Poll: Do-It-Yourself Savings

27 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

• 

  marmitetoasty on March 15 at 3:35 a.m.

  Except for the ‘household fixes’ all of the others I do anyways…..

  It does make me laff when I read how many people actually pay someone to cut their grass and hardly ever bake or cook from scratch (such as pizza’s)…

  Maybe its just me, but I dont pay for things I can do meself….

  x

• 

  JeanC on March 15 at 1:19 p.m.

  With the exception of car repairs/maintenance, we pretty much do all the other stuff ourselves. What household fixes we can’t do, we have a friend who helps us with that. Only when it involves something like the furnace do we call in professionals.

  Tho we do pay our neighbour to mow our lawn. Hubby’s back won’t let him and my knee the last couple years made it difficult for me and I don’t mind someone else doing it since I’ve never liked mowing lawns LOL. I do all the other yard work.

  I however wouldn’t mind being able to afford to have someone else do the house cleaning :D

• 

  Stickman on March 15 at 6:06 p.m.

  Thanks Marmite, such good advice. We are so spoiled in this country, we pay to have all of our chores done, and then still complain.

• 

  hmoffsuite on March 15 at 6:28 p.m.

  >> What kinds of do-it-yourself projects are you starting to do in order to save money?/Idaho Statesman.

  Car maintenance (changing oil, air filters and lights)
  Household fixes (plumbing, electrical, construction)
  Sewing and mending of clothes
  Food preparation (making your own pizza, bread, preparing sack lunches)
  Lawn care, landscaping and gardening
  Household cleaning chores

  The mere asking of the question above speaks volumes as to how warped our economy and society have become. To think that it is rather common to have these tasks taken care of for us and must now consider doing it ourselves, tells me how spoiled we are as a country. Think about it. These tasks asked in the question used to be done internally by all households with a rare exception. Poverty now means 2 cars and 3 tv sets. 4 cell phones. Frankly we are too spoiled to appreciate it. Our standard of living is incredible across the country. Oh, btw, that is what Obama wants to “Change”.

• 

  EagleKeeper44 on March 15 at 6:38 p.m.

  Boy! Me and the XYL must be from the Really Old
  School as we have been doing all these tasks
  ourselves for the last 41 years!

  Big Stick and HMO you both speak to one of the
  core issues that ails this country. Add entitlement
  to that and look where it is getting us…..broke
  both financially and morally.

• 

  hmoffsuite on March 15 at 6:49 p.m.

  Keeper >> “Add entitlement
  to that and look where it is getting us…..broke
  both financially and morally.”

  Very profound. You got it. It’s a shame, actually.

• 

  cantyoureadthesigns on March 15 at 7:35 p.m.

  Warped indeed. Tens of millions of blue collar jobs paying a middle-lower class wage have been outsourced by “American” companies who are actually HQ’d overseas in order to avoid paying taxes.

  Meanwhile, the taxpayers are bailing out the richest of the rich, enabling them to pay out hundreds of millions of bonuses to their already well compensated top tier employees, the same employees whose (bad) management decisions have caused their companies to be wholly unprofitable.

  What a racket.

• 

  hmoffsuite on March 15 at 7:49 p.m.

  cantyou. Very typical (and quite good) democrat response. You see, I look at things thru binoculars. You look thru microscopes. 8% unemployment means 92% are working. 93% of homeowners are paying their mortgages, and on time. There are many mis-uses of government (our) money in the hands of the democrats as well. How about the Pelosi airplane matter? Oh, and the 9,000 earmarks.

• 

  lew2nl on March 15 at 8:06 p.m.

  We’ve done all* of those tasks during our entire married lives and have saved thousands of dollars by doing so. Wonder if the Idaho Statesman has any other good ideas?

  We try to make do and use what we have before buying replacements. People should choose between what they really
  need and what they think they really need. Needs versus wants. Happiness isn’t based on possessions.

  * does not include darning socks

• 

  EagleKeeper44 on March 15 at 8:19 p.m.

  Sarcasm (ON)

  What’s wrong with you people, don’t you know
  the guy/gal who dies with the most toys wins!!

  note: U-Haul trailer for hearse available at
  extra cost….

  Sarcasm (OFF)

• 

  eagleeye on March 15 at 8:50 p.m.

  Interesting Suite, that you accuse someone else of looking thru a microscope. Our federal budget is in the trillions and you are focused in on 14.3 billion dollars in earmarks. The military budget alone not counting Iraq and Afghanistan is over 500 billion. Think you and your fellow Repubs might look at that to find a little tax savings? No. You think you have a hot talking point with this earmark thing so you are going keep repeating it over and over again. Funny thing is that you paint it as just a democratic problem. Check out how much your GOP buddies love earmarks. Six of the top earmarkers in the Senate? Republicans. Five out of the top earmarkers in the House? Republicans. So it is not a one party problem as you so conveniently make it out to be.

  Is there some wasteful spending in those earmarks? Sure there is and there should be earmark reform. Is earmark reform going to eliminate a good portion of the wasteful government spending? Not even close. So Suite, better break out those binoculars that you claim to use. That magnifying glass that you are using on the earmarks isnt going to solve the problem.

• 

  cantyoureadthesigns on March 15 at 10:18 p.m.

  Take off your blinders, and blind assumptions, not to mention ridiculous put downs, HMO. I’m not a member of the Democratic party, I’m independent.

  If unemployment were counted like it was under Clinton and 30 years prior, the ‘official” (comparable) rate would be at least 11%.

  You can’t dispute the facts I relate, so you obfuscate and attempt to change the subject, typical.

  Yes, the poor in this country have it better than 90% of the poor in the world, although rather worse off than the poor of the other western democracies. So, cheering for the fact that in the richest country on earth, our poor are not as impoverished as the Untouchables in India, and BILLIONS more, is your excuse? Gee you’d THINK Americans would strive to be better than that.

  So you think all the poor have 3 TVs, and 4 cell phones in their families, eh?

  Guess you don’t know any real poor people. They ARE the gardeners, fast food servers, lawn-mower-ers, child care workers, and house cleaners.

• 

  marmitetoasty on March 16 at 12:33 a.m.

  Ojk, just going out in me garden now at 7.30am (its gonna be a beautiful spring day again today) to pick up me own chicken poo and put out me own dustbin and change me own wipers on me car whilst munching on a piece of last nights homemade pizza, then will get out me little lawnmower and once the dew on the grass has dried off later I will cut me own grass…..

  Have a lovely Monday…

  x

• 

  LukeB on March 16 at 8:43 a.m.

  Wait, people don’t already do all of those things anyway?

« Back to Huckleberries Online

• ›Scanner traffic