Author: Bill

Frugal Librarian #26: Electrojunk

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One man’s junk…can still be that dude’s junk.  But oh, it can be repurposed into something functional and amazing!

-As of June 2008, there have been more than 1 billion personal computers distributed worldwide.
-The average American goes through a cell phone every 12 to 18 months, leaving 700 million sitting in desk drawers for a rainy day.

Those are just the appliances you’ve used recently.  How about your rotary phone, external modem, parallel port scanner, etc?

Enter the new book 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer (and Other Discarded Electronics) by Randy Sarafan and you can construct an iMac terrarium, RAM money clip,  and a scanner compost bin among many useful inventions.  I mean, what else were you planning to do with that stuff?

Frugal Librarian #25: Brown Bag

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You can save an absurd amount of money by bringing in your own lunch – either to work or school.

Some folks report saving $60 per week, which translates to $240 per month.

Other advantages:  It’s healthier, since you’re controlling the nutritional value.  Unless, of course, you like deep frying at home.

Faster, since there’s no drive time or anyone you have to worry about tipping

As a person who tends to pack things the general populace wouldn’t consume, a brown bag is the only option for choice.

Don’t forget the added benefit of brown bagging it — you have the remainder of your lunch hour to sleep off your own crafted super-sized portions.

(Baseball) Diamond in the Rough

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An excellent little baseball movie that never got its due was Pastime.  Good luck finding it on any “best” lists.  Released in 1991, it is the story of an aging minor league pitcher named Roy Dean Bream seemingly holding on just for the love of the game or nowhere else to go.  Set in 1957, Bream is the only player halfway civil to a humble black rookie pitcher while the rest of the team addresses him as a pariah.

Either this little gem never got released or didn’t have any marketing budget.  Apparently some people other than myself enjoyed it…it won the audience award at Sundance and features cameos by Bob Feller, Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, Don Newcombe, Bill Mazeroski and Harmon Killebrew.

A New Genre: woo woo!

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It’s not very often that a new genre comes down the pike for arts and literature.  You may have heard the term “steampunk” bandied about but didn’t investigate.  It’s kind of like Goth only without the sad faces, black (the only color fit to adorn a tormented soul) and boo-hoo defeatist music.

Also in a Victorian setting, what sets steampunk off is an emphasis on advanced modern technologies utilizing non-transistor and vacuum tube methods.  Think Phinneas Fogg cross-pollinated with Q from James Bond.  Like a more elegant cast of the short lived television series Wild Wild West sans stagecoaches.

Steampunk has proven quite popular melding with Internet culture as evidenced by this sweet modded computer at left.

Here are what Library Journal considers the top ten steampunk novels.

Frugal Librarian#24: Solar clothes dryer

- Bill 2 Comments

Behold, an extensively tested method of laundry technologies, honed over centuries!  Anyone will tell you that line-drying your clothes is a serious saver. It certainly is less convenient than transferring into the dryer, and not appropriate for all lifestyles, however.

Pros: Free, there are discrete indoor methods, easier on your garments, saves tons of C02 from the atmosphere, dries faster, larger clothing amounts

Cons: Not all city aesthetic ordinances support outdoor drying, time spent wrangling those pins

The consensus seems to be, depending on the number of loads you clean and kids living at home, line drying will save you around $150 per year.
The outdoor season begins in a month or so.  After hanging up a couple of baskets in late July, the beginning of the line may already be nearly dry.

An even more green/cost-effective solution is not doing your laundry at all, but there also may be sanctions in your household against that measure as well.

Frugal Librarian #23: Vampire Appliances

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If someone just handed you a couple hundred bucks around Christmas time, you’d be cool with that, right?

That, apparently, is what you will get if you can work into your routine a daily flip of a common power strip before you go out the door, effectively cutting the energy draw to devices that aren’t in use.  Vampire energy (though obviously a lower amount than when the item is in full-tilt operation) still accumulates, some would say unnecessarily.  That energy goes to keeping the clock illuminated, and having the device in a general state of almost-readiness for you to come use it.  If you’re never going to come use it for a week, then there’s no sense in that, is there?

According to the United States Department of Energy, 75 percent of home electricity for appliances and electronics is consumed while they are turned off.

