Hot and Cold

When winter starts to roll around and we start to prepare for various Winter Festivals, the people of New England start to moan and groan about the potential for a bitterly cold winter.  It's one of those unifying things that we go through every year that provides us an opportunity to show up to work in snowpants and work boots a half hour late, then we compare stories about how long it took us to shovel the sidewalks and driveways.  Then the people with snow-blowers and plows smirk about how effortlessly their snow pile has been growing.

One of the winter-onset aches is the cost of home heating oil (we heat with natural gas!) or how many cords of wood a wood stove can go through in a winter.  We chat about thermostat settings and tolerance for bundling up inside as compared to setting it at 70 and just forgetting it year-round.  We talk of winterizing our windows/doors/basements.  We talk about how little sunlight we get in the wintertime (dusky around 4?!  What!?).  Most of the time, it's not that we don't like the winter, but that People like to complain.

There is a comparable discussion that happens at the onset of the two or three hottest weeks of the summer. At that point, it's a rush to the basement or home stores for window air conditioning units to help take the edge off the summer heat.  In my geeky mix my enthusiasm for thrift, record keeping, and seasonal analysis, I have generated the figure below:  The Seasonal Variations in Gas & Electric Utilities for our Half-Duplex.  (1100 square feet, two story with basement.)

Three Years of Utilities for the Jacksons, normalized to cost per day.

In interpreting the above plot, there are a few things to note:

Sep-09 Given an ancient freezer from a friend moving across the country. It added about 50 cents per day to the electric cost average. Old compressors in fridges and freezers are notoriously inefficient, so if you have appliances made before 2000, you should consider replacing them.

Mar-10 Had baby. We abandoned our previous trend of having the house chill down to 60 while we slept and began using an electric heater to warm just the sleeping spaces. We also had various houseguests after Blake was born, and used more electricity.

Jul-10 For the opposite reasons as March, we wanted to cool down the house for the nursing mother and baby, so we ran the air conditioner quite a bit more than our previous summers. Well, we air condition for the hottest month anyway.

Spring-11 Well, throughout this spring, Jen learned how to quilt. She had quilted before, but during this spring she REALLY took on the hobby. She found it therapeutic, relaxing, and fulfilling, and allocated a budget of time and funds to this awesome skill. With quilting comes IRONING, which is a 1100 Watt heater that gets alot of use when quilting.

Jul-11 Sold the old freezer, and bought a smaller, more efficient chest freezer. Regained the much of the 50 cent per day advantage.

Jan-11 Looking at the RED line for natural gas useage, keep in mind that we had killer snowstorms: 1/12/11: 15inches, 1/21/11: 7inches, 1/26/11: 10inches , 2/1/11:10inches. It was unrelenting, so our gas heating spiked that year a bit higher than normal. To back that up, I'm including the average daily temperature from the gas company bills from those heating months. It's clear that the 2010-2011 winter was consistently colder than our disappointingly warm winter last year. We only had like 4 inches of snow for the whole winter last year. It seems like last year's moaning and groaning was largely for naught.

2009-2010	Avg Tmp	2010-2011	Avg Tmp	2011-2012	Avg Tmp
Nov	51	Nov	49	Nov	49
Dec	38	Dec	34	Dec	45
Jan	30	Jan	29	Jan	34
Feb	32	Feb	29	Feb	38
Mar	44	Mar	38	Mar	46
Apr	53	Apr	45	Apr	52

So there you have it.  Any other observations you care to make on the above data?  Comments welcome.

Thrifty Thursday: Reuse

As a second installment to my Thrifty Thursday, I thought I'd focus on ReUse of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" fame.

My quest is to figure out how I can get the most out of the things that I already have.  I figure there are two main parts of this.  First is Re-.  The second is Use.

The Re- part goes with taking things beyond their first use.  I figure there are lots of ways to extend the life of things that I already have.  Streeeetch the time between the next purchases by reinventing how things can fill needs (and wants).  Kids do a great job with this with jumbo appliance boxes.  Scrap-bookers do a great job with this with shoe boxes.  In recent years, grocers have been encouraging this with a "bring your own grocery bag" campaign, for which some people (ahem, hi mom!) have found the bags to be fun to collect and use for everyday purposes.  Then there's the water-bottle craze.  Other extensions of Re- include how I saw a friend take her husband's old shirt that was tatty around the edges and use the fabric and buttons to make a dress for her young girl.  I have taken scrap lumber from a friend's mini-barn project and turned it into a lawn-mower pavilion (shack, really).  People do it with egg cartons, apple boxes, the infamous Xerox paper boxes.

