Friday, June 12, 2015

Small Spaces - Game Storage

We have stacks of board games. So many games that I had to buy a bookcase just to house the. Sorry. Life.  Scrabble.  Monopoly.  Monopoly Nintendo Edition.  And many, many more.  In the new house there is no room for all these games or the bookcase itself.  Less space means a new storage solution was needed.

First thing I did was get rid of the games that were just taking up space.  That lessened the load quite a bit but it wasn't good enough to lose the bookcase.  I took some drastic measures.  I ditched the boxes (gasp!!) and I put each game in a Ziplock baggie with the instructions for game play.  If the game board didn't fit inside a gallon sized bag I simply kept it separate from the pieces.




I ditched the boxes in the recycle bin and all the games fit in one small-sized moving box.  I would have needed at least four of them.  When we move into our new house I plan to store these games in the family room inside of a trunk-style coffee table that I have yet to pick out.  Stay tuned for whatever I end up choosing for that.  




Wednesday, June 10, 2015

New Bikes for the Family

Traded the van for it straight up. 
I can get 70 miles to the gallon on this hog. -Lloyd
One of the quickest ways to save money is to drive less.  If you trust the bean counters at the IRS, their standard milage rate for 2015 is 57.5 cents per mile.  The standard mileage rate is based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile, including depreciation, insurance, repairs, tires, maintenance, gas and oil.  I believe them.

 So where can we save money by choosing to bike instead of drive?  At our new house, we are between 1-3 miles from just about every local and big box store imaginable.  We should be able to save a significant number of driven miles after we move.  At our current house, going anywhere is minimally 4 miles so we won't be able to fully embrace this lifestyle until we move.

 Another place I want to target is my commute.  At our current home,my commute is 39.2 miles roundtrip.  At the standard mileage rate that is $22.54 per day or $112.25 per week.  Another way to look at it is $83,660 ($112.25 * our 752 magic number) in lost investment over ten years.  At our new home, my commute is slightly less at 30.8 roundtrip, but that is still $17.71 per day.  My hope is that our new offices get moved downtown.  This will make the trip about 10 miles each way.  In either case, I am going to give it a try on a bike.  If I can make the trip is less than 1 hour, I am in.

The Quest

The boys have 20" BMX-style bikes that they are quickly outgrowing.  Stephanie and I have not owned a bike since we were 13.  The challenge was to find good, cost-effective bikes for the whole family.  I began the quest on Craigslist and the Internet.  I got surprisingly lucky with the boys bikes.  I found two DBX 24" mountain bikes from two different people on CL.  Two different colors of the same bike and in good shape, perfect.  I was able to negotiate one down to $80 and the other down to $55.  Bottomline, two quality bikes for $135.  DBX is a Dick's rebranded Schwinn bike with decent components.  Needless to say, the boys love their new bikes and ride them all the time.

 I found the search for adult bikes on Craigslist to be more challenging.  I found very few hybrid bikes of good quality.  We plan on using these bikes to replace driving and I maybe putting on 30 miles a day, I started looking for new bikes.  Plus, Stephanie and I are not going to out grow them.  Buying a quality bike is like buying a quality shoe.  It should last until you wear it out from use.  After doing a good bit of research, I narrowed down our choices to three bikes in my price range of around $300:


 We decided on the Schwinn.  It was rated high by many review sites, Amazon reviews and was the Best Hybrid Bike For The Money.  I had some Amazon points and cannot beat 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime.  We ended up getting a matching pair, his and hers, Discover models, Schwinn helmets, and awesome lock system called Cocoweb.

The Results

We have had the bikes for a little over two weeks.  We ALL love them.  We've only put on about 20 miles as a family with the kids putting on a few more miles around the neighborhood.  The Schwinn Hybrids are light, smooth and very enjoyable to ride.  I hope to use the bikes more after we move, it has been crazy since we sold our house.

I also made a deal with the boys, I am going to give them 10 cents per mile for everything trip that we would have normally used a car.  The frequency of these types of trips will increase after the move.  They have already told me that they love riding.  I cannot wait to cycle more!