MoneyToSpare.net

Does It Really Pay to Be Frugal?

2011-04-06T18:02:00.000-05:00

If you want to know, keep a running count of how much frugal habits are saving you.

For example:

Bring your lunch from home instead of buying it. If you save $5 per workday, that’s more than $1,200 per year.
Buy $30 worth of store brands per week instead of $50 of name brands. Save $20 per week, or $1,040 per year.
Buy $200 of gently used clothing per year instead of $800 worth of new clothes, save $600 per year.
Save $10 per week by using driving techniques to save gas, save $520 per year.
Cut down on or eliminate “vices” and save $20 per week, or $1,040 per year.
Cut credit card use and therefore monthly payments by $40 per month and save $480 a year.
Work to cut electricity use by $30 per month and save $360 per year.

That’s actually not a lot to do, especially if you make these techniques habits, one by one. And the total for just these savings, per year, is a whopping $5,240.

That’s almost $450 less in expenses per month. Most of us can find a lot of thing to do with that much: pay off credit card bills, pay down our mortgage, create an emergency fund, save for college or a vacation.

So…start looking around. How can you save money, not by depriving yourself, but by doing simpe things that cut your costs? It can be easier than you think….and a list of what you’re saving, week by week or month by month, can be a great motivator.

Saturday: From the Archives

2011-04-02T18:40:00.000-05:00

From Wednesday, March 22, 2006

You Don't Have to "Starve" to Save!

Saving money can be like dieting. It's easy to become discouraged if you're constantly "doing without." But by using what I call my "80/50" rule, you can have almost all the pleasure of buying what you want, at a price you can still afford.

Let's say you see something you'd like to have, but really can't afford. Don't be like most people and whip out a credit card, paying an extra 18% for instant gratification. (And almost inevitably, subsequent regret!)

Instead, ask yourself this:
"How can I obtain at least 80% of the pleasure of owning this, at 50% of the price?"

An example: When I built my house a few years ago, I decided I really wanted a round, glass-topped coffee table for the living room. I checked some stores and perused a few catalogs. The only table close to what I wanted cost $200.

I had a whole house to furnish. I was not going to pay $200 for a coffee table. So....how could I get something that would be at least 80% of what I wanted, at 50% of the price?

I kept both my eyes and my mind open, and a few weeks later, noticed a really ugly statue standing on a small plaster pedestal in a used furniture store. I had no use for the statue, but the pedestal had possibilities. Though chipped and scratched, it had a classical motif and was about the right size and height for a coffee table base. Could I just buy the pedestal without the statue?

Sure, said the store owner. Twenty-five dollars.

I took the pedestal home, sprayed it with a soft gold paint, used a little cinnamon-colored paint to "antique" it and had a very nice, classic base for my coffee table. A week later I found a heavy round piece of glass on sale at Pier 1, reduced from $50 to $20. I bought a package of those little gel bubbles to keep the pedestal from scratching the underside of the glass, went home, put everything together and had my glass-topped coffee table.

It looks better than the one in the catalog. It cost less than $50. So I ended up with 110% of the pleasure, at 25% of the price. You think I feel deprived?

Going broke buying "convenience" foods, but don't have time to cook Monday through Friday? Don't skip lunch,or settle for endless drive-through burgers. Cook double amounts of your favorite foods on the weekends and freeze individual portions in reusable plastic containers. For almost no extra effort, you'll can still enjoy microwaveable meals at 50-70% less than the cost of typical, store-bought "convenience" food.

Need a lawn tractor (rototiller, leaf blower, utility trailer) but can't afford it? These are items you don't use every day or even every weekend, so why pay full price for something that will sit in your garage most of the time? Find a neighbor (or two) in the same situation and work out an agreement to buy and share!

Dying to practice your French, but can't afford to fly to Paris? Don't sit at home. Find out how much a week in Quebec will cost! Love to sail and go water skiing, but can't swing a trip to the coast without borrowing money? See if there's a lakefront resort that's closer, more affordable...and just as much fun.

Hate the look of your ugly (but still sturdy) couch, but can't afford a new one? Check into the cost of slipcovers, or having the couch reupholstered. Can't afford new cabinets for your kitchen? See if you can get close to the same effect by refacing your current cabinets and buying new knobs.

I could come up with more examples of the 80/50 rule, but I hope you get the idea. Use your brain instead of your credit card. Keep your mind and your eyes open...and you can save money without feeling at all "starved."

All…or Nothing At All

2011-03-30T12:28:00.000-05:00

Americans are enthusiastic people. We like to jump into thing whole-heartedly, go for it, give 100%.

This is great. This is to be applauded. Unless such enthusiasm leads us to the flip side of this characteristic...the idea that if you can’t “go big,” you shouldn’t “go at all.”

Far too many of us fall into the “either—or” trap. We’ll do everything….or nothing. It’s not enough to get better at something. We have to be perfect, immediately, or forget it!

You see this in the person who wants to lose weight and get fit. They eat nothing but vegetables, exercise to exhaustion and eventually give up. You see it in the kid who practices a sport incessantly, then dumps it when he or she fails to score high. You see it in the student who works for straight “A”s, then feel like a total failure if a B shows up on his report card....and quits studying.

And you see it in people who think they have to become the world’s most frugal person, right now, this instant, and if they can’t…..why bother?

I started thinking about such people when my friend Jenny (not her real name) complained to me one day about her electric bill. Now, she does a lot of laundry and she dries a lot of towels. Like anything that generates heat, a clothes dryer is a huge energy hog. So I suggested she try drying clothes on a clothesline.

“I’ve got no place to put one.”

Which is true. She hasn’t room in her yard for a full-blown four-strand clothesline. But as I pointed out, she did have room to put up two posts about 10 feet apart and run a line between them. That would cost less than $10 and take about a half-hour’s work.

“I couldn’t dry much on one line.”

“Dry your heavy stuff , “I suggested. “Towels, jeans, sweats, blankets. The things that takes a lot of electricity to dry.”

Nope. Not going to happen. Someday, she’ll have a place where she can have a full-blown clothes line. Until then, she’s not going to bother with doing things “half way.”

This is absurd.

You don’t save money by changing your entire life overnight, but by finding a few small simple ways to save, making them into habits, then finding a few more.

Feel overwhelmed at the idea of home cooking all your meals? Then don’t. Just home cook a few a week…and save.

Exhausted by the mere idea of replacing your’s light bulbs with high efficiency versions? Then don’t replace them all at one time. Replace a few each month until you’ve made the switch.

Can’t remember the dozens of techniques people use to save gas while driving? Make a list and start by using just one technique until it becomes a habit. Then each week, add another.

Depressed at the thought of cutting up all your credit cards? Unless you’re in real financial trouble, there’s no need to be that drastic. Just leave most of them at home at first.

Bring your lunch from home once a week. Find one good used-clothing source and buy a few items. Each week, try buying one store brand item instead of a national brand.

When it comes to handling money, don’t set absurdly unrealistic goals…..then use failing to reach those goals as an excuse to quit trying. Forming frugal habits is done step by sensible step.

You'll have to excuse me now. As you can see from the picture, I need to get my towels off the line.

Saturday: From the Archives....Do You Need A Wallet Full of Plastic?

2011-03-27T09:24:00.000-05:00

From: Sunday, March 29, 2009

Store credit cards are wonderful!

Why?

You earn juicy rates of interest.
Card holders are more likely to shop with you.
Store cards provide a steady revenue stream without the expenses of manufacturing, advertising, , employees, shipping....

Of course, all this is only true if "you" are the store.

For those who use them, as opposed to those who issue them, store credit cards make no sense whatsoever
.
I don't know how many times I've been asked by a sales clerk if I want a store credit card. I try to be polite, but once, when I walked through a newly opened store and got pounced on, one after another, by six people all shrieking the same pitch ("Sign up for our card and you can save 10% on your first purchase!") I finally got tired of saying "No, thank you" and asked Pouncer #6 the following questions:

"Doesn't this store accept VISA or Mastercard?"
"Well....yes.""
"Then if I want to use a credit card, I can use one of those?"
"Well...yes"
"How much is the interest rate on your card?"
A few moments of checking the application, then:
"16%."
"Does it make sense for me to pay 16% interest on everything I buy with your card in order to get a one-time 10% discount?"
"Uh.....I suppose not...."

Store credit cards are worse than useless, they're actually, IMHO, toxic. First, they encourage you to shop in a specific store, even if that store isn't offering the best values. My friend Jenny, (not her real name) for example, only shops for clothes at Penney's because that's where she has a credit card. Sales or great deals elsewhere? Too bad. All her Christmas and birthday gifts for other people? Bought at Penney's. I have nothing against Penney's, but who wants to be stuck with only one option?

Second, a wallet full of store credit cards means a lot of applications on your credit report, plus many open lines of credit. Both can be a red flag to potential lenders, since they represent additional credit you can use....or misuse. (Even if you've only charged $500 on a $5,000 credit card, lenders know you could spend that extra $4,500 tomorrow....and that's a count against you.)

Third, store cards tend to charge higher rates of interest. Carry a balance equal to your initial "10% discount" purchase for a year and you'll likely end up paying much more in interest than you saved

Fourth....well, with more bills to keep track off each month, you're more likely to miss a payment and that can really hurt your credit score. Besides, who wants all that paperwork?

There's almost literally no place in the world that won't accept either VISA or MasterCard. Don't take the bait of a one-time discount on a card with a high interest rate. Keep your wallet slim, your bill-paying simple and your shopping options flexible. Carry one each of the two major cards and you'll have at least one card that will work in any store, just two bills to pay, and a cleaner, better credit report.

But don't forget....you pay no interest at all when you buy with cash.

My Recipe....for Saving

2011-03-22T22:10:00.010-05:00


A spoonful of this, a handful of that...

One characteristic I've found essential to saving money is flexibility. If you're rigid about how things are done, you'll miss a lot of chances to cut your costs.

This evening, I did what I often do when it comes time to make dinner. Instead of starting with a recipe and gathering (or buying) the necessary ingredients, I looked into my fridge and my pantry to see what I had available. I live five miles from the nearest grocery store, so picking up "a few things" involves a ten-mile round trip and costs me $2 worth of gas and at least twenty minutes. I also hate to waste what I call "bits and pieces"....the last little chunk of this, the final piece of that, the spoonful or two of something that I didn't want to throw away.(I rarely eat more than I want of something just to "finish off" an ingredient.)

So....I started looking. I had a can of chili. One can of chili cost $1.60 and will basically feel one person if you have nothing else. Me, I like a more complete diet. So I kept looking.

A handful of rice left in the bag. One tortilla. About a fifth of a raw onion. Maybe a cup of frozen corn.

Are you seeing where this is going?

What else? About four inches of turkey sausage. A unopened can of black beans. A cup of shredded cheese.

Good enough. Plenty enough. I didn't have to go anywhere or buy anything and I could use up a lot of small amounts of food that might, if I let them spoil,end up in the garbage disposal.

