Uncommon Cents

One of my personal finance blogging buddies is Squawkfox, a Canadian female who is athletic (finishing two Ironman Triathalons), educated (in topics as diverse as journalism and computer science), and irrepressibly female (she’s posted underwear pictures–just the undies, not her in them!–on her blog multiple times). Squawkfox recently put out a free for subscribers eBook called Frugal Food & Fitness–55 pages of material that are not available on her blog.

The book is split into three parts: Frugal Food, Meals and Recipies, and Frugal Fitness. Just the fact that the material presented here is new–meaning not on her blog–is amazing. As a blogger myself, I find it very hard to believe another blogger who posts as often as Squawkfox does has the time to come up with a 55 page book of original material, but apparently she does.

Squawkfox is an aspiring photographer, and this book shows it. She does lots of food photography in this book (this is not an easy subject to photograph, trust me!) to go along with some general and specific information on food (including quite a bit of education on the whys and hows of soaking dried beans–including frugal reasons as well as educational ones). The second part of the book–the recipes–may be the most practical. They are cheap, fast to make, and the ones I tried were great! In particular I liked the Spaghetti with Sneaky Black Eyed Pea Sauce (I’m a sucker for pasta). Finally, our author comes up with some great ideas on how to get into fitness frugally. As a cyclist and runner myself, I try to encourage the same kinds of activities. Squawkfox does a great job of giving bite sized suggestions as to how to get going on improving your physical condition.

In conclusion, I really like this eBook, and the price is unbeatable (the only way it would be better is if she paid me to read it). Squawkfox does a great job of taking some very basic needs–food and exercise–and making them seem easy and fun for people to take on, as well as frugal. All in all, I would call this a great job by one of my fellow personal finance bloggers. Well done, Squawkfox!

I’ve written briefly about the Drain King in the past. Basically, it’s a great alternative to potentially harmful (both to your pipes and the environment) Liquid Plumr which can handle far more difficult clogs than your typical plunger can. If you’ve got a clogged drain and you want to avoid calling the plumber, you may want to try this.

I have used Drain King for years. I recently needed to use it twice within a month; once for my mom’s shower drain and once for my own. I was considering doing a video on it, but I found this one available already on YouTube (note: the video is not in English but it does a great job of showing how to use the Drain King, except I don’t believe the Drain King is recommended for toilets, which they also show. Please read the instructions carefully and remember, I’m not a plumber, I’m just a social worker, blogger, and happy Drain King user):

The way I figure it, every time I use Drain King I probably keep $100 or more in my pocket. If that’s not frugal, I don’t know what is!

Welcome to your Link Payday for August 5, 2008. I took a vacation during these past couple weeks and traveled halfway across the country and back, but during that time Uncommon Cents didn’t miss a beat and neither did the rest of the personal finance blogosphere, so here are some posts I found interesting over the last couple of weeks:

My fellow cyclist and personal finance blogger, Squawkfox, has released an eBook! It’s her first, it’s free, and it’s called Frugal Food & Fitness: Get fab without spending a fortune. It’s 55 pages long and contains some original material, great photography and frugal yet healthy recipies. It’s available only to Squawkfox subscribers, so if you’re not already checking out her RSS feed, I strongly suggest you start today!

The ever fabulous Kyle of Rather-Be-Shopping is ticked off and lets us know it, but sounds perfectly justified in his article Frugality in Practice: Only Buy What You Can Afford, Please! Trust me, Kyle, I feel the same way. Exactly the same.

David at My Two Dollars brings to us a great and simple rule for personal finance success and shows us how he put it into practice with his great post Following the Rule of 10% is Easy and the Savings Add Up. If everyone in America followed a rule like this, we’d be in so much better shape than we are right now.

Online Savings Blog makes me wish we had Redbox available in the state with their figuring out How to Get Free Movie Rentals at Redbox. It’s exactly the kind of frugal hack that I would love to put into practice!

Finally, one of my favorite bloggers, Mrs. Micah, puts the spotlight on her blog consulting services in the first of a series on blogging, Introducting my Meta Blog and Three Posts on Blogging. If you need help with setting up or otherwise maintaining a blog, I would suggest looking into the services Mrs. Micah has to offer; if she’s half as talented with that as with doing the actual blog, it’ll be worth twice what she charges!

And that’s your Link Payday for August 5, 2008!

Twitter is a difficult to explain, technically challenged (Fail Whale, anyone?), but very popular and incredibly useful social networking site. Initially introduced as a kind of microblog (limited to 140 characters), it’s become a way to communicate, connect, and share your personal and professional goings on, request information, and hook up with fellow Twitterers.

Nowhere was the use of these more evident than in recent weeks. I needed a few of these battery packs from Radio Shack, but not badly enough to pay for shipping or go to one out of my way (I had already visited five that were on my usual routes through the week). So I simply Twittered my need, and one of my blogging buddies came to my rescue by picking up three of them. One of my other Twitter buddies let me know about a sale on generators at a local auto parts store, so I recently picked one up in case of emergency. I gave back similarly when one of my Twitter friends was looking for a fast place to get a safety inspection done for his vehicle, so I was able to suggest somewhere that was relatively nearby and very fast.

The uses go on. One of my friends lets us know what kind of specials on music Amazon is running every day; others organize get togethers (TweetUps) where Twitterers can gather. Others promote their blogs or other projects. There are many, many uses of Twitter–why not join today? You can follow me if you’d like; I’m @rsuenaga; just say you found me via my blog and I’ll be more than happy to follow back!

Here’s what I did myself to save a few bucks this week:

Repaired the damaged derailleur hanger on my Cannondale.

Changed the chain on the same bike.

Fixed a flat on (you guessed it) the same bike.

