Frugal living

We are undergoing some remodeling at our house, namely installing hard wood floors, baseboard and crown molding. Since I'm a big do-it-yourself proponent and a notorious penny-pincher, I've decided to take a look if it makes sense to it myself. At $2.5 per square foot for labor - we would have to pay around $3,000 for floors alone and about another $800 to get our baseboards and crown moldings installed. Not sure if $3800 is a lot of money for you, but it sure is for our family.

In order to install the floors, crown molding and baseboard I will need a miter saw. But which one and where to buy it? I knew nothing about miter saws, so immediately I've made a few mistakes before I got what I needed. So if you need a miter saw - read the rest of the article to learn from my mistakes and do the right thing from the very start

Mistake #1 - I went to Harbor Freight and bought a 10 sliding miter saw. When i got this beast home, unpacked it and turned it on I've discovered a few problems. For starters the blade and fence (the rail against which you line up the piece being cut) were not square, as in they were at an odd angle. So if i cut anything - it wouldn't be at the angle I wanted it to be. The second problem was the unbearable noise the motor on this cheap saw produced. So at $150 it was cheap, but the quality was definitely lacking. 

Mistake #2 - Alright, so cheap saws were out of the question - i needed a quality, name brand tool. I've quickly searched CraigsList and picked up a used Bosch sliding miter saw. After driving about 20 miles each way and returning home,  I've discovered a serious crack in the rail support block.  I was so mad, I couldn't think about anything else. Next day I've returned the old, broken saw to the seller.

Mistake #3 (almost) - this time I've almost made a mistake by buying a single bevel miter saw. The difference between single and double bevel saws is that in single bevel one you can rotate the saw only left or only right. While in dual bevel, it can be tilted left or right. This makes a huge difference when doing a lot of cutting of baseboard or crown molding. Otherwise you will need to flip the boards constantly and hope that your saw cuts cleanly not only on the top surface, but also on the bottom one.

So it was clear - I needed a new saw that wasn't broken, had warranty and from a reputable seller. I went to Home Depot and saw that their selection, while good, was overpriced. I could get the same tools from Amazon.com for about 75-85% of the cost, not pay tax and get free shipping.

After reading various message boards, review sites, blogs and comments I've realized that there are only 4 companies that make dual bevel miter saws of good quality at reasonable price - Bosch, Makita, Ridgid and DeWalt. All the rest were either expensive, lower quality or major design flaws. I've spent a week talking to contractors, sales people, do-it-yourselfers and random people who knew something on the subject. So trust me - I've done a lot of research about miter saws.

At the end I've bought a Bosch 4410 10 sliding, dual bevel miter saw that I'm extremely happy with. This is the kind of tool that will last you a lifetime.

Between the Bosch, Makita, DeWalt and Ridgid you should really only look at one of the three kind of saws: 12 dual bevel stationary, 10 dual bevel sliding or 12 dual bevel sliding. Only these three kinds will cut through 99% of all things that are meant to be cut with a miter saw. Others either won't have enough capacity to cut some of the bigger pieces like the tall baseboard and tall crown molding nested against the fence.

Here are a few notes about each brand:

I had a package that needed to go from California to Illinois. Being frugal, I wanted to pay as little as possible and yet get the insurance and signature confirmation for the shipment.  So as an experiment I've stopped by USPS, UPS, FedEx and PostalAnnex.
Everyone's rates for these services vary slightly, and I expected all of them to be very close. Indeed all of them were except for one. USPS wanted $39, UPS $42, FedEx $37 while PostalAnnex gave me the quote for their cheapest shipping method (FedEx) at $54! At $20 extra for each package (they actually get discount form the shippers due to volume, which accounts for the $3) , it's no wonder that PostalAnnex is a profitable business when all they need to do is put a label and have shipping company pick it up. But it does make me wonder - who in their right mind would ever use PostalAnnex to ship anything? $20 difference will easily cover the gas which one may use going to closest UPS or FedEx.
You may have different view on the topic, but to me $20 in a price of a shipping service determines the location I will go to.

