Justifying Major Purchases

Idlir Fida/Wikimedia Commons

Friends and family tend to think of me as the scrimper, the saver, the one who will make something last until it’s completely outlived its usefulness. For instance, when the ketchup level is so low that the condiment cannot be easily squeezed from the bottle, Mr. Saver will automatically pass it […]

Cut Down on Heating Bills With These Tips

In the summer, homeowners and renters who pay their own utility (gas & electric) bills do their damnedest to keep down their electrical costs by running the air conditioning less often. While I’m guilty of keeping the air conditioning off as much as I can, instead of just sitting there, sweltering, I’ve taken other steps […]

Lazy Is as Lazy Does

There are so many things that are calling out to me to get done around the house, yet I’ve somehow slipped into lazy summer mode. All I want to do is sip some lemonade, get some sun (without melting from temps in the upper 90s the past two weeks) and relax.

A co-worker jokes that […]

Fix-It Friday: How to Install a Ceiling Fan

Fix-It Friday is an occasional series that details the projects I’ve done around the house. Check out some past posts here and here.

The old fixture looked like this, with a plain plastic cover to hide the bulbs.

This past weekend, I decided to tackle a home improvement project I’ve had on […]

Fix-It Friday: Tree Flower Bed

Fix-It Friday is an occasional series that details the projects I’ve done around the house. Check out some past posts here and here.

We have a pretty medium-size Japanese maple on our front lawn. The leaves turn from green to red throughout the course of the spring and summer, culminating in a dark red in […]

Phantom Power Loads: “Sneaky” Electricity Consumption

Our upstairs room is now ready for a spackler/taper to finish it. Aas my father says, I hope he has a sense of humor, because boy, are there a lot of seams! We also have 7 outlet receptacles throughout the room, which I find strange. In comparison, the room I use as my office only […]

Landscaping Service: I Still Refuse to Pay for It

Our lawn is much more filled in than this now, but still patchy. At the right are weeds that had come back.

After a year of home ownership, our lawn is still looking anemic. Well, I’d rather that than the way I found it when we moved in, with 2-foot-tall weeds covering the front […]

Fix-It Friday: Drywall Progress

Fix-It Friday is an occasional series that details the projects I’ve done around the house. Check out some past posts here and here.

We’ve finally moved on to the drywall phase of our upstairs bedroom renovation project — aka Operation Knotty Pine — and it’s been a long time coming, five months after we first […]

Fix-It Friday: Landscaping

Fix-It Friday is an occasional series that details the projects I’ve done around the house. Check out some past posts here and here.

I’ve been pretty stingy with the spending for our home improvement expenses. Our kitchen walls are still primer white, the countertop is ugly, cracked white Formica with little yellow designs, and our […]

Finally: Our Tax Refund Has Arrived

I was pleasantly surprised to find that our tax refund had been deposited into our joint checking account the other day. Although we’d forgotten to include the Making Work Pay (Schedule M) credit paperwork, the IRS was kind enough to fix our omission. Now, we don’t have to send an amended return. It was worth […]