KeyHero is your friend.

Greetings from Phoenix, where I have keys to my daughter’s new locks. In fact, I had those keys when I arrived, thanks to KeyHero.

She recently replaced those locks due to how “old and beat-up” they were after who-knows-how-many years of service. (Hint: Abby didn’t change them when she and her now-ex husband moved in 12½ years ago.)

The locks still worked, but looked pretty terrible – and like me, she saves where she can so she can spend where she wants. In this case, what she wanted was new locks.

This meant my old keys were kaput, and since I was arriving at almost 11 p.m., she would likely be asleep. I make it a point never to wake up a hostess with chronic fatigue.

Hence: KeyHero.

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Black Friday serendipity.

The washing machine finally died. DF can’t remember how old it is, but it’s at least 25 years old and possibly older. It didn’t owe us a thing. But the appliance still had one act of service left: It waited until the day before Black Friday to give up the ghost.

We were lucky it lasted as long as it did, yet we dreaded the cost of replacing a major appliance. Even a quick glance at the ads left us a bit breathless.

Fortunately, we are money nerds who specialize in stretching every dollar. A quartet of frugal hacks helped reduce the financial pain: 

First, DF compared prices and incentives at half a dozen retailers before choosing Lowe’s. (Hurrah for free delivery, setup and haul-away!)

Second, as always, he paid with a rewards credit card. As do I: All of my plastic is rewards plastic. It just makes sense to us.

[Surviving and Thriving has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Surviving and Thriving and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses and recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.]

He further sweetened the pot by raiding the “washing machine fund” jar for another $150. This is one of our easiest stealth saving* tactics: For every load of laundry we run, $2 goes into a jar. Your fund can be for anything you want; in fact, we took money from this jar a few years back to help pay for a new stove.

Finally, I cashed in enough Shopkick points to get $225 worth of Lowe’s gift cards. Since I’m always telling him that the points are for our household, not just for me, this was another chance to put my (free) money where my mouth is. As recently noted in “How I saved $233.07,” these rewards programs provided a pretty nice boost to our home and garden budget this year.

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Life hack: Baking soda as oven cleaner.

While baking pie* recently I smelled something burning. My initial thought was that bits of crust had fallen onto the cookie sheet under the pie tins. Nope. The smell was from the floor of the oven, where a now-carbonized remnant of a previous meal** continued to smolder. Time for some oven cleaner.

DF offered to take care of it. I agreed, and suggested a very simple way to do this. No need for a commercial cleanser or the oven-cleaning cycle as long as we had baking soda on hand.

He was unfamiliar with this particular life hack, so I explained it to him:

  • Cover the burned-on stuff completely with baking soda.
  • Sprinkle water atop the soda until it’s fairly damp (but not soupy).
  • Let it sit for a bunch of hours (for me, that’s usually overnight).
  • Wipe it up.
  • Rinse thoroughly.

Easy on, easy off*** – could it really be that simple? 

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Monday miscellany: Bob wants to take your stuff.

The Dollar Stretcher recently posted a piece that should help you take a closer look at your home security, or lack thereof. “A burglar reveals 15 trade secrets” is written from the point of view of Bob, your friendly neighborhood burglar. Some of it might surprise you.

For example, Bob says he sometimes dresses up as the cable, electric or phone guy. This reminds me of the Kinsey Millhone mystery series. Kinsey wears a coverall-ish getup when she’s breaking into a suspect’s home to look for clues. No one notices the cable guy or the meter reader, right?

At other times, Bob might be carrying a rake and posting fliers between the hours of 8 and 11 a.m. “I want to avoid any kind of confrontation,” he says. While posting the flier, he’ll take a peek inside your home. And if anyone answers his knock at the door? He’ll make up some excuse.

(A couple years back I was home by myself and there weren’t any cars in the driveway. Someone knocked, and when I answered the guy looked startled. He mumbled something about offering driveway paving; however, he didn’t have a flier, a business card or even a truck. Although I don’t know for sure that he was casing the joint, I certainly couldn’t rule it out.)

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The $0 home makeover.

Ever get tired of the way your place looks? That song lyric “I sit here staring at the same old walls” comes to mind, especially during the winter – or, lately, during lockdowns and quarantine.

While we should all be grateful to have places to live, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a little variety. My daughter worked at home long before COVID made it commonplace. Stuck in the house pretty much 24/7 due to work, chronic health issues and a now-ex who complicated her life in many ways, Abby had neither the energy nor the finances to change those same old walls.

Until one day she decided to redecorate for free.

All she did was rearrange the living-room furniture and bring in a lamp from elsewhere in the house. The effect? Pretty much a brand-new room, without spending a cent.

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How Alaskans fix their cars.

Alaskans believe that duct tape fixes everything. Some people call it “hundred-mile-an-hour tape” because pilots have had to repair their wings with that sturdy gray* stuff. But apparently duct tape works on cars, too.

