2. Cantonese (Yue): This is the second most internationally popular variant of Chinese language, even though it's spoken by only 5% of the Chinese people. The reason is probably due to it's use in movies and in regions outside of mainland China as  HongKong and Macau,  It sounds quite different from Mandarin Chinese and the two are mutually unintelligible.
    3. Hakka (Kejia): This is the third most well-known Chinese variety abroad, probably due to the fact that Hakka is commonly spoken in many overseas Chinese communities. It's spoken by only 3.5% of Chinese though. Gan is another Chinese dialect that is spoken by 3.9% of the population and is considered to be closely related to Hakka.
    4. Misc (Min, Wu, Jin, Xiang): These are other popular Chinese dialects, Min and Wu are spoken by approx 6%, Jin by about 5% and Xiang by about 3% of Chinese population. Wu is mostly spoken around Sanghai, so it's also referred to as Sanghainese.
  3. Spanish: Spanish has 0.5B native speaking people. It's spoken in a lot of central America and South American countries. It's also spoken in southern states of USA as a lot of hispanic population lives in USA. It's certainly one of the most useful languages to learn, if you are in USA.
  4. Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu: Hindi has 0.6B speakers, while Bengali, Urdu and Arabic each have about 0.25B speakers. I've clubbed all these languages into one, as they are linked to each other.
  5. French: Even though everyone wants to learn French, it's spoken by only 0.25B people. Nonetheless, it's in top 10 spoken languages of the world.
  6. Russian: Just as Chinese language is only spoken in China, Russian is only spoken in Russia , and has very limited use. It's in top 10, just because of the large population of USSR.
  7. Portugese: You wouldn't expect to see Portugese in top 10 languages, but the reason it's here is because it's spoken in Brazil. Portugal did rule over the world, along with Spain couple of centuries back. But they were beaten by Spain everywhere, so they colonized very few places. Brazil and Portugal are the 2 countries where Portugese is spoken exclusively.

 


 

Power Transmission:

In Electrical Engineering, power generation and transmission is one of the most fascinating subjects. It's not in fashion anymore, but it's the one that's most relevant in your day to day electrical work at home. Whether it's electric plugs, electric panel in garage or grounding wires, they all require some basic knowledge of power transmission.

 

Electrical wires:

The wires that you see at home in your attic are the ones that transmit power to all the outlets in your home. Their thickness, shape, etc vary depending on what is going to be running off that wire.

Material: Most wires are made of copper or aluminum.

Aluminum has lots of disadvantages compared to Copper:

  • Both have low resistivity, but copper has lower resistivity than aluminum (Cu=1.7*10^-8 ohm-m, Al=2.6*10^-8 ohm-m), so copper is almost exclusively used in wires now a days.
  • The only downside of copper is it's higher price compared to Aluminum (used to be 2X the price of copper, so older homes used Aluminum). Aluminum was being used in long distance transmission due to it's lower cost, and being lighter.
  • Aluminum is softer and so easier to get cut, which may potentially cause fires if there are combustible materials around it). Copper has more strength with enough flexibility.
  • Aluminum is more susceptible to damage and heats up quicker. Aluminum heats up more and expands more which may again be a fire hazard.
  • Aluminum also rusts, and the resulting oxide is non conducting resulting in even higher resistance.
  • Copper can easily be soldered and requires smaller conductors, which is a big plus for chips.

So, copper preferred overall for any kind of wiring. Even Silicon chips now use copper wires instead of aluminum. The covering around the wire is made of plastic or silicon

The most common type of wiring used in homes is non-metallic (NM) cable, commonly called "Romex," after the popular brand name. New NM cable (known as NM-B which are more heat resistant than older NM ones) contains two or more insulated conducting wires and usually a bare ground wire. All of the wires are encased in a flexible plastic jacket or sheathing. These cables are rated for 600V. Most common one are 14-2G meaning it's 14 gauge and 2 wire (ground wire is not counted, even though it's present there).

Gauge (AWG => American Wire Gauge): Gauge refers to resistance of wire, and hence how much current it can carry safely. It's unit is AWG or just G. Higher the gauge of wire, higher the resistance and thinner the wire. Temperature of wires go up as they carry more current (as they get heated up more). Thinner wires provide more resistance to current, so I^2*R power dissipation is higher, resulting in higher heat and less area to dissipate. Lower the Gauge thicker the wire. Note that wires don't really have max amp rating, as they can carry really large currents before they melt. We don't want to get to that point. We want to limit currents to safe temperatures as 90C and below. How much temperature the wire can be allowed to go to depends on what is around that wire, and if that can safely dissipate that heat. 90C is considered max temp we usually allow wires to go to, as beyond that, things around it may get too hot to catch fire. Think about houses in USA which are made of wood, and have insulating materials around it, which may potentially catch fire at high temps. Below we see temperature vs current for various Gauge:

A simple chart for Gauge vs thickness: https://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

  • 16G => carries 14A @60C and 18A @ 90C (common in extension cords). This is the most common gauge found in wires that we buy off the shelf in stores. They are used commonly in building PCs, electronics, etc. They can withstand a lot of abuse, without breaking. This is also the cheapest wire, as it's widely available.
  • 14G => carries 20A @60C and 25A @ 90C (common inside houses). Usually home wires won't run at 25A currents, as most appliances consume < 15A. So, these wires won't reach temps over 60C.
  • 12G => carries 25A @60C and 30A @ 90C => not common, but people buy it to be on the safer side.

16G to 12G wires are from 1mm to 2mm in thickness (diameter), and have resistance from 13 ohms/km to 5 ohms/km.

Resistance of 1km long Cu wire with 1mm radius =  ρ * L / Area = 1.7*10^-8*1000m / Π * (10^-3)^2 = 5 ohms/km (matches closely with what's taken from link above. In silicon chips for transistors < 100nm , these Cu wires are radius=0.1um=10^-7 m. That gives Res=5*10^-8 / km = 50 ohms/um.

Max amp is rated from 20A to 40A for chassis wiring, as we don't want temps to exceed 100C. As can be seen, it's difficult to transmit DC voltage over the wire as the voltage droop would be V=I*R=20A*10ohms/km=200V/km. So, very high voltages would be needed to transmit them over long distances, as the droop would be unacceptable with lower voltages.

Skin Effect: The biggest downside of a thick wire is that AC current flowing thru it is not able to utilize the whole cross section of the wire due to "skin effect". Skin effect causes most of the AC currents to flow on the outside cross section of the wire, so for high freq AC current as 500Hz or so, it may be wiser to use a thinner wire since thick wire gives same performance as a thin wire.

Wire Coloring: There are 3 wires in 1 cable -

  1. live (incoming current), Color = black, red or blue (usually black for 1 phase supply coming into the house)
  2. neutral (return current): Color = white or gray
  3. ground: Color = green

Neutral and Ground are connected together at transformers, bot not inside the house. So, potential at neutral wire is close to that of ground wire, so you may not get big shock touching the neutral wire. But live wire is always at 120V AC (0 to 120V in a sinusoidal wave), so you should never touch live wire as it's very high potential. Same amount of current is flowing in live wire and neutral wire (as live wire brings current in, while neutral wire provides the return path, thus completing the circuit). If we touch live wire, we form a resistance from 120V to 0V (our leg touching the gnd is 0V), providing huge current thru our body. But if we touch neutral wire, it may be at most at 10V AC, which forms a resistance from 10V AC to 0V, thus providing much lower current to flow thru our body. FIXME => Attach circuit diagram below.