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How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

Finance

A U.S. riverboat deploying napalm during the V...
Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever been screwed by a company?  Have they sent you the wrong item, or an empty box, or left your order backordered for so long that you can’t even dispute it with your credit card company any more?

What can you do?

I know you’ve heard the phrase, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.”  That means, he whines loudest, gets the most.  The thing is, you have to whine effectively, or you’ll just get round-filed.

Targeting Subsystems On

Who you complain to matters more than what you complain about.  The clerk at your local big-box retailer isn’t going to refund your online purchase.  You need to complain to someone who can make a decision to help you.   First, find the customer service email address.   Next, if you are complaining about a recurring service, find the retention department’s email address.  Finally, find the email address for absolutely everybody Vice-President or above for that company, including the board of directors.   Go to their website, find the email for some PR drone and figure out the format.  First.Last@Company.com or FirstInitial.LastName@Company.com or whatever.   Look up the company in Google Finance and translate everyone’s name into the email format.   You might not have the perfect list, but it should be close.

Target Locked On

Now that you know who you are about to blast, what are you going to say?   A few things to include are:

  • Your contact information.   If they can’t get back to you, they can’t make it up to you.
  • Details of the problem.  Include the date of purchase, date of delivery, and a detailed description of what actually went wrong.
  • Scanned copies of receipts.
  • Any names of anybody you’ve had to deal with, either in the original transaction or when the problem occurred, if you have the names.

Engage!

What to say, what to say?

  • Don’t be abusive.  It’s okay to be angry, and it’s okay to let them know your are angry, but swearing or threatening their lives will–at best–only get you ignored.  Worst case, threats are illegal and they can pass your email along to the police.
  • Stay brief.   It doesn’t matter that your daddy took you to Starbucks to use their free wi-fi when you were just three years old.   Don’t talk about that time the aliens abducted you or how sad you are that they never call like they promised they would.   Keep to the point.   “This is who I am.  This is what happened.  This is what I want you to do about it.”

Send that sucker out.   If you feeling particularly perturbed, send a CC to your state’s Attorney General and any possibly related regulatory agencies.   I tend to save this step for round 2.

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Shaving for Real

Life

me getting ready to shave.
Image via Wikipedia

When you look at a safety razor, you see the mostly-unguarded blade.  When you look in the mirror, you see your throat and you see this blade–by definition, razor-sharp–and you realize that you are about to put a knife to your own throat.   Why?

Because shaving sucks.

For my 18th birthday, I received 2 Mach3 razors.  I used them  for more than 10 years.  It certainly beat disposable Bics, but not by much.

I liked it, but only because I didn’t have anything good to compare it to.

I’ve start using an old-fashioned safety razor.   Now, I can shave smoother and with less irritation than I ever could with a modern razor and it only takes a few extra minutes.

Why would you want to abandon modern technology to put a blade against your jugular?

Modernization isn’t always an improvement.  There is something about reaching back in time a couple of generations and doing things, not only the way they used to be done, but the way they should be done.  It’s the same feeling I get handling an old rifle or sitting in an antique car.

A real shave is 15 minutes of peace and focus. Lock the kids out of the bathroom and focus on the task at hand.  The concentration will usually give you a chance to forget about the rest of the world for just a few minutes.  This is pure meditation.

As a benefit, when you’re done, you feel refreshed and well-groomed.  It feels good to take care of yourself.

What do you need to shave like a real man?

Start slow and ease your way into it.  Put a cup in the bathroom. If you shave with a modern razor, the easiest way to improve your shave is to use hot water.      Put your shaving cream in the cup and add a bit of hot water.   Mix that up and use it to shave.  The hot foam will do wonders for your skin and the closeness of your shave.   I did that and immediately start trolling antique stores looking for a good, cheap shaving brush.

A brush makes applying your shaving cream a small pleasure. Spreading the hot foam on your face with a brush gets in on all sides of each hair, softening it for the razor.   Ideally, you want a badger-hair brush, but I’ve been perfectly happy with boar hair.   I found one at an antique store for $5.

Shortly after acquiring my antique shaving brush, I decided to go even older-school and upgraded to an old-fashioned safety razor.   I took my life, and my life-blood, in my own hands to shave for real.  I went with a  Merkur 23C Long Handle Safety Razor.   It’s a basic razor with a longer handle, because I have large hands and long fingers.   Don’t worry about getting an adjustable razor.  There’s no point.   It cost $29 at West Coast Shaving*.