So...grab.a casserole dish. Rice on the bottom, with a little water. A layer of corn next. Chop the leftover onion, the leftover sausage, layer those. A bit of the cheese. Drain and rinse the beans and add some of those. Cut the tortilla into thin strips and layer that on. A little more cheese. A sprinkle of red pepper. (Don't overdo the red pepper.) Three spoonfuls of chili on the top, the rest of the cheese atop that.

I baked it until it was bubbling, let it cool a few minutes and tried my impromptu Mexicali casserole. Delicious!

My point isn't to provide a recipe, it's to emphasize that flexibility can help you save. (For another example, see the 10 foot wraparound desk I build for less than $200.) In this case, if I'd had two tortillas instead of one, I might have used some leftover chicken I had, the onions, the cheese, the final spoonful in the sour cream container and some bits of frozen bell peppers from my "bits and pieces" container in the freezer to make myself some fajitas. No chicken? Use an egg instead and have breakfast burritos....for dinner.

Get over the idea that you can only do things in a certain way. Flexibility, in so many ways, will help you cut waste, save time and save money.

Excuse me. I'm going to have a little more casserole. Then I'll put the rest in the freezer and day after tomorrow, have it for lunch.

Saturday's Post: From the Archives

2011-03-18T20:07:00.004-05:00

Time Spent Now Means Being Less "Taxed" Later

Updates: This article was originally posted in February, 2009. Since then, the IRS has stopped automatically sending out 1040 instructions and forms to every taxpayer. You can download forms and find tax information on http://www.irs.gov. If you know anyone who doesn't have access to a computer and printer, they can check their local post office or library for forms and instructions. Also, the tax deadline this year, due to a Federal holiday, is April 18 instead of April 15.

Please check the IRS online site for information on any new deductions or filing requirements for 2010.

Some tax preparers now offer free filing of "EZ" tax forms. Make sure that such a form is appropriate for you and double-check for any extra fees not included in the "free" filing.

Oh, joy.

For those of you who feel that your head will explode if you even think the words "April 15th" I have a suggestion. Before you pay big bucks for a computer tax program or hand over all the details of your financial life to a tax "expert" with four weeks training ...try this.

Do your taxes yourself. But do them in easy-to-handle stages and start right now.

Unless your taxes are incredibly complicated (in which case, I imagine you already have an accountant standing by) you can probably handle them yourself. But like anything done at the last minute, waiting until the second week in April to begin will likely cost you, in terms of both money and aggravation.

So begin now. Right now. Break the chore up into easy stages, which will also give you time to collect all the forms, receipts and information you need.

Stage One
Sometime this week, take an hour to pull last year's tax return and go over it. Make note of any tax-affecting changes in your life during 2008. For example:

Did you gain or lose a dependent?
Did you buy or sell a home?
Did your employment situation change?
Did you accrue medical expenses?
Are you now paying college expenses?
Did you buy or sell stock, or contribute to to a 401K or other retirement plan?

I suggest you stash that list in a large manila envelope marked "2008 Fed. Taxes" or label a storage box the same way and put the list in that. (File folders, at least for me, tend to disappear into the nearest pile.)

By now you should have received your 1040 packet. plus W-2s, 1099s, investment statements and any documents relating to income or deductible expenses. Add those to your "tax box" as well. If you don't already have every document you need--if something's missing, such as a property tax receipt or a dividend statement--starting now means you have time to request a duplicate.

Also, now's a good time to note any extra IRS forms or instructions you may need, based on your list and last year's return. Check to see if you have them in your 2008 1040 packet; if not, you can download them from irs.gov. It's a good idea to download more than one copy of any form. (Make photocopies of the forms included in your 1040 packet, including the 1040 form itself.) You'll find these extra blank copies useful later.

Stage Two
Spend an hour or so next week organizing your documents according to how you'll need them. Your main categories will probably be Income and Deductions; sort things into smaller classifcations within those two categories. For instance, you may want to divide your Deduction documents into such subcategories as Retirement, Medical Expenses, Dependents, Taxes, Business Expenses and so forth.

Even if you normally take the standard deduction, spend a little time checking these things to make sure you're not short-changing yourself. A few more deductions added in 2008 (the first child sent to college!) could give you a higher total than you think. You can also use the internet to get additional ideas for deductions, but make sure the IRS recognizes them by double-checking them at www.irs.gov. (One example of something new? In 2008, even if you take the standard deduction, you can now also deduct as much as $1000 worth of your property taxes. Nice!) Note: According to irs.gov, this deduction is not available for 2010, an example of why you need to check changes in deductions each year.

Stage Three
By this time, you should have all the documents and forms you'll need. Now make a rough estimate of your taxes. Do it using your photocopied forms. If you make mistakes on these forms, you can simply cross them out and note the corrections.

This is a good way to double-check that you have all the paperwork you need and it's also the time for you to get an idea of how much tax you'll owe, another piece of information that's better known well before April 15th!

Stage Four (Aim to complete this by April 10th.)
Fine tune everything. Make clean copies of all the forms and do a final check of all your math. Then fill out one last photocopied version of your 1040 and all relevant IRS forms. Hopefully, you've reached this stage a few days before April 10th.

Wait a few days, to let your over-taxed brain cool!--pun intended--then recheck everything one more time.

Now you can fill out your actual 1040. Double check that you've included your Social Security number and signed the form. (Failure to do so are two of the most common mistakes taxpayers make.) Fill out your final versions of any additional forms needed, attach them to the 1040, make sure you've included your W-2 and any other necessary documents, add a check (hopefully a small one) make copies of everything and have your completed tax package ready to send to the IRS with days to spare. (If the IRS owes you money, check into e-filing your return. You'll get your refund a bit faster.)

Now all you need is a stamp.
No rushing, no drama, less strain, less pain....and because you're doing the job yourself instead of hiring someone, less expense.

A few more tips.
You can actually fill out an online 1040 at irs.gov. It's in the PDF format, so you'll need Adobe Reader. You can save what you do and make printouts, but unlike computer tax programs, you have to do the math yourself.

You can also fill out tax forms for free at Turbo Tax, but for any return more complex than the 1040EZ, you'll have to pay between $29.95 to $109.95 to actually e-file your return or print it out.

Still, you might use this service as a guide, or as a way to find extra deductions.

Good luck! (I'd add "Have fun" but--geez--we are talking about doing your taxes here!)

Buying A Used Vehicle in the Internet Age, Part III

2011-03-05T12:21:00.001-06:00

So…you’ve found a good prospect, you don’t have to travel five states away to look at it, the VIN check you ran looks good—no crashes, no being passed from owner to owner, maintenance done looks reasonable, no bizarre mileage history, etc.—so it’s time to go look at the car. (Ladies, one word of warning; be reasonably cautious. Don’t go look at cars at night and be careful about getting into a car with a stranger; most legitimate dealers and sellers have no objection to you test driving a car on your own.)

You’re going to need to check a lot of things on any car you look at. Any dings, dents, evidence of body work? Do all the windows and doors open, does the heater and A/C work—oh, heck, take a list. Here’s a pretty good one:

http://classiccars.about.com/od/buyingadvise/ht/inspection.htm

I used this as a basis for my own list, with a place for “Yes/No” answers and check marks. Make a bunch of copies; you’ll need ‘em.

Second, get on the computer again and check any prospect for recalls. That doesn’t always show up on Autocheck. Note any on your inspection list so you can ask the seller for proof that the work was done.

Third, prepare yourself to resist the sales pitch. Remember, it’s your money on the line here. The sales pitch can come from both dealers and private sellers. (Who are sometimes dealers who just work out of their homes.) Your job is to be polite, but firm. There are honest sellers out there, and, sadly, there are some who will tell you anything to get you to buy the car.

Like the folks who told me over the phone that their Dodge 1500 was in “excellent condition”—and when I pointed out that the truck bed was both rusted and warped, indicating a back end collision, told me they’d meant that the engine was in excellent condition.

Or one non-dealer dealer. “I’m not a dealer, I only sell a few cars a month!” As part of my standard road test, I always found a safe place to, at a slow speed, punch fairly hard on the accelerator. A vehicle with a good automatic transmission should downshift and take off almost instantly. This truck just revved. When I told him this, he swore he’d driven it twenty miles that morning and “It drove just fine.”

Or the guy who, when I pointed out that everything underneath his truck was corroded, said, “Every vehicle shows a little corrosion.” (I took pictures and showed them to my mechanic. His comment? “Looks like it’s been underwater for a month.”)

Or the person who, when I pointed out the green-yellow fluid dripping from the engine, said “Well, every car drips a little coolant.”

Or the salesman at the huge dealership who told me that it was my “lucky” day when I pointed out that the online price of a truck seemed quite a bit low. Yep, low. There was no picture on the online ad; the truck itself, when I was shown it, was being “touched up” by a paint crew. “It’s a mistake on the ad!” said the salesman. “The price should be $12,000, but we’ll give it to you for the $7,900 in the ad!”

I said I’d think about it. I went home and rechecked the ad. There was now a picture of the newly retouched truck (without any mention of the repairs) but the price still read $7,900. IMHO, this was a vehicle that had gotten in a fender-bender—or worse—and they were trying to get rid of it quick.

To properly inspect a car takes time. I suggest you show the owner your inspection list and tell them you need about a half-hour. With any luck, they’ll leave you alone. Some will insist on hovering, but don't let them rush you.

Then inspect the car. Thoroughly. Remember, anything you miss, you’ll end up paying your mechanic to find. Wear clothes that let you bend, kneel and even lie down on the pavement. (A security guard at one dealership found me on the ground looking underneath a car and thought I’d keeled over from the heat.) Bring some hand wipes, because you will get your hands dirty.

Don’t be fooled either, by mere cleanliness. It’s easy to steam clean a filthy engine, scrub up a stained interior and paint over rust and corrosion. Look beneath the seats, behind the seats. Run your fingers inside the seams between doors, in the wheel wells, anywhere you can reach, to check for the roughness left by painting tape.

On the test drive, be just as thorough. Drive the vehicle at appropriate speeds in all the gears, including Reverse. Find a large empty parking lot and turn it in fairly tight circles. Find an empty road, accelerate hard, brake hard. Go out on the freeway and get it up to the speed limit. Check and recheck the gauges as you do this.

Everything should work smoothly. Strange noises, hesitations, indications of strain, rattles, creaks, smoke, overheating, warning lights coming on….you want to make sure you give the vehicle a chance to reveal these problems. Don’t abuse any vehicle…it is, after all, not yours…but don’t drive it two miles and back on a level road and decide it’s fine.

Finally, check the title. Make sure it matches both the vehicle's description and VIN. Most of all, make sure the title is in the seller's name. Because it’s astounding how many people, innocently or not, will try to sell a car they don’t legally own.

