DIY

For those that are familiar with automotive forums and message boards, you will recognize the “DIY” tag as “do it yourself.” Although this is an obvious money saver, it can be a time drainer. When I do decide to tackle a problem on my own (e.g. changing brakes and rotors), I always rely on the wisdom of other salty DIY veterans at bimmerfest.com. I haven’t done extensive research, but I’m sure there are a variety of similar sites for all kinds of makes and models. When you do decide to DIY, make sure you know what you are getting into. The work will most likely require a good amount of time and some tools that you may not have on hand. Add up the total cost of materials to see how much you will be saving compared to taking it into the shop. Divide your savings by the amount of time it will take you to complete the project to see if it is worth the effort (after all, you could be spending that time relaxing on the porch with a frosty beverage in one hand and a plate of BBQ in the other). Lastly, if you can find a friend (probably a pretty good friend at that) that 1) knows something about cars & 2) is willing to help you out, you will find the process to be much more enjoyable and faster.

Labor Only

Depending on what you are having fixed, sometimes it can be advantageous to purchase your parts/materials and bring them to a mechanic to have them installed. This way, you are only paying inflated mechanic prices on the labor and are getting a better deal on the parts. I’ve done this for everything from window regulators to power steering pumps (didn’t have a good experience with that one) to tires and oil changes. Make sure you discuss this option with a mechanic you feel comfortable working with before purchasing all your parts online. 

• Auto parts - I like to use rockauto.com as they have very good customer service and excellent prices. 
• Tires -I use tirerack.com. Just this last week I had a blow-out on the highway and had to get two tires replaced (I’m of the belief that it is best to replace tires in pairs so that they wear evenly). I ordered a set of 2 Goodyear Eagle tires and had them drop shipped to my local Eagle Tire store (oddly enough). As I was waiting for the tires to be put on, the store manager asked me how much I paid for the tires. I told him and after cross checking his database, he told me that my price was slightly below his cost basis (and about 30% below his retail price). Needless to say…Franco was pleased. 
• Oil changes - I typically just buy the big 5 quart jug of my favorite oil (Mobile 1 Synthetic for High Mileage Vehicles) at Walmart and pay someone to change the oil and filter. Oil changes are about as easy as they get, but this is a perfect example of the savings/time ratio I was talking about earlier. First off, I have to jack my car up to get under it in order to change the oil. Secondly, I have to dispose of the old oil, which can be a pain. It’s much easier for me to pay someone an extra $13 to do this for me in under an hour.

So there you have it. Some good tips that can save you a couple hundred bucks a year (or more) on car maintenance.

Ciao,

Now listen up, because this is revolutionary weight loss information here….the secret to losing weight is burning more calories than you consume every day. I know, I know…you world will never be the same now that you have unlocked this mystery of the universe. It’s been my experience that there is no easy way to lose weight. I did it through a strict diet and a fervent work out routine. It took a lot of discipline and hard work. I’m not as connected as Oprah so I don’t have any miracle weight loss formulas, but I can layout the routine that worked for me. 
 
Diet
Diets are a dime a dozen and it seems like every week someone comes out with a new book on how they lost X pounds by sitting on their coach and eating whatever they want. Well I think that’s a bunch of bologna. In my opinion, the only reason a diet works is because it reduces your caloric intake, which in turn leads to weight loss.

Based on that personal bias, I set up a system to track my calories. I used the the Daily Plate (which is now merged into Livestrong.com), to track my caloric intake and caloric burn every day. The sight is free to use and fairly user friendly. After filling out your personal information (height, weight, age, baseline activity level, and weekly weight loss goal) the Plate will tell you how many calories you can consume daily and still hit your weight loss goal. They have a large database of food items to “add to your plate,” which makes tracking calories fairly painless. You can also enter your exercise for the day which count as negative calories. For example, if my daily goal is 2,000 calories and I burn 500 calories in the gym, then I could eat up to 2,500 calories on the day and still hit my goal.