Many people have high definition flat screen televisions at home, hi-def cable or satellite service or a home theater that requires HDMI cables. The first thing we do is go to the store in hopes of finding a good quality cable at reasonable price. Then we come back angry and frustrated since the cheapest HDMI cable you can get from a national chain is a set of 2 cables for $30 at Costco. And that's not a bad deal on a quality cable since they are backed up by Costco's outstanding warranty and return policy.

But for those of us looking for very low prices and still same great quality - don't panic, there are a few options out there.

The first one is Overstock.com - you can find reasonable quality cables for as low as $3.50 - look at LinkDepot and Eforcity for slightly better cables than the rest. What you may get though, are the cables that work most of the time, but not 100% of the time. In fact, some of these cables exhibit a very strange behavior where you have to switch the ends in order to make them work. What is frustrating is that people are reporting some of these cable to stop working after a few months, or not carrying full 1080p stream with audio.

Second option is a "secret" of the audio-video community -MonoPrice.com. These guys specialize in cables, adapters, plugs and mounts. They don't just sell them at very low prices, but have them made to spec and often brand them as MonoPrice product. The quality of their cables is outstanding and the prices are very reasonable.By the way - if you need any other kind of cable - fiber optic, copper speaker wire, network cable - they got it. The problem with HDMI cables from monoprice.com is that they either have a ferrite cores or are very thick. The ferrite cores are not a bad thing at all as they help to minimize interference, but they are located really close to the end of the cable where it may become an issue when trying manage those cables behind your equipment. Same problem with the thick cables - if you are trying to locate your equipment in tight space or mount your TV on a wall - they will be really hard to route and hide.

The last and the best option - are the AmazonBasics cables from Amazon.com. The cables sold under the house brand are of suprisingly good quality, are thin enough to be managable, but not unwieldy. They also cost slighly more ($5 instead of $3.50)  than those from MonoPrice.com, but still so worth it. And, if you buy $25 or more from Amazon, the shipping is free and you don't get charged tax!

One point of concern is the specification of the cable. Anyone buying and HDMI cable today should be looking for 1.3a or 1.3b cables which are Category 2 certified. What these specs mean is that the cable was tested to reliably handle 1080p and higher resolution video as well as high-definition audio. Devices such as Bluray players, HDTVs, PS3 console, etc require such cables for the best picture and audio.

When I tell people that they can pay only $2 per month or $6 for 3 month supply, for genuine non-prescription pet anti-flea medication they usually think I'm joking. However this is true. I haven't thought of this myself, but have stumbled upon this information when I was searching for cheap anti-flea medication online. Normally one would pay anywhere between $35-$60 for three month supply (3 capsules) of anti-flea treatments from veterinary or on-line shops. However, for people with smaller dogs - there is a way to dramatically reduce price.

Let me show you how to pay only $2 per dose, when you buy meds for your dogs
Use the "Search Amazon" box on your left to find your favorite brand of Anti-Flea medications and then follow these instructions!.

Quite a few people are just like myself - want to have a nice looking and functional place to live. So in our quest for a first home we have purchased an oldish (1972) house in Southern California. It needed some work, but that didn't scare us away. After a year of living in a place of our own, I have started fixing minor things here and there around the house. But since I'm really interested in saving money whenever possible - I had to make a decision every time to do it myself or hire someone to do the work. While I enjoy doing almost everything myself the question of time and money always comes into the equation. Is it worth my time and how long would something take me to do. Very few things were done by contractors, but I've felt that I'm just so unqualified to do the job, that it simply be rather foolish to even try it. For example removing asbestos infused popcorn from the ceiling or plastering it later with a texture. In cases like this where the work would be way over my head (pun intended) or if there is a health risk - it is better to pay the money and let someone else do the hard stuff.