(A good idea before you look at your first prospect, is to stop by an office of your state Department of Motor Vehicles. Ask them about your state’s requirements for titling and tax payments. Ask them what the tax rate is on used cars. Ask to see a dealer's license; in most states, only licensed dealers can sell cars without first transferring the title to their name.)

A bill of sale and physical possession of a car doesn't mean that someone legally owns it. Unless it's being sold by a legitimately licensed dealer, a vehicle must be registered in that owners name, on the title.

Sometimes, people honestly don't know this. (Sometimes they do and they don't care.) There was one young man I called, with a Dodge 1500 for sale, who’d rarely driven it, since he was a long-distance truck driver. He had the title certificate he’d been given when he bought it—“They signed it over to me”—but he’d never registered it in his name, because he didn’t have the money to pay the sales tax.

I asked him how long he’d had the truck. “Two years. It’s been sitting in the garage mostly. That's why I want to sell it.” He was genuinely shocked when I told him that legally, he didn’t own the car and therefore, legally, couldn’t sell the car….and that since there’s a $25 per month fee for any delay in registering a vehicle with the state, he now not only owed the sales tax, he owed an additional $600.

He didn’t have $1,200 to transfer the title and pay the fine. Killed that deal.

So…..you’ve found a vehicle that you like. It looks good, you’ve gone through your checklist, it drives fine, the title looks legit. (Make a copy and take it to the DMV if you're not sure.) Call your mechanic. Since most good mechanics are busy, have the number of a back-up mechanic in case yours can’t look at the vehicle immediately. If the vehicle passes your mechanic’s inspection, you make the “buy or pass” decision then.

Hopefully, you’ve saved up enough money to buy for cash or with a small loan and avoid financing charges. Do be aware though, that dealers will often charge various fees that can kick a final price up a few hundred dollars, so allow for that and also allow for the state sales tax.

Be patient, be savvy and don’t let anyone pressure you into a deal. There's always another good prospect just down the road. Good luck!

Buying a Used Vehicle in the Internet Age, Part II

2011-02-24T19:22:00.001-06:00

At the end of Part I, I made the statement that when you’re searching for a used car or truck, your job is not to approve vehicles, it’s to eliminate them.

Why? Because most used cars come with little or no warranty. So before buying one, you need to have it inspected by a competent mechanic. Such a check won’t guarantee a car that’s perfect, but it could reveal problems that you, as a layman, might not catch. But such inspections can cost $50-$150. You need to weed out any obvious “lemons” long before you reach that point or you'll quickly go broke paying inspection fees.

So….where do you find used vehicles and how do you eliminate the lemons?

One thing you need is a source of prospects that’s local. It used to be that your town newspaper was the main place to go, but although you’ll still find ads there, the number has dropped considerably. So take a look at the internet.

Start with Craigslist.com. Since you can specify the locale you want to search, you can hunt for vehicles within a reasonably driving range. You can also specify the make, model and year you’re interested in, plus a price range.

First, though, check Craigslist’s information on avoiding scams. Believe me, a lot of scammers are out there.

When I first started looking for “Mike” I ran into quite a few. There was, for example, the person who needed to sell their truck immediately--at a very cheap price--because they were being shipped out to Iraq. Interestingly, I found an ad for the exact same make, model and year of truck that had been posted a day earlier, featuring the exact same language, except this time the owner was going to Dubai. In both cases, the owner offered to “ship the vehicle from Dallas to the buyer’s location.” Since I was searching the Dallas/Fort Worth Craigslist, I couldn’t help but wonder why the vehicle needed to be “shipped" at all.

Of course, chances are that there is no such vehicle and this ad is being run on Craigslist all over the country, to lure buyers into sending money to the scammer. This is why Craigslist specifies that all offers to ship cars are fraudulent.

In fact, you should never buy a used car you haven’t seen and driven. I don’t care how pretty the picture is, I don’t care how cheap the price is, I don’t care what kind of a “Must sell!” sob story the seller pitches you. Never buy a car you haven’t seen and driven. And had checked by your mechanic.

Another good source for ads is Autotrader.com. There, you specify make, model, a range of model years and a price range. You can also specify the maximum distance to the car or the zip code you want Autotrader to search.

Edmonds.com will let you specify a make and model, then tell you how many cars it has listed, broken down by model year.

So….you look, you see the kind of car you want, within your price range and close enough so that it won’t take a major road trip to reach it. Now it’s time to go check it out, right?

Wrong. First, run a report on the VIN.

VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number. Each vehicle has its own individual VIN. You can find it near the lower part of the windshield on the driver’s side, either on a metal plate on the dashboard or etched into the windshield itself.

Why check the VIN? Because it’s the second way to recognize a lemon, without spending the time or gas money to actually go see the car.

Take the VIN and run it on AutoCheck. AutoCheck and CARFAX both sell reports that provide a lot—but not all—information about a vehicle’s history. How many owners has it had? How many repairs? Has it been in a wreck? Was it a fleet or lease vehicle? Has any problem been reported with the title?

Why do I recommend AutoCheck over CARFAX? In a word, price. AutoCheck will give you a month’s worth of unlimited vehicle reports for about $45. For the same price, CARFAX only gives you five reports. I found that I often wanted to check more than five VINS in a single hour’s worth of online searching. (BTW, if an ad doesn’t list the VIN, email or call the seller and ask for it. If they won’t provide it, cross that vehicle off your list.)

You do need to actually read these reports. Sometimes a dealer will provide one --“Look! Free VIN report with every car!”--and you’ll be tempted to just glance at it or not bother reading it at all. After all, if they’re willing to let you see it, it must be fine, right?

Wrong. Read the report. Carefully. I was given one report by a used car dealer that showed a lot of parts replaced in the first few years of the vehicle’s life. A lot of parts. The dealer tried to convince me this was good, that “all those parts are now new.” But what kind of car needs a dozen major components replaced within the first 20,000 miles? In a word, a lemon. A vehicle either badly built or badly maintained. It’s entirely possible to ruin a new car or truck quite quickly. Run it too hard or too hot. Never replace the coolant, transmission fluid or the oil. Make it tow weights or carry loads it wasn’t designed to handle. Result? A mechanic’s dream...and a buyer’s nightmare

For that reason, AutoCheck is again, only a tool to eliminate vehicles from your search, not guarantee that they’re okay. So if the Autocheck report looks good, it’s on to the next step….go look at the vehicle. We’ll talk about that in Part III.

Buying A Used Vehicle In The Internet Age

2011-02-16T20:51:00.002-06:00

Meet my recently-purchased "newer" vehicle, Mike, a 2006 Ford F-150.

My old van, Quartermain, hit the 275,000 miles mark late last year and I decided that it was time for something newer. He was still running reasonably well, but getting to the point where he'd soon be due for major mechanical work, and it made no sense to put thousands of dollars into a vehicle that had a market worth of less than $1000. Plus, I needed a truck.

I've always bought used vehicles, starting with my first $1,000 Datsun when I was 15. But I'd had Quart for more than ten years and when I decided to start shopping, I found that the internet has brought a lot of changes to this particular chore, making things easier for buyers, sellers and, unfortunately, scammers.

Well, it took some time and effort to find Mike, and I had to learn a lot. I thought I'd pass on what I already knew about buying a used vehicle, plus what I learned about car shopping on the internet.

First of all, why buy used?

In a word, money.

A new car can lose 20-30% of its value the second you drive it off the dealer's lot. It's just the nature of the beast. A car a few years old with less than a 100,000 miles on it can easily be half the price of a comparable new car.

For example, Mike, before taxes and title, cost $8,900. A comparable new F-150 in my zip code costs $18,000 plus. Mike was four years old and had 70k miles on him when I made the deal. Because I bought him used, with, as my mechanic put it, just enough miles on him to be fully broken in, I saved $9,000+. Add in the fact that I was able to pay cash, avoiding interest on financing, and the savings are probably $10,000 plus.

Or to put it another way, I was able to afford a much better vehicle because I bought one used. Indeed, I was able to buy the vehicle I really needed, with some of the features I wanted as well, because I bought used.

Unless you've got enough money to buy whatever you want--in which case, why are you reading this blog?--the first job when buying any vehicle, new or used, it to decide what you can afford to pay and how much that will get you in terms of what you want and what you need.

Sit down and figure it out. What do you need? How many passengers do you need to carry? Do you need a car that doesn't use much gas? Do you need a vehicle that can tow? Or carry cargo? If so, how much?

Then list what you want. A/C? (In my part of Texas, that's a need.) Power door locks, windows, mirrors? Cloth seats? A GPS system? A lot of power? A certain paint color? A fancy sound system?

When you buy used, you often have to make compromises. That's just part of the deal. What you're willing to be flexible on is up to you.

In my case, I needed a truck, so I could carry round bales of hay, and it needed to be able to tow at least 5000 lbs. My small trailer, loaded with a full-sized horse, weighs 2500 lbs, but you never tow at the maximum, so I wanted double that capacity. I didn't need power anything, other than steering and brakes, I could care less about a GPS or sound system and a three-passenger bench seat was fine. I didn't want to pay for more power than I needed, so a F 150, Dodge 1500, Chevy Silverado or GMC Sierra would work, though smaller trucks like an S-10 or Ranger might be a little underpowered.

I wanted a truck that was a nice color--green, burgundy, blue--that had a tow package, so I wouldn't have to buy one, and that had no more than 90,000 miles on it. I also wanted some room behind the seat, so I could stow everything from groceries to pony harness.

Having made those two lists--needs and wants--you now need to get some idea of what all that will cost.

A good place to start is with Blue Book, www.bluebook.com. This is the online version of the venerable price guide for both new and used cars. You can enter a type of vehicle--sedan, truck, van, mini van--or a specific car model and year, mileage and your zip code, plus a whole list of options and it will provide you with three possible prices. The first is the Trade In value of the car you have in mind; in other words, how much you'd get for such a vehicle if you traded it in for a new car. The second is the Private Party price, or how much you might expect to pay for this model if you brought it from an owner. The third is the Retail or Dealer price or how much it's going to cost you to drive into a used car dealership and simply say "I want that."

This range will give you some idea of what you can afford, including what you might have to give up in the way of "wants" to fit your budget.

Next, it's time to start shopping. But shopping for a good used vehicle is more a process of elimination than a matter of picking a winner. We'll talk about that in Part II.

A Bit More About Bartering

2011-02-06T16:13:00.002-06:00

The other day, I saw a very welcome sight; someone mowing my neighbor’s three-acre pasture.

The reason this made me happy is simple. My neighbor lets me put my three Miniature Horses in that pasture during the spring and summer, something which saves me a lot of money on hay. She also lets me train my driving Mini, Jewel, on the pasture’s hills. (If you want to do combined driving, you have to condition your horse to drive on hills.)

I usually will pay a small amount for the privilege, $30 a month or so, but for the last year, the pasture has been all but unusable. Weeds had grown so high I couldn’t mow them with my lawn tractor and the elderly gentleman who had mowed the pasture once a year for a very reasonable price just couldn’t physically handle the work anymore. And my friend couldn’t afford to pay more.

