Saturday, April 21, 2012
Brunch
Wikipedia defines brunch as "a meal eaten in the middle of the morning, in between the normal time of breakfast and the normal time of lunch, as a substitute for both of these meals." What a great, really penny pinching way to save money. Not only does doing brunch help you save money during vacations (where meals can get really expensive) but even when at home. We usually eat brunch during the weekends when most members of the house hold tend to sleep in.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Money Jar
Money jar is what a youngster would call a piggy bank. The piggy bank concept is that instead of spending money you are given or earned, you save it by putting it into a piggy bank. For adults, this means putting any change you receive into the money jar so as not to spend it, and the amount builds up over time. After a while, the idea would be to deposit the contents of the money jar into a savings account where it would now earn interest.
There was a time I would take my money jar to the bank and they would gladly accept all those coins. Nowadays, services like coinstar charges you a service fee of almost 10% to count your money so that you can then deposit into your own account! To be fair, coinstar does give you the option to receive a gift card instead of cash. When you choose this option, then the fee is waived.
Is using a money jar still worth it?
The answer is still yes. You can conlude that without the money jar you would end up with no savings at all, versus retaining 90% of what was in the jar. You can also try locating a Credit Union that you could join. My Credit Union does have a coinstar machine but they do not charge if you deposit the coins into your account with them. I also use the coins to pay for stamps, vending machine purchases (when desperate as these are expensive purchases)and highway tolls. You can also use these as allowances, bus fares, token purchases, small grocery purchases (Think convenience stores) and more. There are still a lot of places that will accept coins even if your bank does not.
Money Jar Alternatives
The concept has been brought into another level by some banks (notably Bank of America) that allow you to round-up your debit card purchases to the nearest whole dollar amount, and they then deposit this roundup to either a checking or savings account. Bank of America even matches your deposit. This serves as your money jar and it is suppose to help you save money in the long run. But does it really? Depends. There is a limit to what the banks will match. There are also fees (remember those) that could be lurking, potentially costing you more than you save.
There was a time I would take my money jar to the bank and they would gladly accept all those coins. Nowadays, services like coinstar charges you a service fee of almost 10% to count your money so that you can then deposit into your own account! To be fair, coinstar does give you the option to receive a gift card instead of cash. When you choose this option, then the fee is waived.
Is using a money jar still worth it?
The answer is still yes. You can conlude that without the money jar you would end up with no savings at all, versus retaining 90% of what was in the jar. You can also try locating a Credit Union that you could join. My Credit Union does have a coinstar machine but they do not charge if you deposit the coins into your account with them. I also use the coins to pay for stamps, vending machine purchases (when desperate as these are expensive purchases)and highway tolls. You can also use these as allowances, bus fares, token purchases, small grocery purchases (Think convenience stores) and more. There are still a lot of places that will accept coins even if your bank does not.
Money Jar Alternatives
The concept has been brought into another level by some banks (notably Bank of America) that allow you to round-up your debit card purchases to the nearest whole dollar amount, and they then deposit this roundup to either a checking or savings account. Bank of America even matches your deposit. This serves as your money jar and it is suppose to help you save money in the long run. But does it really? Depends. There is a limit to what the banks will match. There are also fees (remember those) that could be lurking, potentially costing you more than you save.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
A Yes or A No
I usually go through the routine of winterizing the house before the start of every winter season. Despite this, I usually end up with one or two damaged water houses or leaky outside faucets. No big deal. Usually involves minor repair such as replacing washers. So I am used to that. What does not normally occur are leaky faucets inside the house during what is a warmer than normal winter. This tells me the problems have nothing to do with the weather.
A short background
There are days when I am not overwhelmed by daily or weekly activities that I may just spend a couple of minutes, hours just browsing through stores like BestBuy or The Home Depot. During one of these visits, I spied on a device that detects water leaks. A water leak alarm. I thought back then that since I have always gone to the basement, I did not really need this. Any flooding should be handled by the sump pump. Besides, since I live in a "once in a hundred year" flood zone up the side of a hill, when would the occasion for a flood occur?
Well a while back I mentioned that I had a faucet leak issue occur in the basement. I had to tighten that faucet really good to be able schedule a repair for the coming weekend. The next day, while again working in the basement, I heard what sounded like water in the shower. I quickly got up, went into the laundry room and there it was, the brass water Y-valve to the washing machine had sink broke, literally there was a crack on it. I quickly shut-off the valve and now had two items to work on during the weekend. This makes me wonder if this latest leak had just happened, or was it something I just missed a couple of days earlier? And this is not the first time this has happened. Barely three years ago the brass y-valve had also gone bad.
