Christmas Surge

With all the talk about gaining weight during the holidays, my bank account sure isn’t worried about such a thing.

My wife and I knew this was going to happen and so this isn’t a big issue. It always sucks to watch the account go down. We began socking away money for “things that will hurt our budget” back in January. Things like Christmas gifts, wedding gifts, birthday gifts, clothes, home improvement and a couple more. I have found it to be a great blessing to have these saved monies for times when we need it. Her car needed tires, well……I think it totaled around $325 for the set and we had about $300 saved up. This means that my monthly budget only received a $25 hit. Which, is really not a hit at all.

Another thing that I have noticed is that I like giving gifts more under this plan. Before, I would shop knowing full well that I would have to put it on a card and would pay it off in the following months. It was okay in my mind because I was doing it for someone else. But now that I have the case to spend, it feels good to know that I planned for this and it won’t hurt me to give.

If you stumble onto this post, please consider saving for Christmas gifts. This simple (although sometimes hard to carry out) will make you gift giving experience a much more rewarding time for everyone.

OJC

DIY – Cabinets

My wife and I are pretty particular on the things that we want. In this case we wanted custom cabinets for our laundry room. About 3 months ago, my wife came to me and asked if we could draw up some plans for our laundry room. I agreed and she put on paper what she wanted. It looked pretty good and I proceeded to put it into AutoCAD.

First in 2D….

And then in 3D….

On labor day weekend we began working on them and as of today, we have all of the cabinets except the one above the washer and dryer installed, all of the pieces painted and everything assembled. I have some spots that need some touch up paint but it is really really close to being done.

It has been really quite a fun experience trying to do this project. It looks really good, is super functional and my wife loves the complete custom look of our laundry room. More to come.

ojc

Water Bill

WHOA!!!

I am very new to this as I grew up on a farm where all the water was pumped from a well. Up until we bought this house I have never really paid for water (apparently). Last Friday I received our first water bill. It was a doozie!! I did know that it was going to be inflated since I was watering the yard for what seemed like hours each day. Our bill was $149!! That was for two months, but still….WOW!! This doesn’t even included the sewer and treatment which comes on a separate bill from the city of Olathe.  We used 32600 gallons of water. You read that correctly….32,600 gallons of water. We don’t own a pool. Luckily, the grass took pretty well and I only water spots that need it and then the entire lawn once….maybe twice a week. My goal is to get a really good root system so I only have to water once a week to have a decent lawn.

Does anyone have a good method or product that they use to take care of their lawn? I have heard of a 4 step method, but haven’t really put much thought into it as of yet.

ojc

The Simple Dollar

I like to read a bunch of blogs, but I think my favorite is The Simple Dollar. This last post really struck a chord with me and how it seems many people view their financial situation.

ojc

Lack of responsibility

My wife and I are replacing our hard word floors. I take that back…The company that installed our floors is replacing our floor. The floor was bad so the manufacturer is replacing it for us. No problem right? Well, the floor is a different color. It is the same part number / color name that we ordered the first time, but the color is completely different. So what do we do? The installer is doing there job stupendously, but the color is off. I understand that finishes on floors are going to vary from batch to batch, but it is like someone forgot to add the red dye to this batch. We are going to let it go, but during this entire build we have run into people doing their jobs very well. It aggravates me to no end. It does, however, make me want to work harder at work so that no one says the same thing about me.

ojc

Yard Work

I asked my wife if it was wrong of me to enjoy working in the lawn so much. She said that she was happy that I did, because she didn’t know if she could handle it herself. Fine by me…I will do it all.

I spent at least 2 hours in the lawn. The grass that was planted between the A/C compressor and the house was pointless. I can trim back there very easily and so I removed it. I replaced grass with rocks that were in the unimproved lot next to my house. I don’t have the pictures here with me at work, so I will have to upload them when I get home tonight. I was impressed with my work to say the least.
Of course I got to use my Lehr trimmer again. What a great tool!

The next outdoor project is going to be rerouting the sump pump tubing that comes out of the house. Right now it is flooding the space between me and my neighbor’s house and making mowing very difficult. Maybe I will have time this weekend.

ojc

Lehr Propane Trimmer

I have found that, to be frugal, you must buy smarter. By this I mean get the best deal possible. OF COURSE. Having just moved into our house, I was in need of a weed whacker. In my quest for looking for a new trimmer, I found that there were propane powered trimmers. Of course, this peaked my interest. There seemed to be only one company making them, Lehr. It looks like they make them for Craftsman. I don’t really care for the rebranding, so I looked deeper into the Lehr models.

They have two straight shaft and two curved shaft models with each type having either detachable or non-detachable versions. I leaned towards the detachable straight shaft model. It looked the the best. The ST025DS was listed for $219 and that was a bit too pricey for me. But I continued to research Lehr and the propane option. In digging further, I found that propane is:
probably from the US
burns cleaner
much better for the environment
less messy
cheaper in the long run
starts easier (need to test this over the life of the unit)
doesn’t need winterizing.

I was sold. I love the idea and it’s a “green” thing to have. Now I was just stuck on that $219 price tag. ugh.