Repairs/alterations/repurposing are a big contributer to Re- also.  (There are lots of websites devoted to repurposing, too.)  For example, Jen really loves cardigans.  Last week Jen made a cardigan out of a shirt that she'd rather wear as a layering piece.  I patched up a half-dozen hand-me-down jeans (worn out knees!) for Ian to wear in the next year or two.   I inherited a camp kitchen which would be great for a week-long trip with a camp-trailer.  Jen and I repurposed it as a toy chest.  Years ago, Shirley gave me a luggage table sold from a motel, which we have used as a coffee table, then modified into a changing table, then built into a toolbench.  Looking at the photograph, I also notice that I have an old twin headboard/bookshelf as my workbench hutch, and a couple of wire racks that I picked up off the side of the road.  That's one of the nice things about garbage day 'round these parts.

My hodge-podge workbench during its early life before I cluttered it.

 Now for Use.  Simple enough.  If you own something, might as well make sure it's getting used.  Jen has been teaching me this principle.  If we don't use it, then why do we have it?  We should instead give it or sell it to someone who will use it!  (Caveat for keepsakes.  But even still, I need to learn how to be more discerning about what is really a keepsake!)  Two years for normal things.  An appropriate length for others (toys/baby clothes/food storage/tools/supplies have their appropriate shelf-life).

So what I want to hear about is what repurposed things you use in your home on a regular basis.  Thoughts?

Thrifty Thursday: Reduce

Antiques are awesome.  There's a reason that Antiques Roadshow has been running on the BBC since 1979.  People are interested in old things.  Some of the interest is based upon wonder about what things were like, who were the primary users of the antique, and the way old things used to work.  Sometimes remakes just go for old styling.  So now lets up the ante.  What about old things that are still in use?  Like classic cars, antique appliances, and old cookware.  Other examples: vintage sewing machines, cook stoves and ranges, corningware, guns, houses.

Filter wringer at our favorite SugarShack

Jen's grandparents on the Cape have some really great gadgetry THAT THEY STILL USE.  Like this toaster.  Nifty.

Antique Universal 947 Toaster, image from this collector

I have a friend at church who still uses the same cell phone he got in 1999.  He claims it gets great reception, and he doesn't need any of the perks on the newer versions.

So why do I bring up antiques as part of my Reduce post?  Well, I am of the opinion that:

1. They don't make them like they used to...
2. Our society tends to get bored of objects prematurely (before it's irreparably damaged).
3. Technology is moving faster than things wear out (Have a friend who ditched his ipad for an ipad2.  Seriously--and a different friend hoped his iphone would die so he could get the new one. )
4. We live in an age when it's really easy to buy things we don't need (Amazon is great, Black Friday BigBox stores, sky mall, home shopping...)
5. Marketers are pushing single use, disposable, individually wrapped, convenient things.

Saw this the other day.  All about the upgrade.

I haven't gathered empirical evidence to illustrate the economic benefits and conservational costs to this upgrade cycle, but there's a verse in the Bible that says "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."  (1 Samuel, 15:22)  The conservation application of this principle would indicate that it is better to conserve/reduce our consumption in the first place than to live excessively and be reusing or recycling after the fact.  I figure it's a matter of production.  If we don't buy "it", demand will go down, and less will be produced, so less will be wasted and end up at the dump.

It is kind of an anti-consumerism stance, which flies in the face of "Cash for Clunkers" type of mentality.  (Which presumes that it is better to have a shiny new "green" widget than to continue repair/reuse an average performing  "clunker".  I hold that to be a really sneaky campaign to get people to open their wallets, leaning on vanity.)

Don't get me wrong, I like new technology.  I also like new clothes and new furniture every once in a while.  But wouldn't it be better if we just had what we needed (ask Jen about my t-shirt collection sometime) and no more? I don't think I could live in a tiny house, or a earth house, but I could certainly consume less.  And that which I have I could use more carefully, to delay the need of disposing/upgrading.

Here's an idea if you still want electronic gadget: buy refurbished.  The item will be half price, vetted for faults, and you'll have the perk of using something you want without directly contributing to new production.
A few example that have worked well for us: netbook, camera, desktop computer, router, cell phones, microwave, vcr (seriously).

Tool Accumulation Plan (TAP)

My new Torque Wrench!

I think my TAP is a relatively clever idea.  It's not my own, but came from someone who used faulty* logic that appealed to me.  Interesting how that goes.

