A great way to save some cash is to find items you need on Craigslist.com. If you have never looked there, it is worth visiting. Choose your city and surf the “for sale” section for what you’re looking for. It is also a great way to unload junk that has been sitting around collecting dust.

This fall I sold my 150 gallon aquarium for more than I initially paid for it. While that may sound awesome, the truth is I bought it at an estate auction for a song. I will be picking up a TV this evening that we found on Craigslist as well.

The one major caution in all this is to be very aware not only about what you are buying or who you are selling to, but also the situation you are entering into. There has to be a level of caution involved when making a transaction with a complete stranger.

Bring a buddy and avoid inviting someone into your house. Basic precautions will make all of us feel a little safer. That heavy fish tank I sold? The person who bought it didn’t have a way to pick it up, so he offered me $100 to deliver it to him. Yup, okay, that fit me to a T! I wasn’t all that keen on having someone come pick it up anyway.

I have found when selling stuff that I have to be persistent with it. My Baby Bjorn and some other stuff hasn’t sold yet. In surfing the categories, it looks like folks list the same thing every day until it sells instead of once. Using a lot of key words in the post helps search results, too.

Good luck!
Tony

After a wonderful bout with the flu, holiday traveling, house guests and clearance goodness to take away my attention from Dad on a Dime, I should be able to update more frequently and get back into the swing of frugality!

A couple of years ago Dadcenter ran a story from another do-it-yourselfer who spelled out eloquently when to do it yourself and when to pony up and have a professional do it. I have a great example of this choice.

The cold snap we had last month timed perfectly with one of the garage door springs snapping. I couldn’t get the garage door up to get the cars out without help. It took three of us to roll it up far enough to wedge a 2×4 in and get the cars out. After we lowered it back down, I was able to go price parts to fix this thing. The two springs came to around $80. Thankfully I didn’t have the exact weight for the door, and didn’t buy the springs then.

I called around after I returned home and received two quotes. The one I picked was straight forward, $180 for a two spring replacement. I said “sign me up for the next opening.”

The guy came out the next day and it took him less than an hour to get both springs replaced, tension added, the door lubed and bill paid. I watched him do the work and I was duly impressed. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I would have spent hours cursing and bleeding trying to get the torque right on the springs. The temp right then was sixteen below zero, and it was chilly in the garage.

I made the right choice in hiring it out. Yes, I could have done it myself, but it would have taken a lot longer and been much more frustrating. For $100 or less someone who does it daily was able to get in and get my door working. That was money well spent.

Peace,
Tony

We went to Goodwill last week just looking and came home with a stack of kids games for super cheap. All the pieces are in the games including the instructions! Most of the games retail for $10-15 each, and we got them ofr $2 or $3. Not a bad savings.

The best part was finding a National Geographic star projector thing behind a stack of other games. We looked it up when we got home and found out the thing we payed $2.99 for retails for $30! Nice score! There is a little bulb in the middle of the globe and it projects the constellations on the ceiling. The kids absolutely love it!

Its fun to go during this time because the store is flush with the year end donations. There are some really good deals to be had if I keep myself realistic. It is easy to go crazy or pay too much for something.

Looking for a deal, check out the local secondhand shop.

Peace,
Tony

I absolutely love shopping at the beginning of new retail seasons. Yeah I said it, I love shopping during retail switches. Why?

Clearances!

Our local Target has racks of clothes marked down 75% off original price. I was able to get a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt for less than $6. My $30 heavy bath robe was $7.50! It is very warm and “snuggly”. It helps that I don’t really care what the things look like, but there are still some decent stuff out there.

Last week they had Christmas wrapping paper, cards, labels, decorations and the like at 90% off. Thinking ahead, we scored enough to cover ourselves for next year. It is the way to go. Find your local retailer and look for those clearance racks.

Peace,
Tony

I have a some savings for DRIDUCK gear.

