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More decluttering, donating, and selling

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Total Items out of the house: 284/365

I’m slowing down on getting rid of things because I’m starting to get into the “shared” items where I have to get the OK from Dad before I rid the house of them.  I did drop a rather large bag of clothes off at goodwill earlier this month, and I’ve been steadily listing books, games, and DVDs on Amazon or freecycle.  This month, I’ve gotten rid of about 20 books/games and 13 shirts that I didn’t wear much this summer.

I’m not at 365 yet, but I still have two months!  I have several books and games still listed, and someone may come to pick up 6 cookbooks through freecycle this afternoon (not worth listing on Amazon).  So I’m still making progress if slowly.  I also have another 24 shirts/shorts/pants between myself and Dad as we cleaned out our closets for winter.  I’m pretty sure I’ll have some winter shirts to donate as well because I don’t remember wearing them much last year.  I hung them backwards to tell me which ones I’m wearing all the time, and which ones I’m not.

Do you slowly go through things to donate/sell or do you have a few big “clean up” sessions throughout the year?

Back from Vacation

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We’re back from our vacation, a few hundred dollars lighter than we expected, but we also have a lot of wine to enjoy over the next few weeks.

The Niagara-on-the-Lake region of Ontario is known for it’s icewine specifically, but also has excellent whites and lighter reds – less expensive than California for the most part (except the icewine).  We brought back 13 bottles of “normal” wine, and 400mL of icewine.

Icewine is a super sweet dessert wine that I’ve heard referred to as the ambrosia of the gods.  It’s almost syrupy, which doesn’t lend itself to drinking a lot at once.  You *might* drink 1oz at a time, more than that is just too much – that’s the reason it’s sold in 50mL, 200mL and 375mL bottles.  We bought two 200mL bottles and 8 50mL ones.  It’s made by leaving the grapes on the vine until there are 3-5 consecutive days of -10 to -12C temps (10-14F).  Then the grapes are harvested at night, and pressed while frozen to produce a very concentrated juice.  Then that juice is fermented like “regular” wine.  Most icewines are made from Vidal and Riesling grapes, but on this trip, we saw a lot of Cabernet Franc icewines, and one Winery had icewine made from almost any kind of grape you can imagine.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the Chardonnay or Shiraz icewine for tasting, and we weren’t going to pay the premium for it.  Icewines run from about $40-$50 to $200 or more per 200mL – expensive stuff, but oooh so good!

We also took in a lot of the tourist sights around Niagara Falls, and met some of my friends for dinner in Toronto.  All-in-all, a great vacation.  I even managed to get myself back on east coast time pretty quickly after my recent visit to South East Asia.

I’m off to the West Coast for work tomorrow, but I’m on “American” time, so it’s not so hard on my body.  The separation is kinda hard on Daughter Person though.  She hasn’t let go of me since we picked her up at Grammy’s this weekend.

Saving Money with Baby – Cloth Diapers

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Daughter Person in a cloth diaper at about 6 months old

Daughter Person in a cloth diaper at about 6 months old

Now that we’re almost out of diapers (at least during the day), I wanted to post what I think we saved by going with cloth diapers over disposables. Daughter Person has been in cloth diapers ever since we brought her home from the NICU.

She had a horrible reaction to the diapers they put on her in the hospital, and her whole diaper area looked “burned” the entire time she was there. We had already bought the cloth diapers prior to her birth, but that week in the NICU really hardened our resolve to stay with cloth.

Costs

I bought 24 newborn BumGenius diapers for her first few months.  I bought them new for $12.95 each ($310.80), and resold them for $10 each on eBay when we were done with them (-$240.00).  We have 32 of the one-size pockets (BumGenius), which I bought for ~$16.50 each ($528.00) – I bought them in multi-packs 🙂  I’ve also bought new inserts for 25 of them for $15 shipped free on the slow boat from china ($15).  I’ve also bought 25 “refresh” kits to replace the velcro on the larger diapers, they’re $1 each ($25).  I’ve not started reselling the diapers yet, but I plan to, and they’re going for about $7-$10 each on eBay depending on condition – I’m going to guess we’re at the $7/diaper side.  So far, I’ve spent $638.80 on regular cloth diapers.  We went straight to undies for potty training, and we use cloth swim diapers as well ($14.95 each, and I’ve bought 3 – $44.85).  We have three wet bags for her diaper pail ($16.50 each), and two travel wet bags ($11.95 each).  For all Daughter Person’s cloth needs, we’ve spent $757.05.

What would we have spent on disposables for the same time period?

