This weekend I did something that proudly puts our household firmly into the middle of the 80’s: I installed a microwave.  This is one of those awesome contraptions/appliances that heats up food in a matter of minutes and allows us to defrost meat if we’ve had one of those boneheaded days where we forgot in the morning to get out food for the evening that we froze last January.  In essence we’re in shape now to save money on eating out because we blew the frozen meat schedule.  I cannot tell you how many times we’ve been low on pantry items, low on other non-pantry items and then had the meat not be defrosted.  It took me until this month to figure out that a microwave, which is not as expensive as a dishwasher, could save us money in the eating out department.

This isn’t revolutionary by any stretch, but we’ve been living without a microwave for 3.5 years now and so having one kinda feel cool and funny.  Various things get hot quickly in the microwave instead of dirtying up several pots and pans, which means I may not have to run the dishwasher as often, or wash as many dishes as often.  Its funny to think how much we’ve been spending on some things because of the fact we didn’t have a microwave.

I actually ended up having to do the following, in case too much information is something you like to have:

• Remove old ventilation unit over the stove
• Remove old cabinet above old ventilation unit over the stove
• Do some electrical magic to make sure the microwave plugged in just right and didn’t cause electrical fires
• Fabricate a spacer/mount for the microwave so as to make sure that it stayed securely in place.  This was not in the directions, but I am overly concerned about things staying on my wall.
• Mount the microwave with help of the wife
• Partially unmount the microwave with help of the wife and fix the direction of the ventilation fan as per the step skipped in the directions I apparently didn’t read carefully enough
• Re-mount the microwave
• Re-mount the cabinet above the microwave and spacer/mount.  This changes our cabinet configuration, but in a good way.

For those of you keeping track I got to do electrical work, wood work, cabinetry (a slight exageration), and install a money saving device.  The only major casualty was my thumb when a random hammer flew out of nowhere and struck it.  I feel like the lovechild of Tim “The Toolman” Taylor and Suze Orman**.

** not really, that’s disgusting.  I’m really glad I have the parents I have.

Nothing chaps my hide like when I discover I’ve dropped hundreds of dollars on something that I could have NOT dropped hundreds of dollars on.  For example: I just installed a new dishwasher at my house in the last couple weeks.  Roughly $409.00 worth of dishwasher.  It is a dishwasher that I might not have needed had the previous dishwasher been installed correctly and had the previous owner, who installed the other dishwasher, not been a cheapskate instead of a frugal appliance installer.  You see most dishwashers could use a handy contraption called an Air Gap [picture of one at Amazon.com].  The air gap prevents backflow, which prevents funky dishes, possibly jamming up your drainage line and a bunch of other things.

My old dishwasher probably could have used this and when the dishwasher repairman came out BEFORE the problems got bad and suggested things he didn’t mention this as a good idea.  So if you have a dishwasher and its not cleaning your dishes as well as it should, you might confirm that this contraption exists (or doesn’t exist) on your line, and if it doesn’t, get one!  It cost me less than $20.00 to get the air gap preventer, 72″ of rubber tubing and a few clamps to make sure that my dishwasher drains appropriately.  I could have saved $389.00.  Lesson learned!

Three different roasts of the same bean

I’m a coffee snob.  Not the kind that thinks that every bean they drink should be a peaberry, or from a certain region, or roasted to a certain doneness, or should be brewed with water that is a certain temperature (though all of those count for good coffee to your taste).  I’m the kind of coffee snob that, when given the choice, will choose to be picky, but I will gladly take a cup of the nasty stuff if that’s all you have - it may not be nasty to you.  I may know about coffee just a bit, but I’m not a punk :)  This article is to outline the large amount of money I don’t lay out to have high end coffee.

I Bought My Own Roaster
If you’ve never seen coffee roasted, you really should check it out.  Its quite amazing to see the beans go from green to brown (and beyond to nearly black in some cases).  Getting my own Fresh Roast roaster was well worth the cost and the ability to do the rest of the process with green beans was well worth it as well.  The roaster costs around $80.00 US Dollars.  It produces small amounts of roasted beans per batch time, each roasting batch produces enough beans for me to French Press one 8 cup container.

I Buy Different Kinds of Beans
From web sites like Sweet Maria’s or Burman Coffee you can buy pounds of green beans for less than you would buy them from stores like Whole Foods who freshly roast their coffee there.  Don’t get me started on the ‘freshness’ of Starbucks or other brands who consider their coffee fresh for months.  Coffee doesn’t stay fresh that long.  Ever.  Unless its green beans you’re storing.  By buying different kinds of beans (both sites listed above describe the beans and their optimal roast) I can explore my palet, I can explore the bean’s varieties, and I can do it at home for a few dollars a pound (or more in some cases) but much less than at other fresh roasting sites.