Dad on a Dime: I am going to be searching out as many deals as I can for as much a wide variety of stuff as I can. This blog has peetered out a bit and I want to get some deals out there for like minded folks. Not only will I be pointing out more outdoors stuff, but sports gear, groceries and maybe, just maybe, I can work something out even more proactive. Keep your fingers crossed, we might just see www dot dadonadime dot com !

On to the deal!

Sign up for updates from the site and get 10% off your next purchase!

Check out Great Gifts for under $20!

Here is a jacket on RealTree, one of DRIDUCK’s products!

Folks, I am going to sniff out what I can.

Peace,
Tony

Head over to the Adventurist to check out some massive discounts for outdoor gear at Altrec Outlet. ‘Tis the season to be saving big bucks on Internet purchases!

I’ll be posting little snippets of deals I find.

Peace,
Tony

I you aren’t familiar with Brownells or don’t have any interest in things that go bang, this isn’t for you. I was told about a holiday promotion there for $10 off a $200 purchase.

Enter the code “CD7″ to receive discount, offer expires on 12/15/2008 so use it quick. Its too bad I already made my accessory purchases!

Peace,
Tony

I have never gone out on a shopping trip on the day after Thanksgiving. Looking through the ads helped me reinforce my staunch opposition to the whole thing. There is no way I will set my alarm to get up hours earlier than I have to be, rush to a store to fight in lines for something that will be on sale again after Christmas.

So I said, anyway. Then I got a nice little postcard with some coupons printed on it from Tandy Leather. The good news was the 40% off entire purchase was good for Friday morning and Saturday morning. The bad news was the Tandy store I usually go to is only a mile or so from the Mall of America. Yeah, there was no way I’d venture within ten miles of that place.

Relief comes in many forms. This time it came in the store in St. Paul. Equal distance between the stores, and this one is no where near any mall of note. Yippee! Yup, I woke up at the usual 7 or so Saturday morning, showered, kissed my wife good bye and I was off.

A quick splurge on a medium Caribou dark roast for the “road trip” and away I went.

The coupon was good for 40% off your entire purchase, except leather was only 25%. Picked out some stuff as well as a belly for some thinner projects I wanted to work on. My total bill came to a couple bucks more than the regular price of the leather itself. Super score!

So, I didn’t actually break my compact with myself. I definitely did not go out on Black Friday chasing a deal, but I did go out specifically chasing a good deal.

Oh, the best part of my Saturday morning jaunt? There was not a single other customer in the Tandy besides me! That right there is my kind of shopping!

Peace,
Tony

A new site was pointed out to me this weekend for folks looking to buy hockey supplies. HockeyShopper.com does the online comparison shopping so you don’t have to. Check out the feature products or search. You can also browse and search by catagory.

This is perfect for all of us who shop online for the best deal. I wish someone would set something up like this for brewing equipment! When I was setting up my kegerator years ago I had to make a spreadsheet to add up everything and calculate total cost! For hockey supplies its all there!

Peace,
Tony

A few weeks ago our microwave started acting up. The light would be on and the turntable would turn when the door was open. It wasn’t cooking because boiling water stopped boiling as soon as the door was opened, but it was still troubling to have it run like that.

Then one day it just stopped running all together. The light would come on and that was it. Man, now we had to get a new microwave!

Hang on there just a quick second! Marrying into a family with a brother that used to take apart stuff like this for fun once again shows its worth. My brother in law took a quick look under the case and found a switch that was corroded out, faulty. He pulled that out, showed me what I needed to go get and where to get it.

Sure enough, after waiting a couple of days for the appliance place to get the part back in stock we are back in business!

The total cost of the repair came to less than five dollars not including the bit of gas it took to drive to the store. Had we bought a new one we would be out well over $100, and had we found a place to repair it we would likely have been out at least $50.

Looking inside to see where the problem was saved us a lot of money! Before we though out things like that it pays to look inside to make sure it isn’t something relatively easy to fix, like this was.

Peace,
Tony