Earn a bigger "hourly wage," extend your financial resources

Whatever you decide to do to save money, both large and small changes can add up quickly. I once heard somewhere, “You can't be poor AND lazy.” So, when my ancient washing machine quit agitating, I had choices. I could:

1. Call a repairman, most everyone's first choice;
2. Throw out the old washer and buy a new one (EEK!), the spendthrift's first choice; or
3. Quit assuming I wasn't smart enough to fix a washing machine.

I Googled the machine's make, model number and “won't agitate,” and within five minutes had a plausible answer. Opening the top of the agitator, I confirmed that some little plastic cogs had worn down. The next day, I bought them for $4.85 at a local appliance repair shop. It took me 15 minutes to take apart the top of the agitator, clean out the pieces of the old cogs, slip the new ones into place and put everything back together again. The washer was good as new.

If I had paid a repairman to come to my house, it would have been $85 for the service call (I did call a local company, just to find out in case I couldn't fix it – there's that self-doubt again). They would then charged $50 an hour for labor (minimum of one hour), and I have no idea how much they would have marked up the parts, so let's keep the parts at $4.85. If the repairman fixed the washer in the same amount of time it took me, the minimum bill would have been $139.85. My total was about $15 including gas (I live 20 miles from the repair shop), so I saved $124.85, but that's not the important thing. The work I did in 15 minutes was worth $139.85, taking my hourly wage to $559.40 ($139.85 x 4, the number of times 15 minutes goes into 60).

That's the really high end of hourly wages. On the other end, there's clothesline vs. dryer ($6.00/hr) or keeping chickens ($5.16/hr, accounting for feed but not water because I use rainwater). Those low hourly wages are worth it to me for other reasons, though, so I'm willing to spend my time doing them for less than my base hourly wage (which I usually set at about $10/hr.). If it's not important to me and my hourly wage doesn't make the work worthwhile, I pay someone else to do it. I don't change the oil in our trucks because the hourly wage turns out to be less than $10/hr after buying the oil and filter. Also, I have a five-year-old running around and don't like to be under a pickup when he's with me. If you like getting used engine oil on your hands, don't mind finding a place to dispose of it, and don't have small children who want to crawl under there and “help,” it might be worthwhile to change your own oil.

Then again, you could always use a (*gasp!*) coupon for an oil change, which would bring your hourly wage way down or into negative numbers and just doesn't make DIY the sensible choice. Coupons ARE good for some things...

Project: Salvage-Style kitchen island for less than 30 bucks

OK, I'll admit it. I have a lot of pet peeves. People who say, “libary.” Misspellings or incorrect punctuation in advertisements (I will never shop there). Shipping film left on electronic devices and appliances (eek!! Must...peel...).

But maybe my biggest pet peeve is people who claim they're selling something frugal, because it's a bold-faced lie. Frugal can't be bought, that's the whole POINT. If you have to buy something to call yourself frugal, thrifty, or any other popular label floating around cheapo-world these days, go ahead.

But I don't have to like it.

Case in point: I got an e-mail from a home improvement warehouse that sometimes offers good tips or pretty pictures I can get ideas from. Their big sell this time? “Salvage Style Kitchens.” They take stock cabinetry and make it look funky by adding ginormous wood corbels to kitchen islands, “distressing” the paint to make it look old and worn, and then charging three times more than they would normally (it was seriously like $1,400 - I snorted!). Really? Like any self-respecting trash picker would pay $125 each for mismatched milking stools that aren't even the same size. We'd use the stuff if someone gave it to us or we found it on the curb, but why on Earth would I spend thousands of dollars on stuff I can find and/or make for nearly free?

"Salvage style" $22 kitchen island, made out of two free bathroom vanities. Note super-stylish salvage bar stool at right, next to the dog's bowl, which came with the dog.

I must be way ahead of this trend, because my entire home is in true “salvage style,” which I love because it's free or nearly-free. My kitchen island is fast becoming the latest object of my affection. Right after we moved into this house, I saw an ad on Craigslist for two free bathroom vanities. The Most Awesome Goat Rancher I Know helped me load them up and get them home, and I put them in the kitchen, back-to-back. Mr. Rancher then built a custom-made top for my cabinet island, and it became functional. My boys and I recently (finally) painted the whole base a soft green (paint was given to us), and I (finally) installed some hardware I bought two years ago at an actual salvage store. Total cost for my island: $22. Now if I can just decide whether to use tile or laminate on top, it'll be finished.

Guess I'll be watching the curbs to see what turns up...

What is Aeropostale, and why should I care?

First off, let me say that I'm just a regular person and the ideas I have aren't new.

Are you still here? Hellooo?

You see, I've been living this super-tightwad life for several years now, constantly finding new ways to pinch pennies, falling off the wagon and getting back on again. And, I keep learning stuff and living this life and, while it's old hat to me now, every time I open my mouth about the things I do to save money, people act like I've just invented this cool new widget that I must share. Huh.

I started looking into it because I didn't think it needed to be done. I figured all this stuff was covered, what with all the frugal, thrifty coupon sites out there. Heck, I was subscribed to a lot of them. But, as I found myself unsubscribing from the blogs and sites that hawked coupons and ways to save $10 at Aeropostale (what?), I realized that maybe I did have something to offer.

This is not a site for the faint of heart, although if you think you can't do the stuff I do to live the life you want, you might just surprise yourself. I haven't worked outside our home since 2007. On a teacher's salary, we've bought a house with land in the country. We are well on our way to being debt-free, we're healthier than we've ever been, and I have lots of pretty little chickens and two happy country boys to show for it. And, I've gotten to live my dream and raise my kids. That's the most valuable part to me, and who knew I could get there by changing my attitude and washing some Ziplocs? You can, too. Follow me to some sheer tightwad awesomeness...