It is December 22 as I type this (yes, with ALL my fingers and my thumbs because I am old and learned to type in school....with a typing teacher...Mr...what the hell was his name?...anyway, he had a horrible case of cradle-cap and chunks of his bald pate would fall on your keyboard if he came over to tell you what you were doing wrong or to type faster. It was a great motivator...type fast and accurately and DON'T get scalp skin chunks all over the keyboard and your stuff) and Dec 21 was Solstice! Woot woot.
I had dinner out with friends to celebrate.
All holidays should involved binge eating. We had fantastic Thai food and candy. Then more candy. And more candy.
Here's a surprise, I don't feel good. Oh well. Maybe that whole tube of instant crescent rolls I made in a skillet on the wood stove will make me fill better especially topped off with the burnt percolator coffee.
Or not.
For me, today is the first day of the new year.
Here are the resolutions.
But first...my resolution theory. This is the current theory.
A FEW resolutions that I can probably keep. I used to do a litany of resolutions that mostly reflected how much I hated myself. That didn't seem to get me anywhere. My first attempt, years ago, at this was swapping "lose weight" out for "change weight"...you can't lose if you decide to "change" your weight. It's bound to change. I actually lost weight that year. Or so I choose to believe.
This year:
1) Breath work. I'm taking yoga classes on breath work and it helped the asthma and the night time teeth grinding so I intend to do some breath work each day.
2) Drink 2 cups of water first thing in the morning. Drinking all my water later in the day means I am up and down the ladder all night peeing. Perhaps shifting that to the morning will help.
3) No Amazon in 2020. I don't like their labor practices or the new enormodome of crap people don't need that opened by Spokane and will no doubt provide a few crap jobs for people who need a job. I doubt my dropping the 5 or 6 orders I was still making each year will change much. I think I ordered 3 things from there this holiday season and I could have gotten them elsewhere if I'd tried harder.
4) Donate weekly to the food bank or Kiva. I like Kiva a lot and have given kiva certificates as gifts to various folks. It is microlending so you usually get the money back and a bit of interest. I re-invest or donate to the organization to cover their administrative costs and keep it going. It's like simple investment training for me. I have had 1 loan go bad. The country fell into civil war and obviously basic survival should take precedence over paying back the loan on that cow that probably got blown up. I've already been donating pretty much weekly to the local tiny free pantries in Moscow. I buy 10$ of food and put it in there. Folks who might need it take it without any administrative oversight. You walk up, leave or take food as you like. I personally like to put together something that makes sense...ingredients for tuna casserole, or oatmeal-sunflowerseeds-raisins. A meal. There are lots of random cans of outdated olives that are "food" but not terribly nutritious. I think the whole canned chicken (5$) with noodles (2$), cream of celery soup (50cents), mixed veggies (50cents), canned pears (1$) and cobbler mix (1$) is my favorite. It's a meal I wouldn't mind eating. Chicken noodle casserole with veggies and pear cobbler. Anyway, I get my grocers and drop and extra 10$. I can usually shave my own grocery budget by 10$ so it's not an extra expense. Last weekend I took some dry white beans in a ziplock out of the free pantry as I dropped in my food. It had been there for WEEKS and clearly no one wanted those nasty beans. I'm going to plant them and see if they grow. Maybe they will give the gophers gas when they eat the shoots.
There it is. Minimal resolutions that are easy to keep.
Happy New Year.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
17 Things
So, I need to procrastinate hence...blogging.
I saw an article on "17 Things Frugal People Usually Don't Do"
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/17-things-frugal-people-usually-dont-do
Let's see if I'm "usual"
1) Finance cars
Nope. I pay cash for used. No interest and certainly not putting it on a HELOC
2) Overdraft bank accounts
Nope. Don't do that. That just costs fees and nonsense.
3) Compromise dietary health to save money
Nope. I DO compromise dietary health, but I know it is a treat and a splurge and not frugal. It's not frugal to eat cheap crap and get sick. I mostly eat organic or local or no-spray stuff, but today there was a Nutty Buddy by Li'l Debbie because I wanted a sugary treat which is not healthy anyway.
4) Carry credit card balances
Nope. Don't do that. I did in the past and it sucked. Part of that was getting enough income and a few windfalls to pay it off and then not starting again. I log on and pay it every couple of weeks and all the "rewards points" are just cash back applied to the card.
5) Keep up with the Joneses
Nope. The Joneses next door bought NEW toilet buckets but I'm still using last years' buckets which I probably found at the recycling center.
6) Hang out with losers
It seems the author means spendthrifts when she uses the term "loser." Not all my friends are thrifty or frugal so I don't know about this one. I'm sure at least one of my siblings will need to point out that I am the loser hence don't need to hang out with them.
7) Take fancy vacations
Nope. I take vacations but not fancy in the sense of cruises and concierged hotels and all are prebudgeted carefully. My recent trip was on a 66$ plane ticket for the round trip. I bunked with a friend, and had 75$ per day set for spending and meals for the 3 days. Not fancy but super fun.
8) Forget to price compare
Oh hell no! You always have to price compare. I stop at 3 grocery stores on my weekend food run to hit the best consistent deals on my staples. 2 stores are walking distance from each other so no extra gas expense and the other is buy a thrift store where I check my hardware, clothing and office supply needs list before hitting retail outlets (or just waiting to see if the stuff shows up at thrift later) hence no extra gas there either.
9) Automatically opt for employer-offered health insurance.
I do carry that because there aren't really other options where I am so I guess I did do this one. Maybe it wasn't automatic since I checked for other options.
10) Fail to contribute to 401k or other retirement options.
Nope. I don't fail to contribute. I put in the amount the employer matches and put the rest toward a debt free retirement situation.
11) Stop learning
Nope, I don't stop learning. I try to pick up new practical skills when I can. If you need heat tubes run on rebar for a concrete slab pour you call me! I got that one down this fall.
12) Skip life insurance.
Nope. I carry enough to get me in the ground.
13) Waste food.
This one I am weak on. I do my best but it's damn hard not to waste food. I compost or feed scraps to critters but without a kitchen it's tough to control things like left overs. Sometimes I do well, and other times the compost is a bit salad-rich.
14) Fail to keep a stockpile
Well, I don't know. I stock some things like office supplies and I can now keep 4 rolls of TP dry and clean in the wee shed, but space is at a premium. I guess having a couple pounds of dry beans and grains and 12 tins of canned fish probably does count as stockpiling given my space. I also try to keep lunch food at work. And I keep a gift bin going for unexpected gift obligations. OK, apparently I stockpile.
15) Pay full price.
RARELY RARELY RARELY do I pay full price. I keep a running list of general things I could use and get them when I find them. Until then I try to get by. First option is find something else to use (need a hammer..use a rock). Second option is to borrow, especially single use or rarely used items. Third is yardsale, 2nd hand or thrift (jeans, shirts, many tools). Fourth option is on sale at a retail store. Like if I haven't found a tool in a year it's good to hit father's day sales at hardware stores. LAST option is full price. This did happen once this year. I really needed a reciprocating saw and the beg, borrow, 2nd hand options were exhausted or crap. A job had to be done THAT DAY. So I bought a good one that uses the same batteries that go on my other tools from last year's fathers day sale purchase. It's a really good saw and should last me forever. I used a free-credit reward dealy from the hardware store to stock up on blades and have used the saw frequently so it seem.
16) Forget to shop car and homeowner's insurance annually.
I do generally remember to review those each year and drop unneeded coverage on the vehicles and ask about more discounts on things.
17) Spend emotionally.
What are these "emotions" of which you speak?
I saw an article on "17 Things Frugal People Usually Don't Do"
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/17-things-frugal-people-usually-dont-do
Let's see if I'm "usual"
1) Finance cars
Nope. I pay cash for used. No interest and certainly not putting it on a HELOC
2) Overdraft bank accounts
Nope. Don't do that. That just costs fees and nonsense.
3) Compromise dietary health to save money
Nope. I DO compromise dietary health, but I know it is a treat and a splurge and not frugal. It's not frugal to eat cheap crap and get sick. I mostly eat organic or local or no-spray stuff, but today there was a Nutty Buddy by Li'l Debbie because I wanted a sugary treat which is not healthy anyway.
4) Carry credit card balances
Nope. Don't do that. I did in the past and it sucked. Part of that was getting enough income and a few windfalls to pay it off and then not starting again. I log on and pay it every couple of weeks and all the "rewards points" are just cash back applied to the card.
5) Keep up with the Joneses
Nope. The Joneses next door bought NEW toilet buckets but I'm still using last years' buckets which I probably found at the recycling center.
6) Hang out with losers
It seems the author means spendthrifts when she uses the term "loser." Not all my friends are thrifty or frugal so I don't know about this one. I'm sure at least one of my siblings will need to point out that I am the loser hence don't need to hang out with them.
7) Take fancy vacations
Nope. I take vacations but not fancy in the sense of cruises and concierged hotels and all are prebudgeted carefully. My recent trip was on a 66$ plane ticket for the round trip. I bunked with a friend, and had 75$ per day set for spending and meals for the 3 days. Not fancy but super fun.
8) Forget to price compare
Oh hell no! You always have to price compare. I stop at 3 grocery stores on my weekend food run to hit the best consistent deals on my staples. 2 stores are walking distance from each other so no extra gas expense and the other is buy a thrift store where I check my hardware, clothing and office supply needs list before hitting retail outlets (or just waiting to see if the stuff shows up at thrift later) hence no extra gas there either.
9) Automatically opt for employer-offered health insurance.
I do carry that because there aren't really other options where I am so I guess I did do this one. Maybe it wasn't automatic since I checked for other options.
10) Fail to contribute to 401k or other retirement options.
Nope. I don't fail to contribute. I put in the amount the employer matches and put the rest toward a debt free retirement situation.
11) Stop learning
Nope, I don't stop learning. I try to pick up new practical skills when I can. If you need heat tubes run on rebar for a concrete slab pour you call me! I got that one down this fall.
