Saving money

Lawn mower blade bolt stuck? Try this

Dave Farquhar DIY, Saving money
Lawn mower blade bolt stuck? Try this

I needed to change a stubborn mower blade this weekend. The lawnmower blade bolt was stuck and wouldn’t budge. That proved to be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. If your lawn mower blade bolt is stuck, it’s possible to fix with simple tools you probably already have.

To remove and replace a lawn mower blade safely and easily, you need a length of 2×4 board long enough to stand on, a small plastic pan, the biggest socket wrench you can find, and a socket that matches the stuck bolt on your mower. If you don’t have a socket wrench or torque wrench, you can use a regular crescent wrench, but you want the biggest one you can find. Longer wrenches give more leverage, and you need lots of leverage to free a stuck bolt. Read more

Something that shouldn’t be there

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Saving money, security, Toy trains , , , , , ,

I was standing in line to get a number for an estate sale this weekend–they’re what I do–and found myself standing a couple of people behind someone who talks too much.

I think some people talk because they want affirmation, and telling tales of what they’ve found is the way they get it. I’m very careful what I talk about, because I frequently see new people who look for exactly the same thing I look for, and if I just give away the knowledge I’ve spent years learning, it literally costs me money. But that’s not how a lot of people think, so if you keep your ears open, you can hear some good information.

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How to build Lifehacker’s retro coffee table on the cheap

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Saving money , , , , , ,

Lifehacker posted a nice weekend project this week, a retro coffee table, but the price tag seems steeper than it needs to be. If you’re craving some retro goodness but think $300 is a bit much to spend to play old video games, I have some ideas for you.

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Buy or rent? Here’s a datapoint

Dave Farquhar Saving money ,
Buy or rent? Here’s a datapoint

I once looked at a house that spoke loudly to the question of whether to buy or rent. The asking price is about $100,000. It last sold in the late 1980s for $79,000.

Selling for $100K now isn’t a profit. That is why I couldn’t get a house I don’t want out of my head. Read more

Another month, another go-to LED bulb

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , , , ,

LED lighting seems to change constantly. I read about Cree’s LED bulbs a good 12-18 months ago and they sounded too good to be true. In a way, they were, because you couldn’t buy them anywhere. The wait is finally over–they’re finally available, though only at Home Depot. I tried out their 800-lumen (60W equivalent), 2700K, 9.5W bulb, which currently costs about $13. It’s a good bulb that lives up to the hype.

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Two simple ways to increase your credit score

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , ,
Two simple ways to increase your credit score

I have a friend who makes more money than me, has no debt except for a small mortgage, and his credit score is 150 points lower than mine. By becoming more like me, you can increase your credit score.

The key difference between us is that he puts a couple thousand into a checking account at the first of every month and pays for everything with a debit card. I do the same thing, but use a credit card, and pay the credit card off at the end of the month.

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These study results on energy savings aren’t surprising

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

Unfortunately, energy saving products are political. Pitch energy efficiency as a cost savings, and liberals and conservatives alike are willing to buy. Pitch it as environmental-saving, and moderates get turned off while conservatives get even more so.

The lesson to marketers: Sell energy-efficient products as technology that promotes energy independence and cost savings. Everyone likes technology, everyone likes energy independence, and everyone likes cost savings.

And the savings is significant. Although I don’t have LED lights and an occupancy switch in every room yet, that’s my eventual goal. Even as electric rates go up, my electric bills tend to hold steady or barely go up, mostly because none of my rooms consume more than 60 watts of electricity to light them, and the highest-traffic rooms turn the lights off automatically after everyone leaves. My total usage goes down some years.

And for what it’s worth, I always preferred LED lights with occupancy switches. The LEDs don’t seem to care how often you switch them off and on; but CFL bulbs do. When using an occupancy switch with CFL bulbs, be sure to put them on their very longest time setting. Anymore, I always go with LED bulbs.

Another benefit of not having debt

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , ,

I’ve written about how not having debt gives you power, though I can’t find the particular post at the moment. But I remember when I got my first mortgage. I went to a party, and my boss was there, along with my five other bosses, and the big boss got this look in his eye when I said I’d bought a house. That look in his eye said one thing: I own you, and I can do whatever I want to you.

And he did. From that day forward, all of the assignments nobody else wanted fell on me. Anything that was destined to fail went to me. And the cycle followed me from job to job, then stopped, like turning out a light, the day after my wife and I paid off our mortgage. It was the closest thing to magic I’ve ever seen. One day, I was the guy who got assignments at 3 PM on a Friday that were going to take me 8 hours to get done–and they had to be done by 8 AM on Monday, and one day, I wasn’t that guy anymore.

I tested it again this month. I turned down a job that offered me a $7,000 pay cut. Nothing unusual about that, right? Not in this case. In this case, rejecting that pay cut meant I didn’t have a job anymore. Read more

How to self-finance major purchases

Dave Farquhar Saving money

My boss (possibly soon-to-be former boss–the parting is amicable if it happens) has an interesting approach to buying cars. He pays cash for the car, then finds out what his monthly payment would be, and deposits that amount in a savings account for five years to pay himself back, with interest. Then he uses the money in that account to buy his next car. Read more

How to ditch your landline and your phone bill but still have phones that work

Dave Farquhar Saving money , ,

Now here’s a potentially huge money-saver. I still have phone service through AT&T that rings through old-fashioned phones (you know, like the kind you see in a museum) because there’s nobody that’s going to give me a wireless plan with unlimited minutes for about 30 bucks a month.

But, still, that’s $360 a year. I’m sure there are things I’d rather do with $360 a year if I could free that up, right?

What if I were to tell you that you could buy a device that costs less than $100 (potentially as little as $38) and you could make phone calls for free using your Internet connection?
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