A Solution for Countertop Stains

This isn't exactly original, but I was very glad to have been given this tip, so I'm passing it along...

If you have a run-of-the-mill countertop and have had problems with staining, try baking soda and vinegar to clean the stains. Coffee stains in particular are a challenge to get rid of with standard cleaners. Just shake some baking soda onto the stain, then add some vinegar or lemon juice. Let it sit for a minute or two, then use a paper towel to scrub. This solution worked when others failed, and I no longer think I need to replace my countertop anytime soon.

Use discretion, of course. Certain countertops should probably not be cleaned with this mildly abrasive solution, and certain finishes may be dulled when using this method. I recommend using it only if a slightly dulled surface would look better than the stained surface that you currently have.

ClearPlay More Accessible Than Ever

In an earlier post, I wrote about a content-filtering solution for DVD movies, called ClearPlay. Target stores now carry the latest ClearPlay-capable DVD player, and the cost is reportedly $49.99. The catch? It sounds like it's this week only. Here's an email I received today from ClearPlay:

"This week you can get ClearPlay's new USB DVD Players at Target Stores for only $49.99! That's a lot cheaper even than ClearPlay's website. And even better, the Target deal comes with a FREE trial membership, FREE USB FilterStik, FREE 2200 Filters and a special price on a one-year ClearPlay membership. Plus, you get ClearPlay's legendary satisfaction guarantee and outstanding customer service.

And this is not just a run-of-the mill DVD Player. It's got Progressive Scan, multi-format playback, PAL and NTSC conversion, Component/Composite Video, S-Video, and both Optical and Digital Audio Outputs. This is the real deal."

This is a great deal. If you've considered buying ClearPlay before, it looks like now is the time to buy. And if you want to learn more about ClearPlay, watch this video which does a mediocre job of explaining how ClearPlay works.

Suck It Up

Whether you're clumsy, a pet lover, a parent, or a clumsy parent who loves pets, you'll have an occasional need to lean the carpet in your home. You have 4 options:

• Spray/foam carpet cleaners found with the other cleaners in your local store. Spray the cleaner on the carpet, wait a few minutes, then blot the spill.
• Bissel SpotBot. I haven't used one, but it looks like you fill the thing with cleaner and water, set it on the stain, and let the SpotBot do the work.
• Upright carpet cleaner. Similar in size and shape to a vacuum, but like the SpotBot, requires cleaner and water.
• Professional carpet cleaner. Hire somebody to come with heavy-duty equipment to clean your carpet, or rent the heavy-duty equipment.

You might think that the choice you make will depend on your need; are you cleaning a small spill, or cleaning an entire room? But I'm recommending that one solution - the personal vacuum-size carpet cleaner - is the safest and most economical solution for virtually any need.

I've tried the spray carpet cleaners. At best, they're moderately effective. At worst, they can bleach your carpet, leaving a permanent spot that cannot be easily or inexpensively repaired. Been there, done that. You might think you're saving money by buying a $3 cleaner instead of a machine, but how much will it cost to repair that bleached spot on your carpet?

The SpotBot is a good idea, but it delivers very little flexibility for the price. You can't use it to clean an entire room.

The upright, vacuum-size carpet cleaner doesn't bleach your carpet, is much more effective than the spray carpet cleaners, and is not limited to only cleaning small spots. The reason it's dramatically more effective than the spray cleaners is simple: the brushing and sucking of the machine is a much more effective method than pressing down on wet carpet (which is essentially what you're doing when blotting the spill after the spray cleaner has done its thing).

I've heard good things about professional carpet cleaners and rental equipment, but those both incur per-use costs. At $155 (the price I paid for the Hoover F5914-900 SteamVac), a personal carpet cleaner remains the best value long-term. Admittedly it's a pain to haul out the SteamVac for small spills, but it's worth it considering the alternatives.

Saving Money on Cost-Saving Products

I offer my apologies (just 4 of them; I'm keeping my remaining 98 for the future) to my readers who live in warm climates. This is another "just for the northerners" post.