12) Skip life insurance.
Nope. I carry enough to get me in the ground.
13) Waste food.
This one I am weak on. I do my best but it's damn hard not to waste food. I compost or feed scraps to critters but without a kitchen it's tough to control things like left overs. Sometimes I do well, and other times the compost is a bit salad-rich.
14) Fail to keep a stockpile
Well, I don't know. I stock some things like office supplies and I can now keep 4 rolls of TP dry and clean in the wee shed, but space is at a premium. I guess having a couple pounds of dry beans and grains and 12 tins of canned fish probably does count as stockpiling given my space. I also try to keep lunch food at work. And I keep a gift bin going for unexpected gift obligations. OK, apparently I stockpile.
15) Pay full price.
RARELY RARELY RARELY do I pay full price. I keep a running list of general things I could use and get them when I find them. Until then I try to get by. First option is find something else to use (need a hammer..use a rock). Second option is to borrow, especially single use or rarely used items. Third is yardsale, 2nd hand or thrift (jeans, shirts, many tools). Fourth option is on sale at a retail store. Like if I haven't found a tool in a year it's good to hit father's day sales at hardware stores. LAST option is full price. This did happen once this year. I really needed a reciprocating saw and the beg, borrow, 2nd hand options were exhausted or crap. A job had to be done THAT DAY. So I bought a good one that uses the same batteries that go on my other tools from last year's fathers day sale purchase. It's a really good saw and should last me forever. I used a free-credit reward dealy from the hardware store to stock up on blades and have used the saw frequently so it seem.
16) Forget to shop car and homeowner's insurance annually.
I do generally remember to review those each year and drop unneeded coverage on the vehicles and ask about more discounts on things.
17) Spend emotionally.
What are these "emotions" of which you speak?
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Waiting for Concrete
That's a play on "Waiting for Godot"...spoiler alert: Godot NEVER arrives.
The concrete was supposed to be today but is delayed for WEATHER! YA! I TOLD the builderman that the hill is a slip-n-slide when wet. Concrete trucks are heavy. The hill is steep. And now we are in the rainy season.
Of course, we can't go back in time. Supposedly the concrete comes tomorrow.
It will take 3 loads. I can't believe there is room for that much concrete given how much rebar is in the slab
It is drilled into a little footing dealy and the brackets for the post-n-beam structure are bolted into that and will be set in the concrete (grade beam and slab are a mono-pour). The builderman added the little footing deal to allow bolting in the brackets rather than wet-setting them. It also allowed the OSB you can see on the side of the photo with visqueen over it. That's holding back the sloped gravel called out in the plans. Gravel doesn't just hold a slope during pour no matter what the engineer draws.
It will be fun to watch.
The concrete was supposed to be today but is delayed for WEATHER! YA! I TOLD the builderman that the hill is a slip-n-slide when wet. Concrete trucks are heavy. The hill is steep. And now we are in the rainy season.
Of course, we can't go back in time. Supposedly the concrete comes tomorrow.
It will take 3 loads. I can't believe there is room for that much concrete given how much rebar is in the slab
It's 12" max spacing, often closer.
It will be fun to watch.
Saturday, September 14, 2019
TOO Many Puns So It's Just Blog Post about the Build Project
Things have been moving FAST.
The plumbing (owner permit...a.k.a ME). I buggered it up the first time. Slammed through another day with new help and MUCH more knowledge thanks to the friends who helped me through the first draft and passed the inspection 49 hours after the "fail". I got a green sticker on a random pipe sticking out of the ground. I also ended up with 2 big boxes of unused bits and pieces to return to 3 or 4 different hardware stores. As soon as I have slept a bit, I will get on that.
The first two assistants taught me a TON! Thanks Jyl and Snuff! For reals.
The final one...I told him that since it passed I would think of him every time I took a dump. He was flattered.
So, the hole was filled and tamped. Gravel...tamping, more gravel...more tamping...lather, rinse, repeat.
Got the permit Thursday morning at about 8:30 AM and by 5pm Friday, 90% of the rebar is in. The builder had a question about a detail (rebar drawn as though floating in the air...hard to pour concrete
on that and keep it in place). So, he added some more rebar, had me take a picture and send it to his boss (aka Mrs Builderman) and hopefully the engineer will OK the slight modification.
At one point, the Mr Builderman said, "I tend to overbuild things." Yep. They should put that on the sign.
This morning 3 people showed up, 2 barely know me!!! And helped me rough in the pex tubes that will distribute heat in the slab in the imaginary magical solar future. We'll see....
I'm sleeping on it and then in the morning I will go back and start tying them more definitively to the rebar. The helpers (no names...well, they have names but I don't like to name names) were SUPER good. None of us had done it but we watched the how-to video. I watched it on a loop for a couple of hours and took notes because I am me.
Anyway, here we are:
And the tubes. I will neaten them up a bit. I may have help tomorrow morning for that.
The plumbing (owner permit...a.k.a ME). I buggered it up the first time. Slammed through another day with new help and MUCH more knowledge thanks to the friends who helped me through the first draft and passed the inspection 49 hours after the "fail". I got a green sticker on a random pipe sticking out of the ground. I also ended up with 2 big boxes of unused bits and pieces to return to 3 or 4 different hardware stores. As soon as I have slept a bit, I will get on that.
The first two assistants taught me a TON! Thanks Jyl and Snuff! For reals.
The final one...I told him that since it passed I would think of him every time I took a dump. He was flattered.
So, the hole was filled and tamped. Gravel...tamping, more gravel...more tamping...lather, rinse, repeat.
Got the permit Thursday morning at about 8:30 AM and by 5pm Friday, 90% of the rebar is in. The builder had a question about a detail (rebar drawn as though floating in the air...hard to pour concrete
on that and keep it in place). So, he added some more rebar, had me take a picture and send it to his boss (aka Mrs Builderman) and hopefully the engineer will OK the slight modification.
At one point, the Mr Builderman said, "I tend to overbuild things." Yep. They should put that on the sign.
This morning 3 people showed up, 2 barely know me!!! And helped me rough in the pex tubes that will distribute heat in the slab in the imaginary magical solar future. We'll see....
I'm sleeping on it and then in the morning I will go back and start tying them more definitively to the rebar. The helpers (no names...well, they have names but I don't like to name names) were SUPER good. None of us had done it but we watched the how-to video. I watched it on a loop for a couple of hours and took notes because I am me.
Anyway, here we are:
And the tubes. I will neaten them up a bit. I may have help tomorrow morning for that.
I will try to fish out some plumbing pictures too. Perhaps one of the EPIC plumbers crack on the last assistant. Cripes!!! It reminded me of the "credit card" joke my sister told me once.
You can admire the beautiful green "right to poop" sticker on the vertical black post.
The builder labor guys complimented me on having all the plumbing in one spot. YA!! AND interior wall. The shortest heat tube goes through the kitchen and bath areas on either side of that. Kitchen faces south. The roll of tubing on the left of the picture is where the manifold will be. It ends up under the kitchen counter. I had wanted it in the bathroom but at 4'10" wide, with a 2'6" door...and a water supply pipe (that might actually be in the kitchen??? was supposed to be in the bathroom but the wall is 2" thick max so things have floated back and forth around it. I don't really care...drill a hole and voila...water supply and most incoming water plumbing back in the bathroom), it was too crowded. So I remembered I didn't have to put this near the hot water heater. If I put solar units on the south 2nd story wall or porch roof, I'll want that thing on the south wall anyway. And it sorted out the tubing plan.
I must have done a dozen tubing lay outs. All of which would have worked and none of which we ultimately used. Bits of each. The boards are where walls will be more or less. It struck me last night on layout 3001 that I had TOO MANY TUBES going through the bathroom if the main manifold is in there. I'd be melting the toilet wax ring all damn winter. That is apparently a thing based on the BIG RED LETTER WARNINGS in the installation manual. Moving the manifold simplified the layout and limited the number of tubes that had to cross each other.
Turning also turned (HA) out to be the biggest installation challenge. So, at the suggestion of EG, a super friend and helper, we went the long way on the north living room and south/east living dining area. BINGO. Saved tubing and labor and it was easier to get into the vestibule where the solar batteries will live.
I thought to switch the supply/return path on the north loop so the sleeping area will get the water after the living area. I like a chilly bedroom.
Now I'm wondering if I could hook up inground tubes through the landscape around the house but deep in the ground and chill the floor in the summer.
One helper (Hi C!!) suggested that this heated floor will be excellent for passing out drunk so I need to start drinking ASAP.
Cousin-in-law BG (not a real relative...no Norwegian has that status) had already suggested drinking when the first plumbing inspection was a fail and there was 2 days to hit the next inspection. I may consider it next week. The concrete pour will either happen or not happen. Either way, I will be stressed out.
In better news...my hair is suddenly down to my belt! And NO I did not switch to high-waisted pants. Since I am the shortest waisted person in the west, I'm sticking with the low waisted ones. I keep the hair braided pretty much all the time so I hadn't noticed it got longer.
SP and JH let me mooch a shower today and I went for the hair. My head was encased in a hard cap made of dust and scalp grease welded to hair. Like adobe...hairdobe? I can't imagine what it did to their drain. But hey, if they need a new drainpipe run, I not only know how, I have enough plumbing parts in the car and on the porch to do it.
Thank you to one and all who have helped, visited, encouraged and brought sustenance and expertise (except the Norwegians)
More anon.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
40 Days and 40 Nights...CRIPES
So, the builderman and crew did not show up onsite for 40 days (and actually 41 nights but that doesn't fit the biblical reference). Fortunately, it wasn't raining during that time. I had more of a dry sea sort of thing than an ark sort of thing at my place. Big empty ass hole.
At last they DID show back up. I wasn't just waiting around, I was visiting, calling, texting and driving by the other job sites to ask when they would be back. We'll leave it there.
