Uncommon Cents

Argh. I’m annoyed with myself.

I ordered a bunch of mini style (or “Moo” style, although I did not buy these from Moo) cards printed with info on my Livestrong Challenge effort, to ask people I met in real life to contribute to the cause. It took a few days but the cards–a thousand of them!–showed up at home.

And the URL to my Livestrong Challenge page… was misspelled.

I have no one to blame but the guy in the mirror. I didn’t proofread well enough.

What to do? I thought about ordering a new batch, but that seemed wasteful–not just in spending more money but in throwing out these cards that were otherwise perfectly usable. So instead, I decided to cover up the incorrect URL with a correct one by printing out the correct URL on self adhesive labels–which costs me about $8 and used the cards that were otherwise inaccurate, solving the problem and not wasting the cards, but still costing me lots of time, effort, and $8.

But of course, the best thing to do would have been to not make the error in the first place.

So in the end, I had a choice between a lot of waste and just some waste. I chose just some. If I had been more careful, there could have been no waste at all.

My dislike of the customer service of Sprint is legendary, but I have to say that the company does get quite a few things correct, and one of them is that they’ve offered customers like me a $5 one time credit for going to paperless statements.

This offer versus Discover’s $15,000 contest that you enter by going paperless.

From my perspective, I will take the $5 anytime. Thanks to Sprint for figuring this one out. And kudos to them for making such an offer. I think it’s a great thing for both themselves and their customers and I’ll take them up on it.

In fact, I already have.

For material goods, my answer is largely yes, although there are certainly exceptions. For instance, one of the things I own is a gasoline powered generator, which has been used three or four times in a couple of years–because it’s for emergencies; that’s an exception.

On the other hand, a few years ago after a truck break in, I bought a new lock for the door with the damaged lock. It never was installed, and with my more recent break in, the lock has been replaced. That was clearly just a waste of money.

Then again, there are other things that don’t get used but aren’t waste–although making some use of them when possible is wise. For instance, medical insurance–if not used, it can be a waste, but you really want it just in case. And, in most situations, you can make at least some use of it. Auto insurance is in many ways a necessity–often required if you drive–but it feels like a money sink if you never use it, until a cop pulls you over, anyway!

In any case, one of the ways to try to eliminate waste and clutter is to make use of the stuff you pay money for, however you’re able to!

My niece’s eighth birthday party was today. It was fun but also a perfect example of ways to waste time.

The party was at a local ice skating rink at lunch. My job was to take my mother to the party at “around lunch”. I asked several times when that would be and never got much of an answer until 8:30 this morning, when my mother said we needed to be there at 9:30.

“Are you sure? Because if we have to be there at 9:30, I have to shower now, and once I do that, I can’t do any work on the truck or go for a run like I was planning to,” I told my mother. I was instructed to shower now.

Turns out we didn’t need to be there until 11 am. That’s an hour and a half of daylight during a day off which I lost forever–time I was planning on using to change the oil in my truck and do a run in, but ended up putting off.

My sister, brother-in-law, and niece left first, my mother and I next. I had my mother call my sister as we found a large unopened container of napkins and wanted to make sure that they didn’t need it or anything else. My sister said she had everything.

Yet when we got to the party, the birthday cake was missing. It had been left at home, twelve miles away. I was nominated to retrieve it.

At the end of the day, due to poor planning, I lost two and a half daylight hours and drove 24 extra miles. None of those minutes nor that gasoline is recoupable–ever.

Spent some of the last few days walking through Ross Dress for Less, one of our local (although they are a national chain) discount type shops. I was searching for a new case for my iPod touch, which is noticeably tattered and beaten up. I didn’t find it.

I did find all kinds of other stuff, like a bunch of headset adapters for an iPhone (which I don’t own), airline headsets (I fly maybe twice a year), and a y connector to share music with someone next to me (which I’ve never done). I found a couple of nice new notebook bags, and some DVDs of old movies, Nike shoes, slacks, socks, CDs.

I left with nothing. Well, except a bit of squashed temptation.

Yes, the things in Ross were cheaper than they would have been at, say Macy’s, or even WalMart or Target. But despite all of that, they were still things I really didn’t need. Even if they cost less, they still cost–and there’s always the issue of the cost of clutter–but waste is still waste. So even shopping in discount stores is dangerous; going in with a purpose remains the way to go.

This is a no brainer as far as cost goes: the gym membership is typically a monthly expense; home equipment is a one time expense. In fact, so much home exercise equipment ends up being unused that you can often buy some for a song at garage sales or thrift stores.

That last sentence, however, bears some examination. Why does so much home exercise equipment end up unused? Is it because the buyer bought the wrong thing? Or that they’re lazy? Or that they lack the expertise to use it properly? Hard to say.

There are some people who say that because they know they’re paying for a membership they’re motivated to go; others say that having personal trainers available makes the membership worthwhile. Still others point to the social aspects of the club. All of these have merit to some extent, and of course, what price health? But it is possible to make decisions frugally when it comes to working out; just consider your costs and whether you’ll actually use what you spend money on, because that is the ultimate test of frugality–making use of what you buy and not wasting.

