Growing Up Geek

Here is the situation. You’re heading home from a long day at work and you want to listen to Pandora Radio on the way home. But guess what? You’ve got less than 10% battery power left on you iPhone. Need some juice? Not a problem if you buy a car charger. The problem is, you’re going to be shelling out $25 for the car charger offered by Apple.

Here’s a great alternate solution that will cost you under $3, and do a lot more than charge your iPhone.

First, head on over to MonoPrice.com. You’re going to do a search for item 6766. This is a USB cigarette lighter car charger. In a nut shell, it turns your car’s cigarette lighter into a USB port. Order one of these. With shipping, it will be under $3.

The second part of the car charger you already own. This is going to be the USB cable that came with your iPhone, the same one you use to charge your phone at home. Simply plug your USB cable into the USB charger, and your $3 iPhone car charger is complete! Here is my completed $3 car charger.

As an awesome bonus, this doesn’t only charge iPhones. Anything that charges via a USB cable (other cell phones, MP3 players, GPS units, etc.) can be charged with this unit. All of this for under $3!