Hijinks Inc.

Take an hour, sit down and go through your monthly expenses, gather your bills from the past few months and figure out what you can cut out in order to save yourself money. For example, I canceled my satellite radio, and switched to a text messaging plan with fewer monthly texts to save money a total of $23.75 a month.
The more you’re willing to sacrifice the more you can save, some things you may consider for cutting costs

• Cable
• Online gaming (Xbox live, WoW, etc)
• Magazine/newspaper subscriptions
• Movie rental subscriptions (Netflix, Blockbuster Online)
• Gym membership you never use

Of course with things like Blockbuster online, you might actually be saving yourself money instead of renting locally or going to the movies in theater, so take that into account.

Next, take that money you were already spending each month and put it into a savings account (see: Longterm Savings Growth).

Last time I talked about the quality difference in bathroom vanities at different price levels. This time around I’ll address a question a receive quite a bit when people are shopping for bathroom vanities.

Why are bathroom cabinets so much more expensive then kitchen cabinets??

The price difference between kitchen and bathroom cabinets stems mainly from the assembly line vs. handmade manufacturing. Assembly line is always going to be cheaper then paying one guy to build it from scratch. But even then, the factory made bathroom vanity I talked about in my first post is still nearly twice the price of it’s kitchen counterpart. Why is this? Well, because stores buy more of them. My store stocks about the same total number of kitchen and bathroom cabinets, but while there is probably less then a dozen kitchen cabinet SKUs, my department has upwards of forty different styles and sizes bathroom vanities. The actual number of cabinets is the same, but our stock counts per cabinet are much lower.

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Being a young guy working as a plumbing and housewares salesman has it’s challenges. The biggest being that when I started working I had hardly any product knowledge whatsoever. I knew where I few things were in the store, but I couldn’t tell you much about them. After almost two years though, I have learned a thing or two about the stuff I sell, and now I’m passing it on to you. Since I do spend most of my time working with and selling plumbing products, that’s what I’ll be focusing on.

I’ll start with a scenario: You are remodeling your master bathroom, on a budget mind you. You walk into a home improvement store to buy a vanity (bathroom cabinet), counter top, and fixtures (faucet, tub/shower).

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I love coffee, but that doesn’t mean I have a clue what goes into most of the drinks I consume.

Well, now you can find out at a glance just what was in that Caffe Mocha you just ordered, thanks to Lokesh Dhakar’s “Coffee Drinks Illustrated” an illustrated coffee guide. Simplistic, yet brilliant work. Even if you don’t drink much coffee it’s worth a look, pretty interesting stuff.

Today, I present to you, in it’s entirety, the quick and easy (mild case of nerdiness required) way to rock the free internet scene with your cell phone.

And now, after building up your hopes… I shall cruelly dash them against the sharp rocks below! Here’s what you’ll need to get this to work.

• Phone: Motorola E815, Razr v3, V710*,
• Computer: Any Mac running OS X 10.4 with Bluetooth
• Provider: Alltel (although rumor has it that a Verizon account/phone with mobile web service does the trick as well)

Note: Verizon ships its phones with dial-up networking disabled, due to the fact they are jerks. To enable it, enter ##DIALUP on your phone. That’s ##342587. You’ll need to type it in as quickly as possible for it to work. The phone will show a confirmation once you’ve successfully enabled dial-up networking. As logic would dictate, doing this again will disable your new found dial-up networking. This only works with older versions of the firmware, so if you have a newer phone with current firmware you’re out of luck (unless you want to downgrade your firmware).

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For the greater part of two years I’ve worked as a salesman in a national chain hardware store. I’ve seen countless people come in and wonder around aimlessly from department to department, looking around for hours before walking out frustrated and unfulfilled. From an employee’s perspective, here’s a few general, easy steps you can take to save yourself time and stress.

1. Read the box. Half of the questions I answer at work I can literally read from the back of the box. Manufacturers can’t pack the whole instruction manual on the back of the package, but generally they are pretty good describing what the product should and shouldn’t be used for.

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. My job as a salesman includes walking up to you and asking if you need any help. Once I ask though, the ball is in your field. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if they sound stupid in your head. As previously stated, a lot of obvious questions can be answered from reading the packaging on the product. But if you don’t know exactly what you need, or aren’t sure about where something is, don’t be shy about finding out. I’m paid by the hour after all.

3. Carry pen and paper. Especially if you’re comparison shopping, this will save you more time and gas then you can imagine. Write down the brand, price, model number, SKU number, and anything else that helps you. If the product has any distinctive features that set it apart from its competitors, write that down too. It’s a lot easier to make a decision when you have the information in your hand, rather then trying to remember if the faucet back at Lowes was really the same thing as the one at Home Depot.

4. Shop Specifically. If you are remodeling your kitchen, don’t try to decide on the flooring, appliances, paint, counter tops, cabinets, sink, and fixtures all in one trip. Break it down. If you focus on one project at a time you are more likely to get everything for the project in one trip, and less likely to get overwhelmed by the task at hand.

There are some instances (like your contractor telling you he needs a lot of stuff by a certain time) where you have to shop for a large list of items. Refer back to step 3: Write stuff down, get organized, take it item by item until you’re happy with what you bought.

5. Educate yourself. If this list was ranked according to importance, this would be at the top. The more you know about what you’re buying, the happier you’ll be. If you have an idea of what to look for in quality, you’ll be a lot less susceptible to being sold a item that looks good in the box and on the price tag, but will give you trouble down the road. Read some Consumer Reports, do some Google searches, call your contractor. Do what it takes to inform yourself. I guarantee you will feel better about your purchase knowing that you got the best your money could buy.