So the pasture was transformed into a get-out-your-machete plot of weeds that no one could really use. (That can happen very fast in Texas climate, where the weeds are much more drought tolerant than most grass.) So when I saw it getting mowed, I was delighted

I called my friend. How had she managed it?

In a word: barter.

The man with the tractor needed an ad done for a horse publication. My friend is a whiz with both Photoshop and the latest in layout programs. She did a camera-ready ad for him and gave him $25 for gas; he attacked the weeds. Two problems solved, and except for the $25, no money out of pocket for either of them.

I wrote a post about barter some time ago, but in this era of increasingly tight cash and tighter budgets, I think it’s worth reminding people that they shouldn’t rule out barter as a way to get what you need. Right now, I need some driving lessons from an expert. I know an expert “whip” (that’s what you call someone who drives horses) who needs some video of her well-trained gelding being driven to use as a marketing tool. I have a video camera and I know how to use it. If we can set this up, we’ll both get what we need with no money required.

To barter successfully, take stock of what you have in the way of knowledge, skills or unwanted items. Then look around to see who has what you need and might need what you have. Can you swap? A skill for an item, labor for training, expertise for expertise? Make sure when you’re setting up the trade that you both understand what you expect to receive and what you’re offering by making a list of specifics. In my friend’s case, she was willing to do a certain size ad, containing a certain number of pictures, created to fit the requirements of a specific publication and she agreed to a deadline. Her barter partner had seen the land he would be mowing, had a good idea of how much gas he’d need and was willing to do the job within a stated length of time. Nailing down such details can help guarantee that both parties to the barter are satisfied.

Where do you find people willing to barter? Check online. Here’s a helpful article from Planet Green to get you started:

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tech-transport/online-bartering-websites-tips.html

One final tip: Keep in mind that the IRS usually considers the “fair market value” of what you receive in a barter as taxable income. For more information on the government’s bartering rules, start with this article at irs.gov.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=188095,00.html

The Price of Your "Vice"

2011-01-22T16:06:00.020-06:00

Update:

In case some of my readers think my particular "vice" is pretty tame, here's a news story that just caught my eye, regarding diet soda being linked to an increased chance of stroke:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/09/diet-soda-tied-to-stroke-_n_821058.html

Like I say below, my definition of "vice" is any habit that you'd like to quit. Better health is a darn good reason, but as I say below, so is saving money.

In this post I'm going to talk a bit about "vices"...which I define as anything you do that you wish you didn't do.

We've all got 'em. There are the obvious "vices": smoking, drinking too much, overeating, excess shopping, buying lotto tickets....and we all know how hard it is to break these habits, even when you really want to.

Well, I'm going to suggest a motivation that I rarely see in the "Six Easy Steps to Stop _____" type of article that seem to pop up everywhere. I'm going to suggest you take a good hard look at the price of your vice...in dollars and cents.

The particular vice I'm working on now is a four-to-six-can-a-day soda habit. My particular tipple is diet soda and it has to be in a can, and I usually buy 'em the most expensive way possible, one at a time from convenience stores, at an average cost of $.75 each. I drive a lot, and my particular "trigger" for drinking diet soda seems to be driving. If I don't have one in the cup holder, I get antsy, and head for the nearest Mobil or Exxon.

Recently I saw a doctor on TV who claimed that each soda is the equivalent of a cigarette in terms of how bad they are for your health. That seemed to stick in my brain--with the info I've read about what caffeine, artificial sweeteners, carbonation and dyes do to your health--and I decided that I needed to just eliminate them totally. (Like most people with a bad habit, I can't seem to "just cut down.")

So I sat down to figure out just how I'd do that. One of the first thing I did was run the numbers. How much was my soda habit costing me?

Figuring an average of five sodas a day at $.75 each, I came up with a daily cost of $3.75.

Per week, that would be $26.25.

Per year,$1,365.

Holy cow.

I was spending over $1,300 a year on something that wasn't good for me, and that I really don’t like that much. (It’s that first slug of carbonation that does it for me. Afterwards, the joy fades fast.)

You can buy a lot of nice stuff for $1,300. You can take a one-week vacation. You can buy a huge, all-the-bells-and-whistles TV. You can pay off a lot of debt.

In the last four weeks, since I found out how much my vice was costing me, I've had six Diet Cokes. Six, instead of 140. That's saved me a lot of money.

Let's take a look at the cost of some other common "vices."

Cigarettes. The cost per pack varies so much that it's hard to come up with an average,so I'll give a spread.

At $5 a pack, a one pack a day habit will cost $1,825 a year.

Two packs a day? $3,650.

At $7 a pack, a one pack a day habit will cost $2,555.

Two packs? $5,110.

At $9 a pack (and yes, there are places where a pack will cost you $9) one pack a day will cost $3,285 per year. Two packs? $6,570.

That's a hell of a lot of money. (And smoking has a lot of hidden costs that can run the price up to astonishing levels.)

http://www.costofsmoking.com/

Those game tickets you can buy here in Texas (and in other states) at any convenience store? Great fun if you buy them occasionally. But I know people who buy $5-$10 worth of game tickets each day. One gentleman at my favorite store brags about the $600 he won last year doing this; if he'd run the numbers, he'd realize that his $600 in winnings cost him, at $5 per day, more than $1,800!

The 16 oz, 400 calorie, caramel-flavored whipped cream coffee concoction you get every day during your morning commute isn’t just expanding your waistline. It’s also emptying your wallet. At $4 per day (or more!) that’s $20 a week or $1,000 a year. (If you also drink ‘em on the weekends or on vacation, it’s $1,456.) Even a $2.50 version from your local fast food joint will cost $910 a year.

Alcohol? If you want to cut down or stop, figure out what you pay for your favorite tipple. Let’s say that you bring it home in six-packs and the cost per six-pack is $6 and you drink a six-pack a day.

$6 per day. $42 per week. $2,184 a year.

At $9 per six pack, your yearly cost goes to $3,275. (If you get your brew at your local tavern it could be triple that cost or more.) If drinking is something you’d like to cut back on or even eliminate, run the numbers and start thinking about what you could do with all that extra money.

Again, you define what your “vice” is. Buying an expensive pair of shoes each week, spending hours on auction sites on the internet, gambling....the list is endless.

Ask yourself if you can substitute something that’s better for you…and less expensive. (I bought a six-pack of bottled water and I’m refilling them with water right out of my tap, putting them in the fridge, then taking one with me whenever I drive somewhere. Water instead of chemicals, and less than a cent a bottle instead of $.75 each.)

Money is a powerful motivator. See if it will help you change your “This ain’t working anymore, but how do I stop?” habits. Good luck!

Vanity: It'll Cost You

2010-10-22T16:27:00.001-05:00

Have you ever noticed how many sales pitches are based on human vanity?

"Available only to discriminating customers."
"You deserve the best."
"Be the envy of your neighborhood."
"If you want to be cool, buy this!"
"Be a smart consumer."
"We tailor our product to you."

We all want to be respected, loved and admired and those who market products know this. So they often craft their marketing to appeal to that urge.

I hate to tell you this....but ain't none of us that special!

In most cases, millions of people are watching the commercial you're watching, or have read the ad you just read. One of millions...how special can you be?

But the inherent vanity of human beings is what marketers count on. Try to resist that appeal. Judge products on their real worth. In one way, you are very special....you deserve products that really meet your needs, and you shouldn't be seduced into spending money on those that don't.

So buy the skin product because it really will smooth your skin, not because you've been told it will make you the envy of other woman. Buy the car because it's comfortable, safe and a pleasure to drive, not because you've been told it will make you a babe magnet. Don't jump on the phone to buy an overpriced product because you're being told only fifty people in your area are receiving this once-in-a lifetime offer. Don't by something because the salesman flatters you. "It's obvious you know quality when you see it." Don't get that silver, gold or platinum card with the high yearly fee....and no corresponding increase in features you'll really use.

We all love to be complimented. Just make sure it's good sense....and not vanity....that influences how you spend your money.

Insurance: Disaster versus Annoyance

2010-10-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

My father, who was pretty savvy about money, once told me, "You always insure for the disaster, not for the annoyance."

What did he mean by that?

Don't use insurance to avoid minor financial blows, only the ones that are going to knock you down and out.

I'm watching a commercial for a major insurance company. A lady has come into a "store" to buy "customized auto insurance," so customized that there's a little picture of her on the box. (Yes, in this admittedly amusing fantasy world, insurance comes in a box.) She wants "a lot" of insurance (a little "gas tank" style dial appears, showing almost full) but, no, she wants "a little less" (the gas tank dials itself back to three-quarters full) "a little less"(we're now down to a little bit above half) "and a low deductible."

It's an amusing commercial, pleasant and friendly. However, this is not the way you should buy insurance...of any type.

Let's face it. As I've said elsewhere, most of us only have so much money to spend on insurance. We need to be careful to spend it wisely.

As an example, let's talk about auto insurance.

There are two main types. One covers repairing damage to or the loss of your car; the other involves damage to everything else, including people. (You can also buy insurance to pay your medical bills if you're injured in a crash, and insurance to pay you if the other driver is at fault, but has no money and no insurance.)

Collision insurance repairs or replaces your car if it's involved in a crash: you run into another car, a lamp post or a 2000 lb Brahma bull. (Don't laugh; I once saw one strolling down the Texas road on which I lived; I called the sheriff, and he sent someone to round it up.) Comprehensive insurance covers just about anything else that might damage your car--a tree falls on it, a tornado takes it to Oz, a graffiti artist uses it for a canvas or someone steals it.

Collision and Comprehensive almost always involve a deductible. You can choose the amount, usually starting at $500. The amount the insurance company will pay will be either the cost of repairing your car or the cost of replacing it--less the deductible--at your car's current market price. Keep that last phrase in mind; we'll come back to it later .(To prevent people from trashing their own car when they need money, some insurers will always pay less than the replacement cost. Check your policy.)

The second kind of insurance is liability insurance. This is insurance to cover damage that you are responsible for, especially if you are judged negligent in some way. You hit someone's car or run into their house (it happens!) or hit them because of those worn tires, or because you didn't see a stop sign, or because you were texting someone and this insurance provides money to repair or replace their damaged car or property, for medical bills or to pay damages if you are sued Most states now require drivers to have a minimum amount of liability insurance. Drive without it and you can be fined or even jailed.

And this is where the "annoyance" versus "disaster" situation shows up.

Far too many people worry first and foremost about repairing their damaged car. They buy Collision & Comprehensive with a low deductible, and skimp on liability insurance. But a higher deductible--say $1,000-- means you'll only be out of pocket $500 more if your car needs to be repaired. That's a financial annoyance.

You don't think so? Then skimp on liability insurance; if you seriously injure or kill someone, you are now at risk for losing, not a car, but everything you own...and then some. That's a financial disaster.

