SharonAndAdam.com

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!

Storing up for the Winter

I don’t know about you, but I’m irate at the rising cost of just about EVERYTHING!   Gas, food, electricity!  Also with Adam’s job situation, I’ve been looking for ways to tighten the budget.  I run a pretty tight budget to begin with and it’s been a challenge to tighten it even more.

This summer I have really been trying to streamline our grocery budget.  Locally the big supermarket here is HEB.  I’m the type of shopper that only buys produce and meat that is on sale.  I really love HEB, but their “sale” prices aren’t cutting it for our growing family and most of the stuff they have on sale is processed food–which I don’t buy.  Of course there are the super Wal-marts and Targets, but I’m not a big shopper at either of those.  But I did find another little local gem for produce: Sun Harvest.  They have great produce and great sales–and their ads are online too!  And by great sales, I mean you can get great fruits and vegetables for less than $1 a pound.  I can’t remember the last time I got anything for less than a $1 a pound at HEB.  Their sale prices are usually $0.50 less than the same item at HEB.  I picked up some ears of corn last week 4 for $1 and froze them (with some help from Mom Gretencord).  The zucchini was on sale last week($0.77/ lb) and I used those for Adam’s zucchini soup.   It’s not too out of our way for us either because it’s very close to our parish.  Between our weekly Holy Hour on Wednesdays (their double ad day) and Mass on Saturdays, we can easily stock up on good sale items and store up for the winter!

Homemade Laundry Detergent!

Our friends the Ceys left us some of their homemade laundry detergent because they didn’t want to haul it to Canada and the movers wouldn’t haul it to to their new home.  I was very impressed with it. So much so that I can’t wait to start making my own!

I found a couple of sites if you’d like to try it too.   There is a great recipe at Debt-Proof Living. And the author of The Simple Dollar has a visual guide to making your own detergent.   It turns out to be about 3 cents per load if you make your own detergent and about 7 to 22 cents per load for store brand.

The Toilets have Arrived

Since this turned out to be such a popular topic, I thought I’d follow up on the story. I faxed in the application on Tuesday, February 5 and received my voucher before the weekend. I was instructed to pick up the toilets out at Ferguson Enterprises.

Ferguson’s gave me everything I needed for installation: wax ring, flange bolts, and a seat. A new flange will cost you if yours needs to be replaced.

The first thing I have to say that I like about the Niagara is that it’s ready to go right out of the box with the exception of mounting the tank on the bowl. With that being said they’ve even made that easier with a flat bowl-to-tank gasket.

If you’ve ever had to install a tank on a bowl with one of those rounded rubber gaskets you know the frustration I’m talking about: the balancing act of constantly readjusting the tank until it’s level and squared with the wall. This here just sits flat on the bowl.

As I mentioned before, the Niagara uses a “flapperless” design that dumps a bucket of water into the tank. Something you have to get comfortable with is flushing the handle all the way down in a quick motion to get the full effect.

And now here’s something I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for:

Whoo wee, wasn’t that something!? So you can see it performs quite well under a liquid simulation. One thing you may have noticed is that the valve continues to “hiss” after the bucket is filled. This is due once again to Fluidmaster’s lousy craftsmanship. I have never been pleased with their normal replacement fill valves. They never seem to shut off completely no matter how low you set the float. Fortunately for the Niagara it does stop after a few minutes, but I’ll hold this complaint against it – I wish they’d gone with another vendor besides Fluidmaster.

While I could look for a recipe to create the soybean paste used for the Maximum Performance (MaP™) testing procedures for my own solids simulation, I’m just going to leave you with the results already given: it rates at 500 grams per flush. I believe this is quite acceptable considering 250 grams is the minimum requirement to pass the test. If you’re the type of person who needs to experience a powerful, full-on gravitational force then you’re not going to be happy with the Niagara. I would describe it as more of a “washing” than a “suction”.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this little marketing piece. Have you ever felt this good about a toilet?

Free Toilets

My procrastination has paid off! The city of Austin has resurrected the Free Toilet Program. If you live in the Austin area and have a commode installed earlier than 1996, look into replacing it with a high-performance HET (high-efficiency toilet) that uses only 1.28 gallons with each flush.

We recently replaced the 5 gpf toilet in the guest bathroom with an efficient 1.6 gpf model under the normal Toilet Rebate program which only cost us $25 after the rebate. Beforehand I wasn’t entirely sure of the performance of these more efficient models – which is a common concern. I can now say with much assurance that I’m not disappointed.

That being said, the 1.6 gpf models have pretty much the same mechanics as the old models. The Niagara EcoLogic however uses a “flapperless” design. I’m not sure what’s in store should it start to fail, which I hope doesn’t happen in the near future. There aren’t too many reviews on this particular brand but HETs are becoming widely used in new homes. Regardless, it’s a free toilet. So, in our small efforts to “go green” (and save money) we’re going to take a leap of faith, put our trust in the city of Austin, and replace the remaining two “water-wasters” in our home with HETs.

Fixing a Dryer

As my beloved mentioned in an earlier post, I was indeed up until 2:30am the other morning diagnosing the dryer’s problem. [My wife's words were all too kind. I am undeserving of such a loving spouse]. No sooner had she told me the clothes dryer wasn’t working, I instantly responded “Call a repairman.” This is totally unlike me and even caught Sharon off guard. Normally I’d at least try to find out what the problem is before bringing in the calvary. My fear was that I assumed it would have something to do with electricity, and still not having found a solution for my scooter’s electrical woes I didn’t want to have anything to do with that appliance. However, my wonderful spouse gave me the reassurance I needed to at least try.

