Category Archives: Frugality

Frugal Activities

Am I Too Frugal, or Just Cheap

by

First, for some great stories about real clever frugal tips, let me refer you to the site called Frugal Confessions that Amanda runs.  It’s a great resource for great frugal stories, and other smart, money-saving activities (which obviously I’m a fan of!).

I have a frugal confession to make:  I cancelled my cellular phone service over a year ago.  In fact, owning a smart phone is one way that I’ve saved money for years, ready my old article called “Frugal Confessions: I do not own a cell phone” back in 2011.

Motorola Defy XT Republic Wireless Phone

Am I insane?  Perhaps, but maybe not… let me explain…

When I was blogging more, the phone made sense because I used it daily for work.  Lately, I haven’t been up to snuff though and post sporadically at best, so I cancelled my service last year.

First, my job requires that I have a company issued smart phone.  The company smart phone is very restricted in usage and everything about it is monitored and logged.  I use to jokingly refer to it as an electronic lease, but lately, that analogy is pretty accurate!  Think Big Brother, but much, much worse since it also tracks my position via GPS coordinates.

Now I do still have my old smart phone, so I’m not totally flying blind since the apps on the phone work if I go through a wireless router (which is practically everywhere anymore except when on the road traveling).  So I do have apps like twitter, Facebook, etc that are still usable via my old smart phone…

But the real question is… Am I Too Frugal, or just Cheap?

I was frugal in the past because the cellular services were expensive, but these days I could get a decent and affordable cellular plan from a site like republic wireless and still receive a decent value for the money.  So these days, I think the too “Frugality vs Cheap” scale has tilted to the “Cheap” side a bit too much.  Especially considering you can get cellular plans that averages less than $20 at republic wireless.

I’ll probably take the leap… next year (maybe)…

Bests,

Don

 

The Beauty Of Robotics and Technology

by

In my last article called the Pros and Cons Of Automation, I think I let the Cons win over the Pros.

I can envision a future world where cameras will be able to record practically everything in a city or even towns.  It’s not as far-fetched as you would imagine.  Some may say, that the cost wouldn’t make it feasible, but I bet a similar argument was presented with respect to street lights in the distant past.  In fact thinking about it, it might even be possible to leverage street lights poles and wiring for such monitoring system today.

Another example is that we are able to do practically everything through our computer!  For example, I’ve recently heard of a way to buy life insurance online, whereas just a few years ago when I applied for more life insurance through my employer, they sent out a nurse for blood work tests and I had to mail a form into my workplace.  My how times have changed!

Someday, we might even all have robotic servants that manage and protect us, our homes and property.  Why have watch dogs when you can have security robots patrolling your yard for practically the cost of just charging their battery or whatever power system is in place at that future time.  If these security robots or systems detect an intruder, they can call the authorities and act as a defensive deterrent.  Hopefully, such systems won’t be outfitted with any type of lethal weaponry.

Are they are in control?

Are they are in control?

Let’s say that your home fire alarm system detects a fire, well perhaps you have a robotic system that can handle putting out the fire right away.  Such a robotic system could be specialized or just a general robot with such functionality built-in.  Personally, I’d rather have small robotic systems that are specialized to handle such emergencies.

Robots could do such things as help you remember important dates, change the oil in your car, do shopping for you when your inventory in the host get’s low, do labor that use to be manual such as mowing the lawn, or dishes, or practically anything that you use to do yourself.  Google has already created a car that can drive itself (although it’s still a decent way from becoming reality).

I could even see it come to a point where robots start to perform medical and legal assistance for their owners.  Perhaps a medical robot could do tests to monitor your health, including blood work and the like.  The tasks that robots can perform could be very empowering, especially if you are disabled or elderly.

I’ve just scratched the surface about what is possible with Robotics and Technology!  For example, what if robots pushed their experiences to some kind of tech cloud?  Then all robots of a particular model type could use such shared knowledge to increase their value to their owners.  Shoot, the procedures could even be discarded after the task is complete, and then downloaded again when needed.  Kind of spooky but cool huh!