Here's a hypothetical example.

Ruth and Amy both buy identical new cars that cost $18,000. They both budget the same amount of money to spend on car insurance.

Ruth buys C & C with the lowest possible deductible, $500, which means that if her car gets damaged, she's only out $500 to get it fixed or replaced. A low deductible costs much more than a high deductible though, so she opts for only $50,000 worth of liability insurance, the minimum her state requires.

Amy opts for C&C with a $1,500 deductible, which costs much less; with the savings, she buys $300,000 worth of liability insurance.

Five years into their car ownership, both are involved in major crashes. They aren't injured, but other people are. Both Ruth and Amy's cars are totaled. Ruth was texting on her cell phone when she crashed; Amy failed to see a stop sign.

Both are sued by those injured for $350,000 in medical bills and damages.

Ruth contacts her insurance agent and is stunned to find that they will only pay her the current market price of her five-year-old car, approximately 40% of what she paid for it, less $500. The court awards those suing her a total of $250,000; her insurance carrier pays her $50,000, the full amount of her liability insurance. She has no savings,and owns no property other than her car; she will therefore spend decades paying off the additional $200,000. For her, this is a financial disaster.

Amy is paid $1,500 less than Ruth towards replacing her totaled car. But she has $300,000 of liability insurance, enough to make it worth the insurance company's while to negotiate with the lawyers of those who are suing her. They agree on a settlement of $190,000, which the insurance company pays. Amy is able to buy a decent used car and goes on with her life. Even if she'd had to pay $250,000, like Ruth, the insurance would have covered it.

Because she was willing to risk paying $1,000 more to replace her car, this has been a financial annoyance.

Consider risks versus cost when you buy insurance....and buy protection for the financial disaster, not the financial annoyance.

Sneaks: "We'll Send You an Extra One, Free!"

2010-10-07T21:15:00.004-05:00

Sneak: An advertising or business practice that can be within the letter of the law, but might also be intended to deceive.

If you are among those of us who watch non-network TV, especially early in the morning or late at night, you're probably familiar with the type of commercial that pitches the "free" or "two for the price of one" line.

Yes, you too can have not one, but two of these fabulous products for one low, low price! Such products range from devices that keep dogs from misbehaving to sunglasses that will give you High Definition sight! (Sorry, but I permanently lost my high definition sight, at least when it comes to reading small print, about ten years ago.) Vitamins! Face creams! Diet aids! Sleep aids! Two for the price of one! Free, but only to the first hundred callers!

Somewhere in amongst all this enthusiasm, you'll find the line, "Just pay separate shipping and handling." Sometimes it's just in small print on the screen.

But who cares about shipping and handling? You're going to lose those ugly bags under your eyes, you're going to be slim and beautiful, your dog is going to quit trying to bite your invited guests, you're going to see the world in a new, beautiful golden light, and you're going to be able to sleep at night!

Besides, how much can the shipping and handling be?

I suggest you find out before placing an order. For example, you get two dog controllers for only $10, but the shipping and handling for each is $6.99, so you end up paying a total of $23.98. The bracelet (it radiates natural frequencies that help you sleep!) costs $19.95, but you get another one free, so that's less than $10 each....except shipping and handling for each costs $7.95, so you're actually out $35.85.

The free thirty day supply ("Try it risk free"!) of the fabulous cream that does--well, I can't quite remember what it does, but I know it's just fabulous!--has a shipping and handling fee of $11.80. Now I'm sure that this cream--which is risk free!--contains a whole bunch of exotic and expensive ingredients, so if they're giving me a sample--free!--it must be because it's so wonderful that I'll keep buying it forever. That's how they'll make their money. That's why they're willing to let me try it free!

Of course, if it turns out that it's 10 cents worth of cold cream in a 20 cent container, that actually cost $1 to handle and ship, then the advertiser could send out tens of thousands of "free" samples, never have a reorder from a single customer and still clear $10.50 each.... less the cost of marketing, of course. But I'm sure that's not true. I'm sure all these products are worth every penny.

Still....if you wait awhile, these things tend to show up at Wal-Mart. I happened to be down there today and found both the dog controller and the HD sunglasses, each priced at $9.88. (They were sitting right next to the microwave pasta strainer/cooker and the catnip-laced cat claw-filer.) Buy two of either of these and you're still paying less than the cost of those great deals offered on TV....and if you find you don't like or need them--my dogs are actually pretty good at responding to shrieks of "Bad dog! Quit that or die!"--I'm pretty sure Wal-Mart will give you a refund. Refunds for shipping and handling charges, on the other hand, are a whole 'nother story.

Still....if I could just remember the name of that face cream....

UPDATE:
I couldn't resist adding one more example....a certain piece of "fast and easy" cookware. The things it could make looked delicious, it was pitched as cooking these goodies very, very quickly and I could get two--two!-- for only two easy payments of $19.95. Hmmmmm. $40? Keep one for myself, give one away as a present? Except there was...you guessed it....separate shipping and handling for each cooker, at a price, I discovered, when I went to the product's website and looked at the tiny-print footnotes, of $14.95 each! So that low, low $40 cost is now up to nearly $70.

I'll pass.

Don't call and order without first checking the cost of S & H!

Are Coupons Worth The Effort? I'm Still Not Sure (Updated)

2010-09-30T20:22:00.026-05:00

This is not a rhetorical question. I’d really like to know.

I’ve worked hard to develop a lot of frugal habits over the years, but coupon clipping has never been one of them. I usually take my copy of the Sunday paper and lift all the ad supplements, chock full of coupons, and toss ‘em before I even start reading the front page.

I looked at the supplements last Sunday. Didn’t examine them coupon by coupon, but saw enough to give me a good idea of what kinds of products those coupons will buy….nationally advertised name brands, usually quite a bit more expensive than the store brands I use. So the question would be, does the coupon discount the name brand enough to really compete with the store brand price?

Maybe I’m just lazy. It seems to me that by the time you cut out coupons and, I presume, figure out some way to sort them by product, expiration date, etc. you’ve spent more time trying to save 50 cents here or $1.00 there than it’s worth. Spend five minutes to save 50 cents, and you’re spending the equivalent of an hour to save $6. That’s not even minimum wage.

I do use one coupon regularly, and that’s a 50 cent off coupon that actually comes inside a brand of toilet paper that I use regularly. This TP is already an excellent bargain; 50 cents off, especially when it only takes a moment to peel the coupon off the roll and stick it in my wallet, strikes me as a pretty good deal.

But maybe I’m not giving coupons a fair shake. Do you use them? Do they really save you enough money to make them worth the work and time spent searching them out, clipping and sorting them?

If you do—especially if you have a coupon-use system that maximizes savings while minimizing processing time, please share that in a comment.

I’ll try to have an open mind about this. After all, saving money is what this blog is all about, and no technique should be overlooked.

So tell me how you do it. I’ve got my scissors sharpened and ready.

Update:
I decided to buy a Sunday paper again ($2 in my area) and see if I could find any coupons that would actually save me money over the store brands I usually buy. Out of 12 coupons I selected, one would have saved me a few cents over it's store brand equivalent. Hardly worth the cost of the newspaper yes?

However, I did find that coupons may be a good idea when you're trying something new. I've always liked the "Duke the Dog" commercials for Bush's Baked Beans, so when I found a coupon for $1 off a 21-oz can of Black Bean Fiesta Grillin' Beans, I clipped it and took it to the grocery store.

The can was $2.08 retail, $1.08 with my coupon. While I was there, I also priced 15-oz cans of store brand black beans and corn, the main ingredients in the Black Bean Fiesta can. The corn was 66 cents; the black beans were 88 cents. I calculated that n reasonable chunk of another ingredient, red pepper, would cost about 20 cents, and a little chipotle sauce would cost another 20 cents, for a total of $1.94 for a 3- oz batch of my own "fiesta" mix of black beans and corn. That made it considerably cheaper per ounce than the Bush version...unless one had--aha!--a $1 off coupon. (And I didn't have to spend two whole minutes chopping red peppers and pouring out a tablespoon of chipolte sauce!)

I took the can home. I opened it and poured half the contents into a bowl.

Now, I like black beans. I put 'em on salads, I add them to my home-made burritos....and in my experience, black beans are black.

What I saw in my bowl were red beans. I scooped some up in a spoon and washed off the sauce to make sure. Red-brown beans. Where were the black beans? I'm not saying there weren't any in there, just that there had to be so few I couldn't see them.

There also wasn't much corn. I stirred the bowl and counted eight pieces of corn. I counted six small bits of red pepper. This in a bowl containing half of a 21-oz can.

Boy, I'm I glad I had that coupon. Especially after eating what was in that bowl, since what I tasted was basic beans with a little bit of hot sauce.

I'm going to try to make my own Fiesta beans. One drained can of black beans. One drained can of corn. A little red pepper. A little chipolte sauce. $1.94.

I'll let you know how it comes out.

These Shoes Were Made for Walking...At A Budget Price!

2010-09-24T11:36:00.003-05:00

For my birthday, back in August, a friend gave me $24 cash. I’d been griping that I was short on black shoes, and she wanted me to buy some….mostly, I presume, to stop me from griping!

I spent $15 of the $24 on a set of mirror-surfaced candle sticks I saw at an antique mall. I used the remaining $8 to buy three sets of shoes.

Used shoes.

I’m pretty sure that the much-touted female obsession with expensive shoes is largely a cultural myth. Certainly, we are told constantly, in movies, books and shoe ads, that women will lie, cheat and steal in pursuit of the latest six-inch designer stilettos, but I don’t know anyone who actually fits this profile. But even without such extremes, you can spend a whale of a lot of money on shoes…..if you buy them new.

I’ve got a cranky knee, so I pass on the high heels. But even with flats, you can easily shell out $50 or more on any shoe other than old-fashioned sneakers.(Canvas topped, rubber-soled sneakers, not megabuck “athletic” shoes, which IMHO have become one of the greatest rip-offs around, right up there with bottled water.) Just finding enough good flats to go with brown pants, black pants and jeans can blow your budget fast.

So I buy used shoes. I keep an eye open for “mint” condition shoes in classic styles that I can get for $2 to $4 a pair. (These are actually harder to find than heels, open-toed shoes and sandals.) Here’s a pix of the three pair I bought with my “birthday” money.

All name brands--Easy Spirit, Pappgallo's and Partners. I got one pair at a charity resale store, and two pairs at an estate sale. Total price? $8.00. I estimate these shoes would have cost me well over $100 if I'd bought them new.

Paying a tenth of the price for gently used shoes will really help your bottom line. Where do you find them?

Consignment and resale stores: This is a fairly pricey source—you’ll get shoes for 30-50% of the cost new, which is a little high in my book—but certainly worth checking.

Yard sales: An excellent source in terms of price. Check sales in an area where the people will wear your kind of shoes; you’re not going to find many designer pumps in rural areas, or trendy super-high heels in retirement communities. To save time, simply ask the seller if they have anything in your size; it makes no sense wandering around looking for size10 shoes when the lady (or gentleman) of the house wears a size 8.