Unclogged my mom’s shower.

Changed my truck’s battery.

Tools needed for all of those jobs: Allen wrench set, chain tool, tire irons, Drain King (which has never failed me!) and an adjustable wrench. I had all of these already; if I didn’t, I think I could have gotten them all for under $30 pretty easily.

Time needed for all of those jobs: less than three hours, not counting the time waiting for the hanger to come in the mail or for the guy at Sears to finish with the two customers in front of me while I carried in my battery.

Dollars not spent on a bike mechanic, plumber, or auto mechanic: I would guess about $100.

Grief saved by not spending dollars I don’t want to and time saved not waiting around for a bike mechanic/plumber/auto mechanic: priceless.

(No, I didn’t pay with MasterCard).

(Note: the author’s performing of the hard drive swap detailed in this article definitely voids the warranty on the external drive and could result in damaging or at least voiding the warranty on the MacBook; if you are not comfortable doing such a procedure, then consult a professional! Of course, if you have some do-it-yourself ingenuity and you want to save a few dollars, proceed with caution…)

I was planning to get a MacBook to replace my aging iBook this year, although not quite when I actually got it. One of the areas where I wanted to upgrade the MacBook was in the storage area–the 160 gigabyte hard drive was decently large, but a 320 gigabyte hard drive is (obviously) twice as big and a bit faster. There apparently was only one model of drive of this capacity–the largest capacity drive that physically fits in my MacBook–available, the Western Digital Scorpio 320 GB SATA, model WD3200BEVT. I noticed that this past week the 320 was on sale at Best Buy, with a catch–it was in an external case as a USB drive!

In doing my research, I discovered that it appears this drive mechanism is used in several different external hard drives by both Western Digital and Simpletech. I also found out through my research how to open both of these external cases to get the drive mechanism out, and how to replace the drive on the MacBook. I am not a novice to these types of operations, so if you are, proceed with caution if at all!

You’ll need a few tools, a couple that are hardware and a couple that are software:

A #1 mini-Phillips screwdriver–your typical “large” screwdriver in a jeweler’s screwdriver set, which is typically available for a buck (the whole kit) at a 99 cent store;

A Torx T-8 driver (which is -not- mentioned in the Apple instructions for the hard drive–you can make do with an appropriately sized straight blade jeweler’s screwdriver, but it is not an ideal solution);

Disk Utility (included with Mac OS X) to format the new drive;

A disk cloning program–two candidates on the Mac are Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!. For this, I used SuperDuper!, which offered the drive cloning functionality at no cost.

After plugging the external drive into the MacBook’s USB ports (it took both ports to power the drive), I used Disk Utility to format the drive. When partitioning–choose the partition button when hilighting the external drive, even if you only want to have a single partition–click the options button and make sure to choose “GUID Partition Table”. After that, start up your disk cloning program and clone the internal drive to the 320 gig external drive; this will take some time. When this is done, I’d go ahead and start up from the external drive just to make sure this actually works–if it doesn’t , start over; it’s likely you’re failing to choose “GUID Partition Table” when partitioning.

Once you have a bootable external drive, it’s time for the surgery. This GearHack article shows how to open the case (while it’s a different model of drive, the instructions are perfect, except the interface board is way smaller and only attached to the drive by friction–no need to use the screwdriver there, just pull off the interface board) You can also peel off (at least I could) the sticker, although not without a small amount of damage to it rather than poke holes through it to get to the concealed Phillips screws. This Acrobat file from Apple shows how to get the internal drive out of the MacBook, but it fails to discuss how to remove the drive from the sled. You’ll need the above mentioned Torx driver or you can make due with an appropriately sized flat bladed jeweler’s screwdriver. After that, simply reverse the instructions after swapping drives; I ended up with a 320 gig internal drive in my MacBook and a 160 gig external drive (that has the bonus of only using one of my USB ports for power!).

And there you have it; yet another example of how to spend a few bucks less with some do it yourself ingenuity. If I wanted to recoup a few more dollars, I could sell the external now 160 gig drive for maybe $50 to $70, which would drastically reduce the cost of the upgrade. Be careful with this one and have fun!

What kinds of things are you willing to do yourself in the name of frugality? Frugal Dad recently blogged about his adventure in toilet repair; one of the things I’m planning on taking up in the next few days is growing vegetables at home, particularly after a blog post indicating the return on investment might be as high as 200 times!

What about maintaining your own car or truck?

I ask this question because I took my truck in for routine alignment this past week (routine because I have a lifetime alignment agreement with a national chain, so I take the truck in every six months whether it’s steering weird or not) and the nice lady in line in front of me agreed to pay the place $16 to change a light bulb.

For her rear license plate.

That can be changed without tools.

The bulb costs $.89 at WalMart the last I checked.

I know this because she has the same model and year truck as I do. In fact, the same store a few years ago asked me if I wanted them to change it and I said, no, thanks, I’ll handle it, which I did, in under ten minutes.

I realize there are some people who are intimidated by anything mechanical, and there are some folks who don’t realize how easy some of this is. I just can’t understand how someone able bodied would willingly pay $16 for a $.89 bulb and less than ten minutes of work with your hands and no tools. It seems to me to be a rather significant waste of money to spend that way.

Other things to do yourself to keep your vehicle going:

Oil and filter changes
Radiator fluid flushes and changes
Washing
Waxing
Cleaning the engine compartment
Spraying plastic and rubber parts with silicone
Thermostat changes (I change mine with prevention in mind every two years)
Brake pad changes
Chassis lubrication
Tire rotation

Some of these require special tools, all of them require a bit of work, but none of them are incredibly difficult (and I do all of them myself).

What vehicle maintenance are you willing to do yourself?