Lazy Man and Money

10 Tips to Save Money Around the Home

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Today’s guest post if from is from Thrifty Homeowner. The blog documents the journey of a novice do-it-yourselfer who is always on the lookout for ways to save and to increase his home’s efficiency.

As the self-proclaimed Thrifty Homeowner, I’m always on the lookout for ways to save money when it comes anything involving my home. I’ve compiled a list of 10 quick and cheap ways you can keep more of your hard-earned money (or learn to spend it more wisely).

  1. Insulate Hot Water Pipes – Doing this should cost you less than $10, and it will lower your fuel bill and increase the speed at which hot water reaches your faucets.
  2. Research the Value of Your Improvements – Before undertaking that costly upgrade or renovation, take a look at the estimated percentage of costs that can be recouped. You might be surprised at how much or how little you might get in the end.
  3. Track Your Home’s Value – Even though I don’t have immediate plans to move, I like to keep track of my house’s market value. Though they are not always accurate, these online tools can also help you decide if you really should do that improvement you were thinking about.
  4. Refinance Your Mortgage – Rates are at or near record lows. As long as your credit score is above 740 or so and you have 20% equity in your home, you shouldn’t be paying more than 5.50% for your 30 year mortgage.
  5. Compost Your Waste – To save money on soil additives, begin collecting your yard and food waste in a covered tub outside your house. In a few months nature will take its course and you’ll be able to pull out nutrient-rich matter you can use in your garden or planting beds.
  6. Replace Your Bulbs with CFLs – Everything you read nowadays stresses that you should change out conventional bulbs for CFLs because of their cost and energy savings. This year, I think most of the CFLs on the market are finally at a point of acceptable cost and quality.
  7. Use Ceiling Fans in the Winter – Ceiling fans not only help to save energy and costs in the summer, but also when you have your heat on. Set them to spin clockwise and turn them on at a low setting. Hot air rises, so the fans help to push down and circulate that air you paid to have heated.
  8. Be on the Lookout for Free Stuff – I get my mulch from the town recycling center, trade books at the library, and explore my local Freecycle’s site before I purchase many items.
  9. Consider Renting Equipment Instead of Buying – Break the habit of automatically buying items that will be used once or seldom. If you can’t get it for free (see above), look into renting it instead.
  10. Use a Programmable Thermostat – They cost $40-80, yet they can save you money by automatically turning down the heat or AC when you’re out or sleeping.

Visit Thrifty Homeowner for more tips and discussion on how to save money around the home.

Laid Off? Some Survival Tips.

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I got a sad email from Candi yesterday (name changed to protect the innocent):

[blockquote]Help, I have been layed off and will no longer be able to keep up on the mortgages (2) or bills. Family of 5. Husband works still but I made so much money previously that our income is cut more than in half. I was told by someone that the world is going to h*ll and we need to sell everything and stock up on food and prepare to just survive. I am afraid for us.[/blockquote]

The easiest way out is to simply move to Belgium and sell your children You’ll make money while reducing your cost of living. I joke (don’t even try it’s illegal), but in times like this I try to remind myself that laughter is free.

On a serious note, I got a similar e-mail last May. It led me to write these tips. I am surprised that many of the tips still apply. That should go a long way towards righting the ship.

I did list some ways to save money, but here are some more ways to save on clothing, movies, music, television, and books, razors, hobbies, gas, housing, groceries, and almost anything on the Internet.

I’d focus on some of the big things. I don’t want to go all Suze Orman or Larry Winget on you, but the two mortgages is a problem. Are you at least renting out one of the places? Some income to offset the mortgage is better than none. Can you sell one, even if at a loss?

I don’t have a lot more information to work with here. One thought is that if you have new cars of significant value you may be able to sell them and pick up servicable cheap ones (a used Kia or something). It will get you from point A to point B and either put money in your pockets or reduce your payments. Another thought is to look at refinancing the mortgages at today’s low rates. If the homes lost a lot in value, it might not help, but it’s worth looking at.

I don’t know what Candi’s job was or what her prospects are going forward. It’s hard without knowing a profession or region. I just hope she isn’t the only lumberjack living in New York City or a similar situation where you would expect jobs to be extremely rare.

Military: Save Money With (Almost) Free Vacations

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toy-plane.jpgMy wife is active duty military – and with that comes a number of perks. One of those great military benefits is a significant savings on vacations via flights, hotels, and car rentals. Eighteen months ago we went to Hawaii at a cost of half what others would expect to pay. On Saturday, I found out how it would have been even cheaper if I did a little more planning. Today, I’d like to share some of the ways to save money with nearly free vacations – but remember, you may need to be in the military to take advantage of them.

Cheap Military Hotels

Navy Lodge – This is usually our first choice to stay wherever we travel. In the summertime, Newport, Rhode Island is an extremely popular vacation destination with some hotels starting at $400/night. A room, just as good, in an arguably better location, at the Navy Lodge is $75. The rooms are big enough to do cartwheels in and come with a kitchenette (refrigerator, stove, microwave, etc.)

Special Military Housing

  • When we went to Hawaii, we stayed at the Hale Koa, a military hotel that I would rate with the best I’ve ever been to. It’s about $100/night – which is a bargain compared to the $300/night hotels on the left and right of you. Plus, it’s the only place you can go to a luau hosted by Glenn Medeiros – sing after me, “Nothing’s gonna change my love for you. You outta know by now…”
  • If you prefer to go to Walt Disney World, you might want to check out Shades of Green. I’ve never stayed there, but prices look to be around $110/night for a prime location on Walt Disney World Resort.
  • While it’s not a hotel, there’s a small place on Martha’s Vineyard that, with extensive planning and luck, can be had for cheap as well. We hadn’t been able to book there before we moved to San Francisco. I wish I had more details, but I couldn’t find anything published on the Internet about it.

Camping and RV Parks – There are a lot of military camping sites available and Military Campgrounds does a very good job of detailing them. I’ve been looking at the Petaluma campsite as a cheap place to stay on a weekend of wine tasting in Sonoma Valley. Reading reviews with comments like this really sealed the value for me, “The food at the dining facility is still great, although now the rates went up five cents! All you can eat for lunch or dinner for $3.55.”

Space-A: Fly For Free

The military has a program that allows people to fly to many places in the world for free. It’s called the Space Available program, but is commonly referred to as Space-A. If it sounds too good to be true, in many case it is. There are two reasons why we hadn’t pursued this option in the past:

  • We didn’t know how it worked. No one at my wife’s job had ever tried to fly Space-A and couldn’t really share how it works. This past weekend I spent a lot of time reading John D’s Space-A FAQ. It takes some time to understand the jargon and common acronyms.
  • You can’t book a flight You show up at the terminal and “hope” that there a plane available, that it’s going where you want, and that there is space for you on the plane. Due to 9/11 restrictions, it’s often not published in advance where and when planes are scheduled to go. We found that the Pepperd message boards flight schedule information is very helpful for determining where planes are likely to go. For instance, we found that planes leave Travis, about 45 minutes from us, and go to Hawaii nearly every day. A few times a month, they continue through to Australia. This can be a savings of $3000 for the two of us – or it could be a nightmare or waiting and lost vacation time.

Car Rentals

Civilians can find many deals on car rentals. However, we’ve found that booking through the military gets us a better deal than any of out other connections. Usually it’s around $30 a day from Hertz for the cheapest – but they always bump us up a class for free.

Photo Credit: Yogi