From the Hartford, CT newspaper, Courant and Mr. HandyPerson (no longer archived) comes this bit of advice on giving your clothes pins a long and happy, wooden life - I thought this was an excellent addition as I've wondered this myself. It's not useful for everyone, but if you've also wondered, now you know.
HOW TO REPAIR WOODEN CLOTHESPINS
Q. Against the advice of my know-it-all relatives (who insisted, "Don't bother him with stupid questions" and "Just buy new ones"), here goes: How do I put back together separated wooden clothespins, the kind with a small spring in the middle?
I break my nails, my fingers get red and sore, and I still have not found an easy or fast way to do this. I bought new ones - plastic. But I am frugal, and I'd like to put all my old ones back together again.
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A. Mr. HP guesses your advice-volunteering relatives are decent, upright people, but he's surprised they've forgotten the old saw, "There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers."
You might mention it to them sometime because it's an important concept.
Now about those clothespins. Mr. HP will tell you how to fix them but, he's a little curious why yours seem to be falling apart with regularity. Are they sometimes left out in the elements between wash days?
This is not a good idea because the unfinished wood can warp, shrink, crack and easily fall out of the spring mechanism (which doesn't rust when wet, staying the same size even if the wood shrinks). Weathered wood is the most frequent cause of breakage and falling apart.
Regardless, let's get your old clothespins up and running again.
A useful tool would be some needle-nose pliers. Hold the little spring firmly, with one of the "needles" of the pliers going through the spring.
Hold the pliers and spring flat on a firm surface with one hand. Then use the other hand to grasp and hold the two wood parts together at their thinnest ends (smoother sides out, bumpy sides facing together).
Insert the thin ends of the wood parts through the squared-off ends of the spring. Push them in to where they stop against the spring.
Then squeeze the other ends together and push them farther past the spring until they pop back into the right position around the spring.
It may take you a couple of tries before this goes as smoothly and easily as it does for Mr. HP, who has been doing it for years freehand - without the needle-nose pliers - because his hands are probably considerably less delicate than yours.
While experimenting with the needle-nose pliers on your behalf, though, he realized that as his fingers become more arthritic, from years of being worked hard, he'll probably use the pliers himself from now on.
Might as well give our trusty fingers a break, don't you think?
Like you, Mr. HandyPerson is frugal, too. His own know-it-all relatives and friends probably say "cheap" behind his back.
But he has this idea that something's off-key if he has to replace household tools, utensils and other things - designed to potentially last a lifetime - more than once in his life.
As Mr. HP understands the language, being frugal is still a virtue and being thought of as frugal is still a compliment.
About 40 years ago, Mr. HP bought his own set of a dozen wood clothespins. Since then, he has salvaged a few dozen more, usually found popped apart in the trash or on the ground near others' clotheslines. He's quite sure he still has his original dozen, although he has not gone so far as to identify and name them individually. But they do feel like helpful, familiar little friends when he uses them.
Considering that there are probably a good many people out there who have no idea anymore what a wood clothespin is or does, these little guys may be a collector's item one day. Hang on to yours!
A friend of mine is over $30 thousand in debt and we are working together (actually she is doing the hard part) on getting things paid off so she doesn’t have to go through what I went through with collectors calling and a bankruptcy.
Every couple of months we sit down and go over what she has paid and how much she has left to pay. Basically, she's just keeping track of where she stands so it doesn’t become to overwhelming for her.
With her approval I will share a few simple things we are doing that is helping her out mentally and bringing a smile to her face.
One hot day in August after we were discussing bills for the umpteenth time, we scheduled a get together to go over what bills/debts she had. She brought over her bills and I broke out the milk and Oreo cookies and went at it. We wrote down on a simple piece of paper who her creditors were, how much she had left to pay, what the minimum payment was and what the APR was for the bill. Then we plugged it all in a spreadsheet on her laptop. What information we couldn’t find, we are able to look up online at the company website by signing up or by calling the customer service number on the bill.
Each website is now bookmarked in a folder on her browser so she can keep up with checking them for due dates, late fees, transactions and to make sure payments have posted.
With all the information on the spread sheet, she set about writing out her bills and we jotted it down on the spreadsheet for that month. The minimum payments will go down as she pays on them, so that is the discrepancy on the total paid. Trying to get her to pay the same amount each month, even if they want less so that she can get it paid off sooner.
Once a month, after making her payments, she would total up what she paid for the month and also total up what she had left to pay. This allows her to see the debt go down and how much money is going to debts – It is both exciting and frustrating.
She found that getting all her bills automated was the best way to make sure she paid at-least the minimum on them. And any extra money she receives from bonuses at work or items she sells goes to the debt with the highest interest. Frankly, I don’t care how she pays it, as long as she has one bill as her target and works feverishly on getting it paid off.
Obviously her plan isn’t anything spectacular, but it allows her to see it broken down in a simple way. It also helps that she can see her card balances as they go up and down each month depending on what she buys or doesn't buy and, that she also is able to see her student loan and car loan payments are going down each month.
I wanted to lend a hand to help her out so that she won't feel like she is alone in this. There just isn’t anything like receiving positive feedback from people who care. Ask any of the bloggers that have posted their debts online for all to see, I think they will agree.
I really believe that we have it in ourselves to strike the match and cause the spark that will make the change from overspending, debt ridden finances to underspending, saving generating finances. As I said we can be the spark, but it is hard to be the flame and fan it to keep it going. We do need help from outside ourselves, whether it is a higher power or earthly support to keep going.
I don't always have people around me to help me stick to a goal and I need to find ways to keep myself on track. I certainly don't see myself as a finished product when it comes to frugality, but I thought I would take a break and talk about another road I am also pursuing. Many people, myself included had found that diet/exercise have many similar aspects as reducing debt/saving money.
1. Have a goal and a reason: 5 weeks ago I started a new goal to drop 60lbs but the goal wasn't that finite; I had a reason for the goal. I was seeing my health deteriorate due to my weight, from heavy breathing as I walked up a flight of stairs to not fitting into clothes that even were too large at an earlier time. And, when I took a look in the mirror, I just made myself sick. I not only had to have a goal but a reason for the goal - a reason that will keep me on track when the chocolate donut is looking at me in the breakroom.
2. Discomfort is the name: This new lifestyle is one that means I will be out of my comfort zone until I am used to it. Being uncomfortable is painful to me but I have to get it into my head that it will be that way until I can build up a tolerance to it and feel comfortable again. This means I will sweat, my muscles will ache, I will be tired but eventually I know I will be ok and this will be nothing.
3. The fight is with yourself: In the end there is no one else who is responsible for getting over the obstacles but me. It is my responsibility to get my butt out of bed and go to work and it is my responsibility to get to the gym and work out harder than last time and to eat better than last week. My fight is not with others but with myself; to be better than I was last week. True, I won't always meet expectations but my partner keeps reminding me that If I don't at least try to do better I will have already failed. And I don't like that F word.
4. One more: I have already perfected the art of procrastination or patience when it comes to not buying something, I can wait for weeks or months to save money. Now I need to use that practice with my eating and exercise. One more minute on the elliptical, one more rep or wait one more hour and see if I really need that donut. Or better yet, wait forever for that donut, and substitute it with a healthy fruit or veggie, or even a nice cold glass of water to appease that hunger.
