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Posted
Jan 02 2008, 04:49 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Frankly, auto maintenance has always scared me. All I've ever "fixed" are wiper blades, headlights and taillights. The extent of my under-the-hood knowledge is how to check and top off oil, antifreeze and windshield washer fluid. I've never changed my own oil because I didn't want to deal with the waste material.
That's why I recently found myself using an Entertainment Book coupon to get a lube, oil and filter service for $15.88. When I paid, the counter guy said my battery was on its way out. A replacement would retail for about $119.99, but he could get me one for $89.99.
I know less about cars than about doing my own taxes. Still, that seemed a little high. Maybe I could do better on my own -- but that would mean installing it myself.
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Posted
Jun 24 2009, 03:09 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Your cell phone, pager or iPod has fallen into the toilet bowl, swimming pool or kitchen sink full of water. You fish it out. After you've washed your hands -- depending on the circumstance -- what can you do?
FiscalGeek offers five techniques for restoring the gadget to life in a post called "Frugal fix: Revive your cell phone or electronic devices from water damage." He starts with his "go-to" method, which involves rubbing alcohol.
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Posted
May 30 2008, 04:07 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Shannon Christman isn't poor, but she is frugal, and sometimes other people confuse the two. On occasion, salespeople have snubbed her -- and missed out on making a sale. Sometimes generous people offer help when it's not needed. Her thought-provoking post at Saving Advice should raise questions in any thinking person's mind about how quickly we make judgments about others. She also says, "The assumptions others make about my frugality -- usually that I have much less money than I actually do -- can be a benefit to me."
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Posted
Dec 03 2008, 07:43 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
An old friend recently got a job after being first underemployed and then unemployed. One day at noon her new boss noticed she hadn't left her desk. "Aren't you going to have any lunch?" he asked.
Well, no, she wasn't. There'd been barely enough in the house to make brown-bag lunches for her kids. My friend lied brightly about wanting to work through her lunch hour so she could finish on time for once.
It's bad enough to be on the financial edge. It really stinks to be put on the spot, too.
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Posted
Sep 03 2008, 02:12 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Better gas mileage can be had from what used to be standard in cars -- the manual transmission, or stick shift. But how many drivers know how to use one these days?
It's a lost art, but a very efficient one. For its October issue, Consumer Reports bought two versions of seven different cars -- ranging from a $15,800 Scion to a $24,000 Mini Cooper -- and found a gain of 2 to 5 mpg with a standard versus automatic transmission in the same model.
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Posted
Sep 22 2007, 05:06 PM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Re-used any dental floss lately?
All together now: Eeeewwww!
Yet a reader of the Smart Spending message board knows a guy who did this. "There’s nothing grosser than dental floss hanging over the towel rack," said the reader, who posts as "Willowtears."
Sure there is. How about the folks who flush their toilet only once a day? Or the guy who would re-use wash water "until it was black"? Or the woman whose mom strained and re-used cooking oil regardless of pedigree: "Doughnut-flavored taquitos, yum."
All this came from the "Most Extreme Savings Tactics" thread on the message board. I’m pretty extreme myself, but I flush my toilet each and every time, thanks.
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Posted
Mar 31 2008, 09:48 AM
by
Donna Freedman
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
When I wrote "Surviving and thriving on $12,000 a year," some people thought it was a scam. They wrote notes to the editor along the lines of, "Come on, nobody could really live on that." The fact is, plenty of people in this country live on less.
These days, some readers ask whether this part-time writing job changed things. As I noted in the follow-up to the original article, my life changed but my lifestyle didn't. The additional income has let me visit family, invest in decent shoes, and buy the occasional rotisserie chicken.
I still hate to pay retail, though.
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 06:00 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
How do we know there's such a thing as too much frugality in the kitchen? Because Marge Simpson once said to her daughter: "Lisa, I made you some homemade Pepsi for the dance; it's a little thick but the price is right." That's from the excellent post "Cutting calories and saving d'oh: 25 lessons 'The Simpsons' taught me about cheap, healthy eating" at Cheap Healthy Good. The author, Kris, is the most entertaining food-and-frugality blogger out there, but we think she's outdone herself with this one.
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Posted
Apr 13 2009, 04:08 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Some may consider homemade deodorant another example of frugality taken to ridiculous extremes -- on par with rewashing Ziploc bags, making laundry detergent, or not flushing after every pit stop.
But isn't the real issue: Does it work?
Two personal-finance bloggers directed their readers to a recipe from Little House in the Suburbs, which starts with this statement: "In the DIY world of home health and beauty products, deodorant seems to be the most feared replacement."
If homemade appeals to your frugal nature, or you're allergic to store-bought antiperspirants, this DIY deodorant may hold promise.
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Posted
Nov 14 2008, 09:22 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Kate at Living the Frugal Life has some tips that remind us of a Montana winter years ago. Making little money early in our career, we set the thermostat at 60 degrees. That was that. Years later, when hard times hit, we reverted to those frugal ways. To this day, the programmable thermostat never goes above 63 in winter. Do we sometimes get cold? Yes. Do we suffer? No. We know that Kate's advice works.
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