It turns out the dryer is probably one of the simplest home appliances you can fix. Probably the most common problem that occurs with a dryer is that it still runs but there’s no heat. I gathered quite a bit of information from a few sites (namely here and here) so I compiled the steps I followed here for anyone’s future need:

1. Check your service panel. See if the circuit breaker for the dryer has been tripped. A dryer typically runs on 240 volts so it’ll be operating on a dual-breaker. Make sure both are positioned on. It was suggested flipping them both on and off a few times to make sure they’re reset. The dryer’s motor can run on only 1 circuit, but the heating element requires both.
2. Check your receptacle. If both circuit-breakers are on check that you are in fact getting 240 volts at the outlet. At this point, I highly recommend getting a multimeter, particularly one with a beeping continuity tester. This is a handy inexpensive device you can get at Fry’s or Radio Shack. If you’re only getting 120 volts at the receptacle you probably have a faulty breaker.
3. Check the air flow. Turn the dryer on to a setting without heat and head outside to the vent. Make sure there is good airflow. If not, the dryer may in fact be able to produce heat but there’s no where to move it. This could cause a fire. Clean out the exhaust vents immediately. You should do this anyway while you’re at it.
4. Test electrical components. Now comes the fun stuff. Unplug the dryer. You’ll need to locate, disconnect, and test a few items for continuity using your multimeter. This page pretty much lists all the potential culprits. I suggest try locating a parts diagram for your dryer. Luckily Sears Parts Direct had mine online which made locating and testing the components a snap. You can also test a part by bypassing it and see if the dryer heats up. If it does, do not continue operating it with the bypass.
5. Once you find the defective part, get the part number from your diagram, open your Yellow Pages to “Appliances – Parts and Service” and start calling around. You’ll save a few bucks on shipping if you can find the part locally.
6. Replace your part and run the dryer for a few minutes without any load.

In our case it was the thermal cut-off. The continuity test failed and sure enough the heating element lit up when the cut-off was bypassed. I found the part (also packaged with a new thermostat) for $25 at Appliance Associates. Who knows how much I saved by not calling the repairman. Good thing my wife still has faith in me.

Broker’s Price Opinion

Home ownership has been an interesting adventure.  From buying the house to maintaining it to making improvements, it’s been an opportunity for Adam and I to learn so much more. 

In my attempt to be the financially savy one of our marriage, I’m always looking for ways to save money.  So I always read any financial magazine that comes in the mail with keen interest.  About 6 months ago, I came across an article on how to save on your home mortgage payment.  Essentially the article said, if you didn’t put 20% down on your home or take out two mortgages (one for 80% and the other for the remainder of the principle that you didn’t put down on your home when purchased), then you’re probably paying mortgage insurance on your home.  We fall into the those who were paying mortgage insurance.  Usually if you’re paying two mortgage payments, then your interest rates are higher than if you’re just paying for one.  At the time we bought our home interest rates were really low and we didn’t want to pass that up.

But the article went on to say that if you’re property value has gone up, it’s likely that you have the 20-25% equity on your home to be able to cancel your mortgage insurance.  So I made a call to our mortgage lender and inquired what it would take to cancel on mortgage insurance.  The first call was not encouraging or helpful as I really didn’t know what all these things meant and the customer service rep didn’t pity my ignorance.  But all he said was it would take $350 to get our house reappraised by someone from their company.  The assessed value by our county appraisal district was not suffient for their records.  So then I asked my big brother who happens to be a chief appraiser for a county in south texas what all this meant and I asked our realtor, Therese’s Godfather and good friend, Jeff Kress, for some further clarification.  Both said I should get it done but have a list of compareable sales for my home to hand to the person that comes out.  These can be obtained from your county appraisal district.  But Jeff sent me some too. 

So after sitting on it and being unsure for a couple of months, I reread the paperwork the mortgage company sent.  Basically the only conditions I could get the house reappraised was if their were “structural” improvements to it–like adding a deck, swimming pool, etc.  Things like re-siding, re-flooring, remodeling a room are not considered structural improvements.  BUT, if there aren’t structural improvements and the market value of the home has increase (i.e. what your home would sell for if you sold it today), one can order what’s called a Broker’s Price Opinion or BPO.  And that only costs $150.  Then I called the mortgage company back to make sure I understood all this correctly, and I did. 

So I sent in my $150 to get the BPO.  Two weeks ago someone came out to take pictures of the house.  I handed him the copies of the compareable sales Jeff sent me and waited. And waited.

Yesterday I checked the mail.  And a revision to our mortgage statement came in!  And it didn’t have the mortgage insurance cost in there anymore!  Woohoo!!!  We’ll be saving $93.24 per month.  Thank you Lord!

I don’t know if this is just a chance you take when you buy a home whether to have one mortgage payment and pay the insurance, or have two and pay the higher interest rates.  I think most people who have done the cost analysis elect for the two payments because they assume they would be paying the insurance until they pay down their principle (for us that would have probably been another 10 or 11 years!) and they neglect or aren’t told about this other option if the market value of the home increases.    Something to consider I suppose the next time you buy a home.