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Nocheez posted:Yesterday my wife surprised me by calling from work with something she had been thinking about. We're saving for a new home to get ready to start our family, and are about 60% to our savings goal. We expect to be ready to buy a new home in about a year at our current savings rate. She sounds like a keeper 
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Aug 11, 2014 18:20
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One thing that I don't like about being frugal is that stuff seems to accumulate because instead of throwing/giving things away we sell everything on craigslist. There are a lot of things I want to get rid of/donate to make room but my wife has proven time and time again she can sell everything on craigslist and make a decent return. The only problem is while it only takes a minute or two to put the ads up it takes forever to get a hit and in the meantime there's less room in my home. At least we're not buying anything new so we'll slowly but surely get there.
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Aug 12, 2014 15:22
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Sephiroth_IRA posted:One thing that I don't like about being frugal is that stuff seems to accumulate because instead of throwing/giving things away we sell everything on craigslist. There are a lot of things I want to get rid of/donate to make room but my wife has proven time and time again she can sell everything on craigslist and make a decent return. The only problem is while it only takes a minute or two to put the ads up it takes forever to get a hit and in the meantime there's less room in my home. There's frugal and there's cheap. Put a dollar value on the wasted space and your wife's time and see if it's actually worth it. Getting deep into reselling business will give you a head start on hoarding, and you don't want to go down that path.
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Aug 12, 2014 16:16
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Also donating is a tax write off and you can feel good about helping others in need. We try to donate around $3-5k per year. Good for the community and good for my taxes.
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Aug 12, 2014 16:33
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Engineer Lenk posted:There's frugal and there's cheap. Put a dollar value on the wasted space and your wife's time and see if it's actually worth it. Getting deep into reselling business will give you a head start on hoarding, and you don't want to go down that path. I agree it isn't technically worth it but it's basically a hobby to her and she enjoys it. I'm fine with it as long as we're not bringing in anything new especially now that we're in a smaller home. There's just a part of me that wants to get rid of everything now instead of waiting a couple months.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:07
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I'm in the process of packing for a move, and I've thrown out about five large moving boxes worth of stuff so far. Feels good for the soul to get ride of all this crap, I gotta say. Ten year old textbooks, stuff that belonged to a roommate who moved out five years ago... I was overdue for a clean up.
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Aug 12, 2014 17:09
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Man I was so happy when I gave 99% of my books away to my parents. There's a really good used/trade in bookstore back home so they needed them more than I did.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:03
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I have a hard time getting rid of books, it's a very difficult process for me.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:05
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I've got a box of stuff that's going to the thriftstore donation box, including the good books I'm throwing out. Old paperback poo poo (The Devil Wears Prada, Tom Cruise's biography... Why do I have that?) is going in the recycling. I found class notes from when my roommate was taking massage therapy courses. She moved out in 2010.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:06
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I made BFC proud today I think. I ordered a window regulator + motor for my 2003 ford focus off ebay for $25 rather than taking it into a shop. My Dad says he's replaced them in the past on various cars so we'll do it ourselves. On the downside the window fell in the door so now it's lodged up with a door stop which looks pretty silly.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:06
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Bugamol posted:On the downside the window fell in the door so now it's lodged up with a door stop which looks pretty silly. frugal.jpg
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Aug 12, 2014 19:12
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Juanito posted:I have a hard time getting rid of books, it's a very difficult process for me. I use to have this problem. There's a kind of cultural thing about destroying books harking from way back, like around 1990, when the recorded information in a book represented something that was costly to produce. It felt inherently wasteful. But that changed when I realized that I could throw out my Unofficial Windows 95 Guidebook. It was all down hill from there. I started throwing out old computer books, and eventually moved on to anything remotely technical that was out of date or any physical copy that had deteriorated. Now I can toss any book that has no meaningful cash value. It's still a little difficult sometimes. But luckily the phone company helps with my therapy every year by providing a telephone directory that goes straight into the recycle bin.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:17
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Juanito posted:I'd love to see a photo. I'll post one when I get home if I remember. I've been parking it in the garage too since it's pretty obvious if you wiggled the window enough you could probably get it to fall.