You will need blades for the razor.  West Coast Shaving sells a variety pack of 45 blades for $15.    Try them all and stick with the one that works best for your facial hair.   I tend to change blades every 4-5 shaves.   More than that, and they get a bit dull and make me bleed.  I try to avoid bleeding.
Now that you’ve got a brush, a razor, and blades, it’s time to get rid of the worthless can of shaving foam. Shaving soap works much better.    You can get 3 discs of Col. Conk’s soap for $15, and they will last 6 months each, easily.    They are almost exactly the same diameter as a regular coffee cup, so guess what?  Just drop it in your cup.
That’s everything you need to shave for just $65, and of that only the blades and soap are recurring costs.  Your razor and brush will last forever.   I figure it costs me about $1 per month to shave, now.

How do you avoid killing yourself while getting ready for work?

It’s all a matter of technique.

  1. Dampen your cheeks with hot water to soften the hair.  I prefer to shave immediately after I shower.
  2. Run hot water over your brush.  Get it thoroughly soaked, then shake off the excess water.  You want it hot and wet, but not dripping.
  3. Briskly brush the soap disk until the brush picks up as much soap as it can.   It may or may not form a lather in the cup.
  4. Put the brush on your face and whisk it around.   I use a quick circular motion to build up a lather on my cheeks.   This works the hot soap into each hair.   Keep brushing it onto your face until it forms peaks.
  5. Pick up your razor.   I run it under some hot water, just so the cold metal isn’t a shock after the hot foam.   From here, you need your full attention on what you are doing.
  6. Shave.

When you are shaving there are a few things to keep in mind.

  • Take your time.
  • Never, ever, ever, ever turn the blade while it is in contact with your face.  You will bleed.   Once the blade touches your face, it goes in a straight line.
  • Keep the edge of the blade as close to parallel with your face as possible.
  • The goal is hair reduction, not removal.

I make 4 passes when I shave.  First, I shave from the top down.   Next, from the back towards my nose and mouth.   Then, from the front to the back.  Finally, I shave against the grain from the bottom to the top.    This results in a closer shave than anything I’ve ever had with a modern razor.

When I think I’m done, I dip my fingers in some warm water and run them around my face, in all possible directions, to see if I missed a spot.

When the hair is gone, wipe of the remaining cream and splash cold water every place the razor touched.   This closes the pores and will help prevent infections and razor bumps.

The last step is aftershave.    Aftershave disinfects your face.   It also prevents infections and makes you stink nice.

There you have it: the secret to a baby-butt-smooth shave and 10-20 minutes of masculine meditation.   If you are looking for a present for someone, you could do a lot worse than a real razor set.

*I have absolutely no affiliation with WCS.  I am just very happy with the service and the product.

Quit Smoking: My First Frugal Move…Ever

Finance, Life

Lit cigarette
Image via Wikipedia

It’s nearly the 5 year anniversary of my last cigarette, so I though I’d bring this post back to the front page. 

A bit over three years ago, we found out that my wife was pregnant with baby #3.    When we decided to have #2, it took us two years of trying.  Naturally, we assumed we’d have the same issues with #3.   Imagine our surprise when it only took 2 weeks.   At that point, we were getting ready to celebrate brat #2’s first birthday.

That mean’s 2 kids under 2.   Two kids in diapers.  Three kids in daycare.  Baby formula again.

We weren’t making ends meet with two kids, how were we going to manage three?  I dropped my pack-or-two-a-day smoking habit.

But, I’ve gone over that before.

This post is about how I actually quit.

Some Facts About Me

I don’t do things by halves; I tend to do things all the way or not at all.    For years, my wife would ask me to cut back, to just smoke a little less, but that never worked.   If I had cigarettes, I smoked them. I always had cigarettes.    When I eat, I eat.  I’ve never managed smaller portions.    I used to drink a case of soda each week, just because it was there.   Moderation has never been my friend.

As a corollary, I don’t cheat. At anything.  Ever.   Because of the above fact about myself.    I don’t moderate myself when I give myself rules either.   If I draw a line, I obsessively avoid crossing it.

The problem comes when I try to give myself a “gray area” rule.    “Smoke less” always leaves room for “just one more”, which easily leads to “I only cut out one cigarette yesterday, so what’s the use?”   I had to be done.

After smoking for fifteen years–more than a pack a day for at least 12 of those–that’s an intimidating thought.