The future could be pretty amazing!

Don

Frugally Using The Library As Part Of My Mobile Office

by

Today, I decided to give everybody an oral peak in my business settings, and in particular how I us a mobile office instead of a set location.

First off, I don’t have an official office, or at least one dedicated to my side businesses.  I guess you could call my “laptop and laptop case” my official office, because wherever I go with it, I can do work and be productive!  To be honest though, I probably spend at least 60% of my time in a spare bedroom that has a desktop computer in it as my “unofficial” office!  While I don’t use the desktop as much as I use my laptop while I’m in the room, sometimes I do have both up doing work.  When a guest stays the night, I go down into our media/library room and work there instead (I really do love having a laptop!).

At work I’m limited, my employer has a proxy server than limits me from going to sites such as gmail.com, etc…  So instead I use the local library (which is about 2 miles away) as a critical part of my mobile “side business” office!  Using the library as a mobile office has served me well for years.  I go at lunch so the crowd is minimal (maybe 10 people come and go the entire hour that I’m there), and it’s naturally quiet.  Internet access is provided, the air is perfect with heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer, and there is even a small pond outside if I want to escape for a second and take nature in.  In may ways it’s like a Corporate Park area!

Lately, I’ve been using my time at the library to do research and learn more.  Why pay someone to teach you when you have a wireless connection at the library, not to mention all the books I could pickup and read…  The library is something that we all pay taxes to run and a lot of us just let it go to waste?  Why not take advantage of the potential to use it as a mobile office?  Plus, when you are traveling, most cities have their own library, just sitting there, neglected, waiting from someone to come in and use the great free services!

It I were retired or had enough money to stop living my life in a cubicle, I would take advantage of the great mobile office like environment that libraries provide!  I would then travel more, using the mobile office setting that is available in almost every city (and most of them provide internet access at their library too).

If your on vacation, the local Library’s mobile office is just sitting there like a  faithful dog, waiting for you to pay it some attention!

Even if you don’t like the library, perhaps go to one and try it out for an hour.  Try to think of it as a mobile office instead of a place to borrow books, you might surprise yourself and find that you can do a lot of work there!  For instance, this entire article was written at the library that is less than 2 miles away from where I work…

It’s free!!!  Try it, you may find that it beats paying big bucks to rent office space!

Bests,

Don

Saving Money Repairing Your Own Dryer

by

Repairing Your Own Dryer.

After a great vacation at Hilton Head Island, I came back home to find out the dryer wouldn’t heat anymore!  It seems like there it’s becoming more common that after a vacation, I come back home to find out that something is broken and I need to put in some time to fix it.  Last year it was a leaky plumbing, this year its wet clothes…

Now my dryer is well over 10 years old, and at first I thought that perhaps it’s time pitch it and the washer to the curb and dig in deep into my pockets and buy a new washer and dryer… until I realized that each are around $700, and that’s for lower end  models.

I know, the new dryers will make your toasted cheese sandwiches (kidding), but a dryer’s main function is to dry clothes, so I don’t need the newest most aesthetically designed washer and dryer… I’m more of a function kind of guy.  If it does its job, I’m happy!  And other than the heat not working, I’m more than happy to keep our old, cheap dryer (and washer too)!

After googling with the following keywords “dryer stops heating after a while”, I read and watch a few videos that lead me to believe that the problem was probably a worn out coil (solenoid coil actually).  So after googling with the key words “Frigidaire dryer gas coil”, I found the following awesome video!  This explained the entire process!

Next I googled the correct part number and found the replacements for the coils, but they ran over $30, so instead I tried ebay!  I found the part for $9 including shipping!  Nine bucks?  For that price, I considered it worth the risk…  So I bought the coils without hesitation since they were so cheap!

DIY Savings

I estimate that I saved myself at least $150 to $250 depending on the repairman doing the job!  Not to shabby for a little bit of Googling and elbow greese!

And there you have it!  My story of fixing my dyer for a very low ($9) price.

Bests,

Don