SharonAndAdam.com

Buying in Bulk

I’ve come to find that I really love our standing freezer. It allows me to buy things in bulk and actually feed my family for a reasonable price!

There’s no denying that the cost of food has continued to increase. It seems that income tax break that took effect April 1, in Adam’s paycheck is paying for the increase cost of food! Just this weekend I was frustrated that the least expensive organic milk we can find has gone up 50 cents a gallon (now $5.50). When we have to buy whole milk (for Gianna until age 2) and low fat milk for the family this adds up to a few gallons of milk a month.  And I laughed inside when our pediatrician told us that the new standards for calcium in kids is a quart of milk a DAY! That’s not going to happen here unless we get a cow. Thankfully they like cheese. And we’re going to start giving the kids a multivitamin with extra calcium.

So today I went “shopping around” for milk. I found organic milk for $5 and decided to stock up on the fat free milk. I bought 4 gallons of fat free milk and 1 gallon of whole milk. Low fat content milk tends to freeze very well which is why I bought so many. (You just need to pour some of the milk out before freezing the jug or it will expand beyond its capacity.) Whole milk when it defrosts will taste grainy which is why I tend not to freeze that. Well, it turns out that 4 gallons of milk is a case and it qualifies for a bulk discount. So I saved 10%-a total saving for the 5 gallons of $4.50. That’s just about another gallon of milk! (I do realized if we didn’t buy organic milk, we would save more. But right now, while we can still budget it, we’ll keep buying it. Occasionally when funds are running low at the end of the month, I rotate a gallon of non-organic milk. This is not my favorite thing to do since the kids drink so much of it. My frugal kindred spirit, Misty, reminded me today that I could use powdered milk to cook.)

When you look in our freezer you’ll see a row of oats on the bottom, the door packed with all-purpose, bread, whole wheat and white whole wheat bags of flour (that I found on sale last week), four gallons of milk, plus all the odds and ends of meats and veggies that I picked up extra of when they were on sale (like the ham that was on sale for Easter!). Hopefully in a couple of weeks our next quarter calf will be coming. We found we can go through a little less than a quarter calf in half a year. Not bad.

Oats Anyone?

Sun Harvest had a sale last week…59 cents per pounds. So we decide to buy it in bulk. It think 50 lbs will last at least until the next sale! I see lots of shranola (my homemade granola) and oatmeal bread in the future!

Portable Drill Batteries

Every common homeowner who owns a portable drill has probably dealt with a dead battery. The primary reason they die is lack of use. There are plenty of discussions on “memory effect” to be found online if you are interested in the science behind the reason. Personally, I found many of the explanations to be contradictory and some outright dismissive of the argument, but I digress. The fact remains that I had an unusable drill and my wife needed new shades to be installed.

There are two options to correct a dead battery problem:

1. Buy a new replacement
2. Rebuild the dead battery

Buying a new replacement battery can be rather expensive. That’s why it’s advisable to either purchase a corded drill or one that offers affordable battery replacements if you won’t be using it frequently. Perhaps unwisely, I didn’t do either. I own a DeWALT DC727 which I found for a good price on eBay. A new battery pack runs at $52.55 on Amazon.com.

The other option is to have a dead battery rebuilt with new cells. BatteriesPlus here in Austin would do the job for $50. Obviously in this case there is hardly any savings with the rebuild. However, being the frugal person that I am, I began to wonder if it was possible to do the rebuild myself.

I first disassembled the battery pack and learned that it would require 10 rechargeable NiCd 4/5 Sub C cells (I found the size by measuring the height and diameter of one of the cells). I was about to purchase a set from BatterySpace.com before I managed to find a set of 20 on eBay for $35.50; now I would be able to rebuild both of my dead batteries.

Now came the hard lesson – soldering the batteries together is a pain. First of all, the batteries came with the necessary tabs to connect them, however half of them had to be popped off because they needed to be reoriented in the proper configuration. Second, the batteries came precharged so it wasn’t difficult to shock myself while lining them up. Third, the solder would not hold the tabs. Roughing the terminals up a bit with sandpaper aided some, but not sufficiently. By the time I had them decently attached, the slightest excess of solder buildup prevented the outer case lid from shutting tight. All in all, I spent over 3 hours of fruitless labor on this task before throwing in the towel.

At this point my only saving grace came after I set aside my pride. I humbled myself, picked up the second set of batteries and the case, and headed over to BatteriesPlus. They installed the cells for $16.

So, excluding the time lost on trying to do it myself, a single battery rebuild came out to be $33.75. That’s a savings of $18.80.

Rat Like Cunning

A couple of months ago Adam and I were invited to the Acton MBA grand opening since he has helped create games for their MBA program.  I picked up some of their literature since I was quite taken by their facilities, books adorning their shelves (which included Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters by Dr. Meg Meeker and The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis), and the many Catholic sounding quotes on their walls.