The Plan

The first thing I did was set a day to quit.  I chose the day after my Halloween party.   Before that would have been setting myself up for failure.   Booze, food, and long conversations in a smoking-friendly environment were just 3 of my many triggers.    I always smoked more at my parties, so the day after, I didn’t feel up to smoking much, anyway.   I’d just ride that wave of “I don’t feel like it” to to holy city of “I quit”.

I didn’t quit smoking the next day, I just quit buying cigarettes.  That left me half a pack to curb my cravings.

I also knew that nicotine cravings are about the most distracting thing I’ve ever had to deal with.   That doesn’t make for a productive computer programmer, so I bought a box of the generic patch that Target carries.   I started with Phase 2, because I wasn’t interested in prolonging the process.   I just didn’t want to spend my work days thinking about smoking instead of designing software.  I needed something to take the edge off, without actually smoking.

My plan was to have the patch at work, so I’d be able to work and to stretch those last 10 cigarettes out, as long as possible.

The Result

It worked.   The pack lasted 4 days, I think.   I smoked during my commute and after dinner.   I used the patch only when the cravings got to the point that I couldn’t concentrate.  After a week, I stopped using it at all.   A few days later, I had a particularly stressful day and cheated.    I took 3 puffs of that cigarette and threw it away, because it tasted like crap and I wasn’t enjoying it.  That’s when I knew I was successfully done smoking.    It was a 10 day variation of “cold turkey”.    More than 3 years later, I have an occasional cigar, but never due to a craving.  The day I experience a nicotine craving is the day I burn my humidor.

That’s how I quite smoking, strictly to try to get my finances in line.  That has saved me at least $10,000 over the last 3 years.

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Selling Your Home: The Real Estate Agent

Finance

If you are not able or willing to sell your home yourself, you’ll need to find a real estate agent.  A realtor is someone who deals with all of the hassles involved in selling your home in exchange for a fee of up to 7% of the selling price.

The hassles include marketing, an objective price analysis, advertising on the internet and in newspapers, providing a yard sign, negotiating the sale price, reviewing and filling out the contracts, and navigating the entire process for you.  The aren’t meaningless duties, so make sure you are getting what you pay for.  You need to find the right realtor for you.

The key to to ask questions, particularly the right questions. You can ask the wrong ones if you’d like, but they tend not to help much.

Helpful questions include:

  • “Can I call your previous clients?” If the answer is no, run away!  If the answer is yes, get the list and call them.
  • “Have you sold any homes near here recently?” Get the names and numbers of the customers and call them.  Find out how it went and what they wish would have happened differently.  If the realtor hasn’t sold nearby homes recently, keep looking.
  • “Will you put your sales strategy in writing?” If it’s not in writing, you may be left paying the full commission, without getting the full promised service.
  • “What will you tell a potential buyer that wants to negotiate?”   Make sure you and your realtor are on the same page.

Now for some secrets that realtors will not volunteer.

  • The selling fee is negotiable.  If you live in a popular development, or if nearby homes have sold quickly, you should be able to get your fee reduced a couple of points.
  • You don’t have to sign an exclusive listing agreement. With an exclusive agreement, you will pay the realtor a fee if the house sells.  Period.  With a non-exclusive agreement, you can list with several agents and only pay the one who actually sells your house.  If you find the buyer, you won’t pay a selling commission at all.

Selling your house can be intimidating and realtors are there to make the task easier for you.   Have you had any problems with real estate agents?

Make a Budget

Finance

DSC02103
Image by r.lovewell via Flickr

In the past, I’ve gone through a detailed series of budget lessons demonstrating how to make a budget and showing my personal budget spreadsheet template.  If you weren’t here to see them develop, you probably haven’t seen them at all.    I’ve never built an actual index for those posts.

This is the master index of my budget planning resources.  As I develop more, this will grow.

Budget Lesson #1 – In this lesson, I go over how we handle discretionary income and I explain our modified envelope system.   The discretionary budget contains things like our grocery bill, or the clothes we buy.  We have near-total discretion over what is purchased, hence the name.

Budget Lesson #2 – Lesson #2 contains the details of our monthly bills.  These are the ones that are consistent, predictable, and actually due each month.  Most people take these for granted as the bills they have to pay, but it’s not true.   You can get almost all of your regular bills reduced just by asking.   You would also be surprised what you can do without, when properly motivated.

