Money Reasons

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Archive for 2012

Shound Pennies Be Made From Recycled Plastic?

May 3rd, 2012

In the United States, it cost more to make a penny than it’s work!

“It costs almost 1.7 cents to make a penny,” said U.S. Mint director Ed Moy. See original 2008 article here: Penny Problem.

Since it cost more to make a penny, why not start to make the pennies out of recycled plastic?

Plastic Penny

Think of the environmental benefits, those alone would be huge and since we would use recycled plastics, it wouldn’t add to the current supply of plastic in landfills and dumps, not to mention the amount dumped into the ocean like it was some type of huge liquid landfill (See Invisible war against our oceans).

Oh sure, such a program would cost more than making the penny out of plastic directly, but using recycled plastic would still be a huge decrease in the cost of the creation of pennies vs using metal, if we are smart about it…

In ways, I think it’s sad that inflation has been so rampant in past years that it has decreased the value of a penny so that it’s practically an inconvenience to have instead of an item that is considered valuable. I often wish there was a way to make a penny more valuable again, without incurring some type of drastic natural deflationary process that would hurt our economy instead of helping it. Too bad there wasn’t a way that the government could do a strategic deflationary process… Such a process would decrease the cost of items bought while giving everybody a boost by enabling the current currency that they own to be worth more.

Perhaps the strategic deflationary process would happen every 50 years? It would have to be rare because it would be disruptive overall.

I wonder if I’ll live to see that time when eventually the 1 dollar bill falls to inflation to the point where it’s considered an inconvenience to carry? Probably by that point all US coins (be it metal or plastic) would be considered to expensive to create… But in the current time, I think the creation of plastic coins is something to be considered (although hated I’m sure, perhaps if it’s done right the color could make it look like copper).

Interesting times we live in…

MR

21 comments »

Posted in Ideas

Tags: alternative penny solution can we afford pennies green pennies pennies are too expensive plastic pennies plastic penny

Making a Temporary Illness Work To Your Advantage

April 29th, 2012

I’m still sick, but I’m optimistic about my blogging content once I get better…

Sometimes getting sick works to your advantage because it breaks an repeating routine and the downtime enables you to think see and think outside of your regular routine. For me, such times enable to to take everything in and readjust my regular course based on what I find.

So while I still have vertigo-like symptoms, as long as I’m down for the count, I can still think and look down the road of each alternative path that has been an unforeseen option for me. I like taking lemons and making lemonade with such problems, and this is one of the greatest potential moments in that process!

Some of my thoughts that I’ve been thinking of while I’ve been down is redesigning my site. It’s plain and needs a good makeover. To be honest it’s not optimally configured and hasn’t change in 3 years. Once the dizziness goes away, that will be a priority. Next, I would like to develop a few post each week that are consistent in topic. This will enable me to keep my eye on the goal, so to speak. Next, I’m thinking off adding some of my own flare… By flare I mean something new, exciting, and hopefully original!

Well, I’m tapped out, getting better but still sick,

MR

28 comments »

Posted in Lemons to Lemonade

Tags: direction from being sick making sick time productive time taking advantage of being sick

Blogging While Sick

April 25th, 2012

It’s been 6 days since I posted my last blog entry, and I feel compelled to post this article even though I’m sick.

You see, for the past few days, I’ve had a dizziness that hasn’t completely gone away yet. Slowly, I’m getting better, but I’m still sick.

Health is an interesting area for me, and I’m kind of mixed up when it comes to that topic. Since I have an HSA, I hate to waste the money on myself, but if a member in my family become ill, I’m the first to suggest that they go to the doctor to make sure everything is okay. This is one thing I hate about having an HSA… I only go if it’s life threatening in my case, or I have an ailment that has lasted for months…

In some ways I even wonder if it’s worth having since we now have National Healthcare…

Right now my head is filling lightheaded, but still I blog on… Blogging is a hobby, but also an integral part of my life, and not blogging for so long mandated that I worth through this illness and post this post. Hopefully, by my next post, I’ll feel better and will have something better to write about!