Stores that carry products for winterizing your home are currently eager to get rid of them as they begin stocking their shelves with spring items. If you have considered doing some winterizing--such as covering windows with plastic sheeting--but have been turned off by the cost, now is the time to buy. In the past, I've been able to buy window insulation kits like the one pictured for $1 per box. Just stick them in a storage closet or your basement, and you'll be prepared to lower your heating costs next winter.

Save Time and Money on Your Garden This Year

My yard is slowly turning from white to green this week, as warmer weather chases the snow away. And not a moment too soon. I look forward to getting outside again, even if it does mean I have to start mowing my lawn. If only I had a robotic mower.

Whether you have a backyard paradise or just a small garden, watering you plants can be time-consuming and expensive. Even if you manage to remember to water, you have to make it a point to actually do it. And then, you have to watch your water bill go up, in part because traditional watering techniques can be very inefficient. Next time you run a sprinkler, watch how much water doesn't reach your plants.

Two tools can help alleviate these problems.

1. A watering timer. A watering timer connects to your outdoor faucet or a hose, and allows you to schedule your watering times via a digital or analog clock. I paid full price (about $29) for mine because I bought it in the spring. Our local WalMart sold them for $10 each at the end of the season. It sure is nice to set the timer and forget about it. Even if I'm on vacation, my plants are getting watered. And more importantly, my plants are getting watered even on days when I'm being lazy.
2. Soaker hoses. A soaker hose is a porous hose made of rubber. When the hose is filled with water (it's capped on the end opposite the faucet), water seeps out of the hose and into the ground. The soaker hose can--and should--be buried under mulch; you never see it. This watering method allows you to water only the regions you want watered, keeping your watering costs as low as possible.

Tip 1: My research indicated that you should connect no more than 100 feet of soaker hose together. If you find anything different, feel free to comment.

Tip 2: Get more bang for your buck out of the watering timer. Connect a splitter to your timer, allowing you to control up to 4 or 5 hoses. I used this method to split my soaker hoses into two 100-foot sections on the same watering schedule.

Impressive Generic

Occasionally, a store brand item surpasses "good enough" and actually performs remarkably well. Sam's Choice plastic wrap (not Great Value plastic wrap) is one of those products for me. I realize a wiki would be a more appropriate venue for this question (as would a web site with more than a dozen readers), but I'm in search of other items that happen to be both inexpensive and of excellent quality. So what have you found?

Teeny Tiny Profit Margin

I have no intention of turning this blog into a "deals and steals" site, but this particular deal pops up occasionally, and it's pretty impressive. The Black & Decker DCM18S Brew 'n Go Personal Coffeemaker is just $9.99 again at Amazon.com. The included mug is worth $4-5 alone, and a permanent filter is included (also worth a couple of bucks). I can't imagine that Amazon or Black & Decker are making much money on this one.

I mentioned this product in an earlier post. In fact, the service featured in that post (apricealert.com) is the reason I know about this deal.

The last time the price dropped this low, it was only for about 24 hours. And yes, you have to spend $25 to get free shipping.

Saving on Contact Lenses

With a little bit of effort, you can save a bundle on your contact lenses.

I found VisionDirect.com (part of DrugStore.com) to be a great place to buy contacts. Below is a comparison of VisionDirect.com to WalMart, where I got my eye exam.

	VisionDirect.com	WalMart
Cost per box (Focus Night and Day)	$48.95	$62.84
Volume discount per box (4 or more boxes)	$1	NA
Coupon (see dealcoupon.com for current coupons)	10% off	NA
Processing Fee	$0.95	NA
Shipping	Free	Free
Delayed cash back from FatWallet.com	7%	NA
Total for 4 boxes:	$161.49	$251.36

I've actually done better than the above example (my actual cost after FatWallet.com cash back was $152.57 this year), but the example uses currently available deals. Also, depending on how Internet tax works in your state, you could very well save another $14 in taxes over WalMart. That means if you hit all the deals at the right time, and if you save the taxes, you could save around $113--or 45%--over WalMart for a 1-year supply of these contacts. Also, buying at VisionDirect.com might get you some drugstore.com "dollars," but I'm not sure.