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Aug 12, 2014 19:20
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Folly posted:It's still a little difficult sometimes. But luckily the phone company helps with my therapy every year by providing a telephone directory that goes straight into the recycle bin. You can stop those: https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/
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Aug 12, 2014 19:43
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Zhentar posted:You can stop those: https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ That's awesome. Keep using the internet as a force for good, Zhentar.
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Aug 12, 2014 20:01
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Bugamol posted:I'll post one when I get home if I remember. I've been parking it in the garage too since it's pretty obvious if you wiggled the window enough you could probably get it to fall. That's a normal enough process, I've done it a few times myself. Just take your time, make sure everything is lined up and adjusted properly, and it shouldn't take very long. Zhentar posted:You can stop those: https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/ I did this a few years ago and the other one to get out of all junk mail. It was great, until my wife moved in and was too lazy to fill out the forms. Now we get just as much crap as before 
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Aug 12, 2014 20:03
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Bugamol posted:I made BFC proud today I think. I ordered a window regulator + motor for my 2003 ford focus off ebay for $25 rather than taking it into a shop. My Dad says he's replaced them in the past on various cars so we'll do it ourselves. I've done that repair on a 2003 focus twice (both back windows). Let me know if you have questions, but it should be easy. Before I could fix it, I duct taped it, and the only tape I could find was camo tape. It looked very silly.
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Aug 12, 2014 20:03
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Started a new job two weeks ago, and the lady next to me in the training room is already looking at a car payment calculator on a 25k car with a 0% down payment. Looool.
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Aug 12, 2014 21:09
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Don't recycle an old book! Give it to Goodwill. $2 per paperback ($3 for hard back) as a tax write off. Even if no one will ever buy it.
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Aug 12, 2014 22:22
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spwrozek posted:Don't recycle an old book! Give it to Goodwill. $2 per paperback ($3 for hard back) as a tax write off. Even if no one will ever buy it. They don't do that here.
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Aug 12, 2014 22:24
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FrozenVent posted:They don't do that here. Well you got to take advantage of the US tax code if you are subject to it.
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Aug 12, 2014 22:42
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Bugamol posted:I made BFC proud today I think. I ordered a window regulator + motor for my 2003 ford focus off ebay for $25 rather than taking it into a shop. My Dad says he's replaced them in the past on various cars so we'll do it ourselves. I've got a head gasket kit on order for my wife's car. Parts for $95 vs. $1600-1700 at the shop? Sure, but by the time I get halfway into it I bet I'm going to want to  .
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Aug 13, 2014 21:38
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Engineer Lenk posted:There's frugal and there's cheap. Put a dollar value on the wasted space and your wife's time and see if it's actually worth it. Getting deep into reselling business will give you a head start on hoarding, and you don't want to go down that path. This line of reasoning only works if you could literally trade those hours for paying work, which is very rarely the case. Having to skip paid hours of actual work to drop something off at the dump? Ok, worth the money to probably have it picked up. Inventing imaginary invoices one could submit for the 20 minutes it takes to setup a craiglist at 9PM at night? Not realistic.
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Aug 14, 2014 15:45
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There's value in relaxing or doing something that isn't work, though. I once ended up in a situation where doing anything but work meant sacrificing precious sleep, for a few months. Trust me, watching a movie was a great use of 30% of my resting time - your brain needs rest too. The equation isn't "I'm not generating income right now; therefore my time is worthless."
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Aug 14, 2014 15:49
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FrozenVent posted:There's value in relaxing or doing something that isn't work, though. I once ended up in a situation where doing anything but work meant sacrificing precious sleep, for a few months. Trust me, watching a movie was a great use of 30% of my resting time - your brain needs rest too. On the other hand, I'd much rather spend a little more time commuting and get exercise doing so (bike), or catch up on some reading (bus), than I would want to sit in rush hour traffic.
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Aug 14, 2014 17:44
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These off-time vs money decisions always go around and around. Remember the time you spend analyzing the decision goes into the cost of what you ultimately decide, regardless of which decision you make. Ultimately, unless the variables are way out there, you have to do what "feels" like the better deal. I'm not usually one for gut decisions, but it works because you're weighing the financial decision against the emotional toll it takes. So the one that feels like the better deal, is. And that's BECAUSE it feels like the better deal.
