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My Frugal Household Tips
I would venture to say that one of my qualifications for giving household tips is the fact that I built our house, from the ground up, one nail at a time. When Bev and I bought our place in ’89, I told her that I could have a new house built for her in 5 years. That was the plan, since the existing house was falling down when we bought it. For starters, I had to pour cement floors in the boy’s bedrooms, as both wooden floors were rotten. Then I had to shore up the foundation in the living room so I could install a wood stove. Anyway, you kind of get the picture. Back to the plans for the new house that I was going to have built by ’94. Yup…I finally got started on it in ’97 and we moved in (un-finished, of course) in ’04. I still have some small, un-finished things to do inside the house, like molding around some of the windows. Needless to say, Bev bugs me every once in awhile and I get a little more done. Another piece of my background is my history as a jack-of-all trades. I ran an odd-job business from ’88 to ’94 and most of my jobs were small household maintenance chores. I tackled everything from changing a washer in a faucet to re-roofing a whole house. I’ve painted, both inside and outside, built fencing, trimmed trees, mowed lawns…you know…odd-jobs. I’m now working the odd-job business again part-time, since I retired in ’07. Bev cleans houses and I repair them. It gives us some extra income, which is very handy in today’s world. As this site grows, you will be able to find information on a wide range of subjects related to household tips. I’ll be tackling one room or area at a time, so that you can find the solution to your question with a single click. I’m going to start with some house buying tips. I mean, if you’re going to work on a house, it might as well be yours…right? But my tips are less about the financial aspect of home buying and more about the physical condition of the future home. Making the assumption (which can be foolish, sometimes) that you already have a home to take care of, we can look at those household tips for the annual and semi-annual chores that we always forget about. There are a lot of household items that need regular maintenance. One of the things that I find very necessary is that we keep a
house cleaning list or a house cleaning schedule of my responsibilities around home and a separate list for Bev. That way, Bev can give me a bad time when I fail to do something…I can’t use the “I forgot” defense. If you don't have your own home, yet, maybe I can show you some of the things you need to know to build your own, or at least keep an eye on your contractor. For instance, you might want to know how to design or just read a plumbing diagram Plumbing, along with electrical, are probably the two most mis-understood aspects of building, and they don't need to be intimidating. Both the Plumbing and Electrical codes are based on safety and common sense and can be understood. Just take them a little bit at a time. If you would like to know when I update this site or add some more content, email me and I'll add you to my notification list. One of my recommendations for maintaining a frugal household is that you subscribe to my free, weekly newsletter, which always contains a dozen or so of my various tips. (I do put in one ad at the bottom for you to ignore.) There are also several volumes of
Non-Consumer tips
and how to
articles available here. Return from Household Tips to The Frugal Non-Consumer
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