The past few days there has been progress. This is where we are at now:
The white things sticking out of the ground are forms for porch piers. There will be a few more over on the side toward the road. The trench is for the drain rock for the "rubble trench foundation". It will hold up the super heavy wall. The white rock behind the tiny excavator (the builderman is quite large so the excavator looks even tinier than it is...his crew today was little guys who are closer than they appear....also the dumptruck just beyond the excavator is actually a little bitty thing like a largish golf cart on tracks rather than wheels...it's like a construction zone in the hobbit movies...perspective is all over the map). ANYWAY...the white rock is part of a rock wall to the north of the future house holding up what used to be a chunk of hill and is now a steep cut.
At last they DID show back up. I wasn't just waiting around, I was visiting, calling, texting and driving by the other job sites to ask when they would be back. We'll leave it there.
The past few days there has been progress. This is where we are at now:
The white things sticking out of the ground are forms for porch piers. There will be a few more over on the side toward the road. The trench is for the drain rock for the "rubble trench foundation". It will hold up the super heavy wall. The white rock behind the tiny excavator (the builderman is quite large so the excavator looks even tinier than it is...his crew today was little guys who are closer than they appear....also the dumptruck just beyond the excavator is actually a little bitty thing like a largish golf cart on tracks rather than wheels...it's like a construction zone in the hobbit movies...perspective is all over the map). ANYWAY...the white rock is part of a rock wall to the north of the future house holding up what used to be a chunk of hill and is now a steep cut.
Monday, September 2, 2019
New Favorite Old Show
So, I don't have a TV and hence am behind the times on shows.
I've probably blogged about my hoarder show issue. Well, I found a healthier way to satisfy my yen for thinking others are more messed up than me.
"Til Debt Do Us Part" which I am watching on youtube with a mobile wifi hotspot I checked out from the library for free.
This is a Canadian reality show. The Canadians are generally more realistic in their reality shows than the 'Mericans are. This one features a financial advisor who goes to a family with financial woes and works with them for 1 month. If they behave well, have a good attitude, and demonstrate major life/money changes, they get $5000.00 (Canadian presumably). Not the huge pay off that 'Mericans would expect. Like much of Canada, it's toned down and more modest.
Each week there are the predictable plot points which I love in reality TV. The genre reminds me of the old Batman series in reruns during my childhood. If it was 5 minutes in to the show, you KNEW the villain would show up, half way and the dynamic duo is trapped in a ridiculously easy to escape predicament, and then it all resolves nicely.
In this show, the premise is that money is a mystery to most people. Corollary premises (premia?) are that talking about money is taboo, people are unaware of what they spend, that people estimate income based on gross (ignore taxes and other deductions), and outgo based on net (ignore interest paid on credit cards and loans and the expense of ownership for things like vehicles and pets and kids and homes). The advisor states that the primary reason for divorce or break up is money. So, facing money issues and being open and solving them together sorts out the relationship as well as the debt problem.
The couples in each show discuss what they THINK is going on. Some are realistic, most are NOT. Most also blame each other for the issue. The advisor goes through months of expenses and tells them what is actually happening. She includes how much more they spend each month than they bring home. She shows them where they will be in 5 years if they don't change. It's a good point. Not so distant in time that people think they can sort it out late, but not so overwhelming that they give up before they start.
Then, Gail, advisor,she cuts up cards (credit and debit). She shows them a budget that will work for them each month. Then she puts money in jars, cash money, for area of expense and they have to make it through the month on that. That's week 1/day 1.
Each week for the month they have an assignment. The first week is usually dealing with debt. Some call credit card companies to get lower interest, some have to get a consolidation loan put on their mortgage to get rid of the credit card debt.
The next week they generally have to show how they can cut expenses more and/or bring home more money.
During relationship assignment week they have to usually talk to each other about money. Sometimes they get to do research like how much it would cost for a stay at home parent to go back to work vs what that work will bring in NET (not gross). Often, with 2 or more kids, they can save more with a stay at home parent cooking and maybe taking in a kid to babysit, they come out ahead of a full time job. Sometimes, turns out the spouse has to go to work.
In the end Advisor Gail gives them $5000 or less. If they are turds or think they could do better than her and hence don't do their tasks, they get less. One couple that I've seen so far, got bupkis. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. They did nothing and were snotty little twerps. It's like the one time Batman and Robin didn't defeat the villain and you knew that one was still out there...haunting.
I am surprised EVERY EPISODE (like 40 so far) that people are SOOO unrealistic about their $$. Of course, I'm single and thrifty as crap. There are things in my life that I don't want to face (we won't be blogging about those so bite me), but money isn't one of them.
Most couples, or at least one of the pair, just can't be honest with themselves about their money and where it goes or how much there is. Geez! It's like the hoarders who can't see the hoard or the folks on "My 600lb Life" (another of my favorite shows to binge watch), who can't see that they are eating enough to support 600lbs...must be glandular? The money must be evaporating? The hoard is "good stuff" that is useful in the immediate future...etc.
I think it's rewarding for me to watch because I have work3ed on most of the issue presented already in the past or don't have a tendency toward those particular vices.
It's nice to see what I already do or know that the advisor points out. I also get some validation on things I've advocated but not done, and encouragement to keep following my own money choices even if something else MIGHT be more profitable. I'm doing fine, I don't have to be rich. I pay my own freight and am prepared for the occasional mid level crisis cost. It also shows me the stress I no longer have since the debt is gone. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nil. Bupkis.
So, things I do that got validated:
1) Write down what I spend on a daily basis. I do that MOST days. Once in a while I miss a day or forget to bring a receipt home to record. I try to write down 10-15% more than I guesstimate the costs to be. Most people underestimate spending (and calorie intake) so I bump it up just in case.
2) Have a planned monthly budget. It fluctuates and since expenses are fluctuating with construction and life...I write up a target for each category each month. I "WRITE" with pencil on graph paper. That works for me. I don't want to turn on an electronic device to track my money. It isn't "in the cloud" and when the computer or whatever device craps out, I still have all my information.
3) Each month I try to shave down an area that is creeping up in costs. Last month I spent too much on food in all categories: Groceries (which is just food, not TP or soap or etc), dinner out, work lunches out, and coffee out. I suspect I will be able to cut groceries but with visitors and lots of work trips, will probably not be able to cut the dining out. So, I cut the grocery $$ and made a list of what I have on hand and a few things I could make with what I have. I left the dining out lines high this month because being realistic makes for better success than being in fantasy land.
4) I plan for income interruptions or decreases. It's happened in the past and could happen again. Best to live on less than I bring in and get used to it.
5) I do NOT borrow to invest. CRIPES! I can't believe people do that but apparently it is common. Actually, right now I don't borrow for anything.
6) I live mostly on cash. She makes people live entirely on cash and I have done that. Right now I use the credit card for gas, travel, storage unit bill, and a few other things that I may choose to buy online. Otherwise, cash (or check) and immediately put it on the budget sheet. I pay the credit card off weekly and I never buy material rewards, I just wait until I can get a credit put on the card. Thus, I do not pay interest (ANY interest at this moment) and instead I take that 1% credit card points deal and put it back on the card. That's 1% off my gas and storage bills. I don't put those cash back things in the budget sheet. I also don't put savings interest on the income on the budget sheet. The total of those two is under 400$/year most years. If times get tight, I will put those things on the sheet and track even more closely.
7) I track my income on the budget sheet. When I get paid at work, get a tax refund, or a windfall, it goes on the sheet. I leave off the stuff noted in #6 for now. At the end of the month I total up the income and the outgo on the same sheet of paper and see the difference.
These last three the advisor hasn't recommended in the episodes I've seen, but I them and they work for me:
8) I not only track the monthly totals, I do a daily running total and a daily average.
9) Each month I have a target for the number of "no spend" days. Those are days with zero money going out. It makes me remember to gas up on days I'm already doing errands...and it makes me skip the occasional trip to town if it means a fuel up on a day that is otherwise "no spend." I can usually get 10 no spends. With more focus, I can get it up to 15.
10) I get a real paycheck and deposit it. I just had someone tsk at me for doing that and I lashed out a tad. She said something about my living in 1989 for not having direct deposit. I said something about being the only one in the general vicinity with no debt and no current financial woes, hence I will just keep doing what works for me.
Monday, July 1, 2019
In the Beginning Was the Hole, and the Hole Was Good (also...a moose)
Well, the hole wasn't really the beginning. There was the planning, the paying, the paying more, the engineering, the permit, permit renewal, other permits...and before that buying land. Before that saving for land and looking for land, and before that... you get the idea.
So, here we are. Last Tuesday evening the builder man (not an actual redneck Santa, but he could pass for one) staked out the location for the build. It ended up further uphill than originally planned. That will help with drainage, but I sacrifice a bit of water pressure because the cistern is also uphill, but less so now.
Then on Sunday morning "early" (9:14am isn't "early" in my book...it's "10ish" in my book but I am widely known to have a stick up my butt about time) the equipment was delivered at the bottom of the hill and the trucks left. I had a radio show to do at 2pm so at noon, after building a super rad rooster coop which may be featured in a later blog post, and a bunch of other stuff, I cleaned up, washed my incredibly sweaty filthy hair, and headed in to town for the show. As I'm driving south, I see a builder truck heading north...to my place. Dang it. But it's all staked out and what was I going to do anyway? There was no back-up DJ for the show so off I went.
3 hours later, driving home, I meet 2 builder trucks heading back to town. Damn! But I am greeted with this at my place:
That's right, I am now the proud owner of a big ass hole. Probably will be bigger and deeper by tonight. I will try to run home mid-day and check it out. It's right where the stakes are so, that's good.
And now...the moose! It's a yearling male the must have been recently booted from his mom's place. That happens about now as the new calves are being born. The yearling males are idiots and make bad housing choices. He and I about bumped noses by my driveway and creek...we were both occupied with other thoughts.
