Archive for the ‘Savings Opportunities’ category

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Saving Money From an Old Folly:Back to Cable

November 18th, 2008

Yesterday we switched from Qwest to Comcast.  We had no choice.  Qwest clearly did not want our business, and Comcast was very eager to get our business.  Through word of mouth we heard of a deal Comcast was running wherein we would pay $55/month for basic cable (network shows), telephone/long distance, and internet access for six months, then the following six months we’d pay $75/month, and then after a year the price would go to $102/month.  I work from home so I need all of those services (besides basic cable, but we sort of need that due to our location as network television doesn’t travel to our television any other way).  We were paying $140/month through qwest for those services, but this month we got our bill and it went up another $12.00.  In short the switch, including free installation, gained us around $600.00 in savings this year.

Further, we were using DirectTV’s DVR for recording shows as part of the Qwest bundle, which has a horrible interface.  With cable, which we had before switching to satellite I can use the Windows Media functionality in my family computer to record the shows I want, and even better than that: I can use Windows Media Center to play the shows back, and the Windows Media Center UI is polished, clean, and lets me jump 30 second intervals  in the video instantly.  DirectTV definitely needs to get their act together because the software that I have from Microsoft, which is for general use, is better than the DirectTV junk that they force on their customers.  I did have to buy a second TV card for my Media Center PC to be able to record two conflicting shows at once, so that was an added $110.00.  But for the amount I’m saving, I’m still way ahead of using Qwest for their ‘bundled’ package.

To cap things off when my wife called Qwest yesterday to cancle service they had the audacity to tell us that they’d be glad to try to get us a better rate after having jacked up the price on us just this month!  Why charge customers more if you don’t have to?  Because some customers will just take the rate increase and ignore the loss.  If we run into any other hiccups or problems, I’ll be sure to post them, but I couldn’t believe the savings.

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Posted in General, Savings Opportunities, Tips'n'Tricks

We’ve Joined the 80’s!

November 17th, 2008

This weekend I did something that proudly puts our household firmly into the middle of the 80’s: I installed a microwave.  This is one of those awesome contraptions/appliances that heats up food in a matter of minutes and allows us to defrost meat if we’ve had one of those boneheaded days where we forgot in the morning to get out food for the evening that we froze last January.  In essence we’re in shape now to save money on eating out because we blew the frozen meat schedule.  I cannot tell you how many times we’ve been low on pantry items, low on other non-pantry items and then had the meat not be defrosted.  It took me until this month to figure out that a microwave, which is not as expensive as a dishwasher, could save us money in the eating out department.

This isn’t revolutionary by any stretch, but we’ve been living without a microwave for 3.5 years now and so having one kinda feel cool and funny.  Various things get hot quickly in the microwave instead of dirtying up several pots and pans, which means I may not have to run the dishwasher as often, or wash as many dishes as often.  Its funny to think how much we’ve been spending on some things because of the fact we didn’t have a microwave.

I actually ended up having to do the following, in case too much information is something you like to have:

  • Remove old ventilation unit over the stove
  • Remove old cabinet above old ventilation unit over the stove
  • Do some electrical magic to make sure the microwave plugged in just right and didn’t cause electrical fires
  • Fabricate a spacer/mount for the microwave so as to make sure that it stayed securely in place.  This was not in the directions, but I am overly concerned about things staying on my wall.
  • Mount the microwave with help of the wife
  • Partially unmount the microwave with help of the wife and fix the direction of the ventilation fan as per the step skipped in the directions I apparently didn’t read carefully enough
  • Re-mount the microwave
  • Re-mount the cabinet above the microwave and spacer/mount.  This changes our cabinet configuration, but in a good way.

For those of you keeping track I got to do electrical work, wood work, cabinetry (a slight exageration), and install a money saving device.  The only major casualty was my thumb when a random hammer flew out of nowhere and struck it.  I feel like the lovechild of Tim “The Toolman” Taylor and Suze Orman**.