One of the brochures was:  Everyone Needs a Little RLC.  RLC is “Rat Like Cunning.”  I was certainly not born with RLC so I have quite enjoyed reading it.  And I certainly appreciate the advise in the literature that’s “for the rest of us.”

This morning I had the perfect opportunity to haggle!

After the successful pizza attempt last night, we discovered that our bread pan in our bread machine broke!  This is totally unacceptable.  I used my bread machine at least 2-3 times a week for bread and pizza dough.  So we looked online for replacement bread pans for our machine model. Ebay was selling one for $50!  Woah!  That’s out of the price range of what we’re willing to pay! For that price, we might as well consider buying a new bread machine since we’ve had this machine since we’ve been married.  So I called the manufacturing company this morning.

Lisa, the sales associate said, “The bread pan with shipping with be $50.34.”

Me:  “Really.  Can you bring the price down at all? It is an older model.”

Lisa:  “Let me see what I can do. Hold on for a minute.”

Lisa comes back:  “The lowest I can sell it for is $32.44, and that includes shipping.”

Me:  “That would be great. I’ll take it.”

SCORE!!! I got 35% off!  And all it took was knowing when to ask and having the courage to do so!

Water Bill

I nearly fell out of my seat this morning when I opened our electric/water bill from the City of Austin.   How could our water bill be SO high?  I’ve watered the yard less–at least our yard still looks half dead.  We’re using low flow toilets and 1 gal/min aerators on all the sinks our precious water-wasting children use.  We don’t have water leaks. We have the 5 minute shower, 2 inch bath rule down pat! How could this be?  We’ve had a couple of guests this month, but SURELY they did not use 10,000 gallons worth of water!!

Well, I just had to check our meter.  And sure enough, although the reading on our bill according to the CoA for September 29, was 9170, when I checked it today, it only read 9134.  Which means, the CoA and its employees are not infalliable in taking the meter readings.  The city is going to correct our bill and “hopefully” it’ll all even out with the next bill.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

Homemade DISHWASHER Detergent!

I was just giddy (and still am) when I found a recipe for homemade dishwasher detergent today. The best part:

• I already have the ingredients.
• The recipe is similar to the one I used for the laundry detergent.
• I’m out of the store bought stuff so I can try it out right away.
• AND it’s earth friendly!

The only tiny concern is that it may leave a film on the dishes…that’s not cool.  BUT the solution is just adding vinegar to the rinse cycle or a drop of dish soap to the detergent when you put it in.   I’ll give it a try tomorrow and let you know how it works out.

By the way, I love the homemade laundry detergent.  It doesn’t have a harsh scent and cleans just as well as the store bought stuff for a fraction of the price.  The other added bonus is that when I hang dry our clothes outside (which I did all last week) the laundry comes out soft and not stiff like when I was using the store bought detergent.

Remember that homemade laundry detergent?

Well, I finally made it.   At 9:50 this evening, I realized we’ll have guests in our house tomorrow specifically to do some laundry.  I am all out of the store bought stuff.  I figured this was as good a time as any to make the detergent.  It took all of 10 minutes to make…easy peasy.  I just need to let it cool overnight and we’re ready to wash some clothes!

I’ll let you know how the first load comes out!

Vespa Mileage

I’d never thought I’d love the Vespa as much as Adam especially when he would spend hours on the weekends trying to make the thing work.  But I do!  Not for the same reasons. (Sorry, Dear.) For purely financial reason, that’s been a great investment.

So I did the cost analysis on the scooter vs the Scion for Adam’s work commute. The Scion is getting about28 miles per gallon.  Adam says the Vespa is getting about 50 miles per gallon.  Theoretically, in a months time, the Scion would used around $54 while the Vespa would use $8.  The Vespa is using more like $15/month.  That’s still $39 we’re saving in gas each month.

Home Barber

So for about 4 years now, I have been practically begging Adam to let me cut his hair.  Four years!  Ever since I started cutting the kids’ hair, every time we’d go to get Adam’s hair cut, I’d watch very closely.  Really, it didn’t look THAT hard.  My mom used to do my hair until I moved out of the house and went to college!

So after 4 years of begging, he finally let me do it… about 2 months ago.  I didn’t do any research. I just cut his hair off the cuff.  It wasn’t until he started using terms like, “rounding the edges”,” texturing”, and “blending,”  that I realized there’s more to cutting hair than simply being scissor happy.  But gracious as my beloved is, he let me cut his hair anyway, and it came out good enough.

After the fact, I got smart and decided to “google” these terms.  And behold, I came across Expert Village! Score!  A video on how to cut men’s hair!  Once again I ask, What did we ever do without the internet!  Thanks to the video and the fact that my husband’s bushy hair is forgiving of my learning curve, I cut his hair again this morning saving us $15.  Much much better!