Assuming that we used store brand diapers (which may or may not have worked for us, I have no idea), I’m going to use Target’s prices for their brand.
We changed Daughter Person 12 times per day for the first three months, and she would have been in size 1-2 diapers: that’s 1,080 changes at .14 per diaper: $151.20

We changed her about 8 times a day until she was 1, and she would have been in the size 2-3 diapers: that’s 2,160 changes at .14 per diaper: $302.40

From a year until 2.5 years, she was changed about 6 times per day, and she would have been in the size 3-4 diapers:  that’s 3,240 changes at .16 per diaper: $518.40

Finally, for the last month, we’ve been in undies and diapers at night and nap.  We change undies about 5 times per day, and she’d be in pull-ups:  that’s 150 changes at .34 per pull-up: $51.

Not to mention the swim diapers we’d have had to buy through all this, we’d have spent $1,024 on just regular diapers.

That’s a difference of $266.95 and we haven’t even sold our cloth diapers yet (an estimated $224.  And this is just for one kid!  We’re not having another, so those are pretty much our final costs for the cloth diapers.  If you had more than one kid, you’d save even more.

Practicality

Using cloth diapers is a bit different than disposables (but not that much!).  We have to wash them every 2-3 days.  It involves a cold rinse, hot wash, then low dry, and that’s it.  It’s just two-three extra loads of laundry per week, which wasn’t that much considering we were already doing all the laundry for her (and my) clothes.  There was some cost to the laundering, but I don’t think it was that significant, and we could have line dried to keep it lower.

We found a daycare center that was willing to work with us using the cloth.  We stuffed the inserts into the diapers when we did laundry, and from then on, it was just like a disposable diaper – except you don’t throw away the old one.  They’d put them in a bag and we’d take them home to wash, and bring in the same number the next morning.

Poop is one reason many give for not using cloth.  There are multiple options here.  1) babies who are exclusively breastfed (not Daughter Person) have water soluble poop – nothing special needs to be done, just toss in the wash. 2) liners – you can buy liners which catch solids and you throw them away – we didn’t use those either. 3) a diaper sprayer (or toilet): you rinse off the solids into the toilet, then wash the diaper.  We used a sprayer to rinse off the big pieces of solids as soon as we removed the diaper, then put the wet diaper into the pail.  Daycare left the solids in the diapers for us to rinse when we got home.  It’s really not that bad.  Especially since you end up covered in poop anyway, no matter what diaper you use!

Cloth diapers are not for everyone, they take some planning ahead and easy access to washing facilities.  Dad preferred the cloth diapers to the disposable ones she was in in the NICU (so did I).  I think they’re just easier to use – and they certainly look more colorful!

 

Freezer Cooking Planning – Take 3

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Now that this is the 3rd time we’re planning on doing a massive freezer cooking session, I think we have the system down. Planning out a full menu for a few months just doesn’t work for us, so we’re picking the recipes we like (or might like), and making them, putting them in the freezer, then planning as we go.

Our freezer after our first freezer cooking session

Our freezer after our first freezer cooking session

The first few steps of freezer cooking planning are the same, but after things are placed in the freezer, we’re just going to look at the freezer inventory and pick recipes for the month as it comes up.

I don’t like using the oven during the summer, so we’re picking recipes that can all be grilled or put in the crockpot.  I know summer’s more than halfway over, but it stays hot here until about mid September, and we’re planning for enough food to get us into October, when we’ll make more “comfort” food.  I’ve also selected more simplified recipes, so that we don’t need that many ingredients.  We actually have a good bit of the ingredients for these recipes in our pantry.  Most of the recipes are from Fix, Freeze, Feast, with maybe a few adaptations – for example, I don’t like chicken thighs, so the Chicken Peanut Satay we’re going to do is going to use chicken breast.

I’ve already done most of the planning, and I have a shopping list, but we have budgeted the large grocery bill in August, so I’ll be shopping and preparing the first weekend in August.  Some of the recipes have the estimated per serving price listed in plan to eat, but not all.

Have you done once a month cooking or the freezer cooking that we do?  How has it worked out for you and your budget?

The Recipes:

Electronics Recycling

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Our county offers electronics recycling in the form of “Electric Sundays“.  This upcoming weekend is a scheduled Electric Sunday, and we’re probably going to be recycling quite a bit of electronic equipment.   Dad and I are computer geeks, there’s no denying that, and we have a *lot* of old hardware – most of which is too old to sell or donate, and some of which isn’t even operable.

Recycling logo

Photo Credit: StockMonkeys.com

The EPA recommends eCycling, and some states require it.  Either way, recycling is a good thing, so we try to participate in the county’s programs.

Fairfax County will take most electronics, except one thing: UPS batteries.  Most UPS batteries are lead acid batteries, and they don’t fall under the “electronics” recycling, but under auto batteries, which the various automakers/stores are supposed to exchange for a new one and they are responsible for recycling it.  Our county used to take the batteries under their hazardous household waste program, but no longer.  So, technically, our county doesn’t recycle UPSes any longer.