** not really, that’s disgusting.  I’m really glad I have the parents I have.

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Posted in Funny Money, General, Savings Opportunities, Tips'n'Tricks

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Two Interest Rate Reductions This Week

November 13th, 2008

I had two credit card companies lower my interest rate by 1% this last week.  No explanation, just a lowered interest rate.  I think they want their balances paid off faster.  Has anyone else seen this?

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Posted in Debt Redux, General, Savings Opportunities

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Getting Real About Coffee & Cost

August 12th, 2008
Three different roasts of the same bean

Three different roasts of the same bean

I’m a coffee snob.  Not the kind that thinks that every bean they drink should be a peaberry, or from a certain region, or roasted to a certain doneness, or should be brewed with water that is a certain temperature (though all of those count for good coffee to your taste).  I’m the kind of coffee snob that, when given the choice, will choose to be picky, but I will gladly take a cup of the nasty stuff if that’s all you have – it may not be nasty to you.  I may know about coffee just a bit, but I’m not a punk :)   This article is to outline the large amount of money I don’t lay out to have high end coffee.

I Bought My Own Roaster
If you’ve never seen coffee roasted, you really should check it out.  Its quite amazing to see the beans go from green to brown (and beyond to nearly black in some cases).  Getting my own Fresh Roast roaster was well worth the cost and the ability to do the rest of the process with green beans was well worth it as well.  The roaster costs around $80.00 US Dollars.  It produces small amounts of roasted beans per batch time, each roasting batch produces enough beans for me to French Press one 8 cup container.

I Buy Different Kinds of Beans
From web sites like Sweet Maria’s or Burman Coffee you can buy pounds of green beans for less than you would buy them from stores like Whole Foods who freshly roast their coffee there.  Don’t get me started on the ‘freshness’ of Starbucks or other brands who consider their coffee fresh for months.  Coffee doesn’t stay fresh that long.  Ever.  Unless its green beans you’re storing.  By buying different kinds of beans (both sites listed above describe the beans and their optimal roast) I can explore my palet, I can explore the bean’s varieties, and I can do it at home for a few dollars a pound (or more in some cases) but much less than at other fresh roasting sites.

I Burr Grind
There are several different designs of grinders, there are blade grinders which don’t grind at all, they chop.  Then there are the burr grinders which tend to produce consistently sized coffee grounds.  If you were to buy an espresso machine you would most definitely want a burr grinder, and you’d want a high end one.  For French Press the $40.00 Cuisinart model I picked up at Costco will do fine.  Even coffee grounds mean even flavors and consistent cups of coffee.  This of course assumes you’re buying whole beans.  If you aren’t buying whole beans you’re letting much of the oils that bring flavor into the cup evaporate out of your coffee before you brew it.

I French Press
Instead of a latte or espresso, I use the French Press, which is somewhat like an Americano if you’ve ever had one of those at Starbucks.  The French Press cost me $29.99 at Target just a few weeks ago (I had another French Press, but the glass accidentally got broken).  You can get them for more or less – it depends on the style and the volume of the container.  I liked my 8 cup container (that’s 8 cups of coffe, where each cup is 4 ounces).  The French Press gives you a more intense coffee flavor than a drip brewer, but it is not as demanding as the espresso machines and is just a fraction of the cost.  If I become wealthy some day I’ll get an espresso machine, but for the present I’m content with my French Press.  You can also make tasty chocolate milk with a French Press (but wash it good when you’re done).

Things I don’t do:

  • Buy pods and single use units
  • Bake my coffee with a drip maker that burns the coffee throughout the day
  • Store my beans in the freezer (don’t do this ever)
  • Drink cheap coffee because “cheaper is better”
  • Spill the beans
  • Add sugar to my coffee to cut the acidic, ashy taste that the Pike Place Roast from Starbucks has

Making great coffee for cheaper than you thought was possible – is possible.  Making tasty coffee with flavors you never knew existed is easy.  I have tasted fruitiness, floweriness, chocolates, caramels and a bunch of other flavors in coffee that I didn’t know existed.  Give it a try.  You can work your way into these things slowly.  If you were going to buy one item at a time (and that’s recommendable) then I would make the following purchases in this order:

  1. French Press
  2. Burr Grinder
  3. Roaster & Green Beans

All of this costs approximately $150.00 total at suggested retail.  Of course each item could be picked up for less if you search – but once you’ve picked up the equipment you’ll be getting top notch coffee for $6.00 or less a pound.  That’s half the cost per pound compared to Starbucks, Whole Foods or other brands.  And Fresh.  Did I mention its fresh?  Because it is, and tasty.