Unfortunately, I’m tapped out now and need to go to bed though.

24 comments »

Posted in Problems

Tags: blogging through sickness

Everything Goes Trash Night – Bizarro Christmas Year 2

April 19th, 2012

Our community has a special trash night were we are allowed to get rid of everything except mattresses. I blogged out it last year as “Everything Goes Trash Night is Like Bizarro Christmas” where this special day is almost like a holiday for my wife and I. It’s a great opportunity to get rid of clutter!

It’s the anti-thesis of Christmas where instead of receiving stuff, we get to toss stuff out! This year didn’t disappoint!

Bizarro Santa

The list of things that we tossed out included the following:

A plastic luggage traveling casing for traveling (this thing was huge and took up way to much space in my garage… I was also very ugly).
A cheap black office chair that was broken (I had this for over 12 years).
A heavy mirror that has sat in the basement since we moved into our house.
A heavy metal computer tower model 486 (I have no idea why I kept it so long).
Our lighting fixture that was replaced recently (a Chandelier).
Old Bean Bags that were taking up space.
The coffee table that we never used that sat in the basement.
The kid’s sandbox that was too old and the kids never played with.
A small fridge from my college days. (Still worked and was the first thing picked up by drive by folks looking for good stuff).
and other miscellaneous junk.

We put our stuff out late, so we missed a few of the opportunistic drive by folks looking to breathe a second life into our stuff, but we still have a few. First was the guy in an SUV that was nicer than my cars. He just picked up the college dorm room fridge and left. The second was a guy in a small pickup, the took the heavy mirror, our Chandelier, and the coffee table. The garbage collectors got the rest.

Next year we’ll try to put out our stuff earlier, that way they might find a second home. Or perhaps Bizarro Santa will come and take them to the island of misfits…

Cheers,

MR

14 comments »

Posted in Lemons to Lemonade

Tags: Bizarro Christmas Everything goes trash night Getting rid of clutter Special Trash night is like Christmas trash night

Fixing Your Garage Door Opener By DIY

April 17th, 2012

Fixing your garage door by DIY via googling the problem

My garage door opener stopped moving the door one day. My son pushed the button to open it, and the door made it half way up, but then stopped. The sound of the opener changed from the regular sound to the sound of a vacuum cleaner running.

I googled the symptoms and found a youtube video on what sounded like my problem (the worm gear). In fact, I was confident that the problem was a stripped gear just based on the sound it now made and some deductive reasoning. To confirm my belief, the articles I found online stated that the gear only last 10 to 12 years (after all, the gear is plastic).

Since I was very busy I didn’t have time to fix the problem myself so I called a garage repairman to come out and fix it for me. He came out and didn’t have the part! He then told me that I had to replace the entire system, door, spring, motor and all. Now this repairman was perhaps in his teenage to very early twenties (if that!) and I don’t think that he realized that I’m not a fool. I laughed at him and informed him what I thought of his opinions since my house isn’t that old to begin with. Unfortunately, I still had to pay him for coming out… Now I could have tried another “more reputable” and experienced repairman, but since I had the google video and it looked very easy, I did it myself instead!

So the first think I did was order the part from ebay (I needed a sears craftman garage door opener gear sprocket kit # 41C4220A) for $25 (free shipping). Next, I followed the instructions in the following video series:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

I liked this video, especially because the repairman talks about getting the garage door timing set correctly, and demonstrates how to accomplish this!

I’m a DIY (Do It Yourself) kind of guy, so this worked well for me, if you don’t feel very comfortable doing such things, then I recommend not trying it!

I hope you found value in this post, I know I wish I had just did the job myself instead of calling someone out that tried to sell me an entire new system…

MR

5 comments »

Posted in Frugality

Tags: 41C4220A craftman garage door opener gear sprocket kit # 41C4220A fixing a broke garage door opener garage door whirling sound how I fixed my garage door opener replacing craftman garage door opener gears