Off and on over my years in Alaska I have seen vehicles repaired with duct tape. On those occasions I didn’t have a camera with me. Having joined the 21st century and bought a smartphone, I now have a camera with me pretty much 24/7.

Yes, I have become one of those people who takes pictures whenever something strikes her as beautiful or funny, or both. For example, here’s a picture of my niece’s pup showing off her winsome doggy smile: 

 

I don’t keep all my pictures, but I confess to having a heck of a lot of pictures of our yard and greenhouse. At some point I will turn them into this year’s version of “Looking back at the garden.”

But that’s not what I came here to talk about. The subject today is fixing cars.

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Monday miscellany: Debt taboo edition.

Some folks would rather talk about religion, politics, COVID-19 safety protocols or even their weight than discuss their credit card debt, according to a new survey from Bankrate.com. These days, that really means something. After all, families have fractured and friendships have evaporated after discussions over the 2020 election, and whether or not COVID is real. Compared to those incendiary topics, debt seems relatively tame.

The survey revealed that millennials are the most likely (62 percent) to be willing to discuss credit card debt, compared to Gen Z (59 percent), Gen X (51 percent), Baby Boomers (47 percent) and the “silent generation” (41 percent).

Ana Staples, a young credit analyst for Bankrate, thinks this is a good thing. “Even though debt is still an uncomfortable topic, young people are less prone to be cautious of its stigma,” Staples notes.

“Credit card debt isn’t something to be ashamed of.”

No – but it is something to be avoided. And many of those surveyed worry that they’re in this for the long haul. 

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“Speed cleaning” is life-changing.

Back in the day, spring cleaning was an annual ritual: curtains laundered, rugs beaten, windows washed, cabinets emptied and wiped, floors scrubbed. Rather than trying to make up for six months’ worth of neglect through one long, physically grueling attack on your home, I’m going to suggest something different: speed cleaning. It’s efficient, effective and, yes, life-changing.

  1. Pick one spot to focus on.
  2. Assemble supplies (which should be stored all together, in the same place) and put on some of your favorite music.
  3. Set the kitchen timer for 20 minutes.
  4. Clean like mad. Get spouses/roommates/partners/your kids in on the action, too. Even preschoolers can and should do chores like dusting, pairing socks and emptying small wastebaskets.
  5. Stop when the timer goes off. Or not: If you’re in the zone, just keep going.

Less than half an hour of churning and burning can make a huge difference in how you feel about where you live. Once the place is in shape, you can keep up it that way with a few short bursts of activity. This is much less onerous than thinking, “This weekend I have to clean the entire house.”

And yes, I know how busy you are. But as Thoreau asked, what are we busy about? 

 

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In hot water.

About a week ago, DF decided that a sauna would be a lovely way to soothe the aches associated with some yard work. When he opened the door to the basement, though, he immediately sensed a disturbance in the force: Instead of dry, chilly air he got a blast of humid, warm air.

Yep: The water heater was in its death throes.

His first move was to turn off the water source to the heater. Although he didn’t say so, I expect his second move was to curse heartily and creatively. It was a Sunday evening and this was an inconvenience rather than an emergency, so he didn’t start looking for a plumber until the next day.

The actual replacement didn’t happen until midday Wednesday, after an attempt at a long-shot DIY fix suggested by his son, who’s in the plumbers and pipefitters union (and currently working out of state).

And of course we did it the frugal way: I cashed in for a $50 gift card from the MyPoints rewards program to add to about $40 worth of gift cards we already had, then DF shopped for a replacement and muscled it down the narrow cellar stairs with help from his other son. Since the plumber didn’t have to shop for and bring along the new heater, or carry away the old one (DF and his son got it into the Subaru and to the landfill the next day), it made for a much faster and cheaper fix.

In all we spent about $575 out of pocket. That sure beat the $1,600 quote DF got from the first plumber. We were pleased that it cost us so much less.

But boy, did I not like getting my hot water from the slow cooker.

 

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9 budget-friendly housewarming gifts.

So your brother or your BFF will be moving into a new place this year, and plans to stage a barbecue or house party to kick off the novelty of homeownership.

Of course you’d love to mark the occasion with more than a side dish or a six-pack of craft beer, but:

Money’s been tight lately, or

You have a financial goal you’re trying to reach, or

The homeowner-to-be doesn’t expect anything (and maybe even said, “This is a house party, not a gift grab”).

Want to give something unique and useful without torpedoing your budget or putting anyone on the spot? Read on.

The idea for this post came from a reader named Ashley, who commented on “Ode to the junk drawer.” A friend of hers had no junk drawer, so she created a “junk drawer starter kit”: a batch of stuff like key rings, scissors, paper clips, pencils and the like. Then she added a recipe card: “Put in a dark drawer and feed occasionally with loose change and bits of hardware. Very soon you’ll have a full-grown junk drawer.”

Her recipient loved it. And so did I, especially since it suggested a post topic. Here are nine ideas that will cost you a little time or a little money, but not too much of either one.

 

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