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Posted in General, Savings Opportunities

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Pulley

August 4th, 2008

Sunday afternoon after a drive through the Eastern Rocky Mountain range by Denver and visiting the Red Rocks Amphitheater I came home and discovered my swamp cooler was making a lot of racket.  Squeaking and sounding like nastiness.  My neighbor approached my house as I exited my vehicle to say, “Did you hear me knocking?  I wanted to tell you about your swamp cooler making a lot of noise”

“Nope, I was up in the Rockies.”

“Let me know if I can help!”

I’m glad to have a friendly, helpful neighbor, but the idea of fixing the swamp cooler was not on my top ten list.  I crawled up on the roof after shutting the cooler off and took several panels off and hollared down to have it turned on.

Squeak, wobble, rotate.  Squeak, wobble, rotate.  I hollared to have it turned off again.  The pulley was spinning along with the motor, but it was not sitting correctly on the motor’s shaft.  I tightened the pulley on the shaft, turned the swamp cooler back on.  Squeak, wobble, rotate.  Apparently the pulley was funky and beyond de-funking.

I drove down to Lowe’s and picked up a new pulley.  I came home, installed the pulley on the motor shaft, re-attached the drive belt, and hollared down to have the cooler turned back on.

Hummmmmm.

The cooler turned on more quietly than it had before while we’ve lived in this house.  Apparently I could have had a quieter cooler for just under $8.00 had I noted the pulley was getting wonky.  I need to get new pads to hold the water for the cooler, but those can wait until next season.  I was glad I didn’t have to pay $85.00 to have a technician come out and service this with the pulley costing $15.00 with $40.00 in labor (or some other made up number).  All was well, quieter, and I think we’ll be good for at least another couple years in the pulley department.

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Waiting to Save Money

July 30th, 2008

Today the Cheesecake Factory is selling slices of their wonderful cheesecake for only $1.50 a slice. But you have to sit down to take advantage of the offer. We’ll be sitting down in 20 minutes or so after waiting an hour and a half already. This isn’t a great use of time, but the mall is good for people watching.

photo

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Watch My Money Maker Weekly – 07-20-2008

July 20th, 2008

This week we’ve got three more great articles from the last week’s blog roundup:
Christian PF’s Ten Things Worth Spending More On
The Simple Dollar’s 100 Things to Do During a Money Free Weekend
Free Money Finance’s Our Real Estate Agent Has Never Met Sane People Before

You can download the MOV file here (requires Quicktime to watch)

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Posted in Money Management, Podcast, Savings Opportunities, Tips'n'Tricks

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I’m Wearing My Dumb Consumer Shirt Today

July 15th, 2008

I must be a dumb consumer.  Really.  Because when small appliances break my first thought is that I’ll just buy a new one.  I have had a home coffee roaster at my house for several years and it broke slightly less than several years ago.  I was going to buy a new one but something always prevented me from buying the new one.  However, today I got to the point where I actually called to see what parts to repair it would cost.  Would you believe $18.00?  A new one is easily $70.00, but the repair parts are simple to repair (with a screwdriver or two) and the savings is way too big to ignore.

So, take off your dumb consumer shirts and burn them.  Throw them in the trash.  At least hang them up and don’t put them on very often.  Look at what’s broken, and if you’re not sure, find out if anyone you know is willing to help you trouble shoot the problem, and hopefully fix it (my neighbor helped me with some of his electical tools so we could pin-point the roaster’s issue).  There is no need to have the consume, destroy, replace mentality, despite what the marketers tell you.