Last Friday, I was in ACE Hardware in Lenexa to get some bolts and air filters when I decided to see if they had the Lehr trimmers. THEY HAD THEM….AND….THEY WERE ON SALE. $179 was the price for either the straight or curved detachable model. This was $40 bucks cheaper and in the range of what I wanted to spend on a trimmer. After a call to the wife, I took the thing home.

I was so excited to actually have this new piece of tech/yard tool that I forgot to do a couple other things on my honey-do list.

I put it together and took it for a spin around the house. It was powerful, a tad heavy, had a pleasant odor and worked perfectly. I can’t wait for next weekend so that I can fire it up again.

ojc

Lehr

**** Update 8/26/09 ***

After two outings with this green beast, I have grown more attached with it. I have already had some looks from my neighbors and I am sure that if I would trim on a Saturday instead of a Friday, I would probably get a few questions.

A few things to add to the above list of things I like about the trimmer:

• it’s powerful
• it’s much cleaner then the gas trimmers I have used in my life (I thought sure that I would buy a Shindaiwa, but I am glad I didn’t)
• it’s cool

ojc

Public Transportation

** after typing this I read it and it is pretty boring. just visit kclightrail.com**

I am all for it. KC should have started some sort of high speed public route to and from downtown with destinations like Olathe, Independence and the airport. This should have been built into the infrastructure a looooonnnngg time ago. I love going to Chicago. I fly into Midway, hop on the L and I am in downtown Chicago in about 20 minutes. I can’t recall how much I paid to get downtown from Midway, but it was cheap, and I was more then willing to pay for it. Of course, then I fly back into KC and I have to take the bus to my car. Pay the “fine” to park in extended parking, drive (while very tired) home and then relax. Ugh.

I see a lot of people hating the light rail system that is or has been proposed.  I love it. Why don’t people like it? I have not studied up on the costs or the benefits, but this city is light years behind many others. I would think that Olathe people would love the idea of getting into their cars and driving 2-3 minutes to a parking lot and hoping on a downtown express train. In 20 minutes you would be there and you could have answered 10 emails before work.

I have note checked into the route of the buses in my area, but I would love it if I could get on one and ride it to work. Off to The Jo to check it out.

ojc

Recycling in Olathe

For some reason, I have this fear that the recycling truck shows up on Thursday morning, takes a look at the plethora of things we have gathered in our recycling tub and just says “Screw This” and dumps the whole thing in the trash bucket right next to it on the curb. Of course I have no reason for thinking this way, but it is just a fear of mine. I do all of this work and then some guy who doesn’t like his job for some reason comes along and in one swift motion, destroys the work I have done. I guess I have some recycling insecurities.

BUT!!!! If indeed the recycling truck IS picking up the stuff and recycling it, I am overjoyed and saddened at the same time with Olathe’s effort in recycling. Here is the link to their site. Curbside The reason for the sadness is the fact that I am charged $3.25 for something that should be free. Now….don’t get me wrong, I know that there are cost involved with recycling. My gripe is the fact that I pay….let’s say…$13 for trash per month. I honestly don’t know how much it is, I have only been here 3 weeks. But lets say it is $13 per month.  I don’t think that I should have to pay for a service that should be mandatory.

I must explain myself.

I am a conservative by nature. I think that you should through your trash in the trash at the park. I try to tidy up the table before I leave a restaurant. When I use something of someone else’s, I return it in better shape then I received it. If I borrow your car, you will have more gas in it then when I picked it up.  So when I look at the trash industry, I see millions of people throwing their stuff out without thinking. If all you have to do is pull the plastic liner out of the cereal box and toss the plastic and place the cardboard box in a different bin, this should be the stand way of doing things.

After only a few weeks in my new house, I find myself having about 2 small bags of trash and 1 completely stuff bin of stuff to recycle. Why is every house in every developed country not doing this?

Back to the $3.25 fee for recycling. I believe that the city of Olathe should, instead of charging everyone $13, they should charge them $15 and recycling should be mandatory made available to everyone. I am trying to think of the ramifications of this, stuff that would hinder this plan. I submitted a request to the Olathe here. I will let you know what their response is.

What do you think?

I need to stop buying things.

I knew from the onset of us thinking of buying a house that we would need a few things to get things tidied up and looking decent. Holy smokes did I underestimate the wall of products that would be streaming into our house. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FedEx and UPS guys already know our hopes and dreams. From blinds to furniture to little things like a paper towel holder that “matches better”. It is almost overwhelming. We figured that we have spent roughly $1200 per weekend for the last 4 weekends. This is not sustainable. Luckily we do (or did) have some savings for this specific purpose, but I don’t want to see that COMPLETELY depleted. sheesh.
I have tried to accomplish some things in a fugal way. Our lawn mower is completely used. We are looking at the discount aisles at Home Depot for blinds (not very easy). I AM trying, but it is hard.
On a good note, the grass is taking and taking pretty well. I think I will begin to mow it in about a week. I hope the used mower we were gifted works properly. We shall see.