Ask For A Discount: Always ask for a discount, especially if you’re a member of an organization like AAA or AARP.
on the cheap
How To Get A Cheap Divorce
By 7.6.07
Greenberg said the most common mistake couples make is to assume that justice is an absolute.
How To Make Cheap Laptop Desks
By 7.6.07
Laptop desks can cost a stupid amount of money, but luckily for you they can be constructed with IKEA stuff, sandpaper, and a saw.
How To Repair A Plastic Bumper
By 6.27.07
Plastic bumpers are a real snagglepuss to repair but it can be done, and for less than your deductible, this Instructable by Popular Mechanics tells us.
How To Clean Your Coffee Pot
By 6.25.07
Coffee taste gross? Buying it away from home instead of making it yourself like you know you should? Time to clean the coffee pot.
How To Remove Watermarks From Wood
By 6.21.07
Place a cotton cloth directly over the stain and with a dry iron (NO STEAM!) press down for several seconds on the cloth. Remove and check the stain. Keep doing until the watermarks are completely gone. It could take a minute or two to get the stain out completely.
Yes! We are going to try this. Wish us luck.—MEGHANN MARCO
How To Have A Moving Sale
By 6.19.07
Remember that unlike a yard sale, the goal of a moving sale is to empty your house, not fill your pockets. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER
How To: Drive Slower
By 6.15.07
Some of us owned a Geo Metro in high school and college, so we never had to worry much about this issue, but for those of you who have the ability to drive too quickly, this post is for you.
25 Uses For Olive Oil Other Than, You Know, Cooking With It
By 6.15.07
We’re a sucker for these lists of alternate uses for common household items.
How To: Have A Yard Sale
By 6.12.07
We love yard/garage/stoop sales. Recently we got a cute teapot for $3! Yay!
Got 5 Minutes? Make Ice Cream In A Plastic Baggy
By 6.8.07
It’s hot here in Brooklyn and we could really go for some ice cream… if only we could make some in 5 minutes using 2 ziplock baggies and this carton of half and half… oh wait. We can! From BoingBoing:
Here’s a pretty damned simple ice-cream recipe: combine ingredients in a baggie. Fill a bigger baggie with ice, salt and the baggie of ingredients. Shake for five minutes. Ice cream. Who knew?
Getting Real Deals At The Dollar Store
By 6.5.07
New York City dollar stores are a whole lot of fun. But how do they make money selling all that crap so cheaply? And are there really any good deals? Apparently so. From New York Magazine:
While half of Jack’s products inherently cost around $1 (frozen food, Hawaiian Punch), dollar stores are also quietly fed products manufacturers want to expose to a more down-market demographic. “Companies figure that customers aren’t going to overlap from department stores to dollar stores, so they sell the same product at both,” says one analyst. Of course, Jack’s vice-president, Ira Steinberg, can’t tell you who these manufacturers are. “Part of my agreement with national brands is that I don’t admit that I carry their brands.” The week we went, Jack’s had Black & Decker coffeemakers, Hormel salami, and Hamilton Beach blenders.
We always assumed there was something lame/broken/wrong/Tony Soprano stole it off a truck with the brand name stuff we saw at the dollar store. Guess not. The discount store profile is part of a larger series examining how businesses make money in NYC. Interesting stuff.—MEGHANN MARCO
Time To Go Strawberry Picking!
By 6.5.07
Picking your own strawberries is fun, not terribly expensive, and now is the time to do it. Don’t know where to go for strawberry picking fun near you?
50 Ways To Be Cheaply Romantic
By 6.4.07
You know us, we’re a bunch of cheapskates. That’s why we were delighted to find that Zen Habits had compiled a list of 50 ways to be cheaply romantic. Now not only do we get to be cheap, we can be lazy, too.
9 Tasty Wines Under $10
By 5.31.07
The hardest thing–but perhaps more sought-after than a Lafite–is a list of good, interesting and affordable wines, for parties or for dinner Sunday to Thursday or even all week long. Here’s my latest list, arranged not by preference, but by style, from lightest to fullest in white and red.
How To: Salvage Old Cast Iron Cookware
By 5.29.07
Cast iron cookware is not only indestructible, it’s amazing! It may look all worn out, but even the most neglected cast iron can be restored to its former glory with a little TLC.
Equip Your Kitchen For $300, Seriously.
By 5.15.07
If you, like us, watch the Food Network, you’ll no doubt have noticed all the nifty gadgets and high-end cookware the star chefs are using. It’s pretty, and we’re sure it sells well after Bobby Flay chops his omnipresent mango chutney next to it, but do you really need all those copper pots and $100 knives? Nope. Hooray! According to Mark Bittman, you can equip a kitchen for $200, and nicely equip one for $300. That’s less than we paid for a semester’s worth of text books in college. (Goddamn you, Art History degree.) So what did Mark buy?