The Issue
So now the issue is this. On all occasions, I had been lucky enough to be in the basement when the problems occurred, the sump pump also worked. Now what if I didn't go down the basement for a few days, or the pump failed to work, what would have happened? Would potential damages be covered by regular home insurance or should I get flood insurance? Because of my location, flood insurance would not make sense. Maybe, I should invest $12.00 - $40.00 on a water leak alarm instead? What do you think?
A short background
There are days when I am not overwhelmed by daily or weekly activities that I may just spend a couple of minutes, hours just browsing through stores like BestBuy or The Home Depot. During one of these visits, I spied on a device that detects water leaks. A water leak alarm. I thought back then that since I have always gone to the basement, I did not really need this. Any flooding should be handled by the sump pump. Besides, since I live in a "once in a hundred year" flood zone up the side of a hill, when would the occasion for a flood occur?
Well a while back I mentioned that I had a faucet leak issue occur in the basement. I had to tighten that faucet really good to be able schedule a repair for the coming weekend. The next day, while again working in the basement, I heard what sounded like water in the shower. I quickly got up, went into the laundry room and there it was, the brass water Y-valve to the washing machine had sink broke, literally there was a crack on it. I quickly shut-off the valve and now had two items to work on during the weekend. This makes me wonder if this latest leak had just happened, or was it something I just missed a couple of days earlier? And this is not the first time this has happened. Barely three years ago the brass y-valve had also gone bad.
The Issue
So now the issue is this. On all occasions, I had been lucky enough to be in the basement when the problems occurred, the sump pump also worked. Now what if I didn't go down the basement for a few days, or the pump failed to work, what would have happened? Would potential damages be covered by regular home insurance or should I get flood insurance? Because of my location, flood insurance would not make sense. Maybe, I should invest $12.00 - $40.00 on a water leak alarm instead? What do you think?
Thursday, February 2, 2012
A Short Story with a lesson
I received this story by email a couple of days ago and there is a lesson to be learned here I would like to share with you.
A Short Story for Engineers
A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don’t get pissed off and buy another product instead.
Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP (Request for Proposals) , third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.
It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should have been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.
A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.
“Oh, that,” says one of the workers — “one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over….. “every time the bell rang”.
The lesson? Do yourself and your pocketbook a favor and remember, solutions to a problem need not be very expensive or complicated. A lesson that applies not only to Engineers but to everyone else.
A Short Story for Engineers
A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can’t be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don’t get pissed off and buy another product instead.
Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP (Request for Proposals) , third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.
It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should have been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed.
A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.
“Oh, that,” says one of the workers — “one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over….. “every time the bell rang”.
The lesson? Do yourself and your pocketbook a favor and remember, solutions to a problem need not be very expensive or complicated. A lesson that applies not only to Engineers but to everyone else.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Check for Toilet Leaks
It is easy enough to check your faucets. Simply stare at the faucet for a few minutes and if you do not see water drip, then the faucet is likely fine. Toilets are another matter.
Most toilets do not leak in huge, easily visible ways. Sometimes it is like being a detective. You are sleeping at night then you suddenly hear the toilet refill. Did somebody just flush? You open you eyes but the lights are off, no light from the bathroom either, the bathroom door is open and there is no one in either. Was it a ghost? Well, since I tend not top believe in ghosts then it must be a leaky toilet. Of course, because most homes are constructed of what amounts to paper and wood, it is possible the toilet you heard came from outside your door, or even in the living room. The prudent thing to do would be the check everyone of them.
I check each toilet by taking a few minutes to stare at the waterline, looking for tell-tale signs of a constant flow of water. If I do not see anything I usually move on to the next. But what if you really suspect that toilet in the guest room but do not see those tell-tale signs, also called "Silent Leaks"? How do you get the suspect to talk without resorting to harsh interrogation techniques or prematurely jumping to a guilty verdict? Being a good detective who has done some of his homework, I know there is something in my bag of tricks that will do the job. In this case, it takes the form of a tablet, a coloring dye that will make the suspect talk and reveal whether it is the source of the leak, or not.
I have tried a couple of versions of these toilet leak dyes, like Blue Streak Pro 200. The way these work is that you put the tablets into the water tank. The dye dissolves and if there is a leak, you should find out in a few minutes. I have also used cheaper household items to color the water in the tank, things like orange juice or even coffee. OK, only coffee then. The principle is the same whether you use the dye or coffee. The end result is that you catch a leak before it starts costing more money than you care to spend.
Most toilets do not leak in huge, easily visible ways. Sometimes it is like being a detective. You are sleeping at night then you suddenly hear the toilet refill. Did somebody just flush? You open you eyes but the lights are off, no light from the bathroom either, the bathroom door is open and there is no one in either. Was it a ghost? Well, since I tend not top believe in ghosts then it must be a leaky toilet. Of course, because most homes are constructed of what amounts to paper and wood, it is possible the toilet you heard came from outside your door, or even in the living room. The prudent thing to do would be the check everyone of them.