I looked up to see a moose, way too close headed straight toward me. Not a tree to hide behind and in the creek which was close, he would be much more coordinated than me. They don't see so well to the front so I figured that was my best bet. I waved my arms around and screamed like a wee girl and it ran UPHILL away from cover, back toward the creek cover, back up hill...idiot. A mature female or male would have just trotted over and stomped me to death.
NOW I am not walking around my place texting. I pay attention.
Wednesday, June 26, 2019
The Builder Has Landed
Apparently, there will be some construction at my place this summer.
Stealth footage recorded a builder with his tiny minion placing stakes:
The minion is extra stealthy and wasn't caught on camera, but you can see his detritus...the paint can.
Stealth footage recorded a builder with his tiny minion placing stakes:
The minion is extra stealthy and wasn't caught on camera, but you can see his detritus...the paint can.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
If Only "TED" Were Indeed X
As in an ex-thing. A thing which is no more. Deceased. Dead. A thing of the past.
I LOATHE the TEDtalk style. The lesser TEDtalk, the TED-X offshootery that happens in every venue that can host a bunch of pompous pseudo-intellectuals in a single room with theater seats and a stage, is even worse.
It isn't always the info. Once in a while the information is fine. But mostly it's crap.
Still, it's the signature TED style. The late 1980s Janet Jackson/ Madonna face mounted microphone. The faux set dressing: fake living room, fake vintage PBS interview show complete with 2 chairs, coffee table and a fern, fake college lecture with a podium. The giant ass screen for the sad power point presentation is truly the worst.
I've seen people speak in real life, like Joel Salatin, who are interesting and fun and very informative. Then I've seen them on a TED, or worse TEDX, and they conform to the style and are crap.
When did bad meeting presentations become public infotainment?
There is no doubt a real answer but I don't care. I want it to stop.
Here, in the order they occur to me, are things I find annoying:
1) Cramming exactly 1 soundbite of information into 6-11 minutes. Apparently there is a rule that only one single tiny bit of info can be shared. This has several bad consequences
2) Fluffing the info with personal, or more likely fake personal, stories illustrating that one tiny point. How your mother had too much TP around the house so now you buy it one square at a time. How you had a dog which proved dogs are awesome. Jesus.
3) The shitty power point. Also used to fill visual and temporal space. The speaker stops for each slide so you can read it or look at it. Or, worse, laugh at their lame lame lame visual joke.
4) S l o w t a l k i n g. To fill the time with a tiny tiny tiny individual bit of info, the speaker speaks so damn slowly I'm afraid my heart will stop. Jesus. Speak at your normal pace.
5) BROAD range of tone to show emotion and connect (say each word with special emphasis in your head while YOU rrreeeaaaddd this!). Cripes. I remember seeing a professional storyteller when I was about 4 years old, before I started school, at the local library. I'm in my 50s now and I'm still pissed about wasting my time with that woman emphasizing and physically miming every thing she said. You'll see the same style in TED/X talks.
6) The physical miming of anything remotely mime-able in the talk. Using hands to show those piles of TP your mom had, and then crunching your whole body down like a clown college drop out to show the hilariously small amount of TP you now keep at the house.
7) Waiting for the laugh which often never comes. The speakers are clearly over rehearsed and think they know when the laugh will come. I still watch the occasional TED talk if someone recommends it and secretly, or openly, enjoy the moment where the talker realizes that they are not funny or their power point slid is not funny.
8) Walking around the stage/faux-set for no reason. It's like they have the list of crap my 8th grade speech teacher handed out...or their pageant coach told them. ...13--connect with each audience member individually by looking them in the eye. Yeah, don't. Mick Jagger and James Brown needed to use the whole stage, you don't. Al Gore was a popularizer of this with his lift showing how the environment is dying. Cute once...not very cute but I appreciated his effort...not cute now. You are telling me how you buy a square of toilet paper and are therefore better than your mother and better than anyone who stupidly buys it by the roll. You don't need to walk to the far corner of the stage and lean over and look down on me. The metaphorical down looking is plenty.
9) Hubris. I don't care that you buy a single square of toilet paper and I don't believe it makes you better than rollers, as those of us who buy it by the roll are called. You still need to wipe your butt like the rest of us and we now suspect that we don't want to shake your hand.
10) Inventing labels. TED talkers like to invent or promote labels. They don't lead with them. They lead with a question. They sneak the label into the middle or end of the talk so that we, the stupider people in the listening audience, can come to the two most important conclusions: 1) the speaker is right; 2) the speaker is super smart and better than everyone else.
11) Leading with a question. Why? Do you think it makes you smart to set up a straw man and then very slowly knock it down one lame joke/slide/mime/walk/lean/label at a time with your own answer to the fake question that was on NO ONE's mind? Because I think that. Hence, I am smart and right and you are stupid.
12) Dressing the part. Poor Joel Salatin had to wear a sports coat. He's a farmer and part of his brand/schtick is to dress like one. He has excellent voice projecting and is a naturally appealing and LOUD speaker. On his TED talk he looked uncomfortable and stilted. The minimalist I watched and am using as a model for the TP talker work a dress a bit too short and in one color with little black flats. A "minimalist" formal look I suppose. I was distracted by the obviously maximal hair product consumption. I don't know if she and Joel were peer pressured into this or if there is a code to get on the stage and they don't let you out if you show up with actual farmer clothes or minimal hair products. I wonder what would happen if someone refused the face-mic.
I want to get on a TED or even TEDX talk so I can go on stage and then NOT do the "style" and see what happens?
Would the audience risk wrinkling their khakis and sensible shoes to run up on the stage beat me? Would they throw their brand name decaf lattes at me?
Would they get confused about what was going on and quietly slip out to see if the real talk with just a single digestible and currently fashionable bit of info was being given in the next auditorium over?
What if I gave 2 points of info or told an actually funny story? Would chaos ensue? The zombie apocalypse? What if I kept talking while they actually laughed rather than courtesy laughed?
What if I didn't even TRY to act out what I was saying and what if I didn't wait for them to read the 3 (it's always 3) bullet points on the power point slide? Oh MY GOD! What if I didn't use power point????? No. I take it back. Heresy. I would be burned as a witch.
But at least I wouldn't have anyone email me another f'ing TED talk.
That said, I have looked up TED talkers and gotten their real information elsewhere. I suspect it is a way to promote their real work. I hope there is SOME legitimate reason for it.
In conclusion a HaiTED (Like a haiku, but TEDcentric)
All TED talks are bad.
Not all TED talkers are bad
TED makes you look bad
I LOATHE the TEDtalk style. The lesser TEDtalk, the TED-X offshootery that happens in every venue that can host a bunch of pompous pseudo-intellectuals in a single room with theater seats and a stage, is even worse.
It isn't always the info. Once in a while the information is fine. But mostly it's crap.
Still, it's the signature TED style. The late 1980s Janet Jackson/ Madonna face mounted microphone. The faux set dressing: fake living room, fake vintage PBS interview show complete with 2 chairs, coffee table and a fern, fake college lecture with a podium. The giant ass screen for the sad power point presentation is truly the worst.
I've seen people speak in real life, like Joel Salatin, who are interesting and fun and very informative. Then I've seen them on a TED, or worse TEDX, and they conform to the style and are crap.
When did bad meeting presentations become public infotainment?
There is no doubt a real answer but I don't care. I want it to stop.
Here, in the order they occur to me, are things I find annoying:
1) Cramming exactly 1 soundbite of information into 6-11 minutes. Apparently there is a rule that only one single tiny bit of info can be shared. This has several bad consequences
2) Fluffing the info with personal, or more likely fake personal, stories illustrating that one tiny point. How your mother had too much TP around the house so now you buy it one square at a time. How you had a dog which proved dogs are awesome. Jesus.
3) The shitty power point. Also used to fill visual and temporal space. The speaker stops for each slide so you can read it or look at it. Or, worse, laugh at their lame lame lame visual joke.
4) S l o w t a l k i n g. To fill the time with a tiny tiny tiny individual bit of info, the speaker speaks so damn slowly I'm afraid my heart will stop. Jesus. Speak at your normal pace.
5) BROAD range of tone to show emotion and connect (say each word with special emphasis in your head while YOU rrreeeaaaddd this!). Cripes. I remember seeing a professional storyteller when I was about 4 years old, before I started school, at the local library. I'm in my 50s now and I'm still pissed about wasting my time with that woman emphasizing and physically miming every thing she said. You'll see the same style in TED/X talks.
6) The physical miming of anything remotely mime-able in the talk. Using hands to show those piles of TP your mom had, and then crunching your whole body down like a clown college drop out to show the hilariously small amount of TP you now keep at the house.
7) Waiting for the laugh which often never comes. The speakers are clearly over rehearsed and think they know when the laugh will come. I still watch the occasional TED talk if someone recommends it and secretly, or openly, enjoy the moment where the talker realizes that they are not funny or their power point slid is not funny.
8) Walking around the stage/faux-set for no reason. It's like they have the list of crap my 8th grade speech teacher handed out...or their pageant coach told them. ...13--connect with each audience member individually by looking them in the eye. Yeah, don't. Mick Jagger and James Brown needed to use the whole stage, you don't. Al Gore was a popularizer of this with his lift showing how the environment is dying. Cute once...not very cute but I appreciated his effort...not cute now. You are telling me how you buy a square of toilet paper and are therefore better than your mother and better than anyone who stupidly buys it by the roll. You don't need to walk to the far corner of the stage and lean over and look down on me. The metaphorical down looking is plenty.
9) Hubris. I don't care that you buy a single square of toilet paper and I don't believe it makes you better than rollers, as those of us who buy it by the roll are called. You still need to wipe your butt like the rest of us and we now suspect that we don't want to shake your hand.
10) Inventing labels. TED talkers like to invent or promote labels. They don't lead with them. They lead with a question. They sneak the label into the middle or end of the talk so that we, the stupider people in the listening audience, can come to the two most important conclusions: 1) the speaker is right; 2) the speaker is super smart and better than everyone else.