Here's the example:  I am a do-it-yourselfer who likes to tinker and do my own auto and home repairs.  Sometimes fixing something myself can save me 10x the cost of the repair.  Amazing, really.

My Hand Saw

I like to save money by patching jeans, sewing buttons, and hemming my own pants.

On the car, I'll do routine oil changes, replace brake pads, rotate the tires.  If I can get a decent diagnosis on a problem, I'll get under the hood and tackle it with a decent amount of confidence

With regards to our family food, I have no qualms with cooking vegetables, canning fruit, or taking my own lunch to work.

I've been known to designing Halloween costumes, build furniture, creat toys.


At one point, someone was telling me that working on these projects gives me a good excuse to buy the requisite tools.  I honestly hadn't thought of that.  I have been going under the premise that I have to get by with the tools that I have from each Father's Day and Christmas for so long that I innately think "I haven't got that tool, what's the next best alternative?"  Right?  The end goal for doing the job myself was primarily the $$, not the independence.

Insert my TAP.  I've been a married man for 8 years, a dad for almost 6, and a gainfully employed engineer for more than 4.  It's about time that I stop using sheet-rock screws and recycled pallet wood for all my building projects!  My tap looks like this.  If I have a project that the going rate for a professional to deliver the finished project would be $100, I allow myself to buy tools and supplies, GUILT FREE, for up to half of that (if the wife agrees, of course), or $50 in this case.

For an oil change, I don't really get to accumulate any new supplies.  (Me: $15 supplies vs $30 at the shop).

But in September, I did a transmission fluid and differential oil change, easily a $200 job at my mechanic's shop.  So after buying my required supplies (~$40), I indulged and bought a pair of ramps (another $40).  While doing that job, I thought to myself, "Self, all those oil changes through the year would have gone alot more smoothly with unscraped knuckles if you had ramps back then."

But think of all the jobs that have a decent margin!  Brake job (easily $500 for 4 wheels, esp if the shop wants to slap on new rotors).

Pull out and clean radiator ($$)
Headlamp assembly, fender liner, fog blanks (from RockAuto.com, cheap, from the Dealer, big bucks!)

Bumper Job (ahem, we had that slide-off last year, remember?  I bought it, had it painted, and hung it myself for about $200.)

The trundle bed I'm going to make this winter for the Baby to graduate into will be a higher quality bed for half the price of the store version, but it will be fully custom to our needs.  No leftovers for tools. :(

What other tools should I buy instead of hiring a professional?  Dare I buy piano tuning forks and mutes?  HA!

*The only reason it's faulty logic is that ultimately, you end up spending more money.  The handyman discount is not equal to money saved (money in the bank), but rather money you aren't obliged to spend.  However, if you feel more confident that you can do the job, or you broaden the spectrum of jobs you can do yourself, this plan works pretty well until your home shop is fully stocked.  Otherwise, just pocket the difference.  

Happy NaBloPoMo Eve, also known as Halloween.

We had a decent Halloween this evening, and I took my two little monkeys trick-or-treating down the street and back tonight.  Ian had a great time of it, and always wanted to be the first one to the door.  Blake politely said thank you in baby sign each time someone put candy in his bag.  Fortuitously for me, his monkey mits made it a challenge for Blake to pick a candy from each of the bowls, so I took the liberty to choose for him (me).  Blake's bag might be biased toward M&Ms, Twix, and Butterfinger.  Unfortunately for me, I carried him on my hip, so my arms were twitchy and achy by the time we had finished traveling door to door begging for candy.  When we got home, we sorted through the loot and put the sticky goey candies back in our bowl for redistribution to the other families in the neighborhood, and kept the chocolaty treats and the hard candy on a stick.

The boys at my office for some trick-or-treat.  I was the tourist, taking pictures of the fauna.

So starting tomorrow, we'll be in November, which I am planning to participate in Blog Posting Month, and Jen said I could "Occupy Funghi Fritti Street" during the staged event.  Should be good.  I've been brainstorming things worthy of a blog post.  Now just to find the time to create my daily record.

As a preview, I make my first offering:  A look at sugars.  After all, it IS Halloween.