Use that VCR very much?  If it is plugged in, that’ll run you close to seven dollars this year.  Plasma Televisions, Satellite A/V receivers, are apparently pigs as well.

A device that is getting a lot of press is the Kill-A-Watt, which tells you the draw of individual devices and predicts your bills.

There also are smart power strips which will sense when an appliances are in vampire mode and “stop the bleeding” so to speak.

Frugal Librarian #22: Rising cost of mortar boards

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One final tip from the latest book, New Frugality.  If you can, buy college in advance.

Between 1982 and 2007 the cost of fees and tuition rose 439 percent.  Even when adjusting for inflation, the increasing cost of college education is greatly outpacing the purchasing power of the dollar.

So, if it is a foregone conclusion that screeching diaper-clad sleep thief will end up in a dorm someday,  you can purchase it down in advance.  Sometimes, you can even lock in today’s price and future proof yourself.

There are 529 plans, which offer tax-free withdrawal on earnings in the account, since the profit is earmarked for a future college education.  Some states also offer prepaid college tuition accounts, where you can lock in semesters today even though they will surely cost ridiculous amounts tomorrow..

On a side note, did you know that Augustana costs around $47,000 a year?

All the Live Long Day

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With the last years’ worth of talk about passenger rail between here and Chicago, there is a vivid battle on our local papers’ comment pages between the “that would be nice” faction and the “they’re just trying to get re-elected, where will the money come from?” team.

Before taking a side, one might wish to peruse this fresh book by James McCommons, Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service.

This one isn’t gathering dust on our shelf.  People are using it no doubt to bolster their arguments.  That being said, how cool would it be for Cubs fans and the 75% of the University of Iowa students from Chicagoland? Or, nationally, anyone spending two hours riding the bus in Los Angeles for lack of infrastructure?

Frugal Librarian #21: YOU: Power broker

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Another financial tip the new book, New Frugality.   You’re smarter than a wall-street money manager.

Index funds duplicate the performance of a particular stock market index.  The most famous equity index fund is the S&P 500.  It is made up of stocks of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies.  They’re on that list because they are the 500 BEST COMPANIES!

“Indexing is commonly referred to as passive investing.  No professional money manager is trying to beat the market, rapidly buying and selling stocks. Yet index funds routinely outperform most actively managed funds.  Why?  A big advantage is their low cost.  The annual fee for investing in the S&P 500 is some 0.10 percent versus an average of almost 1.5 percent for actively managed funds.  Index funds have no research analyst costs or multimillion dollar money manager salaries to pay.

Mark Kritzman of Windham Capital Management simulated an imaginary investor using index funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds.  Index funds had the highest rate of return at 8.27 percent, since the actively managed mutual fund’s costs are 3 times higher, and the hedge fund six times higher.

According to millionaire philanthropist Robert Wilson, “I’d say as a general rule put it in index funds.  I don’t see why small investors should horse around with money managers.”

Agony of Defeat

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The triumph of the human spirit…pfft.  More like triteness of the human spirit.   I can relate more to putting in a modest amount of effort and then not just coming up short, but failing…catastrophically…in front of a sizable audience.  I think most of us, therefore, are “Agony of Defeat” people.

ABC Wide World of Sports interposed various other symbolic clips and stills of the show’s intro over the course of decades, but they left the footage of “agony of defeat” static because the portrayal was so spot-on.  So, the initial humiliation had interest compounded for a small lifetime, week after week, until the wretched soul epitomized epic failure.

His name is Vinko Bogataj.  He was competing for Yugoslavia in the Ski-flying World Championships in Oberstdorf, West Germany (now Germany) on March 21, 1970 when his third run’s adjustment for excessive speed turned him into a self destructing cyclone of limbs and personal dignity.  He only received a concussion that day, but retired from competition.  According to various Internet sources, he transitioned into coaching, painting, and driving a forklift.

A rare blessing from the Cold War is he was unable to endure a televised lifetime of shame from across the Iron Curtain.  Imagine his surprise in 1991 during the Wide World of Sports’ 30th anniversary show when he was mobbed by such luminaries as Muhammad Ali who wanted HIS autograph.

Vinko Bogataj, we salute you.