11) Leading with a question. Why? Do you think it makes you smart to set up a straw man and then very slowly knock it down one lame joke/slide/mime/walk/lean/label at a time with your own answer to the fake question that was on NO ONE's mind? Because I think that. Hence, I am smart and right and you are stupid.
12) Dressing the part. Poor Joel Salatin had to wear a sports coat. He's a farmer and part of his brand/schtick is to dress like one. He has excellent voice projecting and is a naturally appealing and LOUD speaker. On his TED talk he looked uncomfortable and stilted. The minimalist I watched and am using as a model for the TP talker work a dress a bit too short and in one color with little black flats. A "minimalist" formal look I suppose. I was distracted by the obviously maximal hair product consumption. I don't know if she and Joel were peer pressured into this or if there is a code to get on the stage and they don't let you out if you show up with actual farmer clothes or minimal hair products. I wonder what would happen if someone refused the face-mic.
I want to get on a TED or even TEDX talk so I can go on stage and then NOT do the "style" and see what happens?
Would the audience risk wrinkling their khakis and sensible shoes to run up on the stage beat me? Would they throw their brand name decaf lattes at me?
Would they get confused about what was going on and quietly slip out to see if the real talk with just a single digestible and currently fashionable bit of info was being given in the next auditorium over?
What if I gave 2 points of info or told an actually funny story? Would chaos ensue? The zombie apocalypse? What if I kept talking while they actually laughed rather than courtesy laughed?
What if I didn't even TRY to act out what I was saying and what if I didn't wait for them to read the 3 (it's always 3) bullet points on the power point slide? Oh MY GOD! What if I didn't use power point????? No. I take it back. Heresy. I would be burned as a witch.
But at least I wouldn't have anyone email me another f'ing TED talk.
That said, I have looked up TED talkers and gotten their real information elsewhere. I suspect it is a way to promote their real work. I hope there is SOME legitimate reason for it.
In conclusion a HaiTED (Like a haiku, but TEDcentric)
All TED talks are bad.
Not all TED talkers are bad
TED makes you look bad
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
The Spork Is Dead. Long Live the Spork
There is a frugal method called "putting out the word." If you are looking for something, you mention it to people.
Recently it worked twice. I'll blog about the inadvertent word putting outage here.
The post about my lost spork. A friend (HI ANGELA!) read it and sent me a set of stainless steel sporks as a gift! SO NICE!!! I have used one for 2 meals a day every work day since I got them. They are perfect. Actually, it's a model I was looking at on line and thinking I would order them after I thought about it for a month (thrifty tip: if you think you want something, wait a month and see if you still want it). Part of the hesitation was that they came in a set of 6 rather than individual sporks and really...I've only got one gullet to shove food down, how many sporks do I need?
But, there they were! I love them. Use them. I passed 2 on to colleagues and one of those dudes is threatening to ditch his set of silverware and just get enough of these for his family to eat with.
I didn't mean to put the word out, but rather was whining into the void. But it worked and is much appreciated.
Having a nice spork makes me eat more meals in my office or at a picnic table in a park when I'm on a road trip. It also cuts WAY down on the use of plastic utensils which I also much appreciate.
Here it is in action...
Recently it worked twice. I'll blog about the inadvertent word putting outage here.
The post about my lost spork. A friend (HI ANGELA!) read it and sent me a set of stainless steel sporks as a gift! SO NICE!!! I have used one for 2 meals a day every work day since I got them. They are perfect. Actually, it's a model I was looking at on line and thinking I would order them after I thought about it for a month (thrifty tip: if you think you want something, wait a month and see if you still want it). Part of the hesitation was that they came in a set of 6 rather than individual sporks and really...I've only got one gullet to shove food down, how many sporks do I need?
But, there they were! I love them. Use them. I passed 2 on to colleagues and one of those dudes is threatening to ditch his set of silverware and just get enough of these for his family to eat with.
I didn't mean to put the word out, but rather was whining into the void. But it worked and is much appreciated.
Having a nice spork makes me eat more meals in my office or at a picnic table in a park when I'm on a road trip. It also cuts WAY down on the use of plastic utensils which I also much appreciate.
Here it is in action...
Monday, May 20, 2019
Super Food: The Food Formerly Known as Food
What is with labeling regular food as "super food"? It's FOOD. Just FOOD.
What isn't food? Doritos, anything at Dairy Queen, etc.
Greens: Just food, not a super food. Not even kale. It's just kale. Just eat it.
Vegetables, fruit, grains, meat fish. 100 years ago, even 50, these were called "food" and you got them from the garden, market, or super market. You can still do that.
It was best said on The Onion
It isn't designer. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just eat it.
Even Weird Al knows.
My dinner yesterday was EITHER crazy poor people red neck yokel food....OR crazy hipster wild crafted extreme local food. Whatever, it was good and I had it so I ate it.
Pretty sure the whole thing was made of "super foods" which are of course, just food.
What isn't food? Doritos, anything at Dairy Queen, etc.
Greens: Just food, not a super food. Not even kale. It's just kale. Just eat it.
Vegetables, fruit, grains, meat fish. 100 years ago, even 50, these were called "food" and you got them from the garden, market, or super market. You can still do that.
It was best said on The Onion
It isn't designer. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just eat it.
Even Weird Al knows.
My dinner yesterday was EITHER crazy poor people red neck yokel food....OR crazy hipster wild crafted extreme local food. Whatever, it was good and I had it so I ate it.
Any guesses on ingredients?
Anyone?
Beuller?
No?
Coconut oil (not local)
6 guinea hen eggs
lovage from the garden (stem and leaves because I have a ton of it)
sour sorrel (AKA sheep sorel...aka, weeds from the garden and land)
nettle leaves (or maybe monkshood...pretty sure those were nettles)
dandelion leaves
horseradish leaves
Why did I eat that? Because I had the eggs from a friend who traded them for a plastic pallet I found behind a thrift store...she also gave me ship shit.
I wanted something in the eggs. Greens. I had purple kale too but that's going to seed and I want to keep the seeds (the kale produced all winter with very little protection) so I didn't care to bother it.
So, I picked what I had and what was around.
Pretty sure the whole thing was made of "super foods" which are of course, just food.
Combined with the compost toilet...I may have achieved a new level of localization of my meal.
Friday, May 10, 2019
Alas Poor Spor(ic)k, I Knew Him.
I've lost my spork. DAMMIT! I loved that thing. Used it every day for years. I got it at a restaurant/deli thing in Washington DC called "The Silver Spork." It was stainless steel, but silvery anyway.
I finally gave up on finding it and went online to see if I could call the place and have them send me a new one. THEY ARE CLOSED!!! How dare they? Where am I supposed to get one now?
I have real spoons and forks that I could carry around and use, but that's not as fun as the spork.
Oh well. Another gadget/souvenir will come along someday. It was good while lasted.
R.I.P Spork.
I finally gave up on finding it and went online to see if I could call the place and have them send me a new one. THEY ARE CLOSED!!! How dare they? Where am I supposed to get one now?
I have real spoons and forks that I could carry around and use, but that's not as fun as the spork.
Oh well. Another gadget/souvenir will come along someday. It was good while lasted.
R.I.P Spork.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
DAMN YOU PLASTIC!!!
2019 for me is all about reducing plastic coming into my home/life/whatever. It's a bit rough.
Each evening, when I remember which is about 75% of the time, I write down my plastic use/acquisition whatever. I don't count plastic I salvage specifically to pass on to another person. That sounds odd, but so am I. Yesterday I picked up a plastic pallet for a friend who is coming to till up my garden. She uses them as the base for her duck house. easier to scrap the poo off and easier on the duck feet than a wooden pallet or wire base. I get these used sitting in alleys or where ever. I figure at least they are getting used longer before they end up in that plastic island in the Pacific ocean. They are also out of the sunlight which should mean they degrade more slowly. She is tracking the effect on the ducks.
ANYWAY...since China decided they don't want our dirty plastic buggering up their country, we've been able to "recycle" fewer types at my local recycling place. I realized before that some of what we were putting there wasn't really recycled but instead just put in landfills later or polluting somewhere else. When it quit being accepted, that point got driven home, as discussed in a previous post.
This article at CNN reminded me to redouble my reduction efforts:
CHINA'S RECYCLING BAN HAS SENT AMERICA'S PLASTIC TO MALAYSIA. NOW THEY DON'T WANT IT - SO WHAT NEXT
I'm not linking that because the link will die in days anyway.
So, 2019 is as good a time as any to cut back on plastic. The first step in figuring out how to get to a new place, on the planet or in life, is to know where you area when you start. I did this with money budgeting and dieting. If you don't face facts about the current situation, you don't understand why things aren't working. This is why I started paying attention to my current plastic usage in January 2019. It was higher than I thought...same with money and food intake when I started cutting those back. Better to be honest with oneself than to keep pretending you didn't eat an entire box of nutty buddies (damn you Little Debbie!) or buy an old hotel safe for a silverware drawer (damn you Craigslist!).
About a week in to tracking plastic use, I started where I seemed to have the most coming in...groceries. Damn you convenience! I now do better at remembering to bring my own bag or ask for paper or just carry arm loads of crap to the car. I took empty jars and coffee cans with reasonably tight lids to the food co-op and wrote the tare weights on them empty. Same with the produce bags I've been given over the years.
For solstice a favorite aunt sent me a new beeswax food wrap! Thanks Marcie! (other aunts are favorites too). Getting one of these per year would be ideal. They last a long time but eventually get mungy and the wax flakes and things. She also wisely chose the one made on organic cotton and packaged in paper. Some are hemp fabric and I am allergic so that I would have passed on to another person. I looked up how to make my own wax wraps online and may try it. We'll see. I am nothing if not lazy. So, using that for left overs or apples or whatever instead of cling wrap is another good way to cut back on the plastic, especially the thin plastic.
