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- 74 inch armspan and forearms bigger than my biceps. No, I don't button my shirt cuffs. #
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- @bargainr What would it take to get you to include me in the personal-finance-bloggers list? #
- Working on a Penfed application to transform my worst interest rate into my best. #
- Gave the 1 year old pop rocks for the first time. Big smiles. #
- @Netflix @Wii disc works well and loads fast. Go, go gadget movie! #
The Magic Toilet
- Image by tokyofortwo via Flickr
My toilet is saving me $1200.
For a long time, my toilet ran. It was a nearly steady stream of money slipping down the drain. I knew that replacing the flapper was a quick job, but it was easy to ignore. If I wasn’t in the bathroom, I couldn’t hear it. If I was in the bathroom, I was otherwise occupied.
When I finally got sick of it, I started researching how to fix a running toilet because I had never done it before. I found the HydroRight Dual-Flush Converter. It’s the magical push-button, two-stage flusher. Yes, science fiction has taken over my bathroom. Or at least my toilet.
I bought the dual-flush converter, which replaces the flusher and the flapper. It has two buttons, which each use different amounts of water, depending on what you need it to do. I’m sure there’s a poop joke in there somewhere, but I’m pretending to have too much class to make it.
I also bought the matching fill valve. This lets you set how much water is allowed into the tank much better than just putting a brick in the tank. It’s a much faster fill and has a pressure nozzle that lies on the bottom of the tank. Every time you flush, it cleans the inside of the tank. Before I put it in, it had been at least 5 years since I had opened the tank. It was black. Two weeks later, it was white again. I wouldn’t want to eat off of it, or drink the water, but it was a definite improvement.
Installation would have been easier if the calcium buildup hadn’t welded the flush handle to the tank. That’s what reciprocating saws are for, though. That, and scaring my wife with the idea of replacing the toilet. Once the handle was off, it took 15 minutes to install.
“Wow”, you say? “Where’s the $1200”, you say? We’ve had this setup, which cost $35.42, since June 8th, 2010. It’s now September. That’s summer. We’ve watered both the lawn and the garden and our quarterly water bill has gone down $30, almost paying for the poo-gadget already. $30 X 4 = $120 per year, or $1200 over 10 years.
Yes, it will take a decade, but my toilet is saving me $1200.
30 Day Project – January
This month, I have two 30 Day Projects.
My first project is to start waking up at 5am. This will add an extra 90 minutes to my day, which will give me time to manage all of my other 30 day projects. I’ll be able to wake up to a quiet house, walk the dog, eat breakfast and not start every day in a rush to get out of the house. Today was my exception. After watching 2010 arrive, I didn’t get up early.
The second project is to start reading to my children every night before bed. We read to the kids often, but not every day. That’s going to change. We are also working on breaking the girls of the family bed. If I can read them to sleep each night, it will help. Good, educational family time that makes it easier to sleep every night.
These are both habits I want to keep long after the month is up.
Making Up Stories
Saturday night, as I was walking out of the pizza place, I saw a beautiful young brunette standing on the sidewalk talking on her cell phone.
As I walked past, I heard, “I could pay my rent if they’d just give me my last paycheck! They owe me like $200.”
That’s it.
Have you ever heard a tiny piece of a conversation and used that to build a back story in your own mind?
I do that all of the time.
In fact, I’m going to do that now.
First, what can I know from those two sentences?
- She was unemployed. She was more worried about her last paycheck than her next one.
- She had worked for a scummy, fly-by-night, something-or-other. Good companies don’t withhold paychecks.
- She had no emergency fund. If she had one, $200 would be an inconvenience, not a disaster.
- She rented, and had roommates. This conversation occurred in the parking lot of a pizza place in a reasonably affluent suburb. For $200, she wasn’t living alone. Whether she rented a room or shared an apartment would be a mere guess.
Those items can–I believe–be taken as fact, given the evidence at hand.
Now for the conjecture:
- She was a waitress. A $200 final paycheck probably means her hourly wage was low. Besides, pretty, young, unskilled girls often become waitresses. It’s one of the few ways to make good money without a degree of any kind.
- The restaurant wasn’t a chain. Chain stores have lawyers and procedures. They don’t withhold final paychecks.
- She invites drama into her life. When you work for a company that makes a habit of shady practices, like withholding final paychecks out of spite, you know it happens. It’s not a surprise. If you continue working there, you are just waiting in line for your turn to have problems.
- She wasn’t close to her family. In an emergency, $200 from Mom & Dad is nothing. In my mind, she only has one parent and isn’t close to that parent, but that’s purely invention.
- Her friends are in the same boat. Short-term planning, no reserve cash, no room to let a friend couch-surf for a couple of weeks.
- Next month, she’ll be having the same problems, but she’ll find someone else to blame. Her ex owes her money, or her roommate stole the last of her cash.
That’s my entirely unsupported guess of a young stranger’s life story. My opinion isn’t flattering, but how could it be, when $200 is enough to make the young woman panic?
Have you ever played this game?