Church sales and charity stores: Probably your best bet. Churches and charity organizations will often have a larger selection, but quality can vary. Goodwill, for example, usually has plainer, less fashionable shoes, but great prices. My favorite clothing and shoe store is a place that sells used items to raise money for needy mothers and kids. They have a sale about once every two months and from the quality of the items available, a lot of well-off people donate.

By the way, if you’re leary of sticking your feet in shoes someone else has worn, sit the shoes out in the sun for a day or wipe them out with alcohol. (And remember, new shoes bought in a store may have been tried on by a dozen different shoppers.)

Finally, never buy anything just because it’s cheap. If you wouldn’t be tempted to buy a pair of shoes at full price, pass on them. Buying things just because they're cheap is a sure way to end up with a house full of stuff you don’t like and won’t use.

Got any good stories about where you found great shoes at a low, low price? Tell us about it in a comment!

Is It Time to Cut the Cable or Dump the Dish?

2010-09-19T13:36:00.002-05:00

Do you ever find yourself clicking through the channels on your cable or satellite TV, hoping to find something you'd actually like to watch?

"Real Housewives of....Somewhere." Click. "Wife Swap." Click. "The Bachelorette." Click. "BBQ Pitmasters." Click. "Dog the Bounty Hunter." Click. "Steven Seagal, Lawman." Click. "I Shouldn't Be Alive." Click. "Shear Genius." Click. "Movie about Teenage Angst." Click. "Movie About 20-Something Angst." Click. "Movie About Middle-age Angst." Click. "WWW Wrestling." Click. "Ultimate Supreme Bash-Each-Other-Silly-Championship." Click.

Press the button. Press the button. Press the button. You go through a complete circuit and start again. And then it hits you....why are you paying $70, $80, $90 or more a month for a mountain of dreck that contains only a few shows you actually watch?

You can survive without cable or satellite TV. Honest.

I reached the "throw the remote control at the converter box" stage quite some time ago. I'll admit, the thought of going cold turkey was scary, but I did some research and found that I could watch a lot of my favorite shows without that monthly hit from, in my case, DIRECTV.

Can you do the same? Here's how to find out.

First, make a list of the channels and shows you actually watch on a regular basis on your cable or satellite TV. In my case, it was old movies--and I'd pretty much seen everything on Turner Classic Movies twice--home improvement shows on HGTV, Top Gear on BBC America and The Daily Show on Comedy Central. It was surprising to find how much I was paying for and how little I was actually watching.

Second, grab a local Sunday paper and take a look at what's you have in the way of broadcast channels. When I'd gone to satellite, there'd only been about 10 channels available in my area. Now, with a "rabbit ear" antennae, I can pick up nearly twenty channels, including an all sports channel, channels showing old TV series, an all-movie channel and a really excellent new PBS channel called World. I'm planning to buy a better antennae soon and should be able to pick up even more.

Third, check out Netflix. If you have a fairly speedy computer hookup, you can watch hundreds of Netflix movies and a lot of TV series episodes via instant download on your computer, as well as order discs through the mail to watch on your TV. I've got a internet connection with 5 meg download that only costs me $44 a month, and on that, I can watch older episodes of Top Gear, Dr. Who, BBC miniseries such as North and South and Bleak House and everything from classic movies to foreign films whenever I want. The monthly cost? $9.( If you need to have a setup the whole family can watch, you might need to buy yourself a Wii console for your main TV...but there's no law that says you have to buy it new.)

Check out Hulu.com. I found many of my favorite HGTV series available there, as well as back episodes of top broadcast series.

Stop by your local library. If you have kids, see what's available in the way of children's shows on disc. Many libraries also have a good selection of movies.

Check your favorite cable channel's website. Each morning, I can go to Comedy Central and watch the previous night's episode of The Daily Show on my computer, and it doesn't bother me at all that I'm watching it twelve hours "delayed." See if you can do the same for shows on your favorite cable channels.

So....do a little research. Check out what's on broadcast, what's on the internet, what's available fron Netflix or your local library.

You just might be able to cut loose from cable...and that monthly bill....and feel little or no pain at all.

Even PBS Get's It Wrong!

2010-04-28T17:46:00.007-05:00

I came in on the tail end of a PBS program about food the other day. As best I can remember, it theorized that the reason people are fat in this country is because they can't afford decent food. They can only afford to buy cheap food from the "dollar" menu at various fast food places.

As an example, they showed a family of four--Mom, Dad, (both overweight) a daughter who looked to be about fourteen and another child who was perhaps nine or ten. They went through the drive-through at an unnamed fast food place; the tab for four hamburgers, two chicken sandwiches and four sodas--fat, fat and sugar supreme!--all off the dollar menu, was over $11.

Then they showed the same family in the produce section at their local grocery store. My mouth dropped open when the two little girls found that 99 cents would only buy them two pears. "Too expensive!" My jaw hit the ground when the parents pointed out that broccoli at $1.59 a lb. was also so pricey that it proved they couldn't possibly afford to feed the family "good food."

Incredibly, the narrator of this documentary repeated this bit of idiocy as though it was gospel truth. People of limited means can "only" afford the lousy food found on dollar menus.

Bull. Pure unadulterated bull

Let's take their own examples. They could start by buying three pears for $1.50. That's a pear each for the parents and a half pear each for the kids.

One and one-half pounds of broccoli would be a whole $2.40 and be plenty enough for the entire family to have a serving.

I buy whole chickens for $4.50 or less at least once a week. One three-pounder at that price would easily provide a meal's worth of meat for this whole family.

A few tablespoons of iced tea mix or lemonade mix in tap water would provide drinks for all four people and cost maybe 50 cents.

Four servings of brown rice with a little butter would cost about $1.

So....a meal of roasted chicken, broccoli, brown rice and pears, with ice tea or lemonade would be much more nutritious, add up to fewer calories and cost:

$8.90.

More than a dollar less than the vegetable-poor, sugar and fat-laden "cheap" meal off the dollar menu.

Ah! But what about the time it takes to cook all this food! Who has the time?

Almost everyone.

We've also been sold the idea that it takes all sorts of specialized equipment and hours of time to cook food at home. Again, pure bull.

Yes, it takes about an hour to roast a chicken. But....here's something the TV cooking shows won't tell you....you don't have to spend that entire hour in the kitchen.

If you've planned ahead and bought the necessary ingredients on the weekend, here's what's involved in our sample meal.

Rice? Before you start on the chicken, put the rice and water in a lidded pot, put it on the back burner on high, and by the time you get the chicken in the oven, it will be boiling. Turn the burner off, leave the lid on and let it sit.

While the rice comes to a boil, pull the chicken out of the wrapper, rinse it, put it in an oven-proof pan (I use glass cake pans) and stick it in the oven. I use a large toaster oven that I bought years ago secondhand for a few bucks to avoid heating up my full size oven. (You should cook things at a slightly lower temperature in a toaster oven. Experiment and find out what works for you.)

All this takes about five or six minutes. When you're done and the chicken's in the oven and the rice is turned off and sitting, go off and do something else. A load of wash, a check of your email, whatever chores will take about an hour. Watch a TV show if you want. Just check the chicken at least twice during that hour and baste it.

When the chicken is done, pull it out and set it on a heat-proof surface to cool, while you take the broccoli, rinse it and cut off the lower part of the stalk. Then just put it on a microwave proof plate, upend another plate to use as a cover--no, you do not need a special microwave steamer!--and microwave it on High for two to three minutes until it's tender. While you're doing that, mix your tea and lemonade, carve your chicken, then call everyone in for a nutriitous and cheap dinner that only took about fifteen actual working minutes to prepare.

I've seen people spend more time than that creeping along in the drive-through line.

And by the way....if you cook double amounts of such food on the weekends, you can make your own microwaveable frozen meals to eat on weekday nights...at perhaps a third the cost of the ten bites worth of processed, over-sauced frozen food sold at the grocery store.

'Nuff said. I'm hungry. Time for a plate full of homemade spaghetti, full of tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and mushrooms, all bits and pieces that I didn't use on other meals. I chopped 'em up and put them in a container in the freezer over the last ten days. The spaghetti took me fifteen minutes to make three days ago (plus an hour of simmering, while I did chores) and I've got three more portions in the freezer....at a cost of about $1.50 per portion.

Dollar menu? Please. Spend a few minutes planning and a few minutes cooking, eat less and eat better. You'll be skinnier and your wallet will be fatter.

For Savings You Can Crow About, Get Creative With This Kind of Chicken!

2009-07-24T13:31:00.011-05:00

About the cheapest type of meat you can buy is chicken leg quarters bought in five or ten pound bags. I eat a lot of that, even though I don’t like dark meat.

I won’t eat meat from thighs or legs off the bone. I just don’t like the taste. But at 70-80¢ a pound, it’s a good, cheap source of meat. So, I buy it in bulk, cook it enough so I can easily strip it from the bones, then put it in freezer bags and freeze it. (Don’t use the thin-walled plastic bags.)

I currently have about four pounds of such meat in my freezer. With this meat, I will do the following:

Chop it, cook it on the stove top with barbecue sauce and make myself a chicken-meat sloppy Joe.
Put some teriyaki sauce in the bag, leave it in the fridge overnight and use it for stir fry.
Slice it, cook it a few minutes in a little olive oil in a frying pan, add mushrooms, paprika, sour cream and cooked noodles to make chicken stroganoff.
Cook it the same way except this time add mushrooms, sour cream, grated parmesan cheese and either fresh or thawed, drained frozen spinach, a little basil, and a little garlic powder to make my version of chicken florentine.
Layer it with spaghetti sauce, cheese and spinach for chicken lasagna.
Chop it fine in my blender (I have a grate setting) and use it to make chicken spathetti.
Chop it up, brown it in a pan with a little olive oil, some corn, black beans, onions, a chopped tomato, and a little red chili powder, add some sour cream, then use this mixture to fill steamed tortillas. (Add cheese and a few avocado chunks before you wrap the tortillas.)

In short, if you also don't dig dark meat, just disguise the taste with sauces, spices, herbs or marinades and you can make a number of delicious, meaty dishes….with the meat costing a fraction of what beef, pork or even white-meat chicken would.

Plus, if you precook it in bulk (I'll cook ten pounds worth in the oven) strip off the bones and store it in one-pound bags in the freezer, you'll have meat you can thaw and use in a few minutes. That can cut a surprising amount of time off your cooking, especially if you make double batches and freeze half to create your own microwaveable frozen dinners.

So...save money....save time....with cheap chicken!

Take Care When Using Craigslist...Well, Just Take Care, Period

2009-07-19T06:00:00.007-05:00

I think Craigslist is a great site, but you do shop at your own risk. The "flagging" system helps somewhat, but you still need to be careful.