Cutting back on using plastic bags for my bulk foods purchases wasn't too hard, though when I forget a container or end up at a store where they don't let me use my own container or won't deduct the tare weight from the total weight...I have to start debating. I have found that some places will let me re-use a paper bag for bulk foods (like nuts 'n such) but not a jar...I don't get it but I did start saving the paper bags that are in good shape and found some lunch sacks (in plastic dammit!) at a thrift store for super cheap and try to remember to throw a couple of those in the grocery basket Sherry (Hi Sherry!) got me years ago for Xmas and it's still good and I still use it almost every day. It's made of plastic but more on durable plastic vs single use below.
Packaging on foods is a tough one. I end up buying more bulk, more fresh fruit and veg, and precious little meat. Sardines in tins and tuna in tins has less plastic than wrapped meats. Getting my own meat, e.g. fishing or going to a friend's house when she butchers (Hi Cindy!) ducks and chickens works pretty well. Cindy pressure cans the meat usually so only the lid liner on the re-used jars is new plastic. I think meat independence and canning, drying, and pickling meat will help me with this. Also...beans. But I'm taking yoga and lifting weights so I don't want to eat TOOO many beans and then be that lady in yoga who farts through the whole class. When I lift at the gym, I'm usually alone, then I sneak out a toot and instantly someone else shows up and I don't even have a dog to blame it on. So, easing beans into the diet.
The bit that should not have surprised me is how much healthier it is to eat when one avoids plastic. I end up buying "super foods" (formerly known as "food") like steel cut oats, apples, potatoes, carrots, lentils, rice, flour to make my own breads, and etc. I'll do a "super foods" rant in a different blog.
When I'm traveling, and I end up REALLY wanting a coffee, having forgotten my plastic-free (or low plastic ) system of my travel french press (yay Planetary Design from a thrift store!) and an insulated stainless steel bottle of super hot water (yay thrift stores!), then I do a drive through. I try to get the least plastic but alas and alack, those damn coffee lids. I do get a lid when I forget my own mug because showing up to whatever meeting with a giant brown coffee stain from chin to knees is not super professional. Showing up without the proper level of caffeine in my blood stream results in other non-professional behavior. I'm keeping an eye out for more of those french presses at thrift so I can keep one and a jar of coffee in the car. Hot water can be had at most gas stations and grocery stores. I HAD 2 extras but passed them on to friends who were looking for ways to avoid the constant plastic waste from the keurig type coffee makers most offices at work went to. (I did break down and use the keurig twice last week...to avoid flaming out at a colleague who was getting on my last nerve).
I have also found that some restaurants with drive-thrus use less plastic than others and have targeted those. The one where they hand-patty their burgers and sell them in paper bags with paper wrappers closed...due to employee cash theft or something. (Damn you underpaid fast food workers!) A local cafe started a drive up window if you call ahead and I have used it a few times because they cook from scratch and do their best to use up food which will result in less food and plastic waste. BUT they now put the meal in a styrofoam clamshell, in a thin plastic grocery bag. If their BLTs weren't so damn good (at the lunch shift..the youngsters working in the evening use cold half cooked bacon fat blobs and yet somehow get the sandwich to sweat in clamshell...and once I had to tell them what the B, the L and the T stood for...and I ended up with a cold sweaty cheese burger in a plastic box. That pretty well cured me of ordering there in the evening. (Thanks slightly dim cafe worker kid!) I could order an extra lunch and bring that sandwich wrap thing if I planned ahead and walked into the restaurant).
The quest for the plastic free restaurant and to-go meal resulted in me using that as an excuse to eat at too many drive thrus and restaurants with resulted in 5lbs gained and quite a chunk of change lost. I warned my new co-worker that May was all about NOT having delicious restaurant lunches when we are out of town. I'm trying to keep and apple and container of nuts (bulk purchased) in my bag or car at all times to avoid this. So far, remembering it about 50% of the time.
For non-food type plastic avoidance, things get more complicated still. I have stopped buying anything but wood or metal stakes for my plants and tree starts. More expensive than fiberglass and plastics, but also more re-usable.
Sometimes I cop to a durable plastic item that I will use and re-use. And if I can get it used, all the better. I still grab 5-gallon plastic buckets at the recycling center free bucket bin. These are the corner stone of my composting toilet system. They seem to last years. A bucket starts as a storage unit for bee equipment or food, or seeds or whatever. Or as a toilet buck (old crusty weak buckets that have been in the sun and the plastic is brittle are not a good option for toilets ...I don't want to risk a break down mid---well, you know). Once a toilet bucket, it stays a toilet bucket until it might get weak and then it is an outside garbage bucket for when I have to pick up trucker bombs by the highway (with gloves) and haul those to a dumpster. I'm afraid I'm not willing yet to pour out the trucker pee from the old plastic they peed in and threw on my property. It goes in a well used bucket, into the back of the truck, and to the dumpster. I'm not unwilling to have pee on my land, but god knows what the high levels of no-doze or painkillers would do to my flora and fauna.
Storage buckets move next to water hauling buckets, then to tool and trash hauling buckets before retirement to the recycling center or dumpster depending on the type of plastic and whether I can recycle it right now.
When I buy buckets to use on the property, I go for metal which is about double the cost of a plastic bucket and lasts, apparently, forever. These don't have air-tight lids so aren't great for some storage needs.
Buying clothes...I buy mostly at thrift but undies need to be new. I found some (at a 2nd run retail where old retail goes to die) new and on a plastic hangar rather than in a plastic bag. I don't know which is better or worse. I looked in to buying online, but the packaging for shipping is usually a few layers of plastic bags, and the undies cost more. So...dear readers who know me....cotton undies size 6 hipster style would be excellent Xmas and Bday presents.
I try to avoid nylon, polyester...actually this will be shorter: I try to buy cotton and wool and leather/suede clothes rather than synthetics. And almost all from thrift. Sox and undies and some shoes/boots I buy new. I look for durable and the highest natural fiber content I can get, then look at style and color. I do have several fishing shirts with pit-zipper vents that are mostly synthetic. I have yet to wear one of these out. One was a gift and is at least 10 years old. These qualify as a "durable" plastic to me. I find that less offensive than one-off things like store bags. I go for high quality so I can stitch up rips and tears an patch them and get maximum life out of them. The synthetics still give off micro-trash in the washer and dryer that ends up in the streams and in the wind and harms the environment so I'm still trying to limit the number of these I own, minimize the washing/drying especially at the laundromat where the wear and tear sends more of the fabric downstream/wind. Hand washing and hang drying tears them up less and they last longer. People must be sick of seeing me in the same 10 shirts, but do I care? I do not.
Buying thrift store stuff...Goodwill locally now bags things like candles, matches, office supplies and other smaller goods in PLASTIC! Dammit! I use lots of candles as light spectrum correctives at my place because I use rechargable LED lights which are a bit blue and annoying. Also, a candle is a nice minimal light and makes one feel warm. But I don't want a big plastic bag on my cheap candles. I'm re-melting candle nubbins and trying to make more candles with candle wicks I find at thrift. The wicks have less plastic on them than the bagged candles. So far, not a crashing success and I'm hoping to be able to make my own wicks some day. I have bees so perhaps I will also have beeswax, but not enough for the next few years at least.
I may have to revert to new paper goods over thrift store office supplies or find alternative, grungier, thrift stores for paper because the plastic bags really annoy me.
When I do get plastic bags, I re-use them. I have a high quality smallish plastic store bag that I call "the bag of bags" and rinse, dried plastic bags, and other bags, get stuffed in there. Then when I'm casting about the wee shed for a bag to put something in (perhaps an apple and some nuts) I know where to find a reasonable clean one. If I'm giving food away I find people like to see it in a zip-type bag. I get those when people give me stuff, wash them out, and re-use. I tried giving stuff in an obviously re-used paper sack and some folks got grossed out. I have many tin, steel and glass containers but stopped handing food out in those because only a small subset came back to me and it was pissing me off.
I have also been tracking plastic-coated paper. Partly because I can't compost this or make it into paper fire bricks. Coffee hut coffee cups ...usually plasticized. Receipts from stores (which I take to track my budget) ...usually plasticized. Junk mail, catalogs, etc etc etc...often plasticized.
I'm also finding plasticized stickers on my local organic apples! GEEZ!!! Really food co-op? If I can get a couple of root cellars going I hope to buy and grow basic vegetables and fruit to avoid more of those stupid stickers.
Then there is the plastic people give you. I'm trying to do a number of plastic-free days per month, just like the "no spend" days that help my budget. I will be going along well, not buying anything, not using the keurig coffee at work, drinking tap water rather than bottled, etc. THEN someone will give me a gift or office supplies arrive at work. In plastic or made of plastic. Dammit! It is everywhere. I'm lucky to get 5 or 6 days a month without plastic coming into my possession. If I stay home, see no one, buy nothing, I can do it. That is my preferred mode of living, but with a job and volunteering and people knowing where I live, it doesn't happen often.
Specific to me things...I went "foundationless" on my bees, though I'm using bits of plastic foundation I already had as comb guides in the hives. That wasn't "new" to me plastic and if it works, it will cut back on the apiary plastic consumption. I got 2 packages of bees (more in another post) and those came not in the old wood and screen type packages but in STUPID plastic packages! DAMMIT!!! I don't know if they will take these at recycling and I'm looking for ways to re-use them. Perhaps mouse traps? Queen excluders? Entrance reducers? Hive ventilation?
Any and all ideas on how to avoid, limit, reuse, recycle and otherwise reduce plastic in my life are welcome.
Each evening, when I remember which is about 75% of the time, I write down my plastic use/acquisition whatever. I don't count plastic I salvage specifically to pass on to another person. That sounds odd, but so am I. Yesterday I picked up a plastic pallet for a friend who is coming to till up my garden. She uses them as the base for her duck house. easier to scrap the poo off and easier on the duck feet than a wooden pallet or wire base. I get these used sitting in alleys or where ever. I figure at least they are getting used longer before they end up in that plastic island in the Pacific ocean. They are also out of the sunlight which should mean they degrade more slowly. She is tracking the effect on the ducks.