Since I was doing both strength training and cardio exercise (more on this in a minute), I needed to find foods that would either 1) fill me up (as much as possible), 2) deliver protein for muscle rebuilding, or 3) deliver complex carbohydrates for energy. As far as foods go, on a per calorie basis, I found these to be the best in meeting those objectives:

• Oatmeal
• Sugar free jello
• Chicken breast
• Cottage cheese
• Fat free yogurt
• Protein supplement (I used both shakes and bars…watch the sugar level!)
• Egg whites
• Beef jerky
• High fiber wheat bread
• All vegetables
• Berries - strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry

I was surprised by how many calories were in some of the foods I was eating on a regular basis and found ways to curtail them or substitute something else:

Most people will shy away from weight lifting when they are trying to lose weight, but I disagree with this bias. If you are on a reduced calorie diet, you will not “bulk up” with strength training. Muscle mass is difficult to build and requires significant physical exertion with a calorie enriched diet. Strength training doesn’t burn as many calories as cardio on a minute by minute basis, but it does have additional benefits that cardio does not deliver. During weight lifting, muscle fibers are broken down. In order to rebuild those fibers, the body has to use energy it either has stored (e.g. fat) or consumes. So you end up not only burning calories during the exercise but also several hours after the fact and even while you sleep as your body goes into recovery.

On the pure cardio days I would do about an hour to an hour and half of moderately high intensity cardio. On the four days of short cardio I would do high intensity cardio intervals (5 minutes each) for 20 - 25 minutes. If you put your cardio intensity on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being sitting on the coach and 10 being a full out sprint), my pure cardio days hovered around a 7 while the interval training would start at a 5 and ramp up to a 9 or 10. 

Interval training puts a different toll on the body compared to the typical long, moderate intensity workout. Variety is not only the spice of life, but it is also the key to a successful exercise program. I think of the human body as an extremely efficient energy utilization machine. If you are in a workout rut, the body adapts to the point where it will exude the minimum amount of energy needed (also read “minimum amount of calories burned”) to accomplish the task at hand. That is why it is important to shock your system and change up the routine. Plenty of people in the competition were doing way more cardio hours than I was but all of them eventually plateaued as their bodies adjusted to the new level of activity. Which brings me to the best part…

Even the most disciplined of us all need a cheat meal every now and then. I made this a regular part of my weekly plan. The cheat meal was great for two reasons…1) it gave me something to look forward to every week as I reached for another helping of vegetables & 2) it provided a shock to my metabolism that kept it from going into “starvation mode.”

I think everyone understands the logic behind the first point, so let me address the second. As mentioned earlier, the body is an extremely efficient energy storage/usage machine. If you suddenly go from 3,000 calories a day to 1,500, you will drop weight like crazy, but eventually plateau as your metabolism slows down to cope with the reduced caloric intake. In order to counter-act this you can shock your system every now and then with a high calorie cheat meal. Make it a meal you really enjoy so that you can look forward to it all week (I went the trouble of researching the best hamburger in my area to get the most bang for my meal). At first I took my cheat meal on my day off and blew through my calorie goal for the day, but later I switched to taking it on one of my long cardio days to offset the extra calories. I’m not sure if one is better than the other so just go with whatever suits your fancy. On a side note, exercising and spacing your regular meals throughout the day (5-6 small meals instead of 3 large ones) also helps keep the metabolism motor running at full speed.
 
So that’s the long and short of how Fatty Franco shed some fattiness and gained some dough.       

Ciao,

The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic

The second scenario begins more bleakly, and might end that way too. But it does provide at least some hope that we’ll be shaken out of our torpor. It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central Europe collapses, and—because eastern Europe’s banks are mostly owned by western European banks—justifiable fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated, and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration’s current budget are increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the rosy “stress scenario” that the U.S. Treasury is currently using to evaluate banks’ balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
 

The Big Takeover - Rolling Stone

There are plenty of people who have noticed, in recent years, that when they lost their homes to foreclosure or were forced into bankruptcy because of crippling credit-card debt, no one in the government was there to rescue them. But when Goldman Sachs (a company whose average employee still made more than $350,000 last year, even in the midst of a depression) was suddenly faced with the possibility of losing money on the unregulated insurance deals it bought for its insane housing bets, the government was there in an instant to patch the hole. That’s the essence of the bailout: rich bankers bailing out rich bankers, using the taxpayers’ credit card.