I Burr Grind
There are several different designs of grinders, there are blade grinders which don’t grind at all, they chop.  Then there are the burr grinders which tend to produce consistently sized coffee grounds.  If you were to buy an espresso machine you would most definitely want a burr grinder, and you’d want a high end one.  For French Press the $40.00 Cuisinart model I picked up at Costco will do fine.  Even coffee grounds mean even flavors and consistent cups of coffee.  This of course assumes you’re buying whole beans.  If you aren’t buying whole beans you’re letting much of the oils that bring flavor into the cup evaporate out of your coffee before you brew it.

I French Press
Instead of a latte or espresso, I use the French Press, which is somewhat like an Americano if you’ve ever had one of those at Starbucks.  The French Press cost me $29.99 at Target just a few weeks ago (I had another French Press, but the glass accidentally got broken).  You can get them for more or less - it depends on the style and the volume of the container.  I liked my 8 cup container (that’s 8 cups of coffe, where each cup is 4 ounces).  The French Press gives you a more intense coffee flavor than a drip brewer, but it is not as demanding as the espresso machines and is just a fraction of the cost.  If I become wealthy some day I’ll get an espresso machine, but for the present I’m content with my French Press.  You can also make tasty chocolate milk with a French Press (but wash it good when you’re done).

Things I don’t do:

• Buy pods and single use units
• Bake my coffee with a drip maker that burns the coffee throughout the day
• Store my beans in the freezer (don’t do this ever)
• Drink cheap coffee because “cheaper is better”
• Spill the beans
• Add sugar to my coffee to cut the acidic, ashy taste that the Pike Place Roast from Starbucks has

Making great coffee for cheaper than you thought was possible - is possible.  Making tasty coffee with flavors you never knew existed is easy.  I have tasted fruitiness, floweriness, chocolates, caramels and a bunch of other flavors in coffee that I didn’t know existed.  Give it a try.  You can work your way into these things slowly.  If you were going to buy one item at a time (and that’s recommendable) then I would make the following purchases in this order:

1. French Press
2. Burr Grinder
3. Roaster & Green Beans

All of this costs approximately $150.00 total at suggested retail.  Of course each item could be picked up for less if you search - but once you’ve picked up the equipment you’ll be getting top notch coffee for $6.00 or less a pound.  That’s half the cost per pound compared to Starbucks, Whole Foods or other brands.  And Fresh.  Did I mention its fresh?  Because it is, and tasty.

These English Muffins are awesome

My wife makes great food, she bakes all sorts of goodies (or can, if we’re not being dietarily restricted by one thing or another) and she’s just a general blessing in the kitchen.  She checked out a cookbook called Real American Breakfast at the library recently that was focused on breakfast foods.  This book has been renewed and renewed by her.  I’m inclined to buy it for her since she 1) has used it over and over and 2) every recipe she’s tried has been amazing.  Seriously.

One recipe she’s made a couple times, including tonight, was for English Muffins.  This very simple recipe requires basic baking goods and a griddle (though I’m sure other cooking surfaces could be used) and costs a fraction of retail prices to make… and tastes amazingly good.  The prep time is small, the cook time is small, but the taste it big.  No store bought english muffin can touch these treats.

Several recipes exist online, here’s one from Food Network that is similar.  Check it out, save money, eat cheap!

Sunday afternoon after a drive through the Eastern Rocky Mountain range by Denver and visiting the Red Rocks Amphitheater I came home and discovered my swamp cooler was making a lot of racket.  Squeaking and sounding like nastiness.  My neighbor approached my house as I exited my vehicle to say, “Did you hear me knocking?  I wanted to tell you about your swamp cooler making a lot of noise”

“Nope, I was up in the Rockies.”

“Let me know if I can help!”

I’m glad to have a friendly, helpful neighbor, but the idea of fixing the swamp cooler was not on my top ten list.  I crawled up on the roof after shutting the cooler off and took several panels off and hollared down to have it turned on.

Squeak, wobble, rotate.  Squeak, wobble, rotate.  I hollared to have it turned off again.  The pulley was spinning along with the motor, but it was not sitting correctly on the motor’s shaft.  I tightened the pulley on the shaft, turned the swamp cooler back on.  Squeak, wobble, rotate.  Apparently the pulley was funky and beyond de-funking.

I drove down to Lowe’s and picked up a new pulley.  I came home, installed the pulley on the motor shaft, re-attached the drive belt, and hollared down to have the cooler turned back on.

Hummmmmm.

The cooler turned on more quietly than it had before while we’ve lived in this house.  Apparently I could have had a quieter cooler for just under $8.00 had I noted the pulley was getting wonky.  I need to get new pads to hold the water for the cooler, but those can wait until next season.  I was glad I didn’t have to pay $85.00 to have a technician come out and service this with the pulley costing $15.00 with $40.00 in labor (or some other made up number).  All was well, quieter, and I think we’ll be good for at least another couple years in the pulley department.

I must be a dumb consumer.  Really.  Because when small appliances break my first thought is that I’ll just buy a new one.  I have had a home coffee roaster at my house for several years and it broke slightly less than several years ago.  I was going to buy a new one but something always prevented me from buying the new one.  However, today I got to the point where I actually called to see what parts to repair it would cost.  Would you believe $18.00?  A new one is easily $70.00, but the repair parts are simple to repair (with a screwdriver or two) and the savings is way too big to ignore.