I had several old UPSs laying around that were no longer working.  The cost to ship the old battery back to the manufacturer is kinds of expensive, making an exchange not very financially feasible.  However, last night, I just recycled 3 old UPSs (and had to buy a new one, but that’s a different story).  Staples offers a recycling program which will take them.  You can bring up to 6 things in per day, which I think is pretty generous.  They’re also not limited to the 10-11 days that our county’s electronics recycling program is.  They only take computer (and related) equipment, but it’s still a good option.

I also got three more (large and heavy) things out of the house 🙂

Total Items out of the house: 251/365

Cleaning out the basement

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Total items out of the house: 249/365

Over the last few weeks, I’ve gotten rid of a lot of things – some of them pretty pricy.  I was able to sell our old Kitchen Aid stand mixer on Craigslist for $75, and an old bike trainer (the kind you prop your back wheel on and it provides resistance) for $25, and a tap-a-draft system.  I also sold one of the Japanese learning games on Amazon.  We netted about $200 over the last two weeks before the holiday weekend.

I also found someone on freecycle that was looking for old towels and cat beds to foster kittens.  I had a pile of them waiting to figure out how to donate to the local animal shelter, but this is just as good.  She picked them up this morning.

I also have a small list of items that I want to list on Amazon (but haven’t yet), and others that will go to freecycle (or the trash).  We also have a box of china (a full set with serving pieces) that Dad was given when a great aunt passed away.  He’d never used it, and we already have other china that we like (and sometimes use).  It’s worth something though, I just need to take it out of the storage closet in the basement, unwrap all the pieces and figure out what we have.  The pattern sells pretty well on replacements.com, but I’m not sure I want to deal with shipping all of that china to them – its’ current newspaper wrapping survived our move almost 5 years ago, but I don’t think it’ll stand up to a shipping company.

I’m slowly getting rid of things as I come across them in the basement – although not much has been done about removing that stupid carpet mastic.

Pictures of the Basement

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Upon request, I’ve uploaded some pictures of the basement.  I’m traveling for work, so these were taken before I left.  I doubt Dad has done anything with it while I’ve been gone (he’s got his hands full with Daughter Person).

The "stuff" half of the basement

The “stuff” half of the basement

You can kind of see the really dark green/black spot next to the exercise bike – that’s where the glue is the thickest and most difficult to get up (so far).

Removed carpet (glue is still there)

Removed carpet (glue is still there)

These lighter areas are where the basement flooded previously, and I think it helped loosen up the glue, it was easier to pull up the carpet, and the glue isn’t as thick.

The "cat" corner. The carpet is gone, but the glue remains

The “cat” corner. The carpet is gone, but the glue remains

Progress with the scraper after an hour

Progress with the scraper after an hour

I scratched this little bit of glue off with my boot heel

I scratched this little bit of glue off with my boot heel

I’ve acquired an angle grinder with a sandpaper disc, which works quite well at removing the thickest part of the glue, then we can scrape what’s left much easier.  We hit a snag before I left where we couldn’t get a face pin spanner to fit the grinder bolt to remove the old sand paper disc.  That part was not available locally, so hopefully, it has arrived when I return home later today, and we can keep going with the grinder.

 

 

 

First major DIY project in this house

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We have started to undertake the largest DIY project we’ve done in this house (and really, I’d say to date).  We’re pulling up the (moldy, stained) carpet in the basement – and  replacing it with tile.

We literally just started today, and I already curse anyone who uses carpet mastic.  I was hoping for some nice “tackless” carpet (the kind with the metal tacks on the edges), some crowbar love, and wa-la, bare concrete in the basement…  I should know that I’m not so lucky.

I’ve been wanting to pull up the carpet since December 2010 – when a root caused our main drain to back up – twice.  Most of the basement had sopping wet carpet – which we vacuumed up with the wet/dry vac, and since it didn’t smell anymore (and I was 8 months pregnant), I didn’t push it.  It did however seriously stain the carpet, and I was sure that there was mold growing under the carpet….

I got the “OK” from Dad this week – we turned the heat pump on cool for the first time since we turned off heat back in March-ish – and the drain pipe has two problems: 1) it’s leaking inside the A/C unit where the drain pipe connects, and 2) water’s not going down the drain like it’s supposed to.  I thought I fixed that.  The HVAC guys who installed the humidifier dropped a flexible hose down the drain to drain it, it moved the A/C drain pipe just enough so that it doesn’t go down the drain.  And the genius who built/designed our house did not put the drain at the lowest part of the house – that was somewhere under the carpet (or the “bar” they built in the basement) – the water seeps under the carpet and not into the drain.  It’s been smelling a bit rank in the basement, so Dad said, “OK”. (The HVAC guys are coming on Wednesday to fix the inside leak – under warranty).