ANYWAY...since China decided they don't want our dirty plastic buggering up their country, we've been able to "recycle" fewer types at my local recycling place. I realized before that some of what we were putting there wasn't really recycled but instead just put in landfills later or polluting somewhere else. When it quit being accepted, that point got driven home, as discussed in a previous post.
This article at CNN reminded me to redouble my reduction efforts:
CHINA'S RECYCLING BAN HAS SENT AMERICA'S PLASTIC TO MALAYSIA. NOW THEY DON'T WANT IT - SO WHAT NEXT
I'm not linking that because the link will die in days anyway.
So, 2019 is as good a time as any to cut back on plastic. The first step in figuring out how to get to a new place, on the planet or in life, is to know where you area when you start. I did this with money budgeting and dieting. If you don't face facts about the current situation, you don't understand why things aren't working. This is why I started paying attention to my current plastic usage in January 2019. It was higher than I thought...same with money and food intake when I started cutting those back. Better to be honest with oneself than to keep pretending you didn't eat an entire box of nutty buddies (damn you Little Debbie!) or buy an old hotel safe for a silverware drawer (damn you Craigslist!).
About a week in to tracking plastic use, I started where I seemed to have the most coming in...groceries. Damn you convenience! I now do better at remembering to bring my own bag or ask for paper or just carry arm loads of crap to the car. I took empty jars and coffee cans with reasonably tight lids to the food co-op and wrote the tare weights on them empty. Same with the produce bags I've been given over the years.
For solstice a favorite aunt sent me a new beeswax food wrap! Thanks Marcie! (other aunts are favorites too). Getting one of these per year would be ideal. They last a long time but eventually get mungy and the wax flakes and things. She also wisely chose the one made on organic cotton and packaged in paper. Some are hemp fabric and I am allergic so that I would have passed on to another person. I looked up how to make my own wax wraps online and may try it. We'll see. I am nothing if not lazy. So, using that for left overs or apples or whatever instead of cling wrap is another good way to cut back on the plastic, especially the thin plastic.
Cutting back on using plastic bags for my bulk foods purchases wasn't too hard, though when I forget a container or end up at a store where they don't let me use my own container or won't deduct the tare weight from the total weight...I have to start debating. I have found that some places will let me re-use a paper bag for bulk foods (like nuts 'n such) but not a jar...I don't get it but I did start saving the paper bags that are in good shape and found some lunch sacks (in plastic dammit!) at a thrift store for super cheap and try to remember to throw a couple of those in the grocery basket Sherry (Hi Sherry!) got me years ago for Xmas and it's still good and I still use it almost every day. It's made of plastic but more on durable plastic vs single use below.
Packaging on foods is a tough one. I end up buying more bulk, more fresh fruit and veg, and precious little meat. Sardines in tins and tuna in tins has less plastic than wrapped meats. Getting my own meat, e.g. fishing or going to a friend's house when she butchers (Hi Cindy!) ducks and chickens works pretty well. Cindy pressure cans the meat usually so only the lid liner on the re-used jars is new plastic. I think meat independence and canning, drying, and pickling meat will help me with this. Also...beans. But I'm taking yoga and lifting weights so I don't want to eat TOOO many beans and then be that lady in yoga who farts through the whole class. When I lift at the gym, I'm usually alone, then I sneak out a toot and instantly someone else shows up and I don't even have a dog to blame it on. So, easing beans into the diet.
The bit that should not have surprised me is how much healthier it is to eat when one avoids plastic. I end up buying "super foods" (formerly known as "food") like steel cut oats, apples, potatoes, carrots, lentils, rice, flour to make my own breads, and etc. I'll do a "super foods" rant in a different blog.
When I'm traveling, and I end up REALLY wanting a coffee, having forgotten my plastic-free (or low plastic ) system of my travel french press (yay Planetary Design from a thrift store!) and an insulated stainless steel bottle of super hot water (yay thrift stores!), then I do a drive through. I try to get the least plastic but alas and alack, those damn coffee lids. I do get a lid when I forget my own mug because showing up to whatever meeting with a giant brown coffee stain from chin to knees is not super professional. Showing up without the proper level of caffeine in my blood stream results in other non-professional behavior. I'm keeping an eye out for more of those french presses at thrift so I can keep one and a jar of coffee in the car. Hot water can be had at most gas stations and grocery stores. I HAD 2 extras but passed them on to friends who were looking for ways to avoid the constant plastic waste from the keurig type coffee makers most offices at work went to. (I did break down and use the keurig twice last week...to avoid flaming out at a colleague who was getting on my last nerve).
I have also found that some restaurants with drive-thrus use less plastic than others and have targeted those. The one where they hand-patty their burgers and sell them in paper bags with paper wrappers closed...due to employee cash theft or something. (Damn you underpaid fast food workers!) A local cafe started a drive up window if you call ahead and I have used it a few times because they cook from scratch and do their best to use up food which will result in less food and plastic waste. BUT they now put the meal in a styrofoam clamshell, in a thin plastic grocery bag. If their BLTs weren't so damn good (at the lunch shift..the youngsters working in the evening use cold half cooked bacon fat blobs and yet somehow get the sandwich to sweat in clamshell...and once I had to tell them what the B, the L and the T stood for...and I ended up with a cold sweaty cheese burger in a plastic box. That pretty well cured me of ordering there in the evening. (Thanks slightly dim cafe worker kid!) I could order an extra lunch and bring that sandwich wrap thing if I planned ahead and walked into the restaurant).
The quest for the plastic free restaurant and to-go meal resulted in me using that as an excuse to eat at too many drive thrus and restaurants with resulted in 5lbs gained and quite a chunk of change lost. I warned my new co-worker that May was all about NOT having delicious restaurant lunches when we are out of town. I'm trying to keep and apple and container of nuts (bulk purchased) in my bag or car at all times to avoid this. So far, remembering it about 50% of the time.
For non-food type plastic avoidance, things get more complicated still. I have stopped buying anything but wood or metal stakes for my plants and tree starts. More expensive than fiberglass and plastics, but also more re-usable.
Sometimes I cop to a durable plastic item that I will use and re-use. And if I can get it used, all the better. I still grab 5-gallon plastic buckets at the recycling center free bucket bin. These are the corner stone of my composting toilet system. They seem to last years. A bucket starts as a storage unit for bee equipment or food, or seeds or whatever. Or as a toilet buck (old crusty weak buckets that have been in the sun and the plastic is brittle are not a good option for toilets ...I don't want to risk a break down mid---well, you know). Once a toilet bucket, it stays a toilet bucket until it might get weak and then it is an outside garbage bucket for when I have to pick up trucker bombs by the highway (with gloves) and haul those to a dumpster. I'm afraid I'm not willing yet to pour out the trucker pee from the old plastic they peed in and threw on my property. It goes in a well used bucket, into the back of the truck, and to the dumpster. I'm not unwilling to have pee on my land, but god knows what the high levels of no-doze or painkillers would do to my flora and fauna.
Storage buckets move next to water hauling buckets, then to tool and trash hauling buckets before retirement to the recycling center or dumpster depending on the type of plastic and whether I can recycle it right now.
When I buy buckets to use on the property, I go for metal which is about double the cost of a plastic bucket and lasts, apparently, forever. These don't have air-tight lids so aren't great for some storage needs.
Buying clothes...I buy mostly at thrift but undies need to be new. I found some (at a 2nd run retail where old retail goes to die) new and on a plastic hangar rather than in a plastic bag. I don't know which is better or worse. I looked in to buying online, but the packaging for shipping is usually a few layers of plastic bags, and the undies cost more. So...dear readers who know me....cotton undies size 6 hipster style would be excellent Xmas and Bday presents.
I try to avoid nylon, polyester...actually this will be shorter: I try to buy cotton and wool and leather/suede clothes rather than synthetics. And almost all from thrift. Sox and undies and some shoes/boots I buy new. I look for durable and the highest natural fiber content I can get, then look at style and color. I do have several fishing shirts with pit-zipper vents that are mostly synthetic. I have yet to wear one of these out. One was a gift and is at least 10 years old. These qualify as a "durable" plastic to me. I find that less offensive than one-off things like store bags. I go for high quality so I can stitch up rips and tears an patch them and get maximum life out of them. The synthetics still give off micro-trash in the washer and dryer that ends up in the streams and in the wind and harms the environment so I'm still trying to limit the number of these I own, minimize the washing/drying especially at the laundromat where the wear and tear sends more of the fabric downstream/wind. Hand washing and hang drying tears them up less and they last longer. People must be sick of seeing me in the same 10 shirts, but do I care? I do not.
Buying thrift store stuff...Goodwill locally now bags things like candles, matches, office supplies and other smaller goods in PLASTIC! Dammit! I use lots of candles as light spectrum correctives at my place because I use rechargable LED lights which are a bit blue and annoying. Also, a candle is a nice minimal light and makes one feel warm. But I don't want a big plastic bag on my cheap candles. I'm re-melting candle nubbins and trying to make more candles with candle wicks I find at thrift. The wicks have less plastic on them than the bagged candles. So far, not a crashing success and I'm hoping to be able to make my own wicks some day. I have bees so perhaps I will also have beeswax, but not enough for the next few years at least.
I may have to revert to new paper goods over thrift store office supplies or find alternative, grungier, thrift stores for paper because the plastic bags really annoy me.
When I do get plastic bags, I re-use them. I have a high quality smallish plastic store bag that I call "the bag of bags" and rinse, dried plastic bags, and other bags, get stuffed in there. Then when I'm casting about the wee shed for a bag to put something in (perhaps an apple and some nuts) I know where to find a reasonable clean one. If I'm giving food away I find people like to see it in a zip-type bag. I get those when people give me stuff, wash them out, and re-use. I tried giving stuff in an obviously re-used paper sack and some folks got grossed out. I have many tin, steel and glass containers but stopped handing food out in those because only a small subset came back to me and it was pissing me off.