This summer, I made a bunch of Strawberry Jam, since Jen went and picked 30 pounds of the sweetest, ripest berries at a PYO (Pick Your Own) farm in Southern Maine with her mother.  Generally, I'm not much of a fan of using PYO as a means to get bulk items, since you have to pay a premium to have the chance to make your own selection.  Most of the time, I'm happy to have the leftovers for the sake of making apple chips, peach jam (free last year!), or tomato sauce.  But.  Pristine strawberries and leftover strawberries have a very wide chasm of quality between them.  The flats of strawberries Jen came home with smelled like sweet nectar and were mouth-wateringly delightful.  Jen said the impetus behind the 30 pounds was to make enough jam to make it through to next summer.  And we go through alot of Jam around here folks.  So I went and bought a few bags of sugar and a whole case of pectin.

Jen said she wanted freezer jam, because it tastes sooooo good.  You get the raw berry flavor, plus the tang from the pectin when you do freezer jam.

I made 12 batches.  Freezer jam takes 2 cups berries and 4 cups sugar per box of pectin.  Catch that?  Twice as much Sugar!  No wonder Jen likes it so much!  I got pretty good at making a double batch, even, but much beyond that and I couldn't get the timing right on boiling the pectin and dissolving all the sugar with the fruit and cooked pectin.  (Raw fruit, remember, so the only heat comes from the boiled pectin.)

Total Strawberries: $60, 48 cups  ~$1.25 per cup

Pectin: $2.00/box

Sugar: 2.78/5 lb bag, 11.25 cups/5 lb, ~$.25 per cup

Freezer Jam breakdown: 12 batches, 2 c. berries, 4 c. sugar=> ~30 pints  (in 12 pints, 10 half pints, and as many plastic containers as we had).  So each batch ran about $5.50 for 2.5 pints = $2.20 per pint.

Those twelve batches were starting to get a bit tedious, because using up the berries only 2 cups at a time was pretty slow going.  I was starting to get worn out, I was looking at a rapidly diminishing supply of freezer-eligible containers, and thought it was time for a change.  Now, last year, when I stocked up on the end-of-season mason jars, there were a few boxes of sugar-free pectin that I picked up, too, just because.  You know, you want to have something for all your diabetic friends.  (Or does the strawberry sugar negate the sugar-free part of the equation?)  It's a cooked recipe, so the jam DEFINITELY tastes different.  Cooked berries and no heaps of sugar, but replaced with honey is quite likely to be... different.  But it was a fun experiment still.

Sugar-free breakdown: 2 batches, 4 c. berries, 1 c. honey=> 5 pints (in 5 pint sealed jars), which puts my estimate around $8 for 2.5 pints, or $3.20 per pint.

Now that I was out of the sugar-free pectin and out of freezer containers, I came down the home stretch with traditional jam for the food storage shelves.  I figured this was the most prudent thing to do, as it used the berries up and prevented our careful investment in the Maine Berry industry from rotting before our eyes.

Regular breakdown: 3 batches, 5 c. berries, 7 c. sugar=> 12 pints (in 12 pint sealed jars), costing about $10 for 4 pints, equaling $2.50 per pint.

So now you ask, "Joe, what do you make of these facts and figures from your Summer Jam Session?"

Here's what I have to say:  The freezer jam, though heavy on the sugar, DOES taste the best of the three recipes, costs the least, and requires the least amount of berries per pint of jam.  I resisted early on because of the sugar to berry ratio, and I just thought it was silly to not take advantage of my mad canning skills.  Turns out that we've barely made a dent in the jam supply so far, and I think if we backed off from 30 pounds to 10 pounds next year, that'd still cover us for a year's supply of freezer jam.  And for my last observation-- I probably didn't need to process ALL of the berries, since we have a freezer and could have kept some whole for milk-shakes.  But I didn't think of that until afterward, did I?


Anything else I should consider for the jam-fest?

I'd like to call this post:

ADVENTURES IN COUPONING

(except I didn't actually use any coupons)

I've never really been a coupon-ing sort of girl.

(I've found that most coupons are for products I don't buy, need, or want.)

But my mother

(who is in town as an angel sent from heaven to take care of

my children and my husband while I've been sick in bed for three days)

showed me the way with a deal that happens quite often at Shaw's.

Behold, the loot:

9 cans diced tomatoes

7 boxes pasta

2 jars peanut butter

1 block mozzarella cheese

2 boxes cereal

1 jug of laundry detergent

1 thing of fancy Soft-Scrub toilet cleaner

2 boxes brownie mix

1 carton ice cream (not pictured...ahem)

TOTAL:

$8.58

ORIGINAL PRICE:

$64.08

Dear Mom,

THANK YOU.

Note: Had I actually figured out how to find me some coupons,

I could have walked away with cash. Doh!

*EDITED TO ADD*

We went back a few more times....

Total Spent: $36

Original Price: $260