Manufacturer's rebates are common as well, and are typically reseller-independent. But as always, don't completely depend on rebates. Ciba denied one of my recent claims even though I followed their instructions.

Freeware Feature: MWSnap

Purpose: Taking screenshots / screen captures
Web site: http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
Skill level required: Beginner to Intermediate

Taking "pictures" of my desktop (screenshots or screen captures) is something my job often requires. It even comes in handy sometimes at home. You may already be familiar with two common methods of capturing a picture of your screen:

• The PrtScn (or Print Screen) button. This button captures an image of your screen to your clipboard. After hitting this button, open up a photo editing program--or any program where you need to paste a picture--and hit the Paste button. Keyboard users prefer the keyboard shortcut CTRL + V for pasting.
• ALT + PrtScn. This captures an image of only the active window on your screen. This is very helpful if you want to take a picture of a dialog box, for instance.

Sometimes you may require greater flexibility. Microsoft OneNote, which I won't take time to describe here, has a very cool screen capture feature. Right-click on its system tray icon, select "Create Screen Clipping," and you get to select exactly the portion of your screen that you copy to the clipboard. Very cool, very useful, and very simple. The problem is, I have OneNote only on my work PC, and buying a copy of that program simply for that feature would be overkill.

In my search for free software that simulated the screen clipping feature of OneNote, I found MWSnap. I tried some other software, and MWSnap was the one I liked the best. It has plenty of features to meet my needs, including a handy AutoSave option. If you're looking for a screen capture utility, give MWSnap a try.

No Wonder My Parents Complained When I Drank So Much Milk

Drink prices are good to keep an eye on when you're looking to trim your grocery bill. It's good to know, for example, that a glass of milk costs 8 times as much as a glass of water, or that orange juice costs 10 times as much as coffee.

The following chart shows my own calculations, and they're not perfect. For example, I'm assuming that tap water is free, whether heated or not. I'm also assuming that there's no waste, which there often is—especially for something like a 2-liter bottle of soda. Note that I'm using 12 ounces for each beverage, but that's primarily for comparison purposes.

Beverage	Cost per 12 oz.	Based on	Notes
Filtered water from pitcher	$.028	Pur pitcher and filters ($30 for the 2-stage, 1-gallon pitcher; $39 for 4-pack of 2-stage filters)	Assumes owner goes through 360 gallons with pitcher. Assumes claim of 40 gallons per filter is accurate.
Coffee	$.042	$6 for 39-oz. can.	Black only. Does not account for cost of coffee maker or filters. Based on 288 6-oz cups per canister. Tap water used.
Hot tea	$.077	$2.08/20-bag box	Based on 5 bags per brewed gallon; similar to (3) 8-oz. cups per bag. Assumes it's made from filtered water from pitcher.
Instant iced tea, pre-sweetened	$.102	$3.28 for Nestea mix in a 20-quart size.	Assumes 20% stronger tea than recommended. Assumes it's made from filtered water from pitcher.
Filtered water from half-liter bottles	$.104	$3.50 for 24-pack of half-liter bottles
Soda, 2-liter	$.178	$1 for 2-liter
Soda, 12-pack cans	$.229	$2.75 for 12-pack
Milk, 1%	$.230	$2.45/Gallon
Apple juice	$.246	$1.97 for 96-oz. generic, in plastic bottle
Fruit juice (5-10% juice)	$.257	$1.37/Half gallon	Price is similar for Minute Maid half gallons or Sunny Delight full gallons
Chocolate milk	$.288	$3.07/Gallon
Orange juice	$.422	$4.50/Gallon	Prices vary widely

Update on Amazon Price Alerts

One of the Amazon price alert services mentioned in this post has been updated. I received word from the APriceAlert.com webmaster a couple of days ago that the price threshold feature I requested has been added. Now you can get notified when a selected item at Amazon hits your specified price.