So, take off your dumb consumer shirts and burn them.  Throw them in the trash.  At least hang them up and don’t put them on very often.  Look at what’s broken, and if you’re not sure, find out if anyone you know is willing to help you trouble shoot the problem, and hopefully fix it (my neighbor helped me with some of his electical tools so we could pin-point the roaster’s issue).  There is no need to have the consume, destroy, replace mentality, despite what the marketers tell you.

Embrace the fixit mentality.  Think about the actual costs involved, and if you don’t know, do the research.  If your time is money, figure out what its worth.  Some tiny appliances can be replaced cheaply, but some are a little more high-end and should be repaired if possible.  Some repair places make it hard to repair for less than the cost of a new item, but sometimes you can do it yourself, in which case: do it yourself.  I believe smart consumer shirts are available, but you’ll have to hunt because most retailers don’t want you to have one

With the price of grocery items going up all around the shopping aisles I’ve been thinking about ways we can reduce our grocery bill.  That’s not a huge surprise, I’m sure.  Yesterday while on an errand trip with the family my wife asked me if we could run over to the farmer’s market near the mall we were at.  I conceded (much more willingly than a certain political candidate did recently) and we went over to what was a sad excuse for a farmers market.  There was one farm there and the rest of the booths were bread makers, people re-selling pictures they’d picked up in bulk somewhere else, and young forever products.  However, the one farmer there was selling produce at a price significantly lower than our local grocery store for much of the items (except artichokes).  It just so happens that we’d already picked up produce earlier in the week, but my wife did pick up tomatoes and a huge bundle of green onions.  She picked up more tomatoes and onions for $2.50 than I would have expected to buy for $4.00 at the super market - only fresher and larger and greener (or redder in the case of the tomato).

Check out your local farmer’s market and make sure the fresh produce in your diet (you do have fresh produce, don’t you?) is getting into your home for the best price you have available.  You’ll want to consider the cost of gas, but I predict that for many folks a savings of $10.00 or more will be possible if you buy produce regularly and in quantities that reflect a balanced diet.

If you find yourself at the grocery store and you find yourself buying coffee and you find yourself buying coffee out of those bins (which I should take pictures of so that you know EXACTLY what I mean) with the little pull levers that release the whole beans into the paper bags: STOP!  That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t buy that coffee as much as it is to say this: beware the funky flavored crud.

I had company in town and I didn’t purchase them the high end [high quality but not high priced] stuff I usually buy because they don’t like it (I offer and they generally refuse it).  But I did buy them what was supposed to be 10% Kona beans because I’m nice like that.  Except that the lemurs that put the coffee in the bins put the kona (read: hawaiian beans are in here) next to the hazelnut flavored coffee.  Note the word flavored.  That word should be a big warning sign.  They should label it, “Death star coffee flavored like hazelnuts so that the death will be sweet.”  But they don’t.

If you buy coffee that is supposed to be just plain coffee flavored out of the chute next to the flavored death star stuff then spill a little of the beans into the bag and then smell the beans.  Your nose should be able to tell if miracles have happened and your kona coffee smells like coffee or if the evil siths of hazelnut have taken over and your imported beans are really just polluted with bad ju-ju.

Save your money on the coffee that’s been polluted, report to a store manager that the devil responsible for putting the coffee in that chute should be chastised heavily, and then buy something else that may not be what you wanted, but will not be polluted.  Unless of course you’re into flavored coffee, in which case by all means just dump the arabica beans into the bag and proceed with your business.  I’m embarrassed to have written this post because I prefer home roasted coffee if possible.  But I’m a coffee snob and I have to deal with that burden every day.

What’s the most extremely frugal thing you  do?   A man I know lives on a corner and he parks his car on the street and backs the car around the corner instead of going straight because it wears his tires out just slightly less than pulling a U-turn and then taking a right handed turn.  I am insanely anal about turning off lights and computer monitors around our house (we have two).  I also like to keep “fart fans” on as short as possible in the bathroom (and wish I simply had windows upstairs, though the basement doesn’t need one in the bathroom).

Tonight we bought 30 bags of goldfish crackers at the grocery store because they were on special and that was the limit.  They cost us fifty cents each and so we spent fifteen dollars on enough goldfish crackers to last quite a bit of time.  Our daughters like them and the big containers can’t compete with that per-bag price.

So… what is the most extreme frugal behavior you practice?  Have you done anything above normal like buy thirty bags of goldfish crackers?

Dear Power Company,Sorry for the huge increase in power consumption last night.  Neither myself or my wife happened to shut the windows in the front room when we went to bed and as the temperature dropped to around thirty-four degrees the heater ran all night.  Fortunately we caught it this morning and all of the temperatures appear to be balancing out as well as a reduction in heater use.Doh!Randy Petermanhttp://www.watchmymoneymaker.com