Budget Lesson #3 – This is where I explain how we deal with the non-monthly bills.  That is, the bills that have to be paid, but are not due on a monthly basis.  I also share the personal budget spreadsheet template I developed.   I am working on a few sample templates to match various imaginary scenarios.  If you’d like to be an anonymous case study, and get free help setting up a budget, let me know, please.

Budget Lesson #4 – In this lesson, I describe our “set-aside” funds for things that will need to be paid eventually, but not on a set schedule.  Sometimes, they are never actually due.   We set aside money for the parties we throw, for car repairs and for a number of other things.  A few of these items are outright optional, but they are part of what makes life fun.  You can’t make a budget without including some of the extras.

Budget Lesson #5 – This is the companion piece to lesson 2.   Learn how I’ve reduced–or attempted to reduce–each of these bills.   For the better part of two years, I called Dish Network every few months to ask for a discount.  For almost 2 years, it was granted.  Then one, day, they told me they were putting a note on our account to keep us from getting any more discounts, so I canceled.   100% discounts help us save more.

Budget Lesson #6 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 3.  These bills are harder to reduce.  Have you ever successfully gotten your property taxes lowered?

Budget Lesson #7 – This is the reduction companion to lesson 4.  Notice a pattern, yet?

Budget Lesson #8 – Here, completely out of order, is the reduction companion to lesson 1.   Watch as I magically reduce–or rationalize–our discretionary budget.

So, dear readers, what part of budgeting should I address next?

Saturday Roundup

Life

I’ve spend the last 10 days at home with my two youngest kids.   It’s been a lot of fun.   It’s amazing watching them interact with each other and seeing how their imaginations works.   It’s also been a helpful reminder that, if I don’t turn on the TV, they will happily find something else to do.

30 Day Project Update

This month, I am trying to establish the Slow Carb Diet as a habit.   At the end of the month, I’ll see what the results were and decide if it’s worth continuing.   For those who don’t know, the Slow Carb Diet involves cutting out potatoes, rice, flour, sugar, and dairy in all their forms.   My meals consist of 40% proteins, 30% vegetables, and 30% legumes(beans or lentils).    There is no calorie counting, just some specific rules, accompanied by a timed supplement regimen and some timed exercises to manipulate my metabolism.   The supplements are NOT effedrin-based diet pills, or, in fact, uppers of any kind.  There is also a weekly cheat day, to cut the impulse to cheat and to avoid letting my body go into famine mode.

I’m measuring two metrics, my weight and the total inches of my belly, waist, biceps, and thighs.   Between the two, I should have an accurate assessment of my progress.

Weight: I have lost 11 pounds since January 2nd.  This is crazy.  At least part of this has to be due to the natural swing of up to 5 pounds from day to day, and part of it is due to the fact that I was wearing jeans when I weighed in the first time and cotton pajamas this morning.  From now on, this is going to be the first thing I do on Saturday mornings, so everything is as consistent as possible.  Another factor is that I’ve cut most of the crap out of my diet for a week.  My body has been flushing garbage.  But dang!  11 pounds in a week.  I’m a bit excited.

Total Inches: I have lost 5.5 inches in the same time frame.  This is proof that it’s not just water that I lost, which is where first, dramatic losses usually originate in a diet.

The loss seems a little bit nuts.   Here’s hoping it stays consistent.

Best Posts

Your retirement account shouldn’t be an optional investment.   Do you know how to maximize retirement savings?

I’m a big fan of making extra money.   Money Crashers lists 6 sites to help you rake in the cash, without needing any special skills.

Unclutterer is giving away three Fujitsu Scansnaps.   I want one of these is a way that isn’t quite right.

I’ve been moving to LED lights instead of CFLs for a few years.  CFLs make lousy security lights in Minnesota in the winter.  They take 5 minutes to get to full brightness when it’s cold.  LEDs last forever.

LRN Timewarp

This is where I review the posts I wrote one year ago.

I posted about the difference between bribes and rewards and the problems inherent in trying to buy good behavior.

Lesson 2 of my budget series went live, detailing my monthly bills.

We made some changes to our budget plans that haven’t worked very well.   Over the course of the last year, every one of these ideas has either been partially or totally abandoned, but it’s working for us.

Carnivals I’ve Rocked

How to Complain – The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease was included in the Carnival of Personal Finance.

3 Things You Need to Know About Homeowner’s Insurance was included in the Festival of Frugality.

Thank you! If I missed anyone, please let me know.

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That’s all for today.   Have a great weekend!