I check each toilet by taking a few minutes to stare at the waterline, looking for tell-tale signs of a constant flow of water. If I do not see anything I usually move on to the next. But what if you really suspect that toilet in the guest room but do not see those tell-tale signs, also called "Silent Leaks"? How do you get the suspect to talk without resorting to harsh interrogation techniques or prematurely jumping to a guilty verdict? Being a good detective who has done some of his homework, I know there is something in my bag of tricks that will do the job. In this case, it takes the form of a tablet, a coloring dye that will make the suspect talk and reveal whether it is the source of the leak, or not.
I have tried a couple of versions of these toilet leak dyes, like Blue Streak Pro 200. The way these work is that you put the tablets into the water tank. The dye dissolves and if there is a leak, you should find out in a few minutes. I have also used cheaper household items to color the water in the tank, things like orange juice or even coffee. OK, only coffee then. The principle is the same whether you use the dye or coffee. The end result is that you catch a leak before it starts costing more money than you care to spend.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Schedule Regular Faucet Inspections
I recently came down into the basement to get some work done and notice a dripping noise. Since it was raining that day I did not pay too much attention to it. A day later, I could still hear the dripping noise yet it was no longer raining. After a quick search I found that the water was dripping. Who knows how long this had been occurring. If I had not gone down into the basement that day the dripping faucet could have gone unnoticed for months. An acquaintance of mine had a similar though far worst experience. His mother lived by herself, in a home with an unfinished basement. She never visits the basement without reason. On receiving her water bill she noticed a huge increase in the amount she must pay, so she visits her basement, and there she finds her water heater with huge water leak. Needless to say she was lucky. Her unfinished basement had actually allowed the water to drain away, the damage to her house could have been substantial. As for my water bill, I have not received it yet but I hope any increase would be minor.
As you can tell, if we my acquaintances mom and myself both regularly scheduled checks of our faucets, toilets or water heater, we could have caught the problems earlier. I do check the toilets and faucets we use on a daily basis but, regularly scheduled visits to those you do not regularly use is important. I have now added this to my calendar, to regularly check every three months all faucets, both inside, outside, and in the basement.
As you can tell, if we my acquaintances mom and myself both regularly scheduled checks of our faucets, toilets or water heater, we could have caught the problems earlier. I do check the toilets and faucets we use on a daily basis but, regularly scheduled visits to those you do not regularly use is important. I have now added this to my calendar, to regularly check every three months all faucets, both inside, outside, and in the basement.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
After a Few Weeks of Observation
I've been observing the way the aerators are being used, and so far everybody agrees that in terms of the amount of water saved, the instant aerator takes the cake. It all has to do with turning off instantly. However, it all depends on what you are doing. My daughter had mentioned that when washing her face, she prefers the instant off aerator. I agree, and include brushing your teeth.My other daughter seems to be partial towards the manual on/off aerator. But regardless of what you prefer, it doesn't take long to get used to the aerators, and you would save money on both types, when used right and consistently.
I will continue observations, and maybe soon, decide on standardizing the aerators around the house.
I will continue observations, and maybe soon, decide on standardizing the aerators around the house.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Comparing Water-Saving Aerators
I had a short discussion with some friends regarding aerators over the Holidays. It seems that everybody has some concerns as to which type would be best suited to there situation. If you find yourself with the same situation, please read this short article at http://www.squidoo.com/aerator-on-off on the installation and comparison between the manual on/off aerator and the instant-off aerator. I would certainly be interested in reading your opinion regarding the two types.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Another Aerator with an On/Off Switch
Why use the Instant-Off aerator?
There are a lot of situations where you need to adjust the water temperature of the sink. Examples are brushing your teeth or washing you face. While using a cup to hold the warm water while brushing your teeth helps, you probably won't do that when washing your face. The result is wasted water as the water continuous to flow while lathering and rinsing. The instant-off feature addresses this issue.
Installation and Use
Installation is simple. Just have an adjustable wrench available to remove the old aerator, then install and hand-tighten the new aerator, then test for leaks. If there is a leak, then use the wrench to tighten, but not too much. One thing you need to look out for is the orientation of the lever. Although water is supposed to flow whether you push, pull or rock the lever from side to side, there is a preferred direction. You should orient the aerator such that this preferred direction matches what you would normally use.
Performance
The Instant-off feature worked as expected. But while I found that setting the continuous flow by pushing the lever up, then twisting it a quarter turn just a little annoying, others in my household found it hard to use. Turns out that some prefer the aerator with an on/off switch (no lever) to the instant-off (with lever). To that I say, “to each his/her own”.
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