You won't see this option until you enter some initial information and hit Submit. The price threshold is set on the second page, prior to final confirmation.

As of today, it appears that there's still a built-in 30-day limit on price alert requests. That's because this site was built to serve the needs of people who want to take advantage of Amazon's 30-day price guarantee.

Let It Snow

I don't loathe snowstorms quite as much as I used to.

When I bought my string trimmer (or 'weed eater') a few years back, I decided on a model that supported attachments. [It might be this one; I don't have the model number memorized.] This design essentially makes you pay for a motor only one time, and allows you to simply add whichever attachment you'd like. The attachments aren't cheap, but theoretically they're cheaper than their gas-powered, standalone counterparts.

I now have a string trimmer, cultivator, blower, lawn edger, and a snow thrower similar to this one.

Yep, I said snow thrower.
Yes, I live in a state with real winters.
Yes, I was skeptical too.

It turns out that the snow thrower attachment is more effective than you'd suspect. When the adjustable chute is in the straight position, it can throw snow up to 30 feet or so (the description for a similar model on Amazon's site claims only 20 feet). Turning the chute to the left or right results in a dramatically shorter throw, but it can still get the job done. It has only a 12" wide path, but its design makes it easily maneuverable; I even use it to clear my stairs. I pull this thing out anytime we get more than 2" of snow. I'm not sure I'd use it for a long 2-car driveway, but it might do the trick.

I guess this is a mini-review for the snow thrower attachment, but more importantly, it's a plug for considering TCO (total cost of ownership) when buying anything. It's not just a concept for businesses. More on this topic in the future...

Little Investments

Plenty of research is available indicating which home improvement projects provide the biggest bang for the buck. Remodeling a kitchen? Your $10,000 project might add $9,200 to your home's value. Adding a monkey habitat in the backyard? Well, you might be paying for that one yourself.

That research is great if you're in the position to spend money, and are in the mood to do some serious work. However, I believe there are tiny improvements that can bring a return of 100% or more on your investment. One example: solar lights. Yes, I've seen them overdone, and I've seen them done poorly. But drive by a house with tastefully executed exterior lighting, and tell me that house doesn't look at least $1000 more expensive than the one next to it. That lighting can be accomplished for $200.

General landscaping is another option, though it can get pricey quickly. But if you have enough time to buy the plants young and watch them grow, you can watch your home's value grow right along with them. Besides plants, check with city hall to see if your city offers free mulch or compost, in order to keep your landscaping prices down.

I'm no expert on these things; I'm offering only my opinion. But when I prepare to sell my house, I'm going to line up all those inexpensive but potent cosmetic improvements. And since some of them are quite affordable, I'm putting them in place now so I can enjoy them in the meantime. What cost-effective home improvements do you suggest?

The Little Oven That Could

I too was once like you: helpless, hopeless--living life without a toaster oven. But those sad days are behind me now.

The toaster oven really is a great idea, particularly if you're cooking for only 1, 2, or 3 people at a time. Rather than heating up an entire oven, you can heat up a relatively tiny space for cooking your food. And if saving energy doesn't float your boat, consider this: some toaster ovens require no pre-heating. With my toaster oven, I can start cooking food the minute I turn it on--saving the 8-10 minutes of preheating over my full-size oven (and again, there is an additional opportunity for saving energy; I'm using the toaster oven 100% of the time that it's turned on).

For what it's worth, the toaster oven I ended up buying after doing lots of research is the Panasonic NB-G100P-S. (Incidentally, this is one of those product categories where the Consumer Reports ratings have absolutely no correlation to consumer ratings on Amazon.com, as I alluded to in an earlier post.) It has minor drawbacks, such as the odd temperature increments, but overall it's fantastic. The reviews on Amazon give you all the information you need.