I have also been tracking plastic-coated paper. Partly because I can't compost this or make it into paper fire bricks. Coffee hut coffee cups ...usually plasticized. Receipts from stores (which I take to track my budget) ...usually plasticized. Junk mail, catalogs, etc etc etc...often plasticized.
I'm also finding plasticized stickers on my local organic apples! GEEZ!!! Really food co-op? If I can get a couple of root cellars going I hope to buy and grow basic vegetables and fruit to avoid more of those stupid stickers.
Then there is the plastic people give you. I'm trying to do a number of plastic-free days per month, just like the "no spend" days that help my budget. I will be going along well, not buying anything, not using the keurig coffee at work, drinking tap water rather than bottled, etc. THEN someone will give me a gift or office supplies arrive at work. In plastic or made of plastic. Dammit! It is everywhere. I'm lucky to get 5 or 6 days a month without plastic coming into my possession. If I stay home, see no one, buy nothing, I can do it. That is my preferred mode of living, but with a job and volunteering and people knowing where I live, it doesn't happen often.
Specific to me things...I went "foundationless" on my bees, though I'm using bits of plastic foundation I already had as comb guides in the hives. That wasn't "new" to me plastic and if it works, it will cut back on the apiary plastic consumption. I got 2 packages of bees (more in another post) and those came not in the old wood and screen type packages but in STUPID plastic packages! DAMMIT!!! I don't know if they will take these at recycling and I'm looking for ways to re-use them. Perhaps mouse traps? Queen excluders? Entrance reducers? Hive ventilation?
Any and all ideas on how to avoid, limit, reuse, recycle and otherwise reduce plastic in my life are welcome.
Friday, April 5, 2019
Garden Season Is Upon Us!!!
Oh Hells Yeah!
Plant something. Anything.
Grow food for yourself. For others. For animals. For insects. Feed the worms (heh heh).
Compost.
Share some food.
Open those foods you canned or dried in the fall. Eat them.
Eat what you've got in the pantry.
Try a new recipe.
Make an old recipe.
Give someone a decent knife and some fresh veg.
Anything we do to feed ourselves and others (including the non-human others) is positive and a move toward personal and local food sovereignty.
I have planted kale, lettuce, onion, carrot and radishes. I checked on my fruits and berry trees/shrubs/canes. I got a fishing license. I threw clover seeds and wild flower seeds out on my property for the bugs and the birds. My vermicompost, humanure compost and regular compost are all going strong. If I can't grow decent gardens, I can share compost with better gardeners.
Today our community garden had a work day and sadly, I was the only volunteer to show up. BUT I learned good techniques for transplanting, how to water starts in well, and helped start various seeds in the newly opened space in the seedlings room there. All cool stuff. Also chased a bunny out of the garden. If it comes back we may eat the bunny...we'll see.
I hope one and all can find a way to grow or cook or share their own food.
Happy Spring!
Sunday, March 31, 2019
DOH!
As usual, I missed a milestone.
Looks like I have published 500 posts as of the last one. I didn't notice. I was too intrigued by the cool old broad in the post.
Old broads are the bomb.
Also...this is post 501. Apparently. Yay me. I guess. Whatever.
March 2019 is also the first month I've had over 1000 views. JUST over...like you could count the overage on 1 hand. I wonder why? Nothing is special or specially interesting. Must be the aforementioned Old Broad.
Thanks to those who read the blog.
Let me know if you'd like a topic addressed. I may or may not do it.
Looks like I have published 500 posts as of the last one. I didn't notice. I was too intrigued by the cool old broad in the post.
Old broads are the bomb.
Also...this is post 501. Apparently. Yay me. I guess. Whatever.
March 2019 is also the first month I've had over 1000 views. JUST over...like you could count the overage on 1 hand. I wonder why? Nothing is special or specially interesting. Must be the aforementioned Old Broad.
Thanks to those who read the blog.
Let me know if you'd like a topic addressed. I may or may not do it.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Grammas Rock
First off...my Grammas were way cuter than that. But the saggy boobs (swing low sweet chariots) are familiar.
I just liked this picture because it shows how far we've come in a couple of generations. Or perhaps how far we've fallen. Whatever.
How much of my food do I produce? Or gather? Or hunt? ...um, like NONE of it. OK. A few greens and when my apple trees cooperate, I have home grown apples. Occasionally I get a handful of berries. Time to double down on production.
Since 2019 is all about me being aware of my plastic acquisition and use and whatnot, I also notice the distinct lack of plastic in the picture. Some plastic I'm not going to be able to avoid, but I don't need it all over my food. It IS a challenge, just like money budgeting and dieting and any other lifestyle change. So, the first part of the year is about being aware of when I get plastic. It sneaks in there! Like today, I took my own trash out at work and mindlessly grabbed another plastic bag and lined the trash can even though I had a paper bag in the office ready to go. Dang it!
One day I got a coffee out and forgot to hand over my own cup, getting a plastic lined paper cup with a plastic lid. I managed to avoid the stupid straw.
I think I've only gotten 2 plastic grocery bags in the past couple of months. Getting better at that.
It is killing me that my favorite thrift stores are now putting lots of stuff in plastic bags for display. CRIPES! One of the ways of avoiding plastic packaging has been to buy used. Now I'm going to have to go to stinky yard sales.
I invested in real rubber dish gloves for cleaning and I must say they are lasting forever, so that is nice.
I've been doing "No Plastic" days (meaning I don't acquire any plastic that day) and find that even if I don't buy ANYTHING (helps with the budget), eat food I bought in my own fabric or recycled bags or paper bags for things like grains, and use my stainless steel travel spork and make my own coffee in my travel french press and on and on...STILL sometimes people will give you something and it's generally plastic and/or IN plastic.
I was doing really well one day...almost done with work...and a coworker brings me a new pencil sharpener she got me. Not the all metal hand powered one like I usually use...an electric one made of plastic in plastic packaging in a plasticized cardboard box taped shut with ever more plastic. CRIPES! I appreciate the gift and the thought, but the amount of plastic so I could use a wooden pencil was ridiculous.
There will always be phones, cars, I like to have a computer, and those sorts of things that will be in my life. For now I'll just keep hacking away at the edges.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Frugal Wobble
So, there was this cool thing. And then I bought it. I may not have been frugal.
I took some frugal steps before the purchase:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need
2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item
3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person
4) I checked the budget
5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price
6) I looked at it in person
So, you ask...what was this?
It was, and is something super cool.
It is an old hotel safe with "safe deposit" type boxes in each little locking cubbie.
The locks all turn, and have keys. It's so fiddly and oak and heavy.
Here's how it fits in with the above frugal steps:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need -- I wanted something cool to put my silverware and other small kitchen things in when I finally get a real house built. I have items to make shelves and a countertop but no drawers or small item mouse proof storage. I was looking for something unique to use for that. This should be it.
2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item -- I saw it on craigslist and I waited and thought about it before contacting the seller.
3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person -- Once I did contact the seller and determined it was still available, I let it go another few days.
4) I checked the budget -- self-explanatory
5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price -- it cost a few hundred bucks. So, I pulled as much as I was willing to spend, put as much as I WANTED to pay into one of those bank envelopes so it looked like I had a hard budget. The rest was in my pocket in smaller bills. The combined total was the max I would willingly spend.
6) I looked at it in person -- I had a list in my head of disqualifying traits: smells like cat pee, animal damage, bat/rat/mouse crap inside, urethane finish on it, rusty hinges, etc
It was/is in pretty good shape, certainly for the age, did not stink, had the expected level of dirt on it from being old and has an original varnish finish which I prefer.
I tried the bank envelope trick but the dude was hardcore and I had to pull money out of my pocket. I spent 75$ less than my top dollar, but more than I had hoped.
With something like this there is also the "out" of reselling if things go awry. I could recoup at least part of the money.
So far, no buyer's remorse. I really like it. It fit into the storage unit so no additional cost to keep it until I can put it into use.
I took some frugal steps before the purchase:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need
2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item
3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person
4) I checked the budget
5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price
6) I looked at it in person
So, you ask...what was this?
It was, and is something super cool.
It is an old hotel safe with "safe deposit" type boxes in each little locking cubbie.
The locks all turn, and have keys. It's so fiddly and oak and heavy.
Here's how it fits in with the above frugal steps:
1) It fulfills a determined want/need -- I wanted something cool to put my silverware and other small kitchen things in when I finally get a real house built. I have items to make shelves and a countertop but no drawers or small item mouse proof storage. I was looking for something unique to use for that. This should be it.
2) I waited more than a week to inquire about the item -- I saw it on craigslist and I waited and thought about it before contacting the seller.
3) I waited another 3 days before deciding to look at it in person -- Once I did contact the seller and determined it was still available, I let it go another few days.
4) I checked the budget -- self-explanatory
5) I withdrew cash and split it so I knew my offer price and my top price -- it cost a few hundred bucks. So, I pulled as much as I was willing to spend, put as much as I WANTED to pay into one of those bank envelopes so it looked like I had a hard budget. The rest was in my pocket in smaller bills. The combined total was the max I would willingly spend.
6) I looked at it in person -- I had a list in my head of disqualifying traits: smells like cat pee, animal damage, bat/rat/mouse crap inside, urethane finish on it, rusty hinges, etc
It was/is in pretty good shape, certainly for the age, did not stink, had the expected level of dirt on it from being old and has an original varnish finish which I prefer.
I tried the bank envelope trick but the dude was hardcore and I had to pull money out of my pocket. I spent 75$ less than my top dollar, but more than I had hoped.
With something like this there is also the "out" of reselling if things go awry. I could recoup at least part of the money.
So far, no buyer's remorse. I really like it. It fit into the storage unit so no additional cost to keep it until I can put it into use.
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