Case in point? After writing my previous post on hunting for used cars, (see below) I was rather idly browsing through a list of small trucks of Craigslist and, curious, sent emails requesting mileage info to the sellers of two suspiciously inexpensive vehicles, a Nissan Frontier and a Toyota Tundra.

Here's what I got back from "Mark Johnson" on the Frontier.

Hi,I am selling this car because I am being dispatched to the Gulf of Aden.I will be there for more than a year and I’ve cut the price because I must sell before July 30th.The car is in great condition, no rust, no electrical or mechanical problems. I have a clean title ready to be signed. It is still available for sale if interested, price as stated in the ad .The car is in the Billings MT, and in case it gets sold I will take care of shipping.Let me know if you are interested, email back.

Now, if you've ever used the car/trucks section of Craigslist, you'll notice a warning at the top about how any offer to ship a car is "100% fraudulent. So the Billings, MT bit was a red flag. I mean, who's going to sell a vehicle at a very cheap price and also offer to ship it free from Montana to Dallas?

But it got better. I opened the email reply to my inquiry about the Tundra, also listed with a suspiciously low price.

This time, the reply was from "George Lucas" --now there's an original name.

Hi,I am selling this car because I am being dispatched to the Gulf of Aden.I will be there for more than a year. I’ve cut the price because I must sell before July 25th.The car is in great condition, no rust, no scratches. I have a clean title ready to be signed. No electrical or mechanical problems. It is still available for sale if interested, price as stated in the ad ($3500) .The car is in the Dallas area. in case it gets sold I will take care of shipping.Let me know if you are interested, email back.

Yes, a late model Toyota Tundra for $3500. This time, he was offering to ship the car from Dallas, which is interesting for someone advertising in the Dallas/Fort Worth area....Dallas is 50 miles away and one would assume that the Tundra could be driven that far, no?

And don't you love the implication that he's in the military?

I replied to both posts with the word SCAMMER in 36 point bold type. I tried to go back and flag the ads, but they're already gone; obviously, other people had no problem figuring out that this guy was a crook.

So watch for these people. They are out there, doing their best to ruin a good thing. Read those warnings on the uppper right of the Craigslist page so you'll know some of the tricks scammers pull. Then flag them if you find them.....and never let your hopes for a great deal override your good sense.

Before You Go Shopping for A New (Or Gently Used) Set of Wheels

2009-07-16T15:42:00.007-05:00

For those of you checking out the “cash for clunkers” (CFC) option, a few extra pieces of information:

1) This option really only makes sense if you truly have an old clunker, something along the lines of Quartermain, my GMC van. (Don’t tell him I called him a clunker!) At 15 years old and 260,000+ miles, I doubt his trade in value would be over $2000, so it would make sense for me to use the CFC rebate option and get a $4500 allowance for a new van or truck. If you have a car that can be traded in or sold for more than the $3500-$4500 CFC allowance, you’d want to go that route. Any “clunker” used for the CFC incentive will be scrapped, so it’s an either-or deal: trade-in allowance or CFC rebate, but not both.

2) If you’re wondering what kind of mileage rating your potential “clunker” has—and if it will qualify you for the CFC rebate—try this website: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/. It provides info on mpg ratings for a variety of cars, new and used.

3) To check out the prices of new or used cars online, try these sites. (Remember, the CFC rebate can only be used for new cars.)

- http://www.edmunds.com/ provides prices, reviews and ratings of both new and used cars. There’s also a handy feature that lets you get an idea of how much any particular model will cost to own and operate over its lifetime and a Search feature that lets you find specific makes and models for sale in your area.

- http://www.motortrends.com/ also provides reviews and information on both new and used cars and a local Search feature. (Both the Edmunds and Motortrend sites seem to feature only cars being sold by dealers.) There’s also a page that will let you know what rebates or incentives are currently being offered by car manufacturers and dealers.

- http://www.craigslist.com/, the on-line "classified ad" site. Just make sure you select your local city or state in the right hand column before searching. Also, be cautious when responding to ads for “owner” sold cars; there are scammers out there who pose as car owners when they’re actually dealers, and even some who’ll try to pull a version of the classic Nigerian scam by promising to ship you a car if you’ll just send them the money. You'll also see a lot of ads repeating as they're posted day by day.

A few last suggestions:

- Do your comparison shopping before you actually start looking at cars. Knowing what your target make and model sells for in your area will help you know if you've really found a good deal.

- Before going to look at used cars (which are usually sold with little or no warranty) ask your mechanic to give you some tips on checking a car for basic defects, (oil leaks, worn shocks, etc.) so you can eliminate cars with obvious problems. Then ask his cost for examining a car that passes that initial once-over. Most mechanics will check a car for a reasonable fee, and knowing that you’ll have the car examined before you buy it will deter crooks who are trying to palm off a junker. I’ve never bought anything but used cars in almost forty years of driving and I’ve never had an honest seller refuse to let me have the car examined.

- Take a friend with you when you go to look at a car, especially if you’re buying one from a private owner. The presence of a witness will often come in handy and it's safer when there’s two of you.

- Check with your Department of Motor Vehicles and see how car titles are handled in your state. (Each state is different.) Make sure you learn the difference between a “clean” title (meaning that the seller owns the car outright ) and a title that shows that the car comes with some kind of lien that must be paid off before you’ll actually own the car.

- If you’ll have to get a loan to buy your car, check rates and fees with local banks, savings and loans and credit unions for the best terms and prices. If you find good financing, see if you can get prequalified for a loan. There’s nothing worse than finding the exact car you want at a great price and either having to accept a dealer’s high interest loan, or having the deal fall through because you can’t qualify for a loan.

Good luck!

These Folks Just Never Give Up!

2009-07-05T00:00:00.005-05:00

Well, I see the crooks are still busy.

I received this little communiqué in the form of an email a few minutes ago.

Dear Customer,

American State Bank carrying out a major system upgrade. This upgrade became necessary following recent security threats. Consequently, in the next few days, you may notice temporary interruption when using online banking to access your account. To experience a smoother and more secure online banking, please update your information in our records. The link below will guide you through the process:http://secure-banking.online.com. Please note that this one time exercise is mandatory for all American State Bank customers. For security reasons, we may suspend your account if your information is not updated.We sincerely regret any inconvenience.

Susan Flinn
Head of Online Banking

My computer, rather intelligently, put this email in the Junk Mail folder. Unfortunately, it’s something a little more sinister than junk mail. It’s a scam, and a nasty one.

Clues? This thing is riddled with them.

First, I know what banks I have accounts at and American State Bank isn’t one of them. (By the way, there's a ASB logo graphic on the original email and it's meaningless. Anyone can swipe such a logo just by copying it off the real bank’s website.)

Then there’s the line about “recent security threats” designed to scare anyone who receives this email into responding immediately. Scammers love to scare people into acting without thinking, so this is boilerplate scam language.

Next, we have the call to update my “information” in their records, so that I can experience “more secure” (another scare phrase) online banking. I don’t do any online banking, (this kind of thing is one of the reasons why) so that’s another red flag. What kind of information do they want me to provide? I'm willing to bet it's exactly the kind they could use to steal my identity.

Then notice the link provided. (I’ve removed a few letters from the link to keep anyone from accidently clicking on it and going to the crook’s website.) The link itself doesn’t even have the “secure” https --note the s--prefix that real financial institutions use. (The use of the word “secure” in the link is meaningless.) I’m tempted to click on this thing—I’m sure this link will take me to a webpage where I’ll be asked for information that a thief could use—but I won’t because the webpage might also be armed with a virus or worm that could end up on my computer.

Finally, it says that going to that link and typing in—what? Name, address, social security number—is mandatory. If I don’t do it, they’ll suspend that fictional account of mine. Another classic scare tactic.

Sorry, Ms. Flinn. Ain’t gonna bite on your hook.

If you receive something like this, neither should you. (If it’s for a bank you actually use, call that bank first.)

P. S. I went to the real American State Bank website, and here’s the first thing you see. The red coloring is theirs.

EMAIL SCAM – URGENT

Some community residents have received an unauthorized email appearing to come from American State Bank. The message encourages readers to click on a link claiming to be secure and provide their bank-on-line password information. If you receive this email, please do not respond or click on the link. It is a fraudulent email and could allow for criminals to obtain your personal financial information. If you have already received this email and provided your personal information, please contact ASB Customer Service immediately at 1-800-531-1401. A representative will help you determine preventative steps such as closing your account, deactivating your debit/credit card and/or changing your Bank-on-line passwords.

Frugal and Flexible

2009-06-28T13:48:00.014-05:00

One of my favorite mantras is “When in doubt, cheat.”

Not cheating in the sense of being dishonest or crooked. I’m talking about looking for other ways to do things when the usual, common, regular or “normal” methods don’t work.

Or, to put it in different words: “There’s always a way.”

If you need something and don’t have the necessary money, don’t give up. Look for another way to get what you want. See if you can find cheaper methods or materials to use. If you really look, it’s surprising how what seems unattainable is actually in reach.

Case in point? My new desk.

My office is in what was originally a 10 x 10 bedroom. I spend a lot of time there and was getting increasingly frustrated by what I had in the way of workspace, an old 3 ½’ x 5’ army surplus desk, a large desk, but still too small for my needs.

My printer was on a rickety little table off to one side and I had to slide between the desk and the wall to get at it. My binders sat stacked on another table in another corner, my file cabinet was off to one side and the desk itself was always covered with piles of paper and stacks of files. Since the desk’s height was made for pen-and-paper writing, it was too high to me to comfortably type on my laptop. To handle my monthly bills and check my bank statements, I had to go to a different desk in another room.

It. Drove. Me. Nuts.

I wanted one of those sleek, wrap-around corner desks. I actually wanted two, one in each corner, with a section in the middle to connect them, a lower section, for my laptop.

I checked a few office supply stores and some catalogs. Just one of those desks would cost at least $250. To get what I really wanted, I’d need two, and even then, they wouldn’t reach the full length of the room.

I can't afford $500. So...."find a way.” Was there a way to get at least get 80% of what I wanted at 50% of the cost?

Of course.

The first thing I noticed about those desks was the basic shape…a square with one corner cut away in a curve. I sat down with some graph paper and started calculating what I could fit in my 10 x 10 room. (Tip: You’ll save a lot of money if you graph first and cut wood later.) A 4’ x 4’ piece would fit in each corner, leaving me with space for a two-foot wide central connecting section for my laptop. I could make those two corner sections out of a 4’ x 8’ piece of wood, yes?

Yes! A call down to Lowes, followed by a trip, and I’d bought and had Lowes saw in half (for free) a 4’ x 8’ length of that handy material, medium density fiberboard, or MDF. Cost? $26.

But before I turned my living room into a workshop, I had to solve a much tricker question. What the heck was I going to do for legs? There'd be lot of stuff sitting on this desk. Laptop, printer, TV, VCR, binders, a bill-paying station….I needed sturdy legs. I also wanted legs that I could easily remove, so I could disassemble the desk to store or ship if I needed to.