Save Money on Home Theater Cables

When it comes to audio and video cables, Menards beats other retail stores--including WalMart--hands down. I don't have any hard numbers for you, but the savings is around 20%. When you're setting up a new home theater system, cables can run up a big bill in no time (speaker wire, component video cables, HDMI cables, optical audio cables, etc.), so 20% is significant. You can pocket your savings, or buy a new movie to watch using your new home theater.

I have a Menards 10 minutes from my house, but Home Depot and Lowes are 30+ minutes away, so I don't know how their prices compare on these items. Do all building supply stores have such good prices on home theater parts, or is it just Menards?

Freeware Feature: Avast! Antivirus

Avast! Antivirus
Purpose: Computer security (antivirus)
Web site: http://www.avast.com/
Skill level required: Intermediate

I don't love Avast! Antivirus, but I still recommend it. Here's why:

For one thing, I'm not a fan of Norton Antivirus. No, I'm not one of those people that hates all successful companies for no good reason (I am a fan of Microsoft and WalMart, for instance); I've just seen Norton products cause problems on my own computer and others' computers. This is 6+ years in the I.T. industry talking.

Secondly, I suspect that many people don't stay up-to-date on their antivirus software because it costs money to do so. Do you whip out your credit card every time your antivirus software asks you to do so?

Given those points, Avast! is a decent choice. It doesn't seem to cause as many problems as Norton, and there's no cost hurdle every 12 months. What I don't love about Avast! is its interface. I don't find it very intuitive. Perhaps you will though. If you're looking for a free antivirus program, this one is worth a try--and won't set you back a penny.

Get a Free (Legal) Copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2007

Microsoft is giving away free copies of Office Professional 2007 and Groove 2007 at its launch events across the country. Although typically designed for I.T. pros, small business owners, programmers, and the like, I don't believe there are any restrictions on who attends. See http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/signup/default.mspx for more details.

And as I've already said twice on this blog, Office 2007 is amazing. You don't have to take my word for it; you can try it without even having to install it by viewing the test drive. Feeling slightly more adventurous? Download the trial.

Saving Some Pennies on Gas

This tip seems rather obvious now that I've heard it: buy gas during the coldest part of the day if possible. You're charged for gas by volume, so you get more for your money when you buy at a time when the gas is most condensed.

Freeware Feature: OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org (yes, the .org is part of the name)
Purpose: Office productivity (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.)
Web site: http://www.openoffice.org/
Skill level required: Beginner

Ok, I'm cheating. I'm highlighting a program I already alluded to once. But I'm continually surprised by how many people have not heard about OpenOffice.org.

Microsoft Office is very popular, but can also be very expensive. (Although on Tuesday, January 30, 2007, Microsoft is releasing the Home and Student Edition at a decent price for home consumers.) OpenOffice.org is one of the most competent free alternatives, and is definitely worth a look if a) you can't afford Microsoft Office, b) you like to have a variety of options when it comes to your software, or c) you just hate Microsoft.

OpenOffice.org includes:

• A word processor
• A spreadsheet program
• A presentation program
• A graphics/diagram program
• A database program
• An equation editor

Different components of the product are at different maturity levels. And OpenOffice is absolutely no match for Office 2007. It lacks the polish of Microsoft's venerable suite, but it has its place. If you are still using the basic "suite" that came with your computer, try OpenOffice.org.

Electricity Cost for a Home Entertainment System: $8.08/month

I'm continuing to use my electricity meter to learn about my electricity costs. Here's my latest finding:

Home theater details:
Panasonic 36" CRT TV
Motorola Moxi DVR
RCA DVD Player
Sony HT-DDW900 5.1 surround sound system

Test Results:
Hours plugged in: 335
Hours in use: (The electricity meter doesn't track this data. I suspect I watch as much TV as the average person.)
KWH: 34.09
KWH charge: $.09988

Subwoofer (separate test)
Hours plugged in: 217
KWH: 2.23
KWH charge: $.09988

Extrapolated monthly cost: $8.08