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Aug 14, 2014 19:23
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Mistaken For Bacon posted:I've got a head gasket kit on order for my wife's car. Parts for $95 vs. $1600-1700 at the shop? Sure, but by the time I get halfway into it I bet I'm going to want to
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Aug 14, 2014 22:53
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SiGmA_X posted:What car? Make sure to get the head decked and pressure tested, and check your guides before lapping the seats and replacing stem seals. Don't slack. On my old beater I replaced the entire longblock instead of messing about with that. It was $250 for a running motor from a wrecker. Plus its infinitely easier, just need to rent an engine crane.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:03
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If I learned anything from my philosophy ethics/moralism class it's that the application of utilitarian calculus is fundamentally flawed because no one ever has all of the variables and coefficients right. It doesn't mean that the issue(s) at stake don't have comprehensible answers; rather, stop trying to fit a square problem through a round solution. Value your free time as a virtue, perhaps as something that cannot be like-for-like compared with working time. Or stare at spreadsheets evaluating your time with drag coefficients based on how much time you're spending evaluating your time.
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Aug 14, 2014 23:56
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GanjamonII posted:On my old beater I replaced the entire longblock instead of messing about with that. It was $250 for a running motor from a wrecker. Plus its infinitely easier, just need to rent an engine crane.
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Aug 15, 2014 05:54
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SiGmA_X posted:What car? Make sure to get the head decked and pressure tested, and check your guides before lapping the seats and replacing stem seals. Don't slack. It's an '05 Scion xB. Combustion gases are leaking into the cooling system and blowing coolant out of the radiator and overflow tank. The car has been running fine otherwise, no discolored exhaust or lost power. Basically the mildest possible head gasket leak. Once I get the head off I'll assess the problem further and do what needs to be done. I've been toying with the idea of using blue devil or steel seal to patch it up long enough to trade in and let it be CarMax's problem, but that seems unethical in addition to unBFC.
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Aug 15, 2014 14:17
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Reddit posted:Hello, Personal Finance! Your daily dose of Reddit. A person who literally has no idea how a credit card works. I hope they aren't older than about 18 or someone did them a huge disservice.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:01
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Bugamol posted:Your daily dose of Reddit. A person who literally has no idea how a credit card works. I hope they aren't older than about 18 or someone did them a huge disservice. That has to be a troll.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:03
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Did someone just finish up paying off $25k in credit card debt today? Why yes, yes I did
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Aug 15, 2014 18:04
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Grumpwagon posted:That has to be a troll. You might be right, but I've seen some things. In college someone didn't know that you had to make a payment on your credit card every month. They thought they could just make payments when it was convenient. Apparently they thought "due date" was a suggestion. Some people truly don't understand how personal finances work.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:04
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Omne posted:Did someone just finish up paying off $25k in credit card debt today? Why yes, yes I did Nice job! 
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Aug 15, 2014 18:18
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I'm buyin a manual 2001 Honda Civic with 120k miles for $3600 dollars and selling my Impala because I want a smaller, more economical and reliable car. The thing is in like, loving amazing condition. I'll probably get around 2600 for the Impala once I sell it and I'm not even really in any rush to do so because I've got all the money I need on hand from that severance I got for leaving my last job.
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Aug 15, 2014 18:27
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Omne posted:Did someone just finish up paying off $25k in credit card debt today? Why yes, yes I did Awesome! How long did it take to do?
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Aug 15, 2014 18:56
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Thanks, it feels awesome! I stopped using the credit cards I had in May 2010 (incidentally, it got shut off at the end of a two week trip to China because they thought charges in Beijing and Shanghai and Xi'an were fine, but Maccau had to be fake....I just never called to open it back up again). I was in grad school until May 2011 so I was making the minimum payments until then. So, just over three years. It could have been faster, but I spent money on trips and other experiences, always in cash I had on hand and never on credit.
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Aug 15, 2014 21:36
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So my sponsorship/disability terms require me to repay 50% of any income I make beyond the disability amount. I've been working for a summer camp for five weeks as a volunteer because though they pay about 500/week, I'd only be earning 250. Since I really believe in the camp's vision I thought that money could be better spent (on, say, a counselor who actually needs the money) more productively. Was this a stupid decision, BFC?
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Aug 16, 2014 03:24
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