I occasionally take a look through thrift stores, such as Salvation Army, Goodwill, and Savers, usually for electronic or computer gear. This weekend I happened to find a version 2 Linksys WRT54G wireless router.

For the computer Geek, this is the hackable router of choice (even though it’s not as fast as newer models). The frequently seen blue box router (at least in its early incarnations and one of its modern variants, the WRT54GL) runs open source code in its firmware. This router is so hackable that there’s even a book dedicated to doing just that. Eventually this led to the development of third party firmware like DD-WRT and Tomato which offers tons of additional features such as boosting antenna power, Quality of Service control, bridging, wireless distribution (to extend the range of your wireless network) and others. So I was pleased to find a Linksys WRT54G at Savers.

The first issue I faced was confirming that this version of the router was compatible with the third party firmware I wanted to use, followed by the second issue–there was no power adapter with the router. A bit of searching on Google found the specs I needed, and I actually found a wall wart for it at Savers which they were willing to include for the $14.99 price. A quick stop at their electronic test table showed that the LEDs lit up, and turning on my iPod touch indicated there was a wireless signal, although the router was secured.

A little more research once I got home told me how to reset the router to factory specifications (meaning it was no longer locked down), and a download and a few minutes later, I had the router running Tomato. So a bit of hunting in the thrift store, some Internet research, $15, and a little do it yourself determination and I’ve got a great router that I use either as a backup to my main router, a wireless access point, a wireless to wired bridge, a wireless extender, a firewall, or to lend out to a friend who has trouble with their stuff.

What a deal that is!

In a discussion last night on Twitter, the concept of “quiet time” to try to get children to settle down and focus on necessary tasks (like homework) came up. I added to the discussion that quiet time is positive for adults too.

One of the things I’ve done that’s helped me be more productive and reduced waste in my life was getting rid of my television. While I acknowledge I watch a little bit of video on the Web (and a few but not many DVDs), it was one of the ways that I realized that minimizing distractions would boost productivity.

There’s been little themes on this that I’ve been picking up. For instance, while I often use an iPod, I will just as often have some in ear earbuds on with no iPod attached (or at least nothing playing), serving as more socially acceptable earplugs. The Mac OS X text editor WriteRoom boasts a no distraction environment which also harkens back to my Apple II days in appearance (try green text on a black background!). And if you’re using a Mac and want a fresh start, just create a new account and see how that goes.

There’s a certain power to quiet that can’t be duplicated elsewhere; it’s the opposite of trying to hard. See if setting aside more quiet makes a difference in your life!

I pride myself on doing a decent job of gift selection. I try to get things that I think my friend will use and appreciate, because nothing spells waste more than a white elephant.

Giving appropriate, desired, and useful gifts means that the giver really has to know the recipient and give things that are in line with what the receiver really wants. Sometimes it’s just knowing someone’s favorite store (my friend who loves Ann Taylor frequently ends up with gift cards from that store from me, because I know she’ll use them and appreciate them. A friend of mine who loves wine, dislikes big businesses, and is into organic products often gets locally produced organic wine.

On the other hand, reversing those two gifts would not really make sense; my first friend isn’t really interested in organic wine, and my second friend would not be very likely to buy clothes from Ann Taylor, so gifts need to be specialized for the person receiving them. There’s no such thing as a one size fits all gift!

There may be one exception to all of that, however: cash.

In any event, what I really don’t want is for the gift I give to end up not being used; that’s a waste of dollars all around. I try my best to make sure what I give makes sense for whomever receives it.

As chronicled a couple of days ago, my out of pocket cost for the damage done to my truck is at least $724–$500 for the deductible, the rest for the rental car–so far. My truck is out of commission until next week Friday, and possibly longer (does anyone think that the truck will actually be ready the day after American Thanksgiving?). 

The real issue regarding the money isn’t so much the $724 being spent (although it’s not like that doesn’t hurt), but the fact that that $724 can’t be spent on anything else. I was hoping to get a head start on my 2009 Roth IRA contribution, but that’s out the window; I was thinking I could pad my emergency fund a little, but instead, I’m needing to dip into it a bit; and I was hoping it would allow for a little more to be spent on holiday presents, but now it might cause a little less on them.

This is real life opportunity cost–I’ve lost the opportunity, at least for now, to use the money for things I’d like to and instead for things I have to. Often, however, opportunity cost is time, and while more money can be made, once time is gone, it’s gone, and it’ll never be recouped.

For me, time that’s been lost has been the time I spent waiting for the police and the tow truck on Monday night; time trading phone calls with GEICO and the shop; time I spent taking off early from work on Thursday to pick up the rental, including waiting in line and waiting for shuttles; and time I’ve spent figuring out what items I’ve lost or been unable to use because of the whole incident. That’s time I’ll never get back, and time I could have spent on all kinds of projects, personal and professional–that’s real opportunity cost, or, more to the point, opportunity lost.

While I wish this whole thing had never happened, it has–I can’t change that. But the $724 (and counting) is just part of what the incident is costing me; the time, which I can never get back, is the other part of it, and that is the much bigger loss.