September 1, 2006
With the added benefit of cleaning up the overflow of aluminum cans *temporarily* stored in the backyard since 2001, I made a trip to the recycling center up the street and came out a whole $30.26 richer!
Good for the environment, good for the pocketbook! [I like the word pocketbook, it gives the impression of a book that can hold all your crap and still fit in your pocket. And seems to inherently mean there’s money in it, unlike my empty wallet.]
I’ve never actually used this sort of recycling center before but I learned that they are open 8:30-4:00 everyday. It’s a manned station, but you can either have the guy working there do your cans by volume or insert them, one by one, into the little feeder doohickey. They pay 4 cents per can or $1.75lb of sorted aluminum. They’ll take your assorted recyclables in bulk, too, but they’ll just pay you less by the pound: $1.17? I was vaguely wondering if I came out ahead doing about 17 pounds by weight or if I would have made much more going by the feeder system.
But since I had three enormous garbage bags-full, I would still be there feeding those blasted cans in one after the other. In 98 degree weather. Ugh. Oh, and the disadvantage of the singles system is that they do not accept squashed cans. Back in 2001, recycling centers still accepted squashed cans, so I had can-pucks aplenty.
That was kind of fun, now I’m eyeballing the cans in the kitchen anticipating another profitable recycling run.
July 7, 2006
In contributing to the family budget, monetarily or in terms of time devoted to searching out a better deal or a better price/package for a variety of services, I’m frequently frustrated by having to work with the non-ideal scenario that is not under my control. Today’s case is ….. auto insurance! I did the usual: research the top companies, compare the exact same quotes with the same requirements, increase the deductible to $1000 since I know I have enough in the e-fund to cover that, drop any unnecessary coverage.
BUT, the things that would really help lower the price are not options!
ie: I can’t age our vehicles, unfortunately we have relatively new cars (2003, 2005).
AND: I can’t improve the family’s driving record: every Ducky in the family has some dings on their driving record. BroDucky most of all it seems, but since cutting him out of the plan is not an option …
On the bright side, the credit union membership that I’d financed my car through three years ago and hadn’t gotten around to cancelling may offer an additional discount for our current company. Or …. the only representative they have is on vacation and they don’t have anyone else available to help. Drat! You know, shopping for insurance is really not fun at all! I’ve been doing it for about a month now and haven’t turned up any good deals at all. I think the only one quote that was significantly lower (about 200-300, per 6 month term) was esurance.com, but I can’t really find any sort of feedback on what kind of company they are. And I think this is really a situation where you do get what you pay for, I’m not willing to compromise that much on quality when the gains are so little.