Embrace the fixit mentality.  Think about the actual costs involved, and if you don’t know, do the research.  If your time is money, figure out what its worth.  Some tiny appliances can be replaced cheaply, but some are a little more high-end and should be repaired if possible.  Some repair places make it hard to repair for less than the cost of a new item, but sometimes you can do it yourself, in which case: do it yourself.  I believe smart consumer shirts are available, but you’ll have to hunt because most retailers don’t want you to have one :)

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Posted in Lesson Learned, Savings Opportunities, Tips'n'Tricks

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This is What I Want Now. This is What I Want for Two Years.

July 7th, 2008

A Story of Contracts

Once upon a time there was a boy, we’ll call him me.  His name won’t be me, but I’m going to share a little about myself.  And actually, I wasn’t a little boy.  I was a grown man.  Well, I guess I still am.  But this story is about the idiocy of temporary pleasure verses the wisdom of thinking a little longer term, or very long term.  I had wanted to save money by spening less on the luxury of non-broadcast television and switched from Cable Television (with Comcastic service) to Satelite service DirectV from the stars… or some such nonsense.  I would save money and get the better programming of directive DirecTV.

Except that I had to agree to a two year contract to pay DetecTV monthly during that two years or else pay a penalty fee to infecTV for each month remaining in the contact.  Being a cheerful dolt, and not ever thinking that I would ever not want to get derelicTV, I agreed to that lovely penalty.  The world was grand and there were weeks of Food Network to watch with the added benefit of children’s cartoons, educational television, and news broadcasts twenty-four hours a day slevin days a week.  The fun and entertainment we would have due to DefecTV was endless.  Until we actually wanted to end the service.

Fast-forward a year and a half and I still have half a year left of paying more a month than I need to because we’re in a bundled package from our phone/internet/smellovision provider.  Locked in for two years of promised payment even though better deals could be had (and I would actually dump my land-line phone as well, thus futher reducing my monthly outgo towards communications and entertainment).  So the young boy who was me, who I am now -  as an adult, made a dumb choice because what he wanted then was what he was obviously going to want for two years.

The moral of this story, other than avoid the shoddy equipment that comes with the ‘awesome’ package at insecTV, is that you shouldn’t commit to a contract unless you’re really, really, really, really sure that its what you need, its what you want, and that you’re going to want it in two years with just as much passion or excitement.  There are a lot of companies that masquerade as your friend until they lock you into a contract and then you discover that you’re really bound, like so many periodicals, to servitude, slavery, and to eat pudding with cement mixed into it.  And after watching enough episodes of House on satellite television, I’m confidently going to announce that I’d no longer like to eat cement, I’ve seen what it can do to your intestines, and I don’t want to undergo that kind of surgery to get it out of me.

What do you want now?  What do you think you will still want in two years that you want now?

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Posted in Foundations, Funny Money, Lesson Learned, Savings Opportunities, Shake It or Leave It, Tips'n'Tricks

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Stock Items Market

June 8th, 2008

With the price of grocery items going up all around the shopping aisles I’ve been thinking about ways we can reduce our grocery bill.  That’s not a huge surprise, I’m sure.  Yesterday while on an errand trip with the family my wife asked me if we could run over to the farmer’s market near the mall we were at.  I conceded (much more willingly than a certain political candidate did recently) and we went over to what was a sad excuse for a farmers market.  There was one farm there and the rest of the booths were bread makers, people re-selling pictures they’d picked up in bulk somewhere else, and young forever products.  However, the one farmer there was selling produce at a price significantly lower than our local grocery store for much of the items (except artichokes).  It just so happens that we’d already picked up produce earlier in the week, but my wife did pick up tomatoes and a huge bundle of green onions.  She picked up more tomatoes and onions for $2.50 than I would have expected to buy for $4.00 at the super market – only fresher and larger and greener (or redder in the case of the tomato).

Check out your local farmer’s market and make sure the fresh produce in your diet (you do have fresh produce, don’t you?) is getting into your home for the best price you have available.  You’ll want to consider the cost of gas, but I predict that for many folks a savings of $10.00 or more will be possible if you buy produce regularly and in quantities that reflect a balanced diet.

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