Ciao,
Franco

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I can’t seem to find any details about this promotion online, but the bottom of the coupon states that it is valid “now through tax day” and to “see customer service for details.”

Ciao,
Franco

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If anyone has used this program or would like to recommened another service, please share it by commenting below.

Ciao,
Franco

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Ciao,
Franco

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Ciao,
Franco

Along those lines, check out Rick Santelli’s recent rant on the new “stimulus plan” to socialize mortgages. As a rule, I tend not to be very political as politics is 99% hot air and 1% follow through, but I would have to agree with Santelli’s beef on this one.

Ciao,
Franco

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The cafeteria at work operates on a unique system known as “lunch lady arithmetic.” Unlike regular arithmetic (or math if you will), lunch lady arithmetic varies from day to day. The price of any given item in the cafeteria is determined by an unknown baseline value (very few prices are actually posted) plus or minus some variation from the mean. The variation is largely driven by the type of item and the lady that is ringing you up. Prepared food like eggs and oatmeal have a much wider distribution than packaged items like chips or milk. So one day you go in and pay $2.44 for some scrambled eggs and an English muffin while the next day it may ring up at $3.21 or potentially something with a one handle if you’re lucky. This kind of risk/reward makes the simple act of eating at the cafeteria an exciting adventure.

The key to successfully navigating the minefield known as the downstairs cafeteria is proper planning (always remember the 6 P’s…proper planning prevents piss poor performance). Taco salad day is no exception to this rule with an extra twist (as if it wasn’t fun enough already!). The twist is also what makes the taco salad such a bargain. Somewhere along the lines, the powers that be decided that they would offer a half taco salad for those that didn’t want to consume a whole one. To the lunch ladies credit, simple logic dictated that a half salad should equal half the cost. Since the price of the taco salad is actually posted on the wall (one of the few that is), this makes the total cost relatively certain, which is great for those, such as myself, who don’t like to play roulette with their lunch money.

The second key to a successful taco salad outing is choosing the correct time of day to make your purchase. The great thing about a half taco salad is that it 1) comes in a full taco salad shell and 2) typically includes about 3/4 of the amount of filling as a full taco salad (market inefficiency at its finest). Therefore, the goal of any wise 1/2 taco salad consumer is to maximize the amount of filling while maintaining the relatively stable and low cost basis. The size of the 1/2 taco salad greatly depends on who is building it. If it is a chef (at least the guys wearing a tall puffy hat and a white apron) you are in luck, but if it is the cafeteria manager, your 1/2 TS (as we like to call ‘em) is going to be a true half. Suffice it to say, the manager has a monthly P/L and doesn’t like to give away his precious TS filling for free, while the employees (or chefs) are paid hourly and aren’t incentivized to skimp.

It is a little known fact that the chefs take their 30 minute lunch break shortly after the TS is first served (around 11:00). During this time the probability of getting a “large half” TS are minimal as the cafeteria manager does all the building. Occasionally a lunch lady will pinch hit, which is a pleasant surprise anytime you belly starts grumbling before 11:30. After 11:30, you have a 50/50 chance of catching a chef or the manager and somewhere toward the end of the lunch hour (12:30ish) you are almost certain to get an employee.

But here in lies the rub for ol’ Franco. I happen to start work at the butt crack of dawn so my stomach wakes up at an hour after the butt crack of dawn and gets hungry for lunch very early in the day (like 10:30). So every week I have to face the conundrum of getting a true 1/2 salad, “starving” for an hour to have a chance at a larger one, or ruining my appetite by snacking between meals.

In the end I usually end up going early (pre 11:30), ordering my fixings one at a time (for some reason this always yields a large TS than saying “I want everything”), and filling my pockets with the free wheat crackers. Either way, it is always an enjoyable experience and something to look forward to every week.

Ciao

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