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Man, winter really sneaked up on me this year. I planned a number of winterizing projects that I never completed and my procrastination just caught up with me in the form of a $365 utility bill. Time for some action!

Here are the known problems in my house:

Windows

Unfortunately we have cheap twenty year old windows, and a lot of them. I’m not ready to lay out the cash for replacements. Here are two (literally) stop gap options: Continue Reading »

Talk about finding a silver lining! Homeowners who are feeling the pinch of falling real estate values and rising adjustable rate mortgage payments are weighing the consequences of foreclosure and finding it may make more financial sense to take the default. Recently

A homeowner who can’t sell his house [told] the L.A.Times, “Foreclose me. … I’ll live in the house for free for 12 months, and I’ll save my money and I’ll move on.”

According to Calculated Risk, that response is exactly what is keeping bank execs up at night: people who are current on their credit cards and have the ability to pay their mortgage, but walk away from their homes because it doesn’t make financial sense to keep paying on a sinking ship. Says a commenter:

I am one of these people. My condo has dropped in value from $520K in 5/06 when I bought it to $350K now. My ARM payment will probably go up $900 per month in June.

But the bank won’t work with him, so he’s taking his finances into his own hands:

I have purchased a cheaper place in a nearby area now, while my credit is good, and will stop making payments on house #1 after house #2 closes. I know the foreclosure will be on my credit for 7 years, but I will have saved a lot of money.

What about his obligation? Well, he makes a good point:

I realize I agreed to the deal when I signed the mortgage papers, but I am within my rights to walk away from a bad deal and suffer the consequences, just as many corporations write down billions of dollars of debt, lose money for their shareholders, and lay off people as a result of their bad decisions.

In certain situations, a 7-year ding on the credit report might save money in both the short and long run. This is not a decision to take lightly. If you are in trouble and thinking about doing this, make sure you thoroughly think through the ramifications and consult a professional to figure out the pros and cons you probably didn’t think of on your own.

See Walk Away From Your Home Part II: Resources for sites to help you review your options to keep your home.

That’s right, you can save a lot of money by avoiding the replacement razor blade scam perpetuated on the shaving public. Let me explain:

First, I picked up an old-fashioned safety razor at the flea market for two bucks. The design is similar to this one:

This thing is pretty simple: you rotate the base and the top opens, allowing you to place a double edge razor blade inside. After closing it, you have a razor which allows you to shave with a different edge on both sides.

The razor itself is not where you save money, however. After all, the razor and blades business model has long dictated selling razors at a loss to make all their profit on the blades. Razor manufacturers, once the patents on their latest razor model run out, bring out a new model to keep a monopoly on their proprietary replacement blades.

The classic safety razor is the solution to the outrageously priced proprietary blades. I stopped at the local Walmart to pick up a pack of blades. I glanced at the 10-packs of the currently marketed razor blades from the big manufacturers and the prices ranged from around $15-$23 per ten blades. In other words, anywhere from $1.50 to $2.30 per blade. For me, at an average cost of $2 per blade, that means I used to spend maybe $50 or so a year just on shaving blades.

I bought a ten pack of double edge blades at a total cost of $1.54, or 15 cents per double-sided blade. That’s a new cost per year of less than $4, down from $50.

I gave them a test spin and found they did a fine job at a cost of less than 1/10th what I was previously paying. I did find that shaving with the safety razor requires you to keep your wrist more rigid, but other than that, everything went very smooth, including the final result.

For some tips on the old-fashioned shaving approach, try here.

It looks like competing advocacy groups are entering the frugality debate over the wisdom of using cloth napkins vs. paper paper products according to the Star-Telegram.

Earth911.org claims that napkin and paper towels cost a family of four approximately $260/year and an unspecified use of natural resources.

New American Dream, a consumer/simplify group in D.C. questions whether the savings would reach that amount, but does offer some tips if you go that route, such as buying organic cloth napkins, washing in cold water, and line drying.

Then the Star-Telegram pulled in a money editor at Suite101.com, an online article site, to attest to her experience in saving $8-$10 the first month of switching to cloth napkins.

My take on the issue: by the time you pay for the napkins and run repeated laundry loads every month, it seems like whatever savings that accrue are probably not worth it. Not only am I jealous of my time, but I dislike doing laundry. My main goal in living a frugal lifestyle is so that I can eventually gain the freedom to do the things I want to do instead of the things I must do.

The newspaper article did turn over a new stone for me becauseI checked out Suite101.com,  which happens to be a website hiring freelance writers. I’d rather explore the possibility of getting a freelance writing job and earning an extra few bucks than spend it laundering my napkins, but to each his own.

The 98th Festival of Frugality is up at Being Frugal. My interview with Carl Weathers is posted there. Carl wasn’t happy with the post placement and threatened to sue if we weren’t moved up the page, but I talked him out of it.

I checked at some of the other posts and saw some I liked and others that were less helpful.

The Frugal City Popcorn is for the win in my book. Short story is you take a paper bag, put some corn kernels in, fold the top, and microwave- presto change-o you gots yourself some popcorns. No need for an air popper, and no need for the waste of wrapping, extra cost, etc. of commercial stuff. You can even reuse the same bag and any unpopped kernels next time. Well done Money Changes Things, you get an official Carl Weathers’ salute.

The shopping at ethnic markets post by Cheap Healthy Good also looked like a winner to me. I further liked the kitchen-sink approach of Lasagna Without Recipes, but maybe all that’s because I haven’t had dinner yet.

Less useful was another debate about whether to make your own laundry detergent. No way in hell I’m making my own laundry detergent. If I want to save twenty eight cents per load I’ll buy a more efficient washer. Just not interested. Neither was Carl Weathers, he just gets everything dry cleaned for the price of a few signed glossy headshots now and then.

Anyway, there’s plenty more in the festival and it’s not all food-related, so go check it out.