You can buy wooden legs that attach to plates screwed to the underside of the table surface. I looked at ‘em and wasn’t impressed. They seemed flimsy, unreliable and were nearly $12 apiece. I needed eight legs. I didn’t want to pay $96 for them.

Here’s where the flexibility comes in.

I started wandering the aisles at Lowes. Was there anything I could adapt to use for legs?

Thick-walled 1” PVC pipe? Difficult to solidly attach, too hard to disassemble later. 2” dowels? Same problem. Pieces of wood? Too clunky and too expensive. I found myself in the plumbing aisle, and suddenly pulled up short in front of the rows of 10’ lengths of galvanized pipe. Now those looked strong!

120” each. I needed eight 28” legs. I could get four legs cut from each pipe, at a price of $45 for eight legs.

But how to fasten them to the tabletop?

$2.65 each for round, four-screw flanges. One to attach each “leg” to the MDF, one on the other end to serve as a foot. Very solid. And Lowe's would cut the pipes and thread the ends for me, free.

I now had all the pieces. I got to work. Saw, drill, attach the flanges to the MDF, screw the pipes into the flanges, then four coats of enamel paint on the MDF. Add a piece of scrap wood in the center, bolted beneath the other pieces to give me a lower area for my laptop, and I have a new desk.

With more than 10 extra square feet of surface area, with my laptop sitting two inches lower, a lot more open space in the center of the room, it’s much more efficient and comfortable. The only thing I would change would be to cut the curves a little shallower, for even more surface area.

Cost? Less than $160.

I like it better than the desks I saw at the stores. (None of them is my favorite shade of green.) It’s bigger than those desks. And it cost almost two-thirds less. Win-win-win.

When you want something--and can't really afford it--look around. See if you can adapt something to your needs.

Keep your eyes and your mind open. You’d be surprised at the money problems a little flexibility can solve.

Do you have any stories of ways you've handled a problem like this by "repurposing" something? Leave a comment and share your ingenuity with others!

Maybe You CAN Buy a New Car....Soon!

2009-06-22T14:35:00.007-05:00

If you’ve been wishing you had enough down-payment cash to take advantage of the current dip in car prices, wait just a little longer. Your old fuel gulper may soon be your ticket to a great deal.

Congress has just passed a “cash for clunkers” bill that provides incentives for people to replace their gas guzzlers with higher mpg cars. Trade in a car getting 18 mpg or less and you can obtain a rebate voucher for $3500 that you can use to buy a car that gets at least 22 mpg. Find a car that gets at least 10mpg more than the one you have now and you can get a voucher for $4500.

Do you own a SUV, minivan or a pickup truck? Get a voucher for $3500 if you trade it in for something that gets at least 2 mpg more than what you’re driving now, or $4500 for one with a rating at least 5 mpg higher.

(There are a few more conditions involved. First, your gas guzzler must be over five years old, in working condition and registered for at least the past 120 days. So buying a wreck for a few bucks and having it towed to a car dealership ain't gonna work.)

Make a great deal on a new, high mpg car and that incentive could end up paying as much as one-third the cost. That could really shrink your monthly payments.

Now, if you want to pay a little more and effectively cut your gas costs in half, you might try one of these cars. Some of them boost ratings of 50 mpg or more.

Start by doing a little research now to determine what your needs are and what kind of car will meet them. But just make sure the President has signed this bill into law before you sign on the dotted line.

(Me? Though tempted, I’m not quite ready to trade in Quartermain. Yet.

Not...quite...yet.

Don't tell Quartermain I'm even thinking about it, or he'll wait until I'm on the most remote country road possible, in the middle of the night, when it's raining and I don't have my cell phone...and then he'll die on me. Just to teach me a lesson. Very touchy creatures, old cars.)

Big House, Small Comfort

2009-05-26T16:45:00.015-05:00

If you’re visiting North Carolina, it’s almost obligatory to stop by Asheville, the trendy little city tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m not a fan of “trendy” but I thought Asheville was certainly worth a look.

The setting is beautiful, but Asheville itself was a mild disappointment. Downtown seemed a little dim and run down to me. (I’m used to the clean, bright and tree-lined streets of downtown Fort Worth, which experienced a makeover back in the 80’s due to the leadership of the Bass family, bless their rich little hearts.)

Still, it seems a nice place, if you’re into Haight-Ashbury retro. I passed on the bars and art shops, but I did visit the locale’s main attraction, paying $50 for the privilege. (You read that right. Fifty. Bucks. Me!) If you’ve watched Lowe’s paint commercials on TV, you may have some idea of what I’m talking about—the “largest home in America"—the unique, magnificent and incredibly ostentatious Biltmore House.

The property consists of more than 8,000 acres (it boosts, among other things, its own herd of cows, its own herd of sheep and its own vineyards and winery) in an area where, even when it was first built, flat land was at a premium. You enter through a magnificent arched gate and drive perhaps a half-mile to the place where you buy your ticket, then approximately two miles more through the Biltmore Forest before you even reach the house.

That drive alone is almost worth the price of the ticket. Huge old trees, smooth-turfed glades, tiny streams, little stone bridges...it was magical. I kept expecting to see a unicorn drinking at one of the brooks, or see Frodo and Sam walking through one of the sun-dappled clearings. If you ever go, (and I suggest going in the spring) roll down your windows so you can listen to the birdsong. The only thing needed to make it pure bliss would have been making that drive in an elegant two-horse phaeton instead of a car. (You can take a carriage ride through the property, but I had neither the time nor the money to spare.)

At the end of the drive are parking lots surrounded by trees and flowers. Park, walk a hundred yards , pass through a high iron gate and there are the wide paved drives that lead to this immense house. For some reason, I’d imagined the front of Biltmore House surrounded by landscaping, but the huge stretch of emerald turf flanked by broad driveways is even more impressive. I couldn’t help but imagine a dozen carriages going down those drives when the house was first built, and a generation later, top-of-the-line Pontiacs and Packards making the same trip.

Biltmore House from the outside is a rather endearing mix of Victorian and Gothic, from the beautiful glass roof of the Conservatory to the gargoyles perched a various places on the roof, their heads cocked as though they are peering down at the tourists. The huge marble entry is flanked on the left by a magnificent marble staircase, four floors high, and on the right by the circular, sunken Conservatory, a sort of indoor garden filled with huge potted plants. From there you start the tour of the “public” rooms (much of the house is still being restored.) Everything is huge, magnificent and a bit overwhelming. I’m not going to describe every room in detail, but just to give you an idea of this house (which was built for a family of three—George Vanderbilt, his wife and their daughter Cornelia)—I’ll describe the dining room.

It’s like something out of a 18th century German prince’s castle. Nearly 40 feet high, the walls are hung with huge 15th century tapestries and boost an upper border consisting of nineteen stuffed stags heads, plus one rather lonely-looking moose. The marble fireplace, equally tall, has three openings, each large enough to roast a whole boar. High over the entry door are two life-size marble knights in full armor and the table itself is big enough to serve as a dance floor. Thirty people can sit at it without the slightest crowding, though cross table conversation might be difficult, since I estimated it to be at least ten feet wide.

The other rooms—the billiard room, the tapestry room, the generous bedrooms, (one each for both Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, since it was considered a bit bourgeois for married folk of that class to actually sleep in the same bed) the dozen or so guest rooms, the basement’s indoor bowling alley and swimming pool, the huge kitchens and laundry rooms, the tiny servants’ rooms –were all part of the tour. You climb up and down a bewildering array of staircases and go through so many passages and halls that only by peering through the occasional outside window can you keep your bearings.

The mention of those windows brings me to the point of this post. I, and judging from their comments, a lot of the other visitors, noticed that many of the rooms were dark. I mean gloomy. Even with all the desk and table lamps and candelabras switched on, they were full of shadows, especially in the interior rooms of the house. “Not much natural light,” was the frequent comment.

And the beds, for all their velvet-hung magnificence, were small. Even the beds of Mr. Vanderbilt and his wife looked to be no larger than a full, while the single beds in some of the guests bedrooms were hardly wider than cots. I found myself wondering how comfortable the mattresses might be compared to modern versions. Mrs. Vanderbilt’s bedroom was a lovely combination of gilt and plum, but it was also a bit dim, with the same gorgeously-draped, but small bed. The basement swimming pool, which had no windows at all, had underwater lights, but even with those lit, it still felt like you were trapped in a cave.

No central heating either (although almost every room had a fireplace) or air conditioning. I found myself wondering how comfortable the house would be in a hot North Carolina summer or a chilly mountain night. In an era where most house maids slept two or three to a bed in an unheated attic, the servant’s rooms we saw were very small but pleasant, with narrow individual beds covered with white spreads and even a small table and chair each—but I couldn’t help notice that each also came with a chamber pot. (I was told by one of the docents that there was a bathroom at that level, but people preferred using chamber pots because it got so cold at night.)

So—cold in the winter, hot in the summer, small beds, rooms so dark you couldn’t see details of the magnificent tapestries on the walls….

My point?

Most of us, even those of modest means, live much more comfortable lives than the super rich of even 100 years ago, and infinitely better than kings and queens who lived 1000 years ago. No, we don’t wear (and sweat or shiver in) silks and velvets, but we can buy, for modest prices, light, comfortable, colorful clothes that are easy to wash, light, comfortable footwear and very light and comfortable outerwear to keep us warm. Our beds may not be draped in scarlet hangings, but ours are bigger, our mattresses less lumpy, our blankets both lighter and warmer, our sheets softer and smoother.

Most of us don’t huddle next to fireplaces trying to keep warm or sweat through the heat of a summer. We may not have original art by the finest painters of the day, but we can buy beautiful prints at low prices that, if we don’t pine over what we can’t have, give us just as much visual pleasure. We can pick up a phone and hear our loved ones voices almost instantly, and we travel, not in carriages, but in smoothly moving, air conditioned vehicles. We don’t have to go to a concert hall to listen to a symphony, we can carry our own orchestras in our pockets for $20. We don’t have to go to a theater to see drama, we just have to press a button on a remote.

In short, we should appreciate those material comforts we have and do a little less pining after those we don’t. I think it was Andrew Tobias who once pointed out that although Bill Gates can afford to pay 1000 times more than you or I for a mattress, it’s doubtful he’ll experience 1000 times the comfort. And is a $150 meal at a trendy restaurant really ten times better than a $15 meal at a great barbecue place? Does your happiness really depend on driving, a car with all the latest bells and whistles, or should you appreciate a car that’s simply reliable and comfortable?

And here’s the kicker. We should really compare ourselves with the people of the Biltmore House who weren’t rich: the servants, the grooms, the gardeners and the hundreds of workmen who built it. Compared to the life they led, most of us live in a paradise of comfort and convenience.

Learn to appreciate that. Learn to enjoy it. Count your comforts as well as your blessings. You’ll enjoy life much more if you do.