Because we’ve basically flooded our basement 3 times since we’ve lived here in the last 5 years, I want a flooring that will be able to handle being flooded again – and that is either bare/stained concrete, or tile.  I love tile, and I mostly know how to install it, so I’ve managed to talk Dad into glazed ceramic tile in the basement, and we are currently looking at tile that runs $0.88/sq ft.  I haven’t measured yet, but based on the wall lengths, we’re looking at about 500-700 sqft roughly.  New floor for about $700 (and a lot of work/time)?  Sign me up!

I’ve never tiled an entire room before, but based on Youtube, it doesn’t look that hard, it’s mostly tile layout, then a lot of work on your knees.  I’ve tiled small areas, so I’m familiar with the general concepts, and I’m going to trust in Youtube, Google and my Home Depot 123 book for the rest.  First, we have to remove the existing carpet.

Today, we started removing the carpet.  We discovered that the carpet was glued down (very well in some places), and have been removing the carpet in pieces.  Dad has actually gotten at least half of the room cleared of carpet (but not glue).

We have some “issues” in the basement which make the whole project interesting:

  1. There are many heavy things in the basement (freezer, washer, dryer, treadmill, exercise bike) most of these things cannot be moved elsewhere while we’re working because of either hookups, or the fact that we can’t get them up the stairs.
  2. The basement is kind of a dumping ground for things we’re not sure of where to put elsewhere, so it has some piles which we’ll have to deal with.

What we’ve done so far, is move as much as we can to one side of the room, and remove the carpet.  I’d prefer to remove the glue as well before we move it all back to the other side.  Some things, I’ve tossed into a “sell, donate” box which is now in the garage.  I’m trying to go through things as we come across them.  The biggest storage closet in the room (takes an entire wall) has carpet on the floor, so we’ve got to remove things out of there temporarily as well.  We’ll continue to move things around as needed to remove the carpet and glue and put down the tile – the hard parts will be the treadmill, bike and washer/dryer.

Murphy schedules a visit

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Just as we pay off the line of credit, we may need to use some of it.  We have a lot of wood trim around the house (exterior), and much of it is rotting, and the paint is deteriorating, and the gutters are failing (and causing a leak).  I’ve got quotes for the work, and the guy I’m going with will run us about $7,000 to do all of the work – replacing the rotting wood, painting, etc.  And we’ll finally get to change up the colors on the house.  A previous owner had some warm cream siding installed, with a bright white and bright blue trim.  The clash of warm and cool colors even bothers my design-dumb eyes.  While I’d prefer the cool color scheme, the siding isn’t getting replaced anytime soon, so since we’re repainting the trim, it’ll become “warm”.

I’ve got at least 30 days to come up with as much as I can before dipping into the line of credit, and we’re going to use some (not all) of our emergency fund to cover it.  I estimate that we’ll need to borrow up to 3k from the line of credit, which would get completely paid off (again) in September.  I don’t want to drain the emergency fund, so we’re taking 3k from there (leaving us with 2k), and before we really attack the line of credit again, I want to “refill” the emergency fund, which is why September is the payoff date rather than sooner.

We have to file for an architectural change with our HOA, which can take up to 60 days (neighborhood rumors say it takes less than 30), then the company has 30 days to start work.  We need to put down 35% for materials, and pay the rest when he’s done, so we might not borrow as much depending on when the work is completed.  The work needs to be done before our rainy season in August/Sept, but we can push it off just a little bit to try to save more, but there is some wood that I hope will survive the next month.  We’ve already put it off as long as we think we can, and the leaking was the final straw that told us “OK, you need to take care of this”.

We looked at covering it with vinyl so that we never had to paint again, but several trusted contractors said not to do that because the wood still rots under the covering, and we wouldn’t know about it.  So, we’re going with painting, which is guaranteed for 4 years, so it’ll be a while before we paint again 🙂

Steadily decluttering

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Total items out of the house: 240/365

I sent off a few more books and games through Amazon the last two weeks, and I just got rid of our old console humidifier via craigslist.  When we moved into the house, there was a whole house humidifier on the heat pump.  It was wasting water, so we turned it off (I was literally watching water come out of the humidifier and go straight into the drain).  We also have wood floors – which we have since learned need some moisture.  We had a console humidifier in our living room which claimed that it could pump out 11gallons/day of water – except that the tanks on the humidifier only held 3 gallons at a time.  We were constantly refilling the thing, and we’d have to turn it off to light a fire because of the fan.  In short, we got tired of dealing with it.  And, it didn’t push out enough water for the wood floors.  We were lucky if we could get our main room at 25% relative humidity.

We splurged for a whole house steam humidifier earlier this month, and now our main room is up to 35-40% relative humidity, a far cry from what the console unit could do – and we weren’t having to fill up the tanks constantly!  I listed it on craigslist Wednesday evening, and met with someone this afternoon to sell it.  It was pretty big at about 2ftx1ftx2ft.  Now